>> supervisor mar: good morning. the meeting will come to order. this is the november 19 meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. i'm supervisor gordon mar, and joining me is supervisor aaron

peskin and matt haney. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. public comment will be available for each item on this agenda. you will see on cable channel 26 and sfgovtv.org the public comment call-in number is streaming across your screen, your opportunity to offer public comment for each item will be available by calling 415-655-0001 and enter meeting

i.d. 146-195-2214. then press pound twice. when you hear your item, press star, three to be entered into the queue. alternatively, you may submit public comment in either of the following ways. my name is john carroll, and i am the clerk of the government audit and oversight committee at john.carroll@sfgov.org, and

your comments will be included in the file. you may also send comments to city hall, room 204, s carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california, 94102. >> supervisor mar: thank you, mr. clerk. will you please read item one. >> clerk: item one is a resolution receiving and approving annual report for the japantown community benefit district for fiscal year 2018-2019, submitted as required by the property and business improvement district law of 1994.

to provide public comment, call 415-655-0001. when prompted, enter meeting i.d. 146-195-2214. press pound twice, and star, three to enter the queue. >> supervisor mar: thank you. here to present, we have chris corgis. mr. corgis, the floor is yours. >> thank you. i will be sharing my screen right now. please let me know when it comes up on your end. >> supervisor mar: can't see it yet.

>> supervisor peskin: big week for mr. corgis. >> busy, busy, busy. >> there we go. >> all right. next slide, please. community benefit districts and business improvement districts are governed by two sets of law. streets and law section 36650, and article 13 of the business and tax regulations code. this resolution will cover the only report for fiscal year 2018-19 where oewd ensures that all c.b.d.s are meeting their financial plans, and we provide

the board of supervisors with a memo. the c.b.d. was established in 2017 with a ten-year term and is set to sunset in 2023. i would like to point out, unli unlike most c.b.d.s, they have most of their budget focused on economic enhancements. oewd reviews four benchmarks for all c.b.d.s, whether the variance for the budget amount within each category is within ten percentage points of the management plan, whether, in

japantown's case of c.b.d. case from assessments other than essential revenue, and whether the c.b.d. is indicating the current funds inform be carried ocarried -- to be carried out from the previous fiscal year and to be carried out in the current fiscal year. they raised 67% of their budget from nonassessment revenue and did meet the benchmark. japantown c.d.b. was under a 10% variance in all categories and did meet this benchmark. and four benchmark four, they indicated their carry forward in their annual report and what areas it would be allocated to

and did meet this area, as well. so the japantown c.b.d. has met ought requirements placed on it. the c.b.d. was formed in 2017 thanks to the determined efforts of the steering committee. they have performed well in implementing the service plan for the district. they have established relationships with well known community groups, including the japantown task force, japantown merchants association and other community groups. they maintain an active board of directors and several subcommittees, and they're well positioned to carry out their missions into the future. if there are no questions, i would like to invite miss horakiri up to present on their accomplishments for this year. >> thank you.

good morning, supervisors mar, peskin. i guess supervisor haney will be joining later. japantown c.b.d. covers approximately six city blocks, and within that, we have six movie threaters, nine nonprofits and 1 # 9 sma-- the nine nonprofits, and 169 small businesses, 11 of which are legacy. in fiscal year 18-19, we received two grants from oewd,

one for the branding of japantown and the big bellies. during the formation of c.b.d., property owners were surveyed to find out what kind of improvements they wanted to see in japantown. of course, keeping japantown clean and safe were the top two priorities. next slide, please. in april 2018, a month before i came on board, our community ambassador program started, and we, block by block, during this time, we went through with our ambassadors. our ambassadors also provide hospitality to the many visitors and are in constant contact with our small

businesses. that's something that was important then, and, you know, even more important now. next slide, please. and -- oh, sorry. i skipped over. looking at our screening staff, there's probably a lot less than other districts, but trash is trash, and making sure that it's picked up is a feel-good thing to those that live and work in japantown. every year, these stats are presented to the japantown community, and they see without these things, it's just not going to be taken care of. in august 208, chris contacted me to let me know that the c.b.d. was chosen to receive an anonymous donation of $750,000

to contribute towards the security system within the district. at the end of december 2018, cameras on two properties were activated, and by the end of the fiscal year, we had completed phase two and three, installing 90 cameras. and during 2018-19, japantown saw an increase in auto boosts, and people leaving valuables inside cars were easy targets. these cameras have been an important tool in helping law enforcement investigate and make arrests. next slide, please. one of the important works of c.b.d. has been outreach and having public meetings.

we even had a sit down with the office of small businesses and building inspections, and that was proving really key for our small businesses who had to comply with the accessible building entrance requirements. next slide, please. supporting our small businesses and making them a priority are really why the people come to japantown. next slide, please. it, you know, those kinds of communications are really important, and we really strive to continue building those relationship with our small businesses. next slide, please. in closing, you know, with the covid pandemic, that's taken a

top priority. with new orders and measures coming in every day, we want to make sure our small businesses have the opportunity to apply for grants and small loans. we've taken the effort to translate a lot of this into japanese and korean because the city doesn't translate their documents into those languages. i'm proud to say that our e-newsletter has been shared by many people. support by chris has helped our community grows. our community relies on us and has become an important resource for small businesses, and we look forward to continuing strengthening those ties, and again thank you to supervisors mar, peskin, and haney for this opportunity, and

happy holidays, everyone. >> supervisor mar: thank you -- thank you so much, miss horikiri, for your hard work supporting the japantown community and particularly the small neighborhood businesses, the legacy businesses there. that's important not just for our community but for the entire city, especially the asian american community. thank you so much. before we go to public comment, do you have any comments? supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: yeah. i just want to start by thanking the j-town c.b.d. for all of their good work. but i just wanted to pursue one area kind of larger public policy as it relates to a couple of things. one is the role that c.b.d.s play around security cameras and wanting to ensure that our

privacy laws and surveillance laws particularly as it relates to facial recognition technology are adhered to, so i just want to check on that. and the second issue is insofar as c.b.d.s are creations of the city and the board of supervisors and terminate them and allow them or not allow them, as we saw on tuesday, with regard to the top of broadway c.b.d. that we sunsetted, the anonymous donation in this time is troubling to me. normally, when we accept a

donation to the city, we know who the donor is. everybody saw the revelations in yesterday's newspaper regarding a former disgraced public official. it is very important to know where those donations are coming from, and the notion of having anonymous donations that go to a c.b.d. rather than through the city where we know who the donor is, and i think we all know that the donor is chris larson because that's what he's been doing. but i'm a little troubled that anonymous donations can go through c.b.d.s and not through the city, so i think as a matter of public policy, i think that's something we need to get our hands around, so those are the two things that i wanted to ask about.

>> thank you, supervisor peskin. i'm happy to have a conversation with you and your office and see how we can implement your goals with our policy director, lisa pagan. >> supervisor peskin: yeah. and maybe i can ask miss pearson to jump in, but it's my understanding that all of our city laws, whether it's the admin code at chapter 12, whether it's our surveillance laws, actually, by matter of each and every c.b.d., they have to adhere to that, as well. >> deputy city attorney ann pearson. i'm not sure. i think it depends on the c.b.d. itself and whether it folds under the city's

contracts. if you look at those documents, it contains all of the requirements that a city is required to maintain in all of those documents. >> supervisor peskin: so here's what im want to be very clear on. insofar as as our surveillance laws in san francisco require certain things and exclude one thing in particular, which is technologies, i don't want to see chriss larson making an en run around our law which is essentially making an anonymous donation to the city. >> i sent out a survey two weeks ago to all the community benefit districts in san francisco regarding those who

do have security cameras, and from my understanding, and it was self-reported, none of them have activated facial recognition technology on their security cameras. >> supervisor peskin: okay, well, that's a start. why don't we, mr. corgis, offline, make sure that every one of our c.b.d.s adheres to and follows the law that we passed as supervisors. >> absolutely. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. and this, by the way, a reflection on j-town c.b.d.; these are just larger public policies that i would think we need to grapple with. >> supervisor mar: thank you, supervisor peskin, for those really good questions. actually, i have questions

around the donation that led to the security camera installation in japantown. have there been other c.b.d.s that received anonymous donations? >> supervisor peskin: yes, union square. >> yes, several did. as supervisor peskin just mentioned, union station, but i would have to follow up with each b.c.d. to find out the source of their donations. >> chair mar: thank you. i'll open this up for public comment. >> clerk: for those who have already connected to our meeting by phone, please press star, followed by three for

those who want to speak on this item. for those of you already in the few, please wait for the system to indicate that your line has been unmuted when you would like to speak. to call in to enter public comment, call 415-655-0001, then enter the meeting i.d., 146-195-2214 146-195-2214, pound, and pound again. then press star, three to be entered into the queue. mr. q, do we have any callers in the queue?

>> operator: there are no callers in the queue. >> chair mar: okay. seeing no public comment, public comment is now closed. roll call vote, please. >> clerk: on the motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chair mar: okay. mr. clerk, can you please call item 2. >> clerk: item 2 is a resolution receiving and approving an annual report for the yerba buena community benefit district for fiscal year 2018-2019, submitted as required by the property and business improvement district law of 1994. members of the public who would like to enter public comment, call 415-655-0001, enter meeting i.d. 146-195-2214.

press pound, and pound again, then press star, three to enter the queue to speak. >> chair mar: thank you, mr. clerk. mr. corgis, the floor is yours. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm here for the fiscal year 2018-19 yerba buena community benefit district report. they are governed by two sets of law. the state law, 1994 act, which is 36600 section, as well as our local law, article 15 of the business and tax regulations code. this resolution covers the annual fiscal year report for 2018-19. oewd ensures that all c.b.d.s are meeting their management plans, that they're meeting

their requirements for an annual report, and from that, we provide a memo. their assessment roll submission in 2018-19 was a little over $3 million. the district is currently set to expire on december 31, 2030. the executive director of the c.b.d. is kathy moffin, and their primary service areas is street sweeting and security, branding, and small business priorities.

for benchmark one, the c.b.d. did meet the requirement and has historically met this requirement as well. for benchmark two, they raised a little over 11% of their revenue from nonassessment sources. for benchmark three, they were in compliance in fiscal year 18-19 and have historically been compliance with the exception being a slight variance in that in fiscal year 17-18, which they have corrected for, and for benchmark four, they did indicate their carry forward and projects that it would be spent on. in conconclusion, they have met all requirements through the state code and the c.b.d.s agreement with the city. they have performed well in implementing the service plan in the district. they continually support art, public safety improvements, and

streetscape enhancements. they participate their community and numerous community stakeholders, began new marketing campaigns to raise awareness of yerba buena places in culture and maintain an active board of directors and several subcommittees. if there are no questions, i would like to turn the presentation over to miss moffett. >> chair mar: please go ahead. >> thank you, chairman mar and the supervisors about the opportunity to talk about the yerba buena c.b.d. today. i'm going to try to hit a few highlights from fiscal year 18 and 19. i'm going to take little walk down memory lane because it feels so long ago when life was normal, if you will, so let's take a little walk down memory

lane. next slide, please. what is the yerba buena district? this is a multicolored slide, and it basically reflected the multicolored use portion of this neighborhood. we are home to moscone center and seven of the leading cultural organizations in san francisco. we also have many hotels and restaurants, including three michelin star restaurants in the neighborhoods, and we have a pretty large residential population that has more than doubled over the last ten years. in addition to both large shopping opportunities, small mom-and-pop shops, and a very active office environment back in 2018-2019. so what do we do? next slide. this is a slide of the

activities that we do, but i want to highlight what we do that is different from other c.b.d.s. the first one is our community benefit fund that was established back in 2010, and we give grants to businesses in the thabd that are working to improve the neighborhood, and we really work with others to help improve the neighborhood. we also engage what we call a sexual service specialist that is part of our clean and safe team that really focuses on our unhoused population, our street population, if you will, to build relationships, build trust, and help them navigate the city's services to improve their condition. next slide, please. going to walk-through these slides and dig deeper into services. in 2018-19, we removed about 2700 pounds of trash and 17,000

syringes in the neighborhood. this is what our team picked up, not what the city team picked up or the aids foundation team picked up. we work 24-7, 365 days a year, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. for safety, we are a three-part tripod, if you will, for safety. we have our community guides, which are our hospitality ambassadors, helping people find their way through the town and back to the moscone center or their hotels. we work with sfpd. we have a bicycle patrol

officer that works in our neighborhood 14 hours a day, riding around, dealing with quality of life or what we call nuisance issues, similar to what grace talked about in her presentation. next slide, please. for streetscape projects, these are just a few of the improvements that happened in 2018-19. we created a street plan back in 2011, and we reviewed the second edition of that plan this past fiscal year, and it provides us with projects to do in the neighborhood based on what the community has indicated is important to them. so some of the projects are, we're doing a project at annie north where we've been able to create a new open space. we had to put up a new barrier,

and j.r., the artist, contacted us and wanted to put a mural up on that barricade, which was a great opportunity. sunny streets finally came to soma in 2018-19, so we were a key partner in that, and it was a great opportunity to bring people together in the neighborhood. we added 13 more big bellies to our neighborhood that year. we now have 22 total big bellies that we oversee in the neighborhood, and then, we work closely with the industry to install yerba buena benches along the street during that year. we've working to install more benches along that corridor. part of our responsibility is to market brand and activate the neighborhood, and we

accomplish that several different ways. a few of the images up here, we do events, and we have an annual event every year called yerba buena night, and it's intended to draw people in the neighborhood to experience free art one day out of the year. it brings people back, and they say we want to come back and experience what else you have in this area. we also redid our neighborhood website this year, worked closely with sf travel because we really needed to focus on a site that was focused on conventions and visitors and really what information did they need at their fingertips, if you will.

