want to have these discussions in a fashion-the reason the consultant dollars wers were woh edgar, we want tutor to prove to us that we owe them money. we want to take a hard look at the billings and time sheets and all the document dollars. we knodocuments.we know we're gy to the contractor. we can settle quickly for things that we know we owe or negotiate a little harder where we think we have a stronger position than the contractor does. >> one of your answers gave me a

another question. that is the completion date. what is your level of confidence with spring of next year. >> i would say 90%. you should never be 100% confident that-there's always some unnor see unforseen thing n happen. we're buttoning things up talking to the contractor about-checking all the tasks that need to get done so we're able to hit that date. >> do you have any sense that the contractor is delaying strategically or are they just trying to get it done as fast as you want it done. >> i don't know. i hate to speak to their motivations.

i think we've reached the point where it's in everyone's interest to finish the project. we're on the schedule that we have right now. there's no way they can make money by dragging this out. that's what can i say. >> thank you. >> i just have two remaining questions. one is from a project management standpoint, it seems interesting and maybe challenging that we would ask for six hundred seventy one change orders of what would be a sense of the budget implications of those change orders. it would seem like you would want to know instead of just

letting those pile up what those implications. the budget is going to go where it's going to go. can you help us understand the thinking and strategy there. >> that's a really good oferti d observation director. we've allowed tutor to go ahead with change orders. letting that go for as long as it has, i think in retrospect in coming to you more often with those changes and-i shouldn't say realtime but more frequently and not letting six hundred plus changes buildup. one thing we did starting last

fall was reinstitute a management board where there was a more formal process where the various stake holders and agreeing to a price. there's a internal paper trail we can count on. some of the changes in this omnibus. we could have been doing that much sooner. >> yeah. i know those weren't your calls tom. i know that you've been picking up a lot of the pieces here. it does some like some interval or threshold whether it's every year or hundred change orders would make sense. not necessarily bring to the board but have a sense of what kind of budget we're ringing up. procedurally if we do not

approve this settled amount today and you have to go back to tutor and say no, this doesn't seem like a great deal for us. can you help us understand then what would be your next move? does that set us all back. i feel like we have to explore that pathway a little bit. >> there's the working relationship part of it and legal part of it. from a working relationship part of it it would be pretty tough because the process edgar described was a pretty good faith negotiation negotiations . we were able to bring their initial number down. more importantly we were able to see into their books and fronsic nforensics in a way we weren't able to see again. it would be tough for us to go

back to that table without approval. from a legal point of view, like i said, this has been building up for so long, i want to be careful i don't play lawyer here. we acknowledge a pretty serious liability in public. it doesn't seem like a good idea-that would create liabilities as we get into final settlement or lawsuit down the road. >> okay. thank you.

>> we will go to public comment. since we have no commenters on the line. do i have a motion or is there further discussion? >> motion to approve. >> second. >> nobody i think relishes in approving this especially since we don't know what's down the pipe. we've been down this path it feels like forever. i just want this project to be over with. >> i think even amongst all of my frustration and my sharing of my thoughts around the best practices problems here, i do recognize and actually really appreciate staff's approach in

at least splitting out the omnibus number one where we have clear evidence that this is clear work that has been done and i do in this case feel the confidence that we owe teudor tr this amount that has been negotiated. i have broader problem with how we got to this place. with that i'm ready to vote on it. thank you. kr >> i agree with you. i appreciate everybody taking so much time and effort and really digging into this. i'm encouraged by the fact that i believe at the board meeting before we talked about changing the way we award these large construction projects. changing the way we do the change orders.

changing the way we award these large construction projects and taking an experience like this and history with a big contractor into account when we do that. i just want to make sure as we go through this and move onto the next large project whoever is on the board, whoever is in charge-it's hard when there's turn over, a company they are pretty good at what they do. i'm happy to support this at this point. >> great. with that it looks like if there are no further comments. >> i do. it it's a new hand.

you should expect them in developing your cost estimate. i do feel for tom and for others who are i think dealing with the af imaginaaftermath of dealing a design that was never going to be able to be pulled off. i think this is the third or

fourth batch of change orders that i've seen on the board with the central subway project. each time i was asking for an estimate for the cost to complete. we only got them in closed session which as i understand a way to deal with legal business. that cuts the public out. and if you're going to learn your lesson, we don't need to wait for the next project. we need to dlsthere was not neah transparency in how it was going. that's a mistake we can fix right now. we've gone a long ways doing it simply by serving the numbers that tom gave us today. we have our work cut out for us getting the rest of the costs

settled for us and raidin raisie money to pay for the project that was built. i hope today as i'm comfortable as it is, it's a good chance to start again and see if we can end this project a little better than we began it. >> all right. thank you. it looks like you had something to add. >> yes. thank you for the specific comments. i do want to thank you for noticing that this is a bigger mile stone. and that this project was not cut out for success. i in fact am very proud of the staff team for turning this project around at only 15% over budget. i would like to go hear who inherited this from two previous

project manager. i would like to thank edgar lopez for leading tough but fair negotiations. i want to thank tom who has helped to turn things around by keeping everyone coordinated as well as documenting the lessons learn. we've learned a lot of lessons. early in 2021. when i talked to you about how we applied to many lessons. we've tried hard to learn these tough lessons and will be prepared in the coming months being smarter of how we procure projects from the beginning and provide risks between ourselves

and our construction contractors. >> did you have a final comment that you wanted to add? no? okay. great. i think we have a motion and a second. can you please call the roll. >> certainly. (roll cal call). >> the item passes and we move onto the almost last item on your agenda. authorizing the director to contract number 128 1289 corridr improvement project with pedestrian monitoring services

in the amount of two million eight one thousand dollars. no time extensions and making environmental review findings. this item was extended from the previous meeting. >> i have staff here to take us through the update from our last meeting. we have peter and with us. >> good evening chair and directors. thank you. i'm going to share my screen with you.

thank you for bringing this back. i find the further information helpful and in particular the more detailed breakdown on exactly the cost estimate and how staff came about defining the costs. and i know that there was a little bit of confusion over the numbers last time, so this

definitely will clear it up for me. i did have a question about your overall contingency which compared to the last item, this project had a much more i think normal contingency plan. so in the $19.2 million that you're citing as the remaining balance after we settle this particular change, what is staff's current anticipation around any future unexpected costs or any other change orders that we might have to face? i think that similar to my question in the last item, the bottom line question for me is really is staff feeling like we're on budget, and if not, what do we expect to be over budget by?

>> so we've been tracking -- and this change was among them, we have been tracking a number of possible requests by the contractor or change order requests by the contractor. moving along. we are very close to exceeding the contingency. the construction management staff, as i said, has been tracking the changes that are possibly in the pipeline. and the main item and this goes back a little bit of what was discussed for central subway, is the m.t.a. and the construction

have been working on kind of a catch-all omnibus. walsh gave us their official number a few weeks back which we think of course is too high. and we are reviewing it. so follow we get that change, i would have said that change order request, i would have said that we were going to finish within the contingency. now it's going to depend to some extent on what the final value of that true u shore up or the p change is. now by approving this change

now, for example, walsh has a chunk of money in that overall true-up for pedestrian monitors. and this contract mod as i said saves $4 million over walsh's initial claim and that will be removed from the true-up because that item will be settled. but according to walsh construction, there's about $50 million in unsettled true-ups out there that we are currently working our way through. >> great. are there any other questions? iit looks like that's the only hand that i had up. and being that there's no other questions i will open it up for public comment at this time. moderator -- >> you have one question

remaining. >> caller, are you on the line? >> caller: hi, yes, my name is gloria berry and i was listening to the one board member who mentioned transparency to provide transparency tow the public. whether it's in regard to the central subway or to the street project. and i'm not really involved with these matters, but just a simple google search of walsh construction company has raised some concerns to me, especially since this is the year of corruption in san francisco. i would be interested in tabling this matter until one of you have took the time and due diligence to contact the f.b.i. to see if anyone has been involved with any kickbacks or fraud with it comes to this company. i see that they're not part of the better business bureau. i see they've had liability in

the st. louis bay bridge collapse. i see they had another employee sentenced to prison for corruption and kickbacks and fraud. so i would be very interested in that being done and then a simple solution to pedestrian monitoring, with the city developers received $25 million from the city to provide these same type of jobs to black people in san francisco, specifically bayview hunter's point. so in the interest of equity i would really recommend other avenues of money that's already been received by the city to fulfill jobs for people and to get with the office of racial equity to be see if that could be done. >> thank you for your comment. thank you. are there other any additional commenters on the line?

>> you have zero questions remaining. >> with that we'll close public comment. i just clarify that walsh is already our contractor, not a new contractor that we're hiring for this project. but i think that the point is well taken about exploring other community groups to do this kind of monitoring for us in the future. i guess just a question to you -- part of this project probably had required some l.b. components. i know that it's a big project. can you talk about what the l.b. component that is associated with this portion of that project? >> there is -- or there are -- s.p. and l.b. components. rather than trying to give percentages off the top of my head because they vary on the principle, and the one that i do remember off the top of my head is 100% of the trucking on the

project has to go to disadvantaged businesses. and so -- but it varies by trade and by -- it varies by trade on the project with the percentages that were set. and i can come back or we can provide that information broken down in extreme detail and walsh's compliance with. it because i know that our office or our contract compliance meets with them on a regular basis and we review their paperwork to ensure that they're meeting their goals before we send out monthly pay apps. >> great. and in terms of other -- again, just we don't have any reason to believe that there's any issues or we haven't had any issues that are related to some of the

other issues going on in the city that we're relat aware of d to this contractor? >> no, nothing like that has come up as far as i know on this project. >> thank you. directors, any other questions or comments or a desire to just make a motion? do i see -- director lai, your hand is up. >> thank you. to follow up on the public comment, peter. could you explain a little bit about the scope, because my understanding is that it was already envisioned as part of the contractor's scope to begin with. the change in front of us is really just -- we realized after we started the project that we needed more of that service than was initially scoped. and can you talk about it in

context of maybe some other department projects, because, i mean, for example, i had a bunch of p.c. related work, and they had flaggers on both sides of an intersection. it seems that they were folks from the contractor i suppose to a third party. so maybe just educate us a little bit about the complexity of maybe bringing on a separate entity to take on that work and what tradeoffs there are. >> sure. well, as i said, the contractor entirely responsible and we could -- if we had foreseen the need, we might have approached it differently. the -- the specifications for the flaggers are fairly standard across the city agencies. this project has public works, p.u.c., and sfmta components to it. and the specifications were

pulled together by the three city departments. under certain circumstances, particularly when working in crosswalks, and the contractor was making at least one flagger for each crosswalk that is closed whose sole job is to control the pedestrian traffic. in addition to that, there are other flaggers on the site. there are flaggers that are specifically responsible for moving the vehicles such as trucks or backhoes in and out of the construction site. and possibly depending on the traffic control set-up, the flaggers for moving private cars around the construction site. so depending what work was going on you could have three, four, five flaggers working that particular portion of the construction site. as i said in the presentation, the pedestrian traffic at times got to be so heavy that people

were ignoring the barriers that were put up and the flaggers that were out there were insufficient to keep people from wandering into the construction site. the contractor put out the additional staff that they needed to keep the site safe, but then wanted to be compensated for it. and that led to discussions and discussions with the city. okay, how do we best pay for this work and best get the additional staff that ar is nee? and the main difference between the pedestrian monitors is the level of experience. in order to work on a city project a flagger has to have a year's worth of experience working on other construction projects. and the pedestrian monitor can be fresh out of the union hall just having gone through the flagger training course.

so there's a difference in the level of experience and that's why one has to supervise the other. and it was determined that because of the biggest challenge was pedestrians, we would use pedestrian monitors, and that's how we reached this point. the contractor was meeting the letter of the contract. they needed to put in more effort than originally anticipated by either the contractor or us, and we agreed that we needed more bodies out there and this is the best way to provide them, to meet everybody's requirements. >> thank you for that. are there any additional questions or is anyone going to make a motion? >> i'll move. >> second. >> great. okay. secretary, will you please call the roll.