we also -- i mentioned earlier, we have a large residential population, so you can see here, we went to the giants game one night, and they put our name up on the screen. next slide, please community benefit fund. few images of what we did in 18-19, we awarded about $1.5 million to nonprofits since 2010. here, you see the annual m.l.k. celebration that happens in yerba buena guards, and you can see a look at that event. and another big event, obviously, is yerba buena gardens festival and their

annual halloween hoopla for neighborhood families. these are the fun slides, the pie charts, the budget. this shows our actuals for fiscal year 2018-19. we underspent a little bit in cleaning and streetscape improvements in that area. we have learned over the years, although i can't say we've gotten much better, about figuring out how to budget over a number of years for these projects, but that's one reason we were under in that particular year. next slide. this is the budget for fiscal year 19-20, and that year has also ended, and i'm pleased to say we were well within our plus-minus 10% in those categories, as well, but i guess we'll report on that next year. next slide. so i just wanted to close on a photo of the love our city

event that happened in june '19, and this is an example of the large contingent of volunteers that came to our neighborhood to improve our neighborhood that day. i really want to thank supervisor haney for his support overall and for supporting us on that particular day. if you look very closely in the photo, you probably can't see it, but matt is in the photo on the bottom left corner. i'm happy to answer any questions, but before i do, i'd like to thank chris for his support, as well as oewd, and the city for their community of community benefit districts. thank you so much. >> chair mar: are, mithank you moffett, for your contribution

to our city. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: first, kathy, thank you for your leadership and your extraordinary work as the head of the yerba buena c.b.d. i think the c.b.d. has a lot of unique programming that you do, and every c.b.d. is different in its own way, but i really appreciate that you take the advantage of and collaborate with the many arts

organizations -- >> supervisor haney: the contract that the city has with recology, either as a result of the way the contract is framed or [inaudible] for trash that is collected -- that you all are charged essentially as though it's trash that is your own trash, like, trash that came from your building, and that seems to me to be probably

unfair because you're picking up trash that didn't come from your bins or your trash, and i think it speaks to your role that you all have in keeping our city clean. could you speak to that and have you've had any conversations with recology. it doesn't seem right for you to pick up trash that came from your neighborhood or -- can you speak to that? >> yeah. let me make it as clear as i can. when our teams are out cleaning

the trash on our sidewalks, we aren't just picking up trash on the sidewalks, we are cleaning up trash from overflowing trash cans that recology haven't gotten there, so yes, c.b.d.s over the years have had coverings with recology to try to come up with some sort of an agreement, but we've all had to do that individually. as a consortium of community benefit districts, this is a conversation that we need to have right now. each individual c.b.d. shouldn't have to fight of --

this fight in order to get this service, [inaudible]. >> and i would piggyback off of what kathy just said, that this has been an ongoing issue for c.b.d. i've been here about five years now, and it's been percolating up for about the last three years. they point to the growth of c.b.d.s over the past few years as one of the changes for this, so hopefully, we can come to some sort of agreement on how to address this.

>> supervisor haney: thank you, and i wanted to make sure that my colleagues on the committee also are aware of this because i do think we have a recology contract that's coming to the full board, and it may be something that we want to discuss in that context, and there may be some specificity with how this is dealt with, but i just wanted to inform everyone. >> thank you. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor haney. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: i really appreciate supervisor haney's questions. the fundamental underpinnings of community benefit districts is they do not supplant the

services that the city was originally charged with delivering. so unless the intention is that you are cleaning up more trash than the city did in the beginning or that you are servicing private properties and not public space, this should be covered in the $62.5 million that is now pending and probably in trouble at the board of supervisors on december 1. so, i mean, if i were recology and i were public works, i would try to figure that out with the consortium of c.b.d.s before this comes to the full board of supervisors on 1 december 2020. that would be my decision, so san giacomo from mr. recology, if you're listening, mr. corgis, go get 'em. >> will do. >> chair mar: thank you,

supervisor haney and supervisor peskin, for highlighting this important issue. i just had a question. for the c.b.d., how much are we talking about in payment to recology? >> you know, i hate to say this, but we're one of the unfortunate c.b.d.s that haven't received a bill from recology based on relationship that's have been established a long time ago. to be honest, we have been able to put our trash in a jumpstdu behind the marriott. i know that the bill for other c.b.d.s have run into the thousands of dollars each month. to supervisor peskin's point, our services are supplemental to the city, and yeah, i've never understood this either, how they could charge us for

picking up trash in the public right-of-ways. c.b.d.s do not pick up trash on private property, we are responsible for the public right-of-way. >> chair mar: mm-hmm. mr. corgis, could you just talk about how much we're talking about for other c.b.d.s, just generally, payment to see recology? >> without -- payments to recology? >> without having the bills in front of me, i can't say, but it's the ones that were established more recently that were getting the bills. western soma is getting charged tens of thousands of dollars a month, and last year, they picked up 50,000 pounds worth of trash in the public right-of-way. >> supervisor peskin: this is nickel and diming people to death. this isn't why we created

c.b.d.s, to give recology another funding base. >> supervisor haney: and just to make it even more ridiculous, in other places that i've seen, you've got trash on the sidewalk, the c.b.d. comes and picks it up, and when recology comes to pick it up, they charge it as if it came from their own building. it doesn't reflect the strategy here or the design. it's good to hear that there's a solution that you all have at yerba buena, but it doesn't make sense to have some c.b.d.s treated one way and others treated another way. >> and i'll be happy to circle back on supervisor haney and supervisor peskin on any conversations that i have with recology between now and december 1.

>> supervisor peskin: who would have ever thought that two c.b.d. items would have been as interesting as they were this morning? >> chair mar: thank you. yeah, agreed. mr. clerk, why don't we go to public comment? >> clerk: mr. q, please let us know if we have any public callers who are ready. for those of you who have not already entered in the queue, please press star, three to be entered into the queue. for those of you already in the queue, please hold on the line, and you can hear a prompt on your line that indicates your system has been unmuted.

>> operator: we have one caller in the queue. >> yes, i'd like to say that the testimony this morning from the c.b.d.s is just another reason for the city to reconsider its contact with ecology. i think a lot of recology's -- a lot of what recology does is extremely problematic, and -- yeah, so i don't understand why the city does so much contracting out to private entities, and -- it would take

a lot more sense if a lot of it was done internally. i don't know how possible that was. so all of these layers -- even the whole c.b.d. thing, why is everything so contracted out and -- but yeah, i'm also very concerned about recology, and i would encourage the supervisors to look into this supervisor and do something about it. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comment commentsme comments. could we get the next caller, please? >> operator: mr. chair, that completes the queue. >> chair mar: thank you, operations. public comment is now closed. colleagues, i'd like to make the motion that we send this resolution to the full board with a positive recommendation. moti >> clerk: on the motion made

by supervisor mar that this item be sent to the full board with a positive recommendation -- [roll call] cle>> clerk: mr. chair, theree three ayes. >> chair mar: mr. clerk, can you please call items 3, 4, and 5 together. [agenda item read].

>> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on these three items should call 415-655-0001, enter the meeting i.d. of 146-195-2214, press pound twice to enter the meeting, and then press star, three to enter the queue to speak. you may provide public comment once your system indicates your line has been unmuted. >> chair mar: thank you, mr. corgis, the floor is yours. >> today before you are three separate resolutions offering contracts for the renewed noe

valley c.b.d., and the renewed and expanded castro c.b.d. and fisherman's wharf c.b.d. the city must enter into a management agreement with each of the respective associations with the c.b.d.s. the document is a template designed by the city attorney and was adjusted for each c.b.d. specifically in relation to general finn fit language. the noe valley general bit is $3.24 or 8, -- 3.24% and the fisherman's wharf landside is

9.08%. if approved by the full board, this will allow the city to transfer collected assessment funds to each c.b.d. in early january. are there any questions for oewd? cha >> chair mar: thank you, mr. corgis. i don't have any questions. supervisors, do you have any questions? >> supervisor peskin: i guess the only question i would ask is just relative to the 19-b question, are these addressed in all of these collective management agreements? >> to my knowledge, supervisor peskin, they are not. i'm happy to check in with the deputy city attorney to see if this is something that can be included in this. >> supervisor peskin: but the admin code -- other admin code provisions are encompassed, is

that correct? >> yes. i believe the deputy city attorney would be better suited to answer which specific agreements are included in this management agreements. >> supervisor peskin: ms. pearson. >> so the management agreements contain all of the policies that the board is required to have adopted and required to be included in our contract agreements. where the board adopts a policy and requires is that it be incorporated into the contracts, it is required that these include these. agai my understanding was that by its own terms, 19-b is, right now, applicable to city departments. >> supervisor peskin: okay.

so what you are saying, council, is right now, if i were to amend 19-b to say it automatically covers c.b.d.s, it would, and we don't need to change the terms of the actual management agreements? >> if 19-b were amended to apply to the c.b.d.s, that could happen in two different ways. it could be that that would be required to be incorporated in all contracts. it might well be that these contracts also contain a term that generally requires compliance with all municipal laws, and if that's the case, and the law were generally required for all c.b.d.s to comply, that would immediately go into effect without needing to have it immediately incorporated into the contract. >> supervisor peskin: i am searching the fisherman's wharf

contract right now, and i have yet to find any such provision, but maybe it's in a miscellaneous provision. assignments and subcontracting...it very clearly sets forth chapter 14-b. it sets forth in 16.2, sub b, the various admin codes at

section 12, so it sets forth mcbride, it sets forth tropical hardwood, but it does not -- it sets forth first source hiring, it sets forth 12-g of the administrative code. >> supervisor peskin, it does, in 16-19, include a catchall term, which requires compliance at all times with such charter requirement do requirements, regulations, rules, and law, so this would

require compliance by the contractor with any law. >> supervisor peskin: so i think that you are meeting with my staff later today, at least that's what lee told me earlier, so maybe we need to make a requirement that specifically refers to c.b.d.s. >> again, the board could do two things. the board two amend s-b and could secondarily require that be incorporated into contracts in the future. but because that's not a part of the existing contract under the section 16.19, the c.b.d.s would be required to comply. >> supervisor peskin: okay. well, i'll leave it to you and my staff to figure out the best

way of achieving compliance, and i think that would be your 16.19 in the near term and in future contracts in the long-term. >> and, supervisor peskin, as the board has passed ordinances that do apply to c.b.d.s, we do receive memos from deputy city attorneys in relation to 16.19, which we do pass onto our community benefits districts, and in future management agreeme agreements, they are perfectly set out, such as in article 12. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. we have a plan for the weeks and months ahead. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor peskin. why don't we go to public comment on these items. mr. clerk, are there any callers on the line? >> clerk: thank you, mr. chair. operations is checking to see if we have any callers on the line for items three through

four. foiv those who have already connected to our meeting via phone, press star, three if you wish to be entered into the queue. if you are already in the queue, please stay on the line until the system indicates your line has been unmuted. if you wish to call in, following the instructions displaying on your screen -- follow the constructions displaying on your screen right now. call 415-655-0001, entering the meeting i.d. of 146-195-2214, pressing pound twice, and then star, three to enter into the queue to comment on these agenda items. mr. q, do we have any callers wishing to speak on these items? >> operator: yes, we have one

member in the queue. >> my -- my name is grace, and i am the president of the japan down c.b.d.i. i just wanted to circle back to some of the hot topics that emerged unexpectedly, one being security cams and the recology bill toured faced by some c.b.d.s. tieing those two together, i was thinking about some of the unintentionally hidden costs of camera systems for c.b.d.s, so something that's a matter of great concern to our board currently is after the current year, when we did have a little bit leftover in the angel donor fund, in future years, we'll be facing an additional cost of approximately $60,000 per year to fund the maintenance and

just the annual sort of upkeep of the security system. is it's a bit of a point of frustration that we have to play middleman when it comes to provide information to the police, but the labor costs on our side is nowhere near the cost that we'll be owing to a.b.s. for the annual contract, and i wanted to highlight that because i believe they're also in use by the other two c.b.d.s in union square and the tenderloin, so on that, we're going to really be facing a budg budget crunch, and we'd appreciate any guidance that you can provide, and thank you for allowing me to provide these comments to the board. >> supervisor peskin: so in other words, this is a system that's going to start costing. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. can we have the next caller in

the queue. >> operator: that completes public comment. >> chair mar: thank you, operations. public comment is now closed. supervisor peskin, did you have some reaction to this? >> supervisor peskin: well, this is a really interesting thing, and again, related to all these c.b.d.s, and the costs of recology is the same as security cameras. mr. larson comes along with this generous gift of $750,000, and then, these c.b.d.s that have very small budgets are saddled with these maintenance costs and implementation costs

forever. by the way, it's on the c.b.d. for accepting the gift and the responsibility. this reminds me about 15, 18 years ago, when the airport was excited to get a grant from the united states government for drug sniffing dogs for the first three years, and then they were required to pay for it for the next three to five years. so what looked like a gift was

actually an expense. >> chair mar: i think the c.b.d. presentation really highlighted some important issues that merit follow up, and i appreciate, mr. corgis, your commitment to follow up on that. great. well -- oh, so why don't we -- looks like we need to make an amendment, right, to item five? mr. clerk, there's -- it sounds like there's a typo on only that one line. >> clerk: it's a typo in the title. >> chair mar: yeah. >> clerk: if you could just correct it so it no longer references the union station location but instead reflects

the fisherman's wharf landside community benefit district. >> chair mar: yes, i'd make that amendment. >> clerk: on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> chair mar: thank you, and i'd like to move that we send item three, item four, and item five as amended to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> clerk: on the motion that item three, four, and five, item five be recommended as amended -- [roll call] >> clerk: mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> chair mar: thank you. thank you so much, mr. corgis. mr. clerk, can you please call

items six, seven, and eight together? >> clerk: yes. agenda item six is a resolution approving a historical property contract between pacific stables property owner, l.l.c., and the city. item seven is a resolution approving a historical property contract between aimko 2015 trust, and the city. and item eight is a resolution approving a historical property contract between job than dascola and kamariah dascola,

and the city and county of san francisco. all of these are authorizing the planning director and the assessor recorder to execute and record the historical property contract. mr. chair? >> chair mar: thank you, mr. clerk. colleagues, i just want to say -- let you know that we have staff from the planning department and the assetor's office here to present and answer questions on these items, and we also have the applicants or the property owners and their representatives on the three properties, as well. i'd like to welcome alexandra kirby who's a presentation planner from the planning department to present on these items. miss kirby? >> thank you, chair mar. good morning, supervisors.

alexandra kirby with the planning department staff. these are historical property contracts on three properties. i'm sorry, john. is your department presenting? i'm not authorized to share my screen. >> clerk: i can change your status. just a moment. >> oh, it looks like i can now. just a moment.