>> clerk: certainly. [roll call] the item passes and we move on to item 17 on the agenda, discussion pursuant to code 67.10b as to whether to invoke the attorney-client privilege for closed session for counsel. >> so we will open up to public comment. any member of the public wish to comment on evoking our attorney-client privilege and going into closed session? moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> you have one question remaining. >> great. all right. our commenter? >> caller: can you hear me now? >> yes, we can, mr. tropel. >> caller: still alive. never mind. so this closed session under

item 3 under closed session, i believe that is correct. it is properly calendared as a 5497-67.10b, closed session to discuss the director's performance evaluation, but item 17, i think that reference is inapplicable. i don't believe that this involves the attorney-client privilege and this does not involve legal counsel. there's no pending litigation. so the reference to 67.10d i believe is misplaced. this was a similar comment to what i mentioned two weeks ago. so in the future if we could really be careful on which references to the government code and the admin code are applicable, because it depends on what's happening in closed session, it's not a standard template. maybe i should go to law school in my spare time. all right, thank you very much. happy new year. >> thank you. thank you very much for that.

and any additional callers on the line? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> okay, so with that we close public comment. directors, is there a motion? >> motion to go to closed session. >> second. >> secretary, can you please call the roll. >> clerk: [roll call] okay. >> we will recess -- >> we will >> reconvening from our closed second. can you call the next item? >> clerk: announcement of closed session. >> the board met in closed session to discuss the

employment employee evaluation of the director of transportation. and then item 19 is the motion to not disclose the information discussed in closed session. do we have a motion? >> second. >> clerk: (roll call). >> okay. the item passes and that concludes the business before you today. i adjourn the meeting. have a great holiday. >> have a great holiday. >> good night all. >> see you.

>> this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please mute yourself if you're not speaking. the first item on the agenda is roll call. president mccarthy... [roll call] >> clerk: we have a quorum. and the next item is item 2.

president's announcement. >> president mccarthy: good morning, and welcome, everybody, to the building inspection commission meeting, december 2020. sonya, can everyone hear me? doing a sound check, okay, good. i'm the president of the building inspection commission and i am joined today by my fellow commission members along with the director patrick o'riordan and the senior d.b.i. staff. as reported recently by mayor breed and public health directive, the city is unfortunately experiencing another increase in covid cases and hospitalizations. resulting in more restrictive city-wide measures. that will hopefully once again successfully reduce the pandemic infections and the hospitalizations. covid-19 remains active in our community even though yet we now have a federal, state approvals of vaccines and thus yet there

is definitely light at the end of the nearly year-long covid of pain and loss. until the vaccine production and distribution are more advanced, i continue to urgently ask the customers and the public to support our ongoing need to follow all health protocols. which remain essential for the public health and safety. it is essentially important for our customers to follow protocols when they come to 49 south van ness to drop plans or apply for non-planned permits on. behalf of the commission i thank all of our customers in advance for their diligence and ongoing support and, again, i thank d.b.i. leadership and staff for their ongoing heroic work during this complicated and still threatening circumstances. i also want to respond to the

arts guild in the chronicle titled "san francisco building department is a mess." not only was i frustrated with such an infactually in my opinion incorrect piece, but i also felt for the employees who have overcome so much in these difficult times. i wanted to address inaccuracies in the article and correct the record. we all know some changes have -- we all know that some charges have been filed against high-profile department heads but they were from other departments. no one name or face defines our department. the -- excuse me, the mission was mentioned yet again, and despite the fact that the records show that d.b.i. performed well. this permit set in planning for eight months and is currently

right now under review by the department of public health. while these delays are very unfortunate, this is not a building department issue contrary to the quotes in the article. d.b.i. does not have -- does have -- excuse me -- does have an online system. our system allows anyone to check on the status of any plan checking permit or complaint online. the article uses an example and when i looked into it further i discovered that there was a notice of violation for working without a permit. this work was triggered -- this work triggered a.d.a. standards which are hard -- really hard -- for small merchants to comply with. these are not d.b.i. standards, these are federal standards. in recent weeks i have watched the board of supervisor sub-committee hearings and listened to the conversations about prohibiting permit

expediters. while i agree with much of what they are trying to accomplish, i respectfully disagree with the directions that they are going about it. >> we lost you there, we can't hear you. >> president mccarthy: the building -- can you hear me guys still? yeah? can you still hear me? >> yeah. >> president mccarthy: the state building code -- let me start here -- the permit process is complicated. the state building code has over 6,000 pages. and in addition the san francisco amendments add another 1,000 pages. each year our approval process has become more and more entangled with complexity by our legislative body trying to respond to our ever evolving

society and needs. it was only a few weeks ago that the all electric building legislation was passed. this new law will bring with it an array of new challenges for both the department and our customers, but as a city that holds itself to high values, this department must move forward and adapt to meet the needs of customers who will face these new complexitys and challenges. these complex codes, while some hire permit expediters, but the process needs to stay open, transparent and accessible to the general people who choose not to hire an expediter. i feel very strongly that we can do more to achieve this goal. i was hoping that we would have had this conversation back in march, but, unfortunately, it has been all hands on deck in the department with

covid-related issues. at some point in 2021, when we get through covid, i would like this department to present a report to the commission about ways to improve the user experience and provide as much transparency on the permitting process as possible. a few examples -- and i want to stress that i'm open to any and others are -- a plan to create a d.b.i. as a concierge program to provide the public with the same advantages as those who hire permit expediters. a team to assist and explain the nuances of plan checking to those who need assistance. i would also like to have a liaison to attend the weekly planning commission to help to explain building department codes and policies and identify conflicts between building codes and planning codes.

we are also in the midst of developing a new process whereby those who have previously violated permit laws in the past undergo rigorous plan check review process. i also think that we should implement a strong media presence to educate and to inform the public with what we do and help to break down the negative perceptions. i recommend that the management assign a liaison who would reach out to every board supervisor for routine updates so we can keep the lines of communication open and transparent between our services and our customers. and, finally, we need to revisit, restart, and reengage on finding a better online system where the other system failed us. 2020 has been remarkably tough

year for all san franciscans. we have an opportunity to use 2021 to do better. let's embrace what we have learned and improve on our weaknesses. madam secretary, that concludes my president's announcements. >> clerk: thank you. is there any public comment on the president's announcements? >> there is one public comment. >> clerk: okay. then on the president's -- just one moment. >> hello, henry? >> caller: yes. >> you're unmuted. go ahead. >> caller: okay, great, thanks, thank you. good morning, commissioners.

my name is henry camilois, a caster of d.b.i. for over 45 years. through this year the interim director o'riordan took over the reins of d.b.i. faced of the challenge of moving to a new building. in no time we were hit with covid and that was really making it difficult to keep issuing permits on the calendar. however, thanks to the interim director o'riordan, the assistant director and everyone at d.b.i., the process continues as best as it can considering the circumstances and, yes, it has been a struggle. recently an article came out in "the chronicle" about a past member -- of not only the planning commission -- but also the building inspection commissioner that had wanted to build a gazebo in the backyard. she was claiming to get a permit from d.b.i. i'm appalled and i find it difficult to believe that she was unaware what the process was.

and yet she could have built a gazebo not exceeding 100 square feet and eight feet without a permit. d.b.i. is absurd, and the permit is sending out invitations for appointments (indiscernible), however, once an application is filed it seems to languish. i don't know if it's done as a team or not, but the agenda should be prioritized and it would be good to have a team that does just that. interestingly, i'm finding the planning and processing of applications in a matter of days and from d.b.i. i'm told that it's three months if i even get a response to an inquiry. lastly, thank you president mccarthy, for the extraordinary presentation. you are right on. this process is getting so complex, it's hard for us -- even architects to go in and

process a permit, no matter which department you want to go to. i have been doing this for many, many years. i remember the days where, you know, you could walk in and it was really, really simple. no longer. thank you once again for allowing me the chance to speak to you and i wish you all a happy holiday. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, henry, for your comments. next speaker, if there is one. >> there are no more speakers in the queue. >> clerk: our next item is item 3, general public comment. the b.i.c. will take comments on matters that are in the public jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. there looks like there is one person with their hand raised. john?

>> you're unmuted, caller. >> clerk: all right, thank you. >> caller: hi there, my name is moisa garcia, and i live on van ness and i am calling to express deep frustration with your housing inspection services. i feel that only until a matter is risen to management level or to your level am i actually ever heard. i filed a complaint in july about some very dangerous entry stairs to my unit. and i only ever heard back from an inspector a month later after i emailed the various department heads and the head of d.b.i. and even though i have been in contact with your department and inspector, i filed a complaint on october 28th for a variety of things that are happening inside my unit. i heard back on november 9th about scheduling something, and i didn't hear back until november 23rd about having an

on-site inspection that you felt that was necessary. and now it's been three weeks and i have not heard back at all from a housing inspector that i have been in contact with for months. this is ridiculous. we're living -- we're living in a pandemic and i'm constantly home as well as my housemates, and it seems that this department doesn't even care about what the conditions are of this unit. and i would really like to hear back from someone as soon as possible. thank you. >> president mccarthy: could you state your name. moises garcia, 1457 van ness, 94100. >> president mccarthy: thank you for that, mr. garcia. >> one more caller is in the queue.

>> president mccarthy: sonya? next item, sonya. >> clerk: i forgot to unmute myself. 4a is commissioner's questions and matters. inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices and procedures, which are of interest to the commission. >> we will go through the normal way. vice president sam moss? >> vice-president moss: no, i'm okay right now. we can keep going. >> president mccarthy: thank you, vice president. commissioner alexander-tut please. >> commissioner alexander-tut: yes, i have a question somewhat regarding what -- (indiscernible) so let me know

if this is -- anyway, let me know if this is inappropriate, but around a better forum for this, but i was curious also regarding the article -- is somebody who is -- whoever it is, i don't care if they're on this commission, but someone who is not a professional who works in d.b.i. all the time, is there a place where people can go and say do i need a permit instead of having to hire somebody to make that assessment for them? does that exist? >> so, you know, in anticipation and i do get the question. so what i would recommend is that in the next item 3, commissioner alexander-tut, that you give it some thought and we'll calendar something in january that we could address and talk to those questions for you. and if there's anything else that you want to add in there, we can make it a line item to kind of, you know, to address pretty much what was discussed