okay. great. thank you. to begin, i will present an overview of the mills act program and then the contracts. the mills act programs allows -- it is, like, automatically going through -- this agreement provides property tax reductions to owners of those historic properties who can then allocate the savings towards an appropriate maintenance and restoration program. it is the only local program

that prevents owners from doing large scale projects that, when put off, does greater and more castly damage to the building. every local landmark building as well as those listed on state and national registers of historic places is eligible to be allowed to enter into contracts. department staff reviewed each of the three applications before you today, conducted preapproval inspections and worked to provide restoration and rehabilitation plans and maintenance plans as needed.

on october 7, 2020, the historic preservation commission approved a resolution to recommend all three mills act contracts to the board of supervisors. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the priority considerations or our review processes. the first contract is for 450 pacific avenue, a contributing building to the jackson square historic building. it's a four story office building first constructed in 1887 as a kentucky stables building and rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake. the subject property is currently valued by the assessor's office at over $5 million. the proposed rehabilitation plan includes restoration of the historic storefront, replacing parapet flashing,

repairing roofing and windows, treating all exterior and exposed steel and sky lights, and repairing, paring, and patching all brick work. the proposed maintenance plan includes annual inspection of roofing, flashing, pointing, metal corrosion, and draining system. the property owner will replace all windows with new wood double hung windows that are compatible with the historic character of the building. may want nance work is estimated to cost $14,725 annually -- maintenance work is estimated estimated to cost $14,725

annually. 1355 waller street is currently seeking designation on the california register of historic places and slated for listing on the register this winter. this building is a 2.5 story over basement, wood frame, single-family building designed in the local ship builder design by john a. whelan in 1896. this property is titled, winter. the property is currently valued by the assessor's office over $3 million and required a historic structure report. the property meets the requirement for granting exemptions from the limitations on eligibility. the rehabilitation plan proposes to restore the front entry marble steps and iron

handrails, restore the missing front entry landing, replace the roof, and fully repaint and repair all elevations. in 2018, the applicant had replaced the building foundation, added shear walls and instrustructural steel bea. the estimated cost of the rehabilitation work is $416,,000 over ten years. it includes an annual inspection, and maintenance work is estimated to cost $9,920 annually.

58 potomac street, the building is a two story over garage, wood frame single-family dwelling built in 1899. the proposed rehabilitation plan includes seismic strengthening, roof replacement, woodsiding repair and painting, window replacement, replacement of front stairs, and a permeable driveway. the proposed maintenance costs including annual inspection of roof, guttens, downside, and trim. maintenance is estimated to cost approximately $2,000 annually. this concludes my presentation. planning staff is here to

answer any questions you may have, and michael from the assessor's office is here to talk on property tax evaluations and answer any questions you may have. thank you. >> chair mar: thank you, miss kirby, for that presentation. i don't have any questions. colleagues, do you have any? supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you, chair mar. so all of these are absolutely worthy structures, and the mills act, which is state law in our ordinance, chapter 7-b-1 of the administrative code, are really about utilizing tax breaks for the rehabilitation of historic resources and their ongoing maintenance, and obviously, everybody is hurting right now, the city is hurting for money, and private property

owners are hurting, and we have a public interest in rehabilitating, safeguarding some of the, you know, the city's great historic resources, but i wanted to kind of get down to the dollars and cents things, which is if you look at this, there is a different between the tax break over ten years and the actual value of the historic rehabilitation, so let me take 450 paicific, which is a beautiful building, and the owner of brick and timber has done a good job with other properties. at $100,000 a month, that's like $1 million a year. a fifth of that is not going to

the resource. now maybe, as a public policy matter, we're okay with that, but that gets me into something that is a hang up on some of these mills act projects, particularly where it is not a mom-and-pop but actual, in the case of brick and timber, who i hold in high esteem. this is a building that was only purchased in 2019, a year and a month ago. and i appreciate the fact, by the way, that we're not doing after-the-fact mills act stuff. a couple of years ago, that was kind of troublesome where people were coming in and saying, by the way, i did all this work a year or two years ago, and now i want all of this

money. pay me. if that work is done in the period of ten years, yes, there's ongoing maintenance and expenses, but should we have the tax break go on forever? we could say yeah, we're okay with $99,000 a year and only getting $78,000 a year? is can we say that we're okay with that for years? >> i think i'm going to turn it over to michael from the assessor's office to provide some clarity on this. >> good morning, supervisors. michael john from the

assessor's office. because the mills act is a rolling ten-year contract, it really does live into perpetuity unless the contract is not renewed, and that's kind of the simple answer for supervisor peskin. i do hear your comments in terms of the value, but again, that's not an assessor's -- >> supervisor peskin: no, and thank you, michael. you do it by [inaudible] i have no question that you come up with the correct [inaudible] i think the assessor's office has discharged its duty correctly. maybe this is not a question to miss kirby and planning. maybe it's a question for me and two colleagues on this panel to grapple, but my question is yes, this contract

continues to roll. what we've said is it's not going to roll forever. we're going to roll it ten years, and then, we're going to terminate it at the end of the first ten years because if the city does not do anything affirmatively to terminate, it just goes on forever and forever. as a matter of fact, i came through a few years ago and went back through some early mills act contracts that i had been the chief sponsor of. one of them was the only chronicle building at the corner of third and market, kirby and market. i said hey, you guys have enjoyed this now for ten years, and we issued the notice to terminate -- and by the way, it doesn't terminate for another ten years. they get the benefit of this

for another generation. does it make sense -- and miss kirby, weigh-in -- to say yes, we'll granting the mills act for ten years and not let it roll? >> i can speak to a limited capacity to some of this. an important thing to keep in mind is it is an incentive program, not only for the additional work but for the ongoing maintenance of the property, which obviously varies a lot between a single-family home and a large scale commercial building. i think we were looking at a range of approximately $15,000 a year for pacific versus 2,000 for the single-family home in duboce park. and a -- a portion of that tax incentive is to continue the upkeep and maintenance of these buildings, which i think as we

know in san francisco is an important factor in our efforts to preserve our historic fabric. and in addition to that -- and michael, i'll let you kind of tack onto this, but the -- it's my understanding that the assessor's value of the property does continue to decline, and therefore, the tax benefit additionally is also reduced annually, is that correct? >> [inaudible] properties under nonrenewal. if a property is not under nonrenewal, the annual savings calculated every year, which can change, but you're referring to is not a nonrenewal portion, after that ten years, then, the property tax savings would decline based upon a formula, so every year, it would be less.

so at the end of the tenth year, essentially, they'd be getting no i have been is aings at the end of that nonrenewal contract, so there is a difference between the nonrenewal and a hard end. i hope that's clear to the supervisors. >> supervisor peskin: and if i may, i agree with miss kirby that we also want to incentivize ongoing maintenance work going forward, but if you look at these various reports and the scopes that are included, the vast majority of it is not ongoing maintenance work. again, let's use 450 paiscific. scope one is replacing the patching and roof for 50,000. phase two is replacing brick

and facade at a cost of $70,000. next is access and repair [inaudible] for $50,000. so my next -- the ongoing out-year maintenance is much less than the capital intensive maintenance at the beginning. look, everyone has to maintain their buildings. whether it's historic or nonhistoric, you've got to fix your roof, you've got to paint your building. these things are part of building ownership. the notion of a tax incentive really goes beyond the ongoing maintenance, although if you're a small mom-and-pop [inaudible]

rec and park, whatever, you know, the many good things that we're all supposed to do as public, you know, servants. do we -- i'm willing to spend that $1 million to restore that building, but it seems like going after that we come up with a less money back mills act -- i think i'm convincing myself of these, that i would like to make this automatically terminate in ten years.

>> chair mar: thank you, supervisor peskin, for raising these important points and questions. i would agree, it makes a lot of sense for the overall goals of the mills act to provide incentives for property owners to make improvements -- important improvements to their historically important properties, and these three properties that we're considering today seem very worthy, and i appreciate all the work, you know, that the planning department and the assessor's office have done on these with the property owners, but yeah, i think it is questionable whether ongoing -- continuing the tax -- property tax break at that high level ongoingly makes much public policy sense. so i'm just trying to

understand this. were you saying, alexandra or michael that -- if i heard right, there's 37 mills act contracts that we have right now, and some of them phase down to zero after ten years? >> no, only those under nonrenewal, and i believe there's four of them at this point. the others will live into perpetuity unless the applicant or the board decides to do a nonrenewal for those properties. >> supervisor peskin: and what i would like to suggest, at least in the case of 450 -- and i guess this is -- 450 paisk is, and i guess this is a

question to deputy city attorney pearson, because in the past, as to what mr. john just spoke to, this came as a resolution in the past, and all four resolutions came forward, saying effective now, terminate, which means ten years from that date, it would terminate. none of them have terminated yet because i think i did all four of those nonrenewals four years ago. what i wanted to know, through the chair, to deputy city attorney pearson, can we have all of those in the original agreements? i'm looking at the draft agreement that is before us, and section 7 sets forth the

term that says ten years, unless notice is given set forth in paragraph nine, and paragraph nine says any time we want to stop it, we can stop it, and it'll stop in ten years. can we just actually have in the contract, the term is ten years, and the notice of nonrenewal is here by given as a matter of fact contract. in other words, we don't have to come along tomorrow and do another renewal that says great, we did this last year, and now, we're building this in ten years, to build it into the contract? >> deputy city attorney ann pearson. i would like to take another look at that to see if we can build it into the contract.

i'd like to -- if you want to consider making that type of amendment, i'd appreciate if you could continue the item so i could take a look at it and advise you when this is called again. >> supervisor peskin: yeah, that works. i was just trying to make life simple and create a notion that we may or may not want to apply in some cases, which is you could actually have a nonoticef nonrenewal in the contract. >> and could i ask -- i'm sorry to put you on the spot again, michael, but could you please speak to how the property tax benefits differ between a nonrenewal and a traditional mills act contract, just for clarity? >> sure. so essentially, all properties are valued by a two-did step process determined by the board of equalization. but for properties of

nonrenewal, there's an additional step where we take the present work of the remaining ten years, and it actually declines that property tax reduction. i think that's the simplest way i can state it. for example, if the first year reduction is 90,000, by the end, it'll be zero, so it's a declining reduction over a nonrenewal contract as opposed to one where there's a nonrenewal, it may be 90,000 every year into perpetuity. i guess that's the simplest way to explain it. >> and i do want to just clarify, with the prospect of, like, a -- proeotentially a la

hearing, these need to be certified by the end of the year with the department and the property owners, so in the next month. if this is an avenue we'd like to pursue, maybe we can do that as a separate stack that would run in tandem? >> supervisor peskin: so if i may, mr. chair, just given those compressed time frames, if miss pearson is okay with this, i would suggest that we send all of these forward to the full board. the next board meeting is not until december 1, and if this can be inserted into the contract, and city -- and the city attorney believes that that would be one avenue, and if not, i would just, on december 1, come back with a resolution to terminate which can follow.

but also, i think mr. johnson said something that miss kirby was trying to get to, which is i would like to know what the total value -- if we were to say this is only one -- one ten-year period, and a nonrenewal notice was issued at the same time or subsequent to the first ten-year term, what the total value of that ten years is worth to the property owner because one thing i am aware of, they at least need to get their $782,000 back, right? or at least that's the way i see the world. so if it turns out that $99,000 in year ten at zero, you know, makeup $500,000 then maybe we might want to issue a

nonrenewal notice for year 12. we could do that, too. i mean, the great thing about the mills act in chapter 71, the board of supervisors has very broad latitude and discretion. so michael, if you could bring forward to me in a couple of weeks, if we hit the nonrenewal button on day one, this supervisor would like to see it. >> okay. we can do that for you. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, mr. john. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor peskin. i like your proposal on how we can move this forward while still being able to consider the nonrenewal clause for these -- for these, so great. why don't we go to public comment? mr. clerk, are there any

callers on the line for the items? >> clerk: thank you, mr. chairman. operations will let us know if there are any callers in the queue. those who have already connected to our meeting via phone, press star followed by three at this time if you wish to speak to these resolutions. for those in the queue, please listen for a prompt that indicates your system has been unmuted. for those listening on-line or on sfgovtv.org, call in by dialing 415-655-0001, followed by entering 146-195-2214, then pressing pound twice and star, followed by three and you will be entered into the queue to speak. operations, do we have any

callers in the queue to speak on these items? operation operation mr. chair, there a -- on these items? >> operator: mr. chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> chair mar: thank you. seeing no public comment, public comment is closed. [roll call] >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chair mar: mr. clerk, can you please call item number nine? >> clerk: item nine is a hearing to review consultant access and involvement in the san francisco building permit process, in particular

situations where a consultant has been charged with criminal conduct. members of the public who wish to comment, dial 415-655-0001 and enter the meeting i.d. of 146-195-2214. press pound twice, and then star, three to enter the queue. >> can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. what's your name? >> my name is [inaudible] and i'm the owner of 1315 waller street. i wasn't able to effectively raise my hand. >> chair mar: yeah. i'm sorry. we're -- we're onto the next agenda item right now. >> okay. thank you for your time.

i appreciate it. >> chair mar: yeah, so thank you to supervisor ronen along with supervisors haney and peskin for calling for this important hearing. supervisor ronen, are you here? >> supervisor ronen: i am. can you see and hear me? >> chair mar: we can see and hear you. >> supervisor ronen: great. well, thank you so much, chair mar, for hearing this item. i called for this hearing, along with my cosponsors, supervisors haney and peskin, who are here, as well, today, obviously as committee members, so we could understand the department of building inspection's roles of working with consultants, as well. today, i wanted to focus

entirely on the d.b.i. permitting, and i let staff know that i was not expecting to hear from them today. the history of fraud, corruption, and malfeasance in our system is ugly. as times, it has been d.b.i. staff and management, and at other times, it's been the developers, contractors, and consultants who are seeking permit approvals. in 2001, a d.b.i. survey called for a culture of preferential treatment and called for an overhaul of the department. in 2004, marcus armstrong and a d.b.i. investigator plead guilty for taking bribes.