in that act and so on. because i know that we have a lot of questions as commissioners on it. so i'm quite okay, if that works for you, i'm totally okay. >> commissioner alexander-tut: that works for me and having this as an agenda item and hearing public comment on it and being able to ask questions because as commissioners we want to have, you know, to be able to answer questions as well and to understand, so i appreciate that as an agenda item. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. >> president mccarthy: next commissioner is commissioner kevin clinch. >> commissioner clinch: nothing, thank you. >> clerk: commissioner jacobo. >> commissioner jacobo: thank you for those comments on the article and i look forward to working on this in 2021 and finding solutions to be more efficient and more transparent, i think that this ties into what the commissioner alexander-tut also mentioned just about

simplifying some things and making it very obvious and accessible to people that otherwise might not have the ability to do this. i think that is a benefit, not just for the department, but i think that it would be a benefit for the average san franciscan to be able to get through that. so that's just kind of a general comment. and secondly, there's something that i wanted to bring up that i brought up at past commissions around our departure of our prior director and the information that came out in the news and everything else. i understand that there's an ongoing investigation, or has been, but it would be very helpful i think to be able to put out the information that we can put out about what we've learned, what has happened, and what we've done to mitigate some of the improprieties that may have occurred, right? i think that this is a good service for us and i think as transparency as commissioners and i think that for the general

public to try to build this trust, and this is what we know and this is what we can say, and here's what we have done and here's where we are going. and it would behoove us to do that. we're now in december and it's been quite a number of months and i would like to see something like that in the coming year. so that's just my one piece. >> president mccarthy: perfect, thank you, commissioner. and commissioner jason tam. >> commissioner tam: and i think that commissioner alexander-tut touched on everything that i would like to find out as well. and no comment at this point. >> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioner. madam secretary, b please. >> clerk: item b, future meetings and agendas. at this time, the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspection commission.

our next regular meeting will be on january 20th, 2020. >> president mccarthy: so vice president moss, please. >> vice-president moss: you know, i want to thank you, president, and for everyone else's comments. you know, specifically with what i'd like to know is staff's thoughts on when it comes to a permit expediter. i think that it's very easy to say that we should have a system where no expediter is needed -- that is true. and -- but, you know, also the expediters have come out as president mccarthy said, you know, and just complicated legislation on top of legislation on top of legislation, both from the federal, state and the local. but i'm wondering if there's statistics on, you know, the number of times an individual has to engage an expediter or was told to engage an expediter

by the building department staff and did that to move forward, as opposed to just being able to apply for a permit and to receive it. because, to be frank, whether or not it's true, if the public feels they need to hire an expediter to accomplish anything with the department of building inspection, then it might as well be true, and we need to address that. so i'm really hoping that can specifically be an agenda item. and it can certainly be included with everything else that has been said today but i think that it does -- it does touch upon a lot of what the article is suggesting that you need to have the monetary privilege and the -- you know, the industry ability to hire these very -- i mean, the term "expediter" insinuates that other people are going to have to go slower so that you can win your race. you know, what i'd like to know is the staff's opinion on how we get to the point where everyone can simply apply and move forward? thank you. >> thank you, good comments.

>> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut maybe you can frame that based on what you are hearing? >> commissioner alexander-tut: so i think it would be helpful to have -- maybe with a regular hear ago -- on the permit process. and where the department says, you know, it kind of addresses the -- the questions that have come up as well as the use of the expediters. and the -- i think that it's always to better hear first, right, to hear from the public. and to hear those concerns. and then to be able to have

perhaps an across city department that follows that about how can we do this better. if the expediter is not needed just for d.b.i., but maybe to negotiate the different departments, maybe we need a city liaison for the departments that will provide that service and walk you through those departments. and if you don't want to do it, you can hire someone to do it, and you can hire someone to do anything that you don't want to do pretty much, but it's a necessity to functionally navigate. and if things like that already exist, some of us don't know, so the public may not know, and it would be helpful to understand, you know, what is and then, you know, what -- why are they, you know, what are the holes. i would be really be curious to find out if the expediter, like, i understand they have to register with ethics, and i think that what i'm hearing from people is that there's a series

of questions that we have that probably don't fit into one meeting. so i would either say that it's a special meeting or, like, a series of meetings -- hearings over time where we are kind of trying to address, you know -- like some of these issues but not take on the full haul in one d.b.i. sitting. i think that most of us would find that confusing because we have so many questions about expediters and so many questions about the service process and so many questions where we are going. and, you know, where we are. and i think that it would get very confusing in one sitting. so my guess is to break it up into a series. and i do want to echo that there are questions about, you know, what has happened with the previous director. and questions about internal controls around accusations of

corruption. i would love to find out that these things, you know, that we -- that all of these -- you know, we have great internal controls. i think that is something that the public wants to know as well. but, again, like, these cannot -- i believe that this covers -- even if i could sum it up in one sentence, i don't think that it's a one hearing deal. what i am hearing from people is that folks want to know -- the public really wants to know, you know, what is -- what is the way that we -- we interact on permit issues with the most efficient way to get things done. and then i don't think that the public likes to hear the blame game from within the department, right? and i think that's fair. it's also fair for us to say -- this is a d.b.i. issue, however, you know -- i know this is an ongoing issue that many people have tried to deal with, but i think that there are overall questions in the permit process

that, you know, deserve the time that it will take to actually address them. so i can't -- i can't summarize in one sentence. because i think what i'm hearing is that there's a series of questions here. it will be our work for 2021, it sounds like. >> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut, thank you. commissioner clinch. >> commissioner clinch: nothing to add. >> president mccarthy: commissioner jacobo. >> commissioner jacobo: i want to add support to the comments from commissioner alexander-tut. and call it a public information campaign, because if there is a misconception or an idea -- or a fact or something that could be made better, right, all of that rests on the fact that people may or may not have the correct information of what is being done, how it's being done, etc., right? and so i think that the first step is to kind of break through all of that and that in and of itself i think will be part of