in 2010, permit expediter jimmy jen was jailed on 232 felony fraud counts brought by district attorney and vice president-elect kamala harris. in may 2020, rodrigo santos, a former building inspections commissioner was arrested by the f.b.i. and charged with bank fraud. the city attorney already had a pending civil complaint against santos from several years ago for endangering the city and the public by skirting requirements on several properties. a mission local article this september told the story of a district nine constituent whose neighbor was doing structural

or demolition work that was causing serious flooding onto his own property. he was visited by sontose who was representing the neighbor, but not until he googled santos -- santos who was representing the neighbor, but not until he googled santos did he realize he was involved in these matters. it -- for over a year, my office has been working with neighborhoods, city department, and the city attorney on a project in the portola where the developers got a permit for building ten units and built 30, this, causing a mass scramble to protect the tenants who are in these unpermitted

units, creating life safety situations so dire, that the owners were forced to install a temporary fire escape which complicated the process to permit this project. in just over a year ago, in 2019, one man paid the city $1.2 million to settle a civil lawsuit for unpermitted work on several properties, four of them in bernal heights. for months, i've been hearing from neighbors about damage to their home on work that he was doing adjacent to those properties not within the scope of the permit. they are truly the tip of a deep iceberg, and while they show flagrant disregard for

laws, we need to understand where the city could have been more active. were there members of project teams with priority history of misdoings? were there red flags in the permit applications? frankly, this has been going on so long that it seems to me that d.b.i. has taken an ineffective laws on what is an attack on our laws, our regulations, and our code. the stories go back years, and i know that d.b.i. leadership is putting an end to this, so i am looking ifforward to hearin from them today and working together to craft legislation to make sure that these most egregious violations don't happen again. and with that, chair mar, i'm looking forward to hearing from

d.b.i., but i'm sure that some of my colleagues also have opening comments. >> chair mar: thank you so much, supervisor ronen. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: yes, thank you, chair mar, and thank you, supervisor ronen, for calling this hearing. you know, i think this really strikes at good, comp tent, effective governance and the trust that we must have with our residents. this episode of corruption that our city has experienced over the last now about eight months -- actually, the acts before that has unearthed in our city the individual corruption but also the inadequate laws and oversight

that prevent corrupt behavior. i want to appreciate the role that this committee has plays with supervisor peskin and -- has played with supervisor peskin and chair mar. this is a critical piece of the puzzle and a role of d.b.i. specifically was a concern we actually had a conversation about this with the city attorney a number of weeks ago as it was connected to another matter, and i'm really hopeful that we can come out of this with some clear next steps to provide stronger and more effective regulation, which is really about protecting orresidents and protecting our people who do business here, and people who may have everything that they own at stake, and they trust our city government, when we give out a permit, when we put our stamp on something, that's our city government giving our approval on all of our behalf, and we

should do that with the utmost sensitivity and intensality around -- in sensitivity around what we do and who we do that for. so thank you, supervisor ronen and also the other folks who called the hearing, supervisor peskin, and supervisor mar, and i'm looking forward to what we can get out of this to improve things for -- for our city. >> supervisor mar: thank you, supervisor haney. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you, chair mar, and yeah, let me join in appreciating supervisor ronen for bringing this hearing. this has been a perennial

issue, and we take one step forward and two steps back and one step forward and two steps back. this has been going on forever, and it leads to a denigration in the trust of the city at large, and frankly the tacit approval of illegal construction methods. so once again, the board has to step in, and it's pretty outlandish. we know the names. supervisor ronen just said the names, and there's more names on that list. the department knows the names. the public knows the names,

inasmuch as they've been reported on by the media in a manner which frankly is an outright embarrassment to the city. d.b.i. is aware, and we're all aware, and the employees are all aware that rodrigo santos continues to be a contractor permit inspector in the city despite all of these allegations. i understand that we are constrained by certain pieces of state law, but there's also a lot of things that we can do. and quite frankly as i have been able to determine, the department could have done earlier and are doing a little bit on already -- and i don't want to beat up on the department, but we'll get to the bottom of that in -- over

the course of this hearing. thank you. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor peskin. you know, colleagues, i just wanted to add, that in addition to to, you know, the information and the very good points that you've all touched on regarding the sordid history of corruption and favortism in d.b.i. that expediters have plafed a played and continue to play this year, this is an important issue for us to address in terms of restoring trust in d.b.i. in our city. there's also been growing frustration that i've heard from my constituents, that there's things that aren't being scheduled -- and even

small business owners, for small projects, and the extremely long delays in getting their permit considered, and it's causing hardship, particularly for the business owners that need to make changes to their storefronts. i think when they read about and hear about the favortism that happens and continues to happen at d.b.i., i think that just erodes confidence in our city government, so thanks so much, supervisor ronen, for your calling for this hearing, and yeah, i would turn it back to you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next in this hearing, we're going to hear from d.b.i., and i don't know who we're going to

hear from, but whoever is here, go ahead. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is christine [inaudible] and i am the assistant director of the department of building inspector. i'm here with our chief building inspector, joe duffy. joe has been with d.b.i. for the past 21e years, and he'll bye-bye able to answer all of your questions. so thank you for joining us today. i am going to share my screen and go through a presentation. can you see that? >> supervisor mar: yes, we can see it. >> great. okay. so we put together some slides to help explain d.b.i.s role in building safety and the project

consultants, which is the purpose of the permitting process, and tools that we have in place to ensure compliance with the code. d.b.i. provides critical building services to ensure the safety and habitability of san francisco's more than 200,000 commercial and residential buildings. we have nearly 300 employees, including plan reviewers, inspectors, and code enforcement and site inspectors. and we issue 70,000 permits annually. we perform plumbing, mechanical, and electrical inspections, we conduct housing inspections to ensure the property owners are maintaining habitable housing conditions. we conduct approximately 70,000, as i said, inspections every year, and then, we provide code enforcement

services. interim director o'riordan was appointed in march of this year, and i can say that it's really a new day here at d.b.i. he's made it clear to staff what the values are, the transparency and accountability, and that there's really zero tolerance for looking the other way during inspections, or not performing an honest land review, just zero tolerance, and we've been currently working with our h.r. department and the city attorney's office on several investigations which, you know, i can't discuss in the open forum, but we've been reviewing records regarding specific projects of concern that were brought up earlier, and i can assure you that we are actively addressing this issue.

so this slide includes hang from the san francisco ethics commission defining what a permit consultant is and what their permit duties are. it's someone who works with a

property owner to get their construction approved so that construction can begin. and according to the ethics commission and the roles that were codified in 2018, a permit consultant would be consulted with property values 250,000 or more. just to be clear, an engineer or an architect or a contractor working on the project is not considered a permit consultant in these guidelines. we rely on licenses design professionals to certify that there's submitted applications and plans, and our staff reviews the materials to verify they're code compliant, and as the work continues and is performed on the job, our inspectors go and verify that

that work is being done according to approved plans and in accordance with code. and so the permit application process includes filing a permit application and, when required, submitting plans for review. and sometimes those plans are reviewed by several city departmenting, such as the planning department, the fire department, p.u.c., public health, and depending on the complexity of the project, sometimes multiple plan reviewers in our own department are reviewing the plans, such as giving it a structural review or a plan review. and the consultant may note comments. once the plans are approved, the permit can be issued. once the permit is issued, contractors are scheduled throughout the project to

ensure code compliance, and throughout the process, we might issue a certificate of final completion or just a final sign-off. so for the code enforcement project, i want to say the vast majority of property owners and their agents abide by the permit process and perform work according to code, but we have those applicants that don't comply occasionally, and we have a process in place to force them to comply. this is usually triggered by an inspector going to a job site and finding a violation and writing up a notice of violation, or sometimes it's triggered by a complaint made by someone, such as a neighbor. [please stand by]

>> it is chief code compliance, not punitive or to punish. it is to ensure the buildings are safe and this helps us do that. sometimes the more serious cases we participate in the coordinated task force of potentially dangerous property conditions. those are made up of the fire

department or public health and even the task force includes multiple people from d.b.i. maybe it would include the plumbing inspector and electrical and building inspectors. they are coordinated by the city attorney, and that is for properties where there are violations of multiple city codes. you brought up earlier repeat violators. we have put tools in place to address repeat violators. we have various methods to address repeat violators for noncompliance with building code requirements. one is to incruise scrutiny of -- increase scrutiny of the projects. we have lagged them in the

database to practhe permit issue answer approval. something that is flagged in the tracking system as repeat violators. that means that if a plan checker is looking at the plans submitted before that permit can be issued, a senior plan checker would have to do a second review to ensure that that review has been correct and thorough. we refer repeat violators to outside agencies including city attorney and state licensing board in coordination with the city attorney. we developed an administrative bulletin to outline that process for how we report to the state agencies. now, in this hearing it was specifically called out consultants charged with criminal conduct. i want to address that

specifically. it is our understanding as the department that serves the public we cannot refuse the services to the public. we can escort customers out of the building if disorderly. we cannot permanently ban a member of the public from the believe. it is our understanding we cannot deny service to a valid licensed professional if they are filing in their professional capacity. state law does not allow us to deny a professional from doing their work pursuant to their state issued license. what we can do is take steps to ensure the permit applications are accurate and put in extra level of scrutiny on those specific individuals. recently what we call expanded quality control process. that is for repeat violators

associated with at least three serious modes of violation in 18 months. these individuals are flagged and subject to increased scrutiny. the types of violations that would put somebody on the list misrepresenting existing conditions, structural work beyond the scope of permit or over demolition. the other violations that we deem egregious and we allow discretion in that list. this is a policy we added to the building inspection services office policy procedures manual. the actions we take when we flag individuals for the quality control are, one, require all applications submitted by or on behalf of the individual to be reviewed a second time by senior manual of plan review services staff.

a line staff doing the plan review check. that would go to a senior person to do a second plan review. two, we are going to require site inspections prior to permit issuance to confirm the existing conditions. three, dedicated a senior inspector for the project site. we can refer them to the regulatory agency or city attorney for further action as we have done in the past. once these people get on the list for expanded quality control for two years. if that individual receives another serious violation during that period the clock would start over. the department is implements new procedures to identify violators early in the complaint process. that means supervisor ronen, you referred to a neighbor calling

in a complaint and that wasn't responded to quickly enough. what we are going to do to make sure our line staff are answering the phone they know who these folks are so they can immediately escalate that to senior inspector or chief building inspector to address that quickly, as quickly as possible. we are continuing to review policies and look for our safeguards to implement. we look forward to working with you to address and implement any additional controls to ensure the agents are complying with the building code requirements. that concludes my presentation. we will take questions. >> through the chair, thank you so much. i do want to appreciate the

direction you are heading in as a department and the different changes and procedures in place. i have been working with the city attorney to prepare legislation to strengthen d.b.i.'s ability to turn around the culture of favoritism and fraud. i do think this is a good start, i think that it is critical that we further enhance this work through legislation with clear regulations to ensure implementation enforcement, periodic reporting and puckly accountability. i have a few questions and my colleagues do as well. i haven't told that d.b.i. has an informal list of bad actors. i know that supervisor peskin has already mentioned that he wanted to have this list of

those folks that are publicly acceptable who have been caught defrauding the public or doing shoddy work. i am wondering, you know, a few things about this informal list. how long is the list? does it include developers, engineers, consultants? who determines who is on the list and the level of additional scrutiny, who informs staff? who enforces the staff review of the applications? in short, how is it that what you are proposing now that is different from what d.b.i. has been doing which failed to stop egregious violations like santos or 2861 san bruno avenue proje project?

>> i think is question is whether we are publish everythinpublishing thelist? >> we know you have a list. we want to understand more about what that looks like. is it a -- the series of questions. how does that informal list we know yo you are not publishing . how does it work within d.b.i.? >> i will answer your questions. the list in the past is more informal list where someone is like on the permit tracking system and that is determined by the chief building in, deputy inspector for services who see the same names appearing again and again. that flagged the tracking system. what we are doing now with the

new policy we are putting in place is making that a more formal process. there is cry steeria we are establish -- criteria and more formal how we review and maintain and make sure those people are getting the extra level of scrutiny. do you want to add to that? >> good afternoon, supervisors. joe duffy, chief building inspector. when ever we see a problem projector have the ability to put address restriction on it, that sometimes gets our attention. no future permits could be issued. we probably have a notice of violation on the property. i won't say as well in addition to the presentation here as a previous senior building inspector. when we come across these

serious violations where someone has taken out a building permit and gone and knew what they were doing. we got a call from the neighbor and give a stop work order. the homeowner have been sold goods. i find from speaking to homeowners there is a lot of that going on. i do think the steps we are putting in now will definitely help, and the more help from the city attorney and other city agencies will help. i find a big improvement in the last 12 months, and i haven't personally seen as many across our desk. christine touched on it, one of the most important things we are educating more on the people that answer the phone. if someone calls in a complaint and a name comes up to raise a

red flag. keywords, demolition, serious flooding. that would be an emergency one. i do know what happened to the one supervisor ronen spoke about. i am not making excuses but we did respond immediately to the homeowner. christine, i am available for questions as well. >> thank you. just to be clear. is it develop pers, engineers and consultants that get on the informal list or just one or the other? does everyone in the process, you know you outlined the three sort of entities able to act on

behalf of the property owner. are all three of those on the list? >> yes. >> okay. this might be more a question for the deputy city attorney, is ms. pearson here? >> yes, i am here. >> good afternoon. i know that there are some legal issues with having a publicly accessible list. i am wondering if there is anything that would prevent d.b.i. they debt an application -- they get an application with a name of developer, engineer, consultant that d.b.i. knows has either defrauded or done shoddy work. there is some issue with them. is there any issue with d.b.i.

informing that property owner who is using that person that that person has x of violation or that, you know, they have been caught up in an indictment or any of the above? >> well, i think that type of system might raise some of the same concerns about publishing the list. you want to make sure any information is absolutely accurate because there will be serious consequences for the individual to appear on it. we would want to take a look at what, if any, information the department could share with the homeowner or project owner on whose behalf it is pulled because we would need to make sure that information is absolutely accurate. that is something we are happy to look into. >> i know that d.b.i. has been using the sort of informal list for some time now.

as they have more checks and balances to the informal list, i wonder with that additional scrutiny and criteria could we do something to make it public. in the santos case, he is still out there, you know, and he is very good at sweet talking and defrauding individuals. there should be some way that we can in addition to not aiding and abetting that fraud through the department. we should be doing a public service of informing residents to be very careful themselves. >> certainly, some of the information held by the department is subject to

disclosure under the sunshine ordinance. we want to work closely with the department if it were to contemplate is system where it was proactively publishing that information. >> i think we have a request to you to draft legislation along those lines. i really, you know, think this is urgent. to the extent that we could make public or if it is not publicly acceptable at least when d.b.i. gets an application from someone flagged already in the system, then that individual at least has a right to know that there is a flag in the system. i know you can look on the contractors state licensing board to see if there is comappliance and things like that. that takes pro activity and some knowledge on the part of homeowners who don't make a living in this field and might

not know those tools are available to them. that is something that we will continue to work with you all on. thank you for that. i just have one more question before opening up to my colleagues. and following up on this issue as a professional state licensing board, correct me if i am wrong. we don't have the authority specifically to impose restrictions like a professionally licensing board. are these permit consultants licensed by anybody?