some of these ideas. but i think that it's also a public benefit to have that transparency so folks are able to understand it. and from there it's the work of trying to make it more efficient. i mean, the transparency lends itself to the efficiency in collaboration hopefully with other departments. because it is not just d. d.b.i. here, to be clear, and there's work to do in planning and various city departments. bureaucracies are complicated and there's a lot of interweaves and at the end of the day it just impacts the average person from being able to get what they need from the city to benefit (indiscernible). so i think it's a series of meetings. i don't know how we break that out, but i'm here for it, and definitely want to commit myself to helping to do that for 2021. >> president mccarthy: thank you, thank you, commissioner jacobo. who did i miss? commissioner tam, please, sorry. >> commissioner tam: thank you,

president mccarthy. i think that all of my fellow commissioners have (indiscernible) but i actually think as well that there's some resources, and right now it's a lack of education and information for the public in some sense where, you know, there's a lot of people that don't understand the process. and maybe we should have workshops and additional resources to kind of help to guide the process. and that's why, you know, i think that some people have these expediters because they don't understand the process. if we could educate the public on how to do something or which department to go to, and maybe having an information (indiscernible) it would be something that i thought that we'd like to explore as well. so, thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioners, and i appreciate everybody's comment there is. i like where the conversation is going and i do understand the complexity of trying to do this.

so i do agree that maybe this should be done in a series of meetings to help to steer the department in this report to help to create a more user-friendly department. and i think that could be done over a series of meetings. so if you would bear with me, what i would do is to send out a potential game plan on that to the commissioners before the next meeting and you can give me your input if you think that we're going the right direction. i once again want to commend my commissioners' comments and the get done type of policy that you really would like to see in place. and, you know, the other part is the media. sometimes i find it very frustrating that they just don't do the heavy lifting and the fact checking that needs to be done and it gets tough for me over these years, and many years in this department, to read in the newspaper, you know, this blame game. and i do understand from the public's point of view as

commissioner tut's point of view that they're really not interested in whose fault it is, they want to get to the system that is in place. so i do agree with that. so with that, thank you, commissioners and i will followthrough with you on the next meeting on how we strategize and agendize. madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: okay, thank you. commissioners, please we'll have public comment on this item, it was brought to my attention that we had a couple of callers in the queue that we have missed and they were for a previous item. and also for the record, i just wanted to announce the public comment call-in number is 1-(415)-655-0001. and the access code is 146 975 9992. and to raise your hand for public comment on a specific agenda item, please press star,

3, when prompted by the operator so that you can speak. and also president mccarthy, interim director o'riordan is in attendance, so after we take care of public comment we can do our proclamation that we had for director sweeney. >> president mccarthy: perfect. as a point of order, madam secretary, the public comment that we're going to go back and listen to, is it on item 3 or 4? >> clerk: we don't know exactly but we're going to just take all of the public comment that we have at the time. >> president mccarthy: okay, thank you, madam secretary. >> clerk: all right, john, we can go ahead with that public comment. thank you. >> see if there are callers in the queue. caller, you are unmuted. >> caller: good morning. i have been observing since 2013. i need to really make an

important point here. we need to separate words from action. you know, i have listened to a lot of aggressive and sincere ideas about fixing things, yet without a detailed work plan, timeline, it's just are the rhetoric. so i would like to give you an example, if you looked at the b.i.c. meeting from february 21, 2001 there was a detailed discussion about the problem with unpermitted demolitions. and it referenced a definitive time from 1996. this stuff never gets fixed. that's why you folks have zero credibility. i also would suggest that you look at making transparency and enforcement. there's no reason that the n.o.b.s can't be on your

website. requiring people to come to your building to see -- now it really doesn't make sense in this day and age. and the last thing they would say is that many of the problems, you know, in the worln be solved with simple solutions. so why don't you guys have f.a.q.s, frequently asked questions and responses to those comments. what do i need to get, you know, and what circumstances do i need to get a permit? we don't have to have, you know, a huge committee -- i mean, common sense can fix these problems if there's the will. and i think that's the problem. the public does not see the will. thank you. >> one more caller in the queue. >> caller: good morning, commissioners. can you hear me okay?

>> yes. >> caller: great, thank you. good morning, commissioners and thank you for your time and president mccarthy thank you for yours and your comments, mr. i am kevin o'connor and i called last month about my property. i feel like i'm involved now and i want to call every month with comments. i read that article on saturday too and even though i am somewhat partial to some of the comments, agree with you very much, mr. mccarthy, that it's a little bit unfair. i want to start by saying that for the greatest part -- and not the greatest part -- but the greatest part of dedication of the staff starting with your own sonya harris, who is incredible, and multitasking and working after hours, for the most part, everyone is trying to do a really, really, really great job. when you talk about some of the issues like, you know, this new policy regarding electricity -- everything created in policy in

my opinion is for the public betterment and for the citizens of san francisco. and it is so complicated and complex. i'm not going to complain about the rules but i am going to talk to you a little bit about the inability to adjude caught all f their rules. i hate going down and having to get a single permit for every item on a major remodel. maybe one permit with addendums to that perinit and still charge the same fees and make it more streamlined. but i do want to also talk about expediters and the problem with that because i in the past have hired expediters because i was under the impression that would be a good thing, that it would be helpful. and the three expediters that i have talked to in the last six years have turned out to be criminals and they were of high standing. so how do we at the same time work efficiently with the process of d.b.i. by hiring people that you assume to be professionals, and these guys

were at that time talking the best game, and i've got to go. so i just want to speak to that, like, here we are and also, about your comments, miss tam, about liaisons, great idea too, but, okay, i have to go. thank you very much, commissioners. merry christmas. >> president mccarthy: was there a fire alarm there. >> thanks. our timer. that's the timer that we have. i thought that it was a fire alarm. >> no. sorry. >> is that new? i don't think that i have heard that before? >> clerk: it does that once it gets towards the end. towards the end of the time. >> president mccarthy: thank you for that. >> clerk: no, thank you. okay, thank you very much. all right, our next item. now we can go to our

proclamation, president mccarthy. >> president mccarthy: thank you, madam secretary, and we're taking this out of order here because our interim director had a meeting this morning and he wanted to be here. so you are here, patrick? >> yes. yes, i am. thank you. >> president mccarthy: i want to read something into the record here if i may. so on behalf of the commission, i wanted to thank and to congratulate deputy director of inspection services, ed sweeney, who is taking his well-earned retirement from the department at the end of this week i believe on december 18th. deputy director sweeney has been one of the department's leadership -- leadership pillars for more years than i can remember, and he has rendered outstanding building code, permit review and inspections and code enforcement and

professionalism throughout his career with d.b.i. and with the city and county. ed began his distinguished career nearly 22 years ago with d.b.i. on january 25th, 1999. when he -- if you could mute there, sonya -- when he joined the department at -- as a 6331 building inspector, he was promoted into a 63334 chief building inspector in november 2002. and then promoted again in august 2008 to 0953 deputy director, a position that he's held for the past 12 years. we wish him every possible success and well-earned retirement and deeply appreciate the skillsets and the expert judgments that he's provided to the customers, d.b.i. directors, the commission, and many other city review agency, staff, for

more than two decades. you will be very much missed, ed, by those of us who have benefited time and time again from your wise advice, counsel and very kind way of doing business. so with that i think that i'd like to hand it off to the interim director o'riordan for his comments, thank you. >> thank you, president mccarthy. we are here socially distancing and with masks on. and i have been very honored to present to edward this award. and as the director of inspection services and he's retiring after nearly 22 years of service to the department. i wanted to thank him for his many contributions. he's served as the lead inspector, senior building inspector, and chief building inspector and the director.

he has a deep knowledge of this department for two decades and it will be a shame to lose so much knowledge. and in his retirement we wish him well in his retirement. thank you, edward, for your service. we are envious that you're able to sleep in now and please keep in touch. i want to present you with this on behalf of the agency. thank you. [applause] >> president mccarthy: ed, can you say a few words there. you're usually never short of a few words. >> yeah, i would just like to thank everybody for almost 22 years here at d.b.i., from the directors and to the rank-and-file people, commissioners. i would like to thank everybody for the professionalism of this department and i look forward to

visiting frequently. and i won't go away. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, ed. any other commissioners, or anybody else that would like to say a few words? >> i was stepping in to say that this is also a certificate from the building department, on behalf of the commissioners. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, thank you, ed. i would like to open it up to anybody else to say a few words if there is. >> congratulations on retirement, ed. >> yeah, congratulations. get some rest. >> congratulations indeed. you will be missed and enjoy your time relaxing. >> indeed, congratulations, and thanks for welcoming the new commissioners to the team.

>> congratulations. >> president mccarthy: i think that is it, ed. thank you so much. and keep the phone on, we're going to still need some advice, okay? >> clerk: okay, thank you, guys. >> president mccarthy: we'll talk soon, okay. bye. >> clerk: great, thank you, everyone. congratulations, again, to ed. and we are on to our next item, item 5. update regarding d.b.i.'s initiatives to accelerate permit processing during the health crisis. >> hi, sonya, can i have -- can i share my screen? >> president mccarthy: good morning, christy. good morning. >> good morning.

good morning, president mccarthy and commissioners. the assistant director. i'm going to go through a quick presentation on -- with an update on our permit services. so as a reminder, we have for our current permit services we have our in-person services which are the over-the-counter permits. we issued no plans ove over-the-counter permits from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. we had averaged about 45 a day but that seems to have tapered off in the last couple weeks, i think going into the holidays things are slowing down a little bit. for our over-the-counter with plans we offer appointments for customers to drop off their plans between 9:30 and 3:30 p.m.. and i will talk a little bit about that in a later slide. and for our new in house permits and folks email us and we start

the intake process. we also have the auto generated permits that people just go online to get, the trades permits, plumbing and electrical and mechanical, boiler permits, and then the re-roofing permits that we brought online in october. and we expedite any emergency permits and we are using electronic plan review for the use with the partnership with the planning department and for the in-house permits that were submitted electronically whether we were using only d.r., and then for 100% of affordable housing and development agreement projects. and starting next month we'll be using electronic planned review for the projects that are eligible for prop h., which you may recall that is -- was recently passed by voters and speeds up the approval process for small businesses trying to

get permits to make improvements. so i want to talk about our numbers. as you recall when shelter-in-place went into effect, we were issuing and we were doing only electronic plan review and issuing about 50 permits a day that was down from the 110 permits a day that we used to issue pre-covid. and we have slowly been able to ramp that back up once we launched the curbside and we got that up to 70. and now we are issuing close to 100 a day, so we're still doing, you know, just under what we were doing pre-covid, even under these, you know, impacted circumstances. and cumulatively, since shelter-in-place, we have issued more than 34,000 permits and that includes the trace permits that people get online, as well as over-the-counter, in-house

review and all of the electronic planned review permits. so 2,300 of those were issued through electronic plan review. and then that number will continue to go up. and then we've conducted approximately 80,000 field inspections. so, you know, even with the shelter in place, and the limitations on our ability to have people come into the department, you know, we -- people have worked really hard here, the staff has, you know, just consistently shown up. and conducted the field inspections that we need to conduct and issued the permits and have really, really worked hard. so, but, you know, we're still working on addressing the permitting challenges that have come about because of the -- because of the pandemic. we have -- we're implementing technology improvements and making process improvements with the digital processing system.