>> i don't believe so. my understanding they are required to register with us as a commission. >> maybe this is for ms. pearson. i understand with architects engineers, contractors there are limits to our ability to add additional requirements on them. when it comes to permit consultants specifically because they aren't -- there is no state entity that oversees their professional conduct, could we create further controls over these consultants? >> you are right the state contractor's law regulates contractors in california. it goes from establishing additional qualifications for those licensed individuals. to the extent this class of person does not have a state license, it might be no

preemption issue and we can add to the list of things we look to as we look at the policy options you are considering. >> to ms. gaseric, is there anything that you do in d.b.i. that is special or different with the permit consultants given there is not a state control or licensing board overseeing their conduct. >> this goes to preferential treatment. in our code of conduct we treat everyone equally. we do treat all applicants equally. that is expected of our employees. nobody is allowed preferential

treatment or in the reverse discriminated against in any way. >> these are areas that i am continuing to work with you all on putting in some additional controls because we are having problem after problem with these consultants, whether it is, you know, in the case of money, in other cases, you know, of engaging in illegal contact leading to f.b.i. investigations, you know, there is more that i believe we can be doing internally to prevent some of this illegal activity. with that, chair mar, i am done with my questions. thank you. >> thank you, supervisor roman and i appreciate your focus on

these issues and focus on having d.b.i. have a list of bad actors and using that internally for d.b.i. purposes as well as making it known to the public so that they can know to avoid them. i have a few questions. i am trying to understand the scope of the problem more with regard to the bad actors. is there -- i understand that d.b.i. has your response to supervisor ronen has an informal list already. i know you can't speak to names on the list, but how many individuals or businesses are on the list roughly? what is the relative proportion

of permit consultants versus more licensed architects and contractors? >> joe, do you want to take this one? >> in regards to informal list from my experiences in building inspection and notices of violation we deal with, i don't think there is that many bad actors to be honest with you. it is a limited few. we see repeat people. less than 10 that i would say, maybe not even that high. that would be -- this is more of a discussion among building inspection division and code enforcement. when things come up we notice that in the last couple years that we did see repeat ones and they were referred to the city attorney's office and we had stop work orders.

there were a number of them. it is not a huge number. what was the other question? >> it is more straightforward to identify contractors with repeat violations of permit or construction. what about are there many currently many permit consultants that are on the bad actor list? >> i have to say personally my experience with permit consultants is pretty positive. there are a few of them in san francisco and i know this from working here. the public are hiring people to do the permits. most of the people are honest upstanding people and i do think

there is a few bad actors selling these people with the option to get around planning and building. those ar are the the ones we neo after. overall on the permit consulting business, i don't see dishonesty or any types of audit. as a matter of fact sometimes it is helpful for someone to have a permit consultant in my opinion. would you say there are permit consultants. you did state you feel they are bad actors and the department has identified them as problematic? >> i think we have heard that already. yes, when you use the word permit consultants you are going

a broad reign there. that could be a developer, architect or engineer or homeowner. this is a person someone hires to get the permit started and watch it go through the approval process and sometimes to the finish. we talked about this before the meeting. there is a broad range. it might be a engineer doing this more and other engineers. i have spoken to a lot of the engineering associations in san francisco. they are disgusted by some of the behavior of the people out of state license. when you see the issue over 70,000 permits a year, most people are doing it right and

they want to do it right. occasionally projects run into problems. that doesn't mean they are a bad person. >> one time question. of the 70,000 permits per year, how many or what proportion would you estimate used a permit consultant? >> that i don't have that information, i am sorry. we would need to research that for you. i don't have that toed. >> we would have to pull that data. i don't have that at hand. >> i would be interested in seeing that. supervisor peskin. >> thank you, chair mar. let me start by agreeing that the vast majority of folks

d.b.i. deals with and vast majority of employees and colleagues and department heads are honest, decent, hardworking people. it only takes one to make us all look terrible. only one santos who used to be on the d.b.i. commission to lose the public trust and faith, not only in d.b.i. but the entire government that i have spent 20 years to be more efficient and look good. our job, unfortunately, isn't about dealing with 98% of good people. our job is about making sure that 2% of ding-dongs who ruin it for everybody else are regulated against. some of that can be done internally in d.b.i. as the informal list you are coming along with that we will talk

about a little bit. some of it you can't do even though the best thing would be to say mr. santos, sorry, you are on the black list. you can't get a permit. i realize that you cannot do that because of state law preemption. i realize we have due process considerations and i will get to that in a second. there are some things that the prerogative of the law making branch of government of which supervisor ronen is working on and i look forward to working with her on that and our staffs have had good conversations about this thing that has been kicking around for a year at least. let me get to some of my questions here, which is, yes, d.b.i. does have the authority and is the first responder, if

you will, when you know you have a bad apple. one of the things in the slide show says report them to the state licensing board. it is a very different thing when a government agency goes to at government agency and says we have a problem as compared to what happens in state licensing things which is when the client got screwed they go to the state licensing board and say, boy, this engineer didn't know what he was doing or ripped off my check to d.b.i. or whatever. how often do you do that? [please stand by]

>> we haven't -- of the time that we have reported either contractors or engineers to the state licensing board, i don't know that they've ever taken action. >> is this -- how many times have you done that in the last year, last five years, last ten years? >> i'm not sure i have 100% accurate information, bus i'm

new here. we have done it at least four times, in the last several years. >> supervisor peskin: i don't know if this is to you, ms. gasparac or deputy city attorney pearson, i assume when you do that, it's public record? pursuant to my unlimited power of inquiry or a member of the public pursuant to their rights under chapter 67 of the administrative code, could garner that information? >> i think that's for the city attorney. >> supervisor peskin you're asking whether it's a matter of public record if d.b.i. hold as record that they've made a referral to the state board? >> commissioner peskin: yes. yes. >> i would presume that it is. i would have to look at the law

governing complaints made to the state board to see if any protections made for that information, for any period of time. i don't know off hand. i would assume, as you have suggested, it would be a public record, but i will confirm. >> commissioner peskin: i don't care about the stateside. i care about the local side, which i assume is once our departments in writing or electronically or on a computer or typewriter, it's local public record, subject to local disclosure requirements. i don't think the state can regulate that? right. but, while we've got you, relative to the creation of this informal list, which i think when supervisor ronen and i and the board are done will be a formal list. you spoke to the need for accuracy on that list and that the policy concern was that people who are on that list are

appropriately on that list, right. is it an accuracy or a due process issue? isn't the issue how you -- the slide presentation says how you got on the list and not how you got off the list. and what the procedures are for challenging whether you should be on the list or not. >> well, i think it's both an accuracy issue and a due process issue. it's triggered because if the information is accurate, there could be harm to this individual from the government action. i do think -- i mean, i would say that my understanding of the list is not so much that it's a bad actor list, but it's a list of actors that require heightened scrutiny by d.b.i. and i do think that if the city were to affirmatively publish that information or affirmatively reach out to individuals to advice them of the presence or information on that list, it might be appropriate for there to be an

n.o.v. issued to people on the list, so that they had an opportunity to challenge the underlying determination that got them there. >> commissioner peskin: okay. that's the due process consideration. and then back to d.b.i., if you are on the heightened scrutiny list, presumably you are causing -- this cost of covering agency more money by virtue of the fact that you're causing the agency more money. does that get accompanied with larger fees, insofar as it causes d.b.i. to give them the higher level of scrutiny? >> so there are fees associated with doing extra inspections. joe, do you want to take that and answer that question? >> yeah. you know, if the department has to spend more time on a project, for example, an extra

inspections we can charge re-inspection fees. absolutely. the other thing about that is we can recoup costs with a notice of a violation, once they go to the cold -- code enforcement. we refer to the city attorney's litigation committee and a lot more costs can be taken back and charged to the offender. that's my knowledge of it. >> commissioner peskin: thank you, joe. and then i guess maybe to supervisor ronen, but to everybody involved in this meeting. i think it's also really important that contractors, who rely on this handful of bad actors, who require heightened scrutiny, and project sponsors, around i'm not talking about the mom and pop, who needs to figure out how to navigate a building process.

it's complicated not because of politics. it's complicated because our building codes, our fire codes are complicated, which we all don't burn to death and have sprinklers and all the rest of it. particularly project sponsors who are professional project sponsors. i'm not talking about when, you know, mr. jones or mrs. smith want to do a project on their house. i'm talking about project sponsors who do multiple proje projects. they need to share in this liability, too. contractors and professional project sponsors, that rely on the rights of, yes, i will say it, rodrigo santos or his ilk, need to share in this liability, too. i want to put that on the record. i'm sure supervisor ronen and i and the staff and the city attorney will put that into whatever we come up with quick. thank you, chair mar. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor peskin.

supervisor haney. >> supervisor haney: thank you. many of the questions i was going to ask were asked. i a couple -- a little bit more specific ones. in terms of what we're allowed to share publicly or disclose or do any sort of -- maybe even more intentional outreach to individuals who may be, you know, working with or signed up with one of these individuals, that we're concerned about. is any of that changed, if that person has been indicted criminally? is there anything that we can do in that case? i mean, you know, if somebody is working with rodrigo santos, for example, or somebody in that situation, can we disclose more proactively to them or to -- to their clients or potential clients that he has been criminally indicted. does that change what we're able

to do at all from a due process perspective? >> i think the information that the city would be sharing would be information that has caused the city to become concerned about concerned about these advices, which is based on a review of the violations they might have been associated with. and so the city would be putting together a list, based on -- of individuals who require heightened concern because of the violations. and in that case, the city has information about the violations. it has -- the state found them to be -- it has -- you know, investigated them, they have the information. and they would be putting them on the list on that basis. indictments are noninformation -- it's not information that's within the control of the city. i don't know that that -- the city should be making disclosures based on the fact that an individual has been

indicted. that is a separate process that's being undertaken and prosecuted by somebody else and not the city. >> supervisor haney: but you can -- [indiscernible] so from a legal perspective, in your view, in terms of what we could disclose or how or what, that we're actually in a better position to disclose things that we have our own kind of personal knowledge or experience of -- not personal, but as a city, that's been developed through our own analysis of things that have come through the city and associated violations, as opposed to the criminal indictment aspect of it? >> that's right. >> supervisor haney: okay. got it. i had a question about the permit peters, -- peters and

people hired to work with our departments on behalf of various folks. it sounds like there may be need to be greater regulation, also via the ethics commission and you're looking at, supervisor row then. what are they able to do on someone's behalf? so they sign something and basically -- all of the interactions with our department, they get to act as an agent in some way? is that essentially what they do? they can sign things on behalf, they can -- i mean, is it -- is it just sort of give them carte blanche to act on their client, whoever their client is? >> joe, you want to take that. >> yes. of course, supervisor haney, you know, on a building permit

application on the bottom retorner, there's six boxes. if you take one of the boxes as agent, you can get the authority of the owner of the property, to obtain the permit as the opener of the property. and deal with the agencies, the relevant agencies, whether it's building, planner, d.p.w., fire department. a lot of people -- some people in san francisco like to do that. they don't want to do it themselves. that gives us the authority. ab engineer obtaining a property. a lot of times at d.b.i., central bureau deals with the legal part of it. whereas obtaining a permit on behalf of someone. >> supervisor haney: got it. and it sounds like in order tonight person who is the agent, you have to register with the ethics commission, or can

anybody do it? >> i can answer it briefly, with my knowledge on that part of it. there is a law in effect over the city that a permit peter must register with the ethicsess commission is not a part of that. probably would be very hard to oversee, because i'm -- i'm getting a permit from a neighbor, for example, you ask them can somebody obtain this permit on my behalf. i see that a lot. someone represents someone, they're not an expediter. >> supervisor haney: got it. people make an entire business out of doing this. the concerns if we don't really know who those folks are, we don't know what kind of promises

they may be making. they may be exploiting people. they may be using or accessing undue influence. i mean, i think there's a perception, i'm sure, i've heard it. this is what you do on a regular basis. there's a perception if you want to get something done in the city or get your permit quicker or whatever it is, that you hire one of these people. and they have political access and influence. and they're able to get it done for you. that, you know, whether that's true or not, there's a perception of that. and some people are selling their services based on that perception. they're saying that they can get things done quicker for you and if those people are not being required to disclose certain things or register in all cases. you know, that can lead to a

situation of -- that could create problems. so i just want to flag all of that. i don't know, supervisor ronen, if that's part of what you're looking at, sort of this larger set of regulations or lack thereof over who can act on someone's behalf in these processes. but there are people who are essentially selling this perception that their access to power and maybe even the relationships that they have and that they've good morning -- garnered via political access, will they ge -- get them favorae treatment and they sell that to people. that's basically one of the things that rodrigo was doing, right, mr. santos. but there are other people who do that as well. so i don't know whether this is an ethics commission thing or d.b.i. thing. it does seem like an area, especially if these people aren't licensed necessarily and they have to put their name

down. >> supervisor ronen: if i may respond through the chair. i could not agree with you more, supervisor haney. the fact that these permit consultants exist, shows something is fundamentally broke been ouin our system. it should be straightforward enough, that functions, you know, staffed enough so there's not a market for individuals to claim a specific, you know, knowledge that others can't get or as supervisor haney says, more often this inside track with relationships. that any member of the public couldn't get. and if we do our job right, and if we have a d.b.i. that's truly functioning the way it should be, then the market for these

expediters should disappear all together. but in the meantime, before we get there, we certainly should be putting protections in place in the first place, where there are none at the moment. i mean, there is this informal system that you created. but it lacks structure and it lacks, you know, public access. and so we need to create some of that. but ultimately we need to get d.b.i. to a state where it functions so easily and so well that we eliminate the market for these individuals that have taken advantage of the fact that the system is not working optimally. >> if i may, i want to say a couple of things about that.

one is that we have brought on -- we are bringing on, we're in the process of hiring an executive-level permit services administrator, because we recognize the need to streamline and make our process easier. the city has also, you know, put a lot of resources into this permit center idea, which is getting all the permitting departments together on one floor and making it an easier system to navigate. and so we are trying to address that bigger question of it's a complex process, a lot of people hire these permit consultants because they know their way around the building. they know who to call, you know, when something gets stuck. and that's not easy for the average person. and so it is -- totally agree. it's incumbent on us to make the process easier for folks. and to, you know, and to

streamline the whole process, so the average person can come in here and figure it out. >> supervisor ronen: right. sorry, is it okay? >> i was going to go on about, christine, just that supervisor haney just pointed out that in the building -- d.b.i. obviously are the building permit. the permit consultants a lot of people use them for the variances, the notifications, a lot of planning department stuff, that's looked at before you even get to the d.b.i. review. i think it's a lot to do with the bigger -- there's a culture right there, where people do not want to deal with that process. whatever a conditional use. there's a business for that. i keep celebrating the good people doing it. we're talking about the turn to the bad people, who are selling people or just get a kitchen remodel permit. you go and dig out the house.

we need to focus on that. >> supervisor haney: right. and i would also say that some people are probably just selling -- they're selling nothing. they're saying you need to hire me and pay me, you know, $20,000 or something. or you're not going to get a permit. they go in and do the same thing that anybody can do themselves. and, you know, i think in that case, we have the responsibility at some level to protect the consumers, you know, and the residents who are being taken advantage of here. not all are. i think a lot of people -- the bigger developers kind of knows what they're getting to. definitely not a good -- if people have the sense that in order to get things done in our city, you need to hire someone who has some sort of political

power, influence to get through what should be a transparent, fair and accessible government service is a problem. and it creates its own set of problems as we've seen in these indictments and everything else. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor haney. and also just want to thank miss gasparac and mr. duffy for engaging in this important discussion with us today. colleagues, before we go to public comment, do you have any sort of final questions or remarks? >> supervisor ronen: through the chair, supervisor mar, i want to thank you for holding this hearing. i'm really looking forward to working with all of you, supervisor peskin, haney and mar, as well as our city attorney's office and miss gasparac and mr. duffy. i think we can -- i think we can make some positive policy and good progress here. and i'm looking forward to

continuing this conversation and culminating it in the form of legislation, that helps move us forward as a city, that's more fair, transparent and free from corruption. and, you know, influence that isn't well meaning. so thanks again. and look forward to public comment. >> chair mar: thanks, supervisor ronen. so why don't we go to public comment. mr. clerk, are there any >> caller: on the line? >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. mr. coup, please let us know if we have callers ready. please press star followed by 3 to be added to the queue. if you wish to speak for this hearing. this foes already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you will hear a prompt that informs you that your line has been unmuted. that's your opportunity to

provide your comments. for those watching on cable channel 26 or through sfgovtv.org, if you wish to speak on this item, please call by following the instructions displaying on your screen. that would be by dialing (415)655-0001. then by entering the meeting i.d. of 146 1915 2214 followed by pressing the pound symbol twice and star then. you'll enter the queue to speak. mr. coup, could you please connect us to our first caller. >> clerk: i hear someone on the line that may want to mute the streaming device or television. >> caller: okay. is this okay? hello? >> clerk: yes. your time begins. >> caller: okay. this is bob mason.

and i had unfortunate series of months-long exposure to mr. santos' behavior. and i just wanted to say that there is some gaps in, you know, how things work. in other words, mr. santos was supposedly put on this list, as i understand it, that he was suppose to be inspected and red flagged and whatever. well, he already had a permit in the system and working illegally. it was filed but not approved. but he was working on it next door to me. when i looked that up and saw that, i didn't quite understand the city's explanation, of course. i told them eight times, i contacted d.b.i. between june and september and contrary to what mr. duffy said, he did not get back to me until the

newspaper article came out. i also wanted to say and glad to the city attorney person said, the city itself had indicted santos and published like a 30-page screamingly negative indictment on the web about him. so it seems to me if the city can do that, it can also let its citizens and homeowners know what they're getting involved with. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. can we get the next caller, please. >> caller: hi, there. i just wanted to say that getting rid of a few bad actors should not prevent d.b.i. from

issuing permits. people can't get permit numbers and wait person is now in 2021. what happened to a softer system, that was suppose to stop all of this from happening? i think there are solutions out there that d.b.i. needs to quickly put in place, especially as we move towards an economic recovery. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for sharing your comments. >> operator: mr. chair, that completes the queue. >> chair mar: thank you, operations. public comment is now closed. thanks again, supervisor ronen, for your liquor on these important issue -- for your leadership on these important issues. very much look forward to following up with you on supporting the legislation to come to address these problems. yeah. i guess -- if it's okay with you, i would like to move that we file this hearing. >> supervisor ronen: that's fine. next up, hopefully we'll have legislation.

>> chair mar: okay. all right. so, yeah, i move that we file this hearing. >> on the motion offered by chair martha this hearing be filed, vice chair peskin. >> supervisor peskin: aye. >> clerk: chair mar. >> chair mar: aye. >> mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> chair mar: thanks. thanks, supervisor ronen. thanks, miss gasparac and mr. duffy, for joining us. mr. clerk, can you please call item number 10. >> clerk: agenda item number 10 is the hearing on the findings and recommendations of the budget and legislative analyst's performance. the call-in public comment number is (415)655-0001. after you dialed that number, you will want to enter the

meeting i.d. for this meeting, that is 146 195 2214. following that press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting. and then press the star key followed by the number 3 to enter the queue to speak. the symptom prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. that's your opportunity to begin your comments. >> chair mar: thank you, mr. clerk. colleagues, i called for this hearing because of the seriousness and urgency of the subject of this audit. just yesterday criminal charges were released against paul justy, a former government affairs executive for bribery and concealing money laundering to the tune of more than $1 million. these are only the latest criminal charges resulting from the still unfolding public corruption scandal that's led to a crisis of confidence in local government, and into the compliance and enforcement of our ethics laws. recent investigations into

public corruption have reached the city administrator's office, the department of public works, the department of building inspection, the public utilities commission, the planning department, the mayor's office of neighborhood services, the airport commission, and the department of public health. in the last two years, allegations, charges and indictments for public corruption, bribery or conflicts of interest have led to the ouster of four department heads, and implicated three city contractors, permit expediter, a billionaire developer and multiple appointed commissioners. now also an executive at recology. not one of these investigations came from the ethics commission, whose performance we will be discussing today. as public officials, we have a responsibility to earn and safeguard the trust of the public, as we've been discussing with respect to d.b.i. for the last hour plus. and we have a responsibility to hold power to account on behalf of our constituents. so as the chair of the

government audit and oversight committee, this is the responsibility i take incredibly seriously. so i'm grateful to president yee for requesting this audit of the ethics commission, a body whose responsibilities include investigating ethics complaints, administering the city's campaign finance, conflict of interest, lobbying and whistleblower laws and investigating and enforcing violations of these laws. our city charter states that public office is a public trust and all officers and employees of the city and county shall exercise their duty in a manner consistent with its trust. as a city, we have failed that trust. and we failed it over days, years, and decades, when corruption has continued unfettered. so today i'm hopeful we can have a frank and open dialogue about the ethics commission, how this crucial city body has progressed or improved, and where it has fallen short in meeting its duties. and why. we'll begin this hearing with a

presentation from the budget and legislative analyst office on the audit and the executive director leanne pelham is also here with us to share her insights and answer our questions. before we go to the presentation, colleagues, i just wanted to see if you might have any opening remarks. i know supervisor peskin, we might be losing you pretty soon, right? yeah. maybe we could just go to the presentations. so i'd like to first welcome up southern campbell from the b.l.a.'s office. ms. campbell, the floor is yours. >> good afternoon, supervisor mar, members of the committee. southern campbell from the budget legislative analyst's office. we'll be presenting a brief overview of the audit findings and recommendations. i want to acknowledge the two staff people who work on this

audit. and i want to thank members of the commission that, you know, gave -- -- provided us with information. but at this point, unless you have questions, i'd like to turn it over to christina malmutt and have her give the presentation. >> chair mar: sounds good. >> good afternoon. bear with me oil -- while i pul up my preparation. there we go. good afternoon, chair mar, members of the committee. i'm christina malmutt from the budget and legislative analyst's office. i'm here to give you a summary of our performance audit of the ethics commission, which was released in august of this year. the ethics commission was created by san francisco voters in 1993 to administer the city's campaign contribution, conflict of interest, lobbying and whistleblower laws and to investigate violations of these laws and assess penalties.

the scope of our audit covered all of the permit operations, including the department's compliance, audit and investigation programs. so now i'll go over our five key findings areas and recommendations. our first findings is that tools to assess the effectiveness and risk of ethics programs are needed. at the time of the audience, an annual report was not produced. although i understand they've released one in september. and they had also not implemented consistent methods for performance reporting. these tools are really important because they allow staff and members of the public to assess the effectiveness of core functions and also show progress towards department goals. we also looked at the department's approach to providing training on ethics law to city employees. these trainings are important, because they help promote voluntary compliance with law, reducing the need for enforcement efforts against those who want to comply with

ethics laws. we found that the department does not assess training needs with city employees and officials based on risk and develop targeted trainings to address areas of risk. both the department and the city attorney's office may provide trainings on ethics commission departments to the departments at their request. in addition, i understand that the departments provides training to particular employees that are member of a particular bargaining unit. but if you're a city employee, that's not a member of a department that's requesting these trainings or a member of the bargaining agreement, you might not be receiving targeted trainings from the ethics commission. so a recommendations in these areas include that the executive director produce an annual report. and also formalize and document processes to providing training on ethics laws for city employees and officials. our second findings is that persistent vacancies have

impacted ethics programs. the department has had a high vacancy rate over the last four years of about 19%, resulting in substantial salary savings in each year. for example, in fiscal year 19-20, over $700,000 salary savings. this is in excess of what is already assumed in the budget in terms of salary savings. the department's work order with the department of human resources does not provide enough hours to fill all vacancies. and i just want to emphasize that for a department with only 24f.t.e.s, having four t.e.s on average can impact the program. the investigation division had at least one vacancy over the period, as did the audit division. and i'll be talking about some issues in those areas later on. but certainly these vacancies

impacted those programs. so a recommendation is really that this department is fully staffed. even within the hiring freeze, we condition considering these vacancies to be necessarily to fulfill the mandates. given the small size of the department, even leaving one position vacant can impact ethics programs. our third findings is discretionary audits of election campaign committees are not completed timely. audits are the many enforcement tool to detect violation of campaign finance laws. i just want to point out that right here we're looking at the discretionary audiences of election campaign committees. the department is also required to conduct mandatory audits of public financing audits. however, those are conducted by a private accounting firm on behalf of the ethics commission. so for the 2016 election cycle, it took the audit division

approximately 21 months on average to complete these audits. and the last audit wasn't issued until december 2019 and more than three years after the election. long audit timeline reduce the reliantcy of audit findings for the public. the investigation division has to complete an investigation after the audit is completed. we did compare the 2016 election cycle to the 2018 election cycle, as you can see here. at the time of our review, only one audit had been completed. but it did appear as though the department was on track to reduce these audit timelines considerably, in particular they reduced the amount of time to start a given audit from about 14.4 months in 2016 to 4.3 months. or a reduction of ten months. however, we do think that

there's still improvements are needed in reducing these timelines. the ethics commission is also required to conduct at least one lobbyist audit per year. but to date the audit division has not completed a lobbyist audit. we understand they've reported that this is due to staffing issues. during the time of the review, they had the staff for a very short period of time, as well as workload. but this is sort of a mandate of the department. this reduces the accountability for lobbyists and could result in underreporting of lobbyist activity. our recommendations in this area are that the executive director further review timelines for discretionary audits of campaign committees through enhanced performance monitoring and process documentation. we also recommend that the department establish a lobbyist

audit program. our fourth findings is that investigations of alleged violations are not completed timely. these are completed by the investigations division and often originate in a complaint being made to the department. they take more than two years on average to complete investigations of alleged violations of ethic laws, including campaign finance laws and other relevant laws under its purview. i just want to note that our review focused on complaints for which investigators determined there was sufficient evidence to open an investigation. that excludes complaints in a preliminary review, perhaps out of scope or lacked sufficient evidence. timely resolution of ethics investigation is important for promoting public confidence and government. it's also important because long delays -- beginning this investigation can impair case

outcomes, as it makes it more difficult to collect evidence. we also found that the division opens more investigations than it can close in a given year. this is due in part to the length of time it takes to conduct those investigations. as well as division vacancies over this period. as i mentioned before, one vacancy over the whole period and they were rarely fully staffed. and then in particular there was a period of time in fiscal year 2016-2017, where all four investigator positions were vacant. and they had to sort of recover from that time. so we found that between 2017 and 2019, the division opened wise as many investigations as they closed. for example, you can see here that in 2018, that middle -- the middle bars, they opened 42 cases, that dark blue bar. but only closed 14 cases, which is the light blue bar beside it,

which increased the number of prior-year cases from 56 to 84 to the next year. so our recommendations are that the executive director improve the efficiency of investigations, through enhanced training for investigators, also by expanding the fixed penalty program, which allows more routine violations to undergo a streamlined enforcement process and a fixed penalty. the department was in the process of expanding this program. but had not completed it by the time of our audit. our fifth and final findings area is related to whistleblower protection from retaliation. this is one type of investigation that investigators and ethics division complete. the city's whistleblower ordinance protects individuals from retaliation for reporting

improper governmental activity. in particular, they're protected from adverse employment action such as termination or discipline for reporting, for example, misuse of city funds or a violation of conflict of interest laws. these investigations require that investigators stab three things. first of all, that the protected activity occurred. in this case, that the individual either filed a whistleblower complaint or that they participated in an investigation. second, they must establish that they suffered an adverse employment action, like not being promoted or disciplined. and then, third, they have to establish that that first thing caused the second thing, which is probably the hardest thing to establish. these investigations take more than two and a half years to resolve. , which is a little bit longer than the average time it takes for them to complete most

investigations. i just want to emphasize that kind of long delays in starting these investigations can really impair case outcomes, because witness testimony is really key to establishing that causal link between the complaints and then the as verse action. and if you're following up on these investigations, long after the event took place, people might not really be able to remember accurately. finally, these investigations require specialized training. i want to point out that these are pretty different in nature from most of the investigations that the ethic division completes. because they really require an understanding of employment law and civil service process, rather than an understanding of ethics laws. so we compared their level of training to that of d.h.r.s equal employment opportunity office, because they also handle it retaliation cases.

although the e.e.o. office is handle them for complaints regarding discrimination and harassment. the investigators received a lot more training on retaliation for the e.e.o. so our recommendation is that the executive director enhance investigator training on whistleblower retaliation cases, as well as reporting on whistleblower retaliation case outcomes to the ethics commission, to increase oversight. that concludes my presentation. as we already mentioned, i really want to acknowledge our project staff, ruben, oliver, who did a lot of work on the audit. i want to thank the ethics commission for assistance during our audits. thank you. i'm available for questions. >> chair mar: thank you so much. thank you for the presentation and your work as well as along with the other folks on the

b.l.a. team on this important audit. you know, colleagues, before we get into questions, i wanted to invite director pelham to -- offer to allow her to make any remarks or response to the audit findings and the recommendations. ms. pelham, are you there? >> i am. >> chair mar: yeah. >> good afternoon. good afternoon. my name is leanne pelham. i'm the executive director of the ethics commission, as you mentioned. and i appreciate the opportunity to be here for our commission today. this was an extraordinary opportunity during an extraordinary time, to make sure we, like all city departments, are accountable for our work. the stunning headlines that we continue to see and that the committee has been discussing already this morning, ring only

underscoring that it's all of our duties to make sure that san franciscans know that they can count on us to do the work that we're here to do and do it well and do it effectively, do it with integrity, with utmost skill and utmost effectiveness. and i have often said to staff, both here and when i was working with the city of los angeles ethics commission, that audits are our friends. and i think this is an example of that. i would thank the b.l.a. for its work during a particularly stressing time i think for everybody. they started this work in february. and then as you know in mid-march, we all moved and pivoted very quickly to a shelter-in-place shutdown. both of our offices continued to work during that period. and as i said in the response to the audit in my letter with the audit being issued, we really appreciated their professionalism and their objectivity in being able to hang on this really important work during a really difficult time. i just wanted to acknowledge

that publicly and thank them for their work. i think the committee well knows that the commission traces its roots back to the mandated vision that the voters established directly for us back in 1993, to practice and promote the highest standards of ethical behavior in government. and each of our five members is appointed by a different elected official. so with that work, they also have a sworn responsibility as members of the ethics commission to the public trust and pledge to perform the highest standards of excellence and accountability themselves in government. that's also true of the staff. together with all of us, we're here making sure, with all of the resources and focus and energy that we can, that our laws within our jurisdiction are strong, that they're workable in practice. they can be enforced and that our work in if performing those duties is effective and makes a difference in city government. it is very clear to us that making sure that the laws that

we have can be timely, object and independently administered and enforced, as the voters have expected. it is a critical piece of what we do. and that work has over the years demanded a number of adaptability to changing laws and changing politics and changing the circumstances. as many organizations do in the course of its 25-plus-year history, this organization has evolved. and we have been, since 2016, under my tenure here at the commission, during the past several years have been very focused on making sure that we are being impactful in our work, we're committed to continuous improvement and that we are going to do the hard work going forward, as we have been to demonstrate progress and real impact. i think inch of what the b.l.a., the audit showed us was very, very instructive.

a number of the instructions in the report spoke to making sure that we're transparent in the work that we do to the public and that we do a better job tracking and monitoring our own performance. and we are endeavoring to do that. part of what we've been work on, since the summer and into the fall, is making sure that each of our performance goals, for each of us as individuals at the commission, establish and root in our work this year, the recommendations of the b.l.a. report. so that our individual contributions are aligned with the organizational goals that we expect to achieve in the coming year. so that's something that we've been taking to heart. the b.l.a. staff mentioned we have issued an annual report this year. we issued that in september. the commission is required to approve it. that's available on our website. but we know that's again a first step. many of the steps that were addressed in the recommendations

of the b.l.a., primarily spoke to our oversight role. the audit and to enforcement. and they also spoke to the procedures that we use, that govern that work and the need to make sure that we solidify the processes that we have started to put in place and that we see them through to their finish. and that we report out publicly on, as we expect to be doing over the course of the year to the commission and to the public. so a couple of last points i would make briefly, before fielding any questions that you might have for me, on behalf of our commission, one of the key recommendations in the report also spoke to the hiring issue that we've had. we have not been shy about asking for resources that we need. we also know that it's important to be responsible for asking for the resources we need, for balancing our aggressiveness and to the larger budget issues. over the years we've asked for what we believe we need and that we can deliver.

but we know that is not enough. we know there has never been a dedicated training, an outreach unit within our commission, for example. and so when we talk about some of the issues that your committee talked about in the last item, or several, there's a great need to be able to support city staff in making sure that they know where the boundaries of our ethical rules are. that's something we have a lot of work to do as a city. certainly at the commission, we need resources to do that. we're going to need a focused agenda to do that. but accountability in government is a shared responsibility in the city structurally and otherwise. so we're pleased to report we do have the support and the mayor's support this summer with the f.y. '21 budget. we do have funding that was green lighted to enable us to hire in an expedited way, the positions that are vacant. we're at the point of posting five positions within the next couple of weeks. so we're looking forward to

having people in those seats, doing that work, and really helping to launch this next chapter of our work in the first first part of calendar year 2021. there is no shortage of work for all of us to do on this front. i recognize that. we take it very seriously. we very much appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into the report, the insights that it provided. and the spirit of collaboration that this body has thought to engage with us in -- to make sure that we are doing the best that we can for the san franciscans who established us and who continue to expect something from their city government. so i'll pause there and i'm happy to any specific questions you might have from me and happy to continue to report back to you, as we do with the commission, about the progress that we anticipate making. >> chair mar: thank you so much, director pelham. and for all of the incredibly important work that you and the ethics commission staff and the volunteer commissioners do to

ensure, you know, strong ethics and compliance with our ethics laws in our city. and really, you know, glad to hear the updates that you shared -- and also reflected in your letter in response to the b.l.a. audit that you are in full agreement with all of the recommendations and committed to responding to them and implementing them. and also good to hear the update about the annual report. that was just issued this fall for the first time in a while. so i -- i just had some questions either to you and also to ms. malmutt from the b.l.a.'s office. maybe i'll start with the findings around the audiences of campaign committees and long delay in initiating the important audits of campaign

committees. i know it was particularly a problem it looks like in the 2016 -- for the campaign committees from 2016. there was some improvement in the 2018 campaign committees, the audits of those. so i was wondering if -- like looking ahead, you know, we just completed another intense campaign here locally with many campaign committees and whether you expect that trend, the improvement that we saw in the -- the audits of the 2018 campaign committees to continue with the 2020 campaign committ committees. >> yes. thank you for the question. >> we're pleased that the progress that the audits team has been able to make from audit year to audit year was acknowledged and demonstrated through this audit report. we know that we can do better

and need to do better. the 2018 audit, that were conducted by the external auditing organization that we had, have been completed. they've now been posted on our website publicly this summer, towards the end of august, early september. so those are now completed. our auditors, that will be turning now we're post the 2020 election, they're turning to the 2019 required audit. there are two candidates that will need to be required, because they received public funds. not to get into too much of the weeds. we have also in the past intervening year, the audit team also administering and the public financing program for candidates running for city office, for qualified for the programs. so we had this year 16 out of 22 board of supervisors candidates qualify to receive over $3.3 million in public funds, which is a record. that's a whole another topic to talk about. the ongoing improvements and success of the public financing program. but that's something that our

audit team is responsible for. so during the time that our audit staff has been focused on administering those, qualifications, disbursements and reviews, they have not been able to do audit work. so those have been held in advance. we'll be starting the 2019 audits this fall. the other thing to note is two other factors affecting this. we've had tremendous support by our staff or the city staff worker program. that's impacted both our enforcement and audit programs, because staff requisitioned for long-term assignments. we know that's a give. that's an important give. it also takes -- we aren't able to proceed as quickly as we would like to on some of that work. we know we're in a critical emergency right now. we're grateful to those employees, who have stepped up and responded when they have been requisitioned for that. the other thing that affects our audit program, which i look forward to reporting next year with some changes to you on is, absolutely essential that we fill the audit manager position. we have never, at least in the time i've been here, i don't

believe the commission has had a specific dedicated audit manager function. that means that the executive director left supervising the other program and we see findings like we did in the b.l.a. report, which are unacceptable. there shouldn't be a holdup because the executive director can't get through audit reports timely. so we have an audit manager position that is one of the positions we'll be filling. and we'll be posting. and that will be responsible for helping to work with me to make sure we have our lobbying program up and running this year. the auditor's did a good job in setting a foundation. that was logjammed with me. so i think this speaks directly to the need of the positions that we have and the positions that we'll hopefully be filling in the first part of 2021. i hope that answers some of your questions. >> chair mar: yeah. yeah. thank you, director pelhammed good to hear about -- your plan to hire an audit manager position to deal with the bottleneck that has been with

you in moving forward the audits. and i had a question just about the audits of nonpublicly financed campaigns, which are at your discretion, as executive director. and i just wanted to see if you could describe how you use this discretion to, in terms of determining which nonpublicly financed campaigns to conduct audits and in particular i'm interested in understanding the rationale for the change. my understanding is the change in audit selection criteria, starting with the 2018 election cycle, where you were -- since then have been limited -- the audits of these types of campaigns are limited to committees that were not candidate controlled, with over $1 million in reported expenditures. >> thank you. let me clarify. the mandatory audits are required under law for public

financing candidates. and when i joined the commission, it seems to me that we had the resources to be able to do more audits than just that. that was my experience in los angeles. and so i -- in 2016 in selecting audiences to be going forward, we created what we called an objective criteria method. what we want to do is to be able to make sure we're providing some oversight for committees, for the political money that is raised and spent to effect -- if an attempt to influence san francisco voters on other issues as well. it may be ballot measures, where there's a lot of money being spent in that area. we thought it was important to introduce a greater level of oversight and accountability to those campaigns. so the objective criteria standard that we talked about is one -- before our commission, we brought it to the commission and reported publicly on this standards when we have selected audits that way. and that is something that we

try to identify where there may be a public interest, where the public interest may be greatest because of the volume of money spent on activities. we do not single out, you know, a particular type of campaign or a particular type of issue for audit. that's something that if there were an issue, it would be an investigation. we are trying to -- we were trying to broaden the reach of our oversight by conducting audits of those committees. i think in retrospect, given changes in the audit program, that was over ambitious. we were not able to fulfill those audits as quickly as i thought we would have an able to. that's one of the things going forward, you know to what extents we continue to move forward with discretionary audits and what are the standards for doing that. we want to be transparent and public about what the standards are, so people know this is a fair and objective process. it has to be very, very closely aligned with our resources, particularly in this climate where we have so many issues coming at us that we still have

to solidify in terms of our foundational processes and ongoing pandemic issues, which is likely to continue taxing our staffing resources. >> chair mar: thank you. and for clarification, how many audits have you conducted of these sort of nonpublicly financed campaigns, not really -- like these big money independent expenditure campaign committees that, you know, have become increasingly problematic, you know, in our elections. >> the number that comes to mind is -- i think it's in the 2018 election, i can confirming this. but i think in the 2018 election cycle, we selected -- it might have been -- i might be misstating this, by comparison, slightly more than the publicly finance candidates. we had 11 candidates from 2018 that were publicly financed, 14 candidates publicly financed and we had at least that many that

were not candidates that were the other committees. so i'm happy to get that information back to you. i don't want to misstate the numbers. i don't have those in front of me right now. but we've been trying to make sure we extend that oversight to a broader swath of committees, where there is a large amount of money being spent. i'm happy to provide a follow-up to the committee that data each year, so that you can see what we have selected and the basis for it. >> chair mar: appreciate that. thank you. director pelham, i had one final question around the audit findings and turn it over to my colleagues for questions. it's around the lobbyist audits and why, you know, the commission has never conducted a lobbyist audit. i think in looking at page 36 of the report, it states that you have not reviewed the memo from

january 2020, nearly a year ago, submitted by the audit division, that outlined key considerations for establishing a lobbyist audit program. so i guess, you know, why hasn't this happened? do you feel a sense of urgency in establishing a process for lobbyist auditing, considering that -- especially considering that this is a legal requirement that the department has failed to peat so far. -- meet so far. >> yes. i feel a great sense of urgency. i feel a great sense of responsibility for the failure by our office to have not performed the lobbying audits, as we're required to. we are required to select at least one lobbyist for audit each year. the last time the commission did that was in 2015. and at that time, we were unable apparently to complete that audience, that we had selected. and i made the decision in setting up the program and the structure that i did, that we had to focus on completing campaign audits at the time. and so that office has not had

-- the lobbying audit has had not the attention it requires. the lobbyist -- the audit staff did provide the recommendations to me last january, at the end of january. and then we quickly found ourselves in february and march in the pandemic. this is not offered as an excuse. it is offered as a description of the kind of tradeoff that i made during the course of the past year, given the work that we have, given the staffing resources we've had to do it. a number of us on the staff wear many hats. that's a particularly difficult challenge to make sure that we are focusing at all times at 100% on every program that we have. it simply has not been possible. that said it is on my desk and it is in my inbox. and it is on our staff performance goals, including mine, to get that audit up and running this year. so that is where we stand with it. >> chair mar: thank you.

direct pelham, that's good to hear. supervisor peskin, did you have some questio questions? supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: no. i didn't have any specific questions. i appreciate your questions and thank you for this audit. and i appreciate, director, your commitment to seeing through these recommendations. and obviously it's connected to making sure the staffing is there and the funding is there. and i appreciated your answers to supervisor mar's question. it's obviously been a challenging time. and i think i actually worked with some of your staff when i was in disaster service worker. i know they've been deployed in various ways. you haven't been fully staffed. i appreciate your work and the work of the b.l.a. in putting forward some really important recommendation. >> chair mar: great. actually i did have a few other questions on some of the other

findings from the b.l.a. report. yeah, just in terms of the investigation. so again i think the key finding, a long time for the investigation. concerning finding that we are opening more investigations than we're closing. every year. san diego and los angeles and the fppc. they're closing -- and they are closing more investigations than they are opening. so i guess i just wanted to maybe get a little more explanation and, ms. pelham, about this situation and then

also, likewise, the steps that the commission is taking to address this challenge. and i understand, you know, it has been related to staffing. and so i appreciate your report that it looks like you're green bay to be able to move forward and fill the key vacant position. >> yes. thank you for that question. this is a critically, critically important area of our work. and i think again every time all of us read the headlines that we do, we feel like we're sitting on a powder keg. we're not getting to issues as timely or effectively as we want to and expect to. at the same time, we're an administrative enforcement agency that does not have phone tapping or wiring authority. so, you know, we're here i think as an agency to primarily make sure that we have people understand the rules and keep far away from inadvertently or otherwise stepping over the law

and breaching the expectations of the law. at the same time, we are an office established by the voters to make sure that when there are violations of the law, that we are doing our best work to detect them timely and to resolve them with the means that we have available to us. all of us are being head accountable for our work. and also that we are find people monetarily through violations or fines that are established in the law. so, you know, over time it is a question of resources without a doubt. when i first came to the commission, there were two staff positions that were dedicated for enforcement. we've doubled that. that's essentially not enough. we need to make sure we're doing that work, as fully as we can. so we're pleased again that we have the ability to hire an investigator position, that we will be posting a job description for shortly and looking for, you know, bright, talented, committed people to

bring us to the next chapter of our effectiveness and impact for the city. but it's also about process. so by that i mean that we need to have the right processes in place, as an agency. and as a city to make sure that we're able to do the work that we can. over the past several years, our commission has revised the enforcement regulations, to make them much more sensible in our view, to make them cleaner and streamlined, to preserve better due process for individuals who might be on the receiving end. there's a respondent alleged to have violated the law. and that's critical. those kinds of processes are in place, because we need to make sure the process doesn't get us hung up unnecessarily on process. separately, we've also in this past year, with the b.l.a. report noted, the commission has established a sense of prioritization that's also in place now. that's helping us to better disseminate, distribute and resolve cases -- resolve cases in ways that make sense for what

has come through the door. making sure we're exercising and trusted to exercise our prosecutorial discretion. it's critical. so those are things and tools we're putting in place and more recently you'll be seeing from us appear coming forward by -- hopefully by the end of december, before our commission, a streamlined administrative resolution program, which will be used to channel the most routine of matters through that pipeline, so they can be resolved more timely and with less intense resources over our investigative staff. so that we can divert our vice president-elective staff resources -- our investigative staff resources with greater investigation and greater work on investigating and reviewing data and documentation and so forth. and evidence. so those are processes that are in place. that's essential that we have that. i think the other thing that we're always looking to, what processes we also need to establish in the city that are going to help ensure we are able to do our best enforcement work.

and there are some differences here, for example, than other jurisdictions about how we do our work and that structurally require us to take certain steps. and so that's also something that we need to make sure we're working with as well as we can to be resolving cases and investigating those quickly as we can with the resources that we have. so both staffing and resources -- and process and lastly it, of course, speaks to the ability of the laws as well. are the laws written in a way that enable us to enforce them. that's something that's also part of the work that we're doing, to make sure when our commission is engaging the public and your offices and trying to shape policy and best way possible, it's forefront at our mind. 124 going to be a workable and enforceable solution to the problem that we see. if it's not, it risks becoming only window dressing and that's not what any of us are here to spend our time on. it's a multi-pronged approach and many factors that influence how well we can do enforcement. with the hiring of the staff,

the commitment to the training that we expect to see, again resources permitting, our training budget was cut. we know a lot of online resources and partners out there that we can work with. i think we're -- you know, we know that we have better work ahead of us and i look forward to being able to report back to you and the public on that. >> chair mar: thank you. thank you for that, director pelham. i just wanted to drill down on this a little bit. i know in many cases a complaint of ethics violations are filed in the heat of campaigns that are happening. and it can be very frustrating to -- for the complainant to see that. there's no action or even response from the commission in a timely way. i mean, i think the report states that the ethics complaints take on average six months to initially preliminarily review. and according to the

ffpc website, it has a mandate to conduct a preliminary review of all formal complaints within 14 days. and then will inform the complainant how it intends to proceed with the complaint and whether it will open a formal investigation or dismiss it. so i just wanted to ask what -- more specifically around the initial review and a response to the complainant, what needs to happen to ensure that the ethics commission can also do a timely and hopefully 14-danish re-- 14-day initial review while the witness complaints are fresh. and would this require legislation or a change to the city charter. and if so, what would need to change? >> no. to do a preliminary review of a matter, i don't think it requires legislation or charter change.

it's instructive to be informed by other practices of other agencies and our peer agencies have. i am extremely hesitant to try and put a guarantee that we will do something within seven days or 14 days. i don't want to over promise in a way we can't deliver. at the same time, we are establishing a process where we have internal round tables, where we review those matters and that they can be reprioritized over time with greater frequency. so i think the goal of being able to get our hands on though the matters, to make sure something is there, not there, move it further down the pipeline, is something that's at the top of our enforcement staff minds. and they're working in that direction. so i think the issue, as to when we communicate and how we communicate with somebody who might have complained to us, for all agencies that i've been familiar with, this is always one of those very difficult and delicate areas. we're trying to also -- we want to make sure we're balancing appropriate responsiveness to the person that's taken the time

to bring a matter to our attention. it speaks to -- thank you for taking the time. we take every complaint we receive seriously. with the same notion that, as you pointed out, many complaints can often come in during an election cycle. we want to try to make sure we're not being used or inadvertently used as a political football. we also have a responsibility to protect reputations of individuals, who may be the subject of an investigation or the subject of some preliminary inquiry. confirming the way we're going about handling those marts south carolina something -- those matters has to be handled with an appreciation of confidentiality requirements that we have under the charter. you know, i think -- can we do a different type of approach to acknowledging complaints and giving some indication of the general process and path that they follow? absolutely. i think that's something that we're always sort of raging, you know, debating in a raging way in our office on a regular basis. but i think that is the goal

that we're trying to preserve is making sure that we are, you know, responsive and at the same time protective of essentially the innocence of somebody, who simply being reviewed, may not mean that they are actually have violated the law. we're trying to balance those policy there is. clearly it's at the top of our mind to prioritize these matters for a quicker review and will be able to report back on i think progress in that area over the coming year. >> chair mar: great. thanks. thank you, director pelham. i just had final questions about the -- about the one final area of the b.l.a. report. the findings around -- again the long delay in investigating whistleblower complaint, retaliation. allegations actually maybe my questions are more directed to the b.l.a. around that. i don't know if you had,

director pelham, if you had any further response to that, those findings. it's just taking the ethics commission a very long time, to the point where it undermines even the investigation of these allegations of retaliation against whistleblower complainants. >> thank you. that is an area that we have am great -- a heightened sensitivity and concern about. and by that i mean that we know and we are putting practices in place to prioritize our ability to get to those matters sooner than we potentially have. because we do know that the only way people are going to bring matters to us, if they take seriously our ability to respond timely and to respond fully to those kinds of allegations. and it's important that whistleblowers, people who feel that they have been retaliated against, because of bringing forward a complaint or allegation of wrongdoing in the city, that those individuals need to know that they have a place to go. i know they have a place to go in other offices in the city as

well. our office certainly has a role to play in that. the proof will be in the pudding in terms of how people know that they're being responded to and how quickly they're being responded to. in those cases we fully appreciate that there are a unique set of circumstances. a unique set of laws that apply to that and the specialty training that the b.l.a. report highlighted and something we're trying to find and secure, to support our staff and onboard new staff as they come in. those are areas very much on our minds, that we need to do our job and do it in a better way for the city to make sure the people feel comfortable coming forward when they have concerns about wrongdoing. it's critical to be on top of that. >> chair mar: thank you. yeah. just on this topics i did have a question for ms. malhut and the b.l.a.'s office. and, you know, i was just wondering is it common -- i know you surveyed other cities,

ethics, comparable ethics commission work. is it common in other jurisdictions to have the ethics commission investigate cases of whistleblower retaliation or, you know, since these cases are grounded more in employment law, is it more typical to have them investigated by the department of human resources or the whistleblower program oversight department. >> you know, we actually did find that it's kind of all over the map. you are correct in that in some cases we did find that they did have their human resources conduct these investigations, because, you know, they do relate more to employment law and civil service processes. i think we also saw in some other jurisdictions that it was handled by maybe the city auditor. and at least one example, i can't remember off the top of my head, it's still handled by the ethics commission. i think you're right. it is -- it's not necessarily like a neat fit with the ethics

commission. but they're not -- it's not the only ethics commission that does handle these investigations. >> chair mar: got it. and, you know, i appreciate the recommendation of additional training for the ethics commission staff that handle these particular types of investigations. and also director pelham's commitment to following that recommendation. i was just wondering if you considered recommending an actual jurisdictional change for these kinds of investigations, given that, you know, they're quite different than the campaign or the other types of investigations that the ethics commission does. and if you -- if you did consider it, i guess i was wondering and interested in knowing why you decided against that recommendation. more of a jurisdictional change. >> you know, we did think about

it. you know, we were looking at i guess the e.e.o. office, as well as perhaps the controller's office, whistleblower program. they do receive the majority of the whistleblower complaints. although the ethics commission could receive some, if they relate to the laws under their purview. we just didn't really have strong enough evidence to justify making that switch. 200 -- it would be a big changed certainly something that could be considered. we didn't really feel like we had a strong enough argument to recommend making a change. i don't know if you have anything to add? >> no. i think that's correct. we had a lot of internal discussion and thought that, you know, one of the things to be looked at is simply implementing the recommendations that we did make, in terms of training, prioritization of these cases and, of course, as always the staffing issue.

and that could, in fact, be the answer to the problem, rather than making a more significant recommendation in terms of transferring the function. >> chair mar: thank you. i don't have the report in front of me. can you remind me how many of these types of complaints and investigations -- these are alleged retaliation against whistleblowers. like how many have happened? >> you know, i think over the period of our review, which was 2017 to 2019, there were 34 complaints. and i would just say you can, you know, most of those were discussed during a preliminary review. and some -- let's see. the total of seven resulted in a

formal investigation being opened. but an additional eight were still pending, as of the time of our review. >> chair mar: thank you. great. i don't have any other questions. i want to thank you. the b.l.a.'s office for all of your work on this audit and, of course, to director pelham and the ethics commission for all of your incredibly important work. and look forward to, you know, seeing some change -- some improvements, you know, to the ethics commission's work, you know, following the recommendations from the audit. colleagues, do you have any questions or remarks before we go to public comment? great. all right. why don't we go to public comment on this item. mr. clerk, are there any callers on the line? >> clerk: thank you, mr. their. mr. coup, please let us know if we have any callers that are

ready. for those who have already connected to the meeting via phone, press star followed by 3 to speak for the item. for those on hold, continue to wait until prompted to begin. you'll hear a prompt that informs you the line has been unmuted. for those watching our meeting on cable channel 26 or streaming link through sfgovtv.org, if you wish to speak on this hearing, please call in by following the instructions displaying on the screen. that would be by dialing (415)655-0001. when prompted, then by entering the meeting i.d. of 146 195 2214. followed by the pound symbol, which you'll press twice. then press star followed by 3 to enter the queue to speak. mr. coup, could you connect us to our first caller. >> operator: mr. chair, we have no callers in the queue. >> chair mar: thank you, operations. public comment is now closed.

colleagues, i'd like to move that we file this hearing. >> clerk: on the motion offered by chair mar that the hearing has been moved and heard. vice chair peskin. >> supervisor peskin:. >> supervisor peskin: aye. >> clerk: member haney. >> supervisor haney: aye. >> clerk: chair mar. >> chair mar: aye. >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chair mar: thank you, mr. clerk. can you please call items 11-19 for closed session. >> clerk: agenda item 11. the lawsuit filed by penny mims. agenda items 12-19 are six ordinances and two resolutions settling various lawsuits and unlit gated claims against the city. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on the litigation agenda should call the public comment number now.

the number is (415)655-0001. enter the meeting i'd -- i.d. for today's meeting. press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting. and then press the star key followed by the number three to entear the queue to speak. please wait until the system indicates you've been unmuted, that's your opportunity to begin your comments on the litigation agenda. mr. chair. >> chair mar: thank you, mr. clerk. let's open up public comment for these items. >> clerk: mr. coup, could you let us know if we have any callers. >> operator: mr. chair, we have no callers in the queue. >> chair mar: great. thank you. public comment is now closed. and on the motion to convene in closed session, mr. clerk, can you please call roll. >> clerk: on the motion to convene in closed session, vice chair peskin.

>> supervisor peskin: aye. >> clerk: member haney. >> supervisor haney: aye. >> clerk: chair mar. >> chair mar: aye. >> clerk: mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> chair mar: great. thank you. we'll now convene in 19, 2020 committee meeting. during the closed session deliberations, the committee acted unanimously to recommend all of the litigation items to the board of supervisors for consideration on december 1st. >> thank you, mr. clerk. on the motion to not disclose the closed session discussions, can you please call roll? >> on the motion that the closed session discussions not be disclosed. peskin aye. haney aye. mar aye.

mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> thank you, mr. clerk. is there any further business? >> there is no further business before the committee. >> great, we're adjourned. take care, everyone.

>> this is a meeting of the recreation and park commission. would the secretary please call the roll? [roll call] >> this is the recreation and park commission meeting of november 19, 2020. please note that due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect board members, city employees and the public, the meeting rooms at city hall are closed. however, commissioners are participating in this meeting remotedly at the same extent