and that -- the permit center recently engaged consultants to help us to work through some of those e.p.r. improvements that we need to make, especially the work flow improvements. and there's really a need -- the thing that is kind of missing is the electronic plan review is the project management function. it's not automatically built into the tool and so the consultant is going to help us to work through that and to help us to implement project management function. as well as we're still working on the integration with our permit tracking system. and we -- our m.i.s. team, our technology folks, are working -- currently working on automating the no plan kitchen and bathroom remodel permits. so that will add to the suite of auto generated permits that we offer online and so they've been working hard on that and making a lot of progress on that. we -- on the staff level, we arl

permit services administrator, sam, he started on monday, and i think that the director is going to do an introduction of him when i finish this presentation. so we're really excited for him to be on board and bring his expertise. we've also brought in just this week two more permit technicians to help in the central permit bureau issuing permits and then we have six new permit tech one positions starting later this month and they will help us with the customer service as well as to talk about more in the further slide. and those folks are still putting in a lot of overtime to make sure that we're issuing as many as possible and partners with other agencies, the fire department is managing the intake and the issuance for the fire only permits and they have been -- they've really ramped up

and they've been issuing another permit a day and the planning permit has began to use. p.r., and -- e.p.r., and we have the permit center now working with us on managing our customer service functions. and there were some customers waiting a long time to be able to come in and to we added 50% more appointments so we offered 24 and we use a wait list to bring customers in. we have moved up about 500 people into appointments that, you know, so that they could come in sooner, so the folks that maybe were two or three months out, we were able to call them and to say can you come in

next week. so every customer that we offered a new appointment to was able to come within the next three weeks and now we're proactively reaching out to customers and inviting them to come in earlier. so to make sure that if anyone is not aware that the wait list exists we are reaching out and saying that we see you have an appointment in january and do you want to come in this month. so that's something that we have been working on with the permit center and they've been doing a really great job on. for customer service, and there's customer outreach and how we are answering questions, and we had our customer service response rate fell when we were -- we were diverting staff to issuing permits because we had -- as you recall, we need more administrative staff to issue permits. so we're addressing that and

that's something that we have been actively addressing in the last few weeks and we have partnered with the permit center, and they have folks there who have a lot of customer service experience, so they're helping to manage the customer service team and they create a new system for treeaging and, you know, the requests that are coming in and assigning replies to the team. and they're managing the calendar and ensuring that there's accountability and we have started rotating some of our permit services staff back into the customer service function, which helps them -- which helps us to be able to offer folks the ability to tele-commute which is important right now when we have a surge of covid cases. and also to just help us to make sure that we're staying current on the customer service requests. and and now that they have

brought in consultants to help with e.p.r., and we have ramped up that -- that effort. and we are on friday doing -- director reardon and the chief building inspector joe duffy and others are going to be doing a customer -- hosting a customer update to -- yeah, to educate the big construction sites on how to make sure that they're complying with the health and safety restrictions and keeping people safe on construction sites. and then we've been actively reviewing our in-house review submittal permits process to make improvements, and it was mentioned earlier about creating a track for addenda and revisions to make sure that those are being processed, you know, efficiently and expeditiously. so we're really looking at improvements that we can make there to make sure that -- you know, that those permits are being efficiently processed.

and that concludes my presentation. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you. >> commissioners and president mccarthy if i might to chime in here. it's my great pleasure to introduce sam who started on monday as our chief administrative officer for permit services. sam brings more than 30 years of experience as a building official and an engineer and a plan reviewer. in addition to his professional and leadership experience, i am particularly excited for him to bring his technology leadership to the department to help to modernize and to streamline our permit services. sam has been a member of the technology and innovation committee for tabo for the past four years and has published his recommendations from how to adopt technologies to improve

building department productivity. this is exactly what we need and we're working -- as we work through, and we launch our electronic review system. sam will lead the permit services team and manage approximately 80 staff members in the division. i want to also to take this opportunity to thank dan for all of his work. he will take on a new role in managing the review intake for our in-person services. sam, would you like to say a few words? >> yes, definitely, thank you, director o'riordan for the introduction. my name is sam, and good morning, commissioner mccarthy and the commissioners. it is an honor and a privilege to join the department of building inspection team. i'm humbled by being selected to work in permit services.

(indiscernible) and working for world renowned cities and in the county of san francisco as part of my career. throughout my work at the building department, my focus has been around public service and permitting processes to work effectively and with the best customer service possible and the highest degree of professionalism. i understand your frustration and the frustration of the public, we are working diligently and exteditiousl expo make it more (indiscernible) for all members of the public. i have always advocated (indiscernible) for the department and have successfully implemented many improvements. with covid-19 we are facing unprecedented challenges, and

the need for technology in serving the public is more critical than ever before. i look forward to serving the city and county of san francisco. and i will be here if you have any questions. >> president mccarthy: thank you, thank you, mr. shory, and thank you for joining the san francisco family team. i look forward to working with you over the next years. is there any of our commissioners who would like to make a comment? may i start off with vice president moss? >> vice-president moss: no comment, thank you. >> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut? >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you, i look forward to your ideas. thank you. >> president mccarthy: commissioner clinch, please. >> commissioner clinch: mr. shory, i'm very excited by the director o'riordan's

introductions and it's very exciting with your credentials and your experience. i think that it will be really helpful to us. and, welcome, and we look forward to working with you. >> clerk: commissioner jacobo. >> commissioner jacobo: welcome, and we obviously look forward to working with you and the talent and the experience that you bring to the table. so we're excited for that. welcome. >> president mccarthy: thank you. commissioner tam, please. >> commissioner tam: welcome to the team, sam. look forward to working with you. >> president mccarthy: okay, once again, welcome, and we look forward to working with you. thank you very much for your comments. next item, madam secretary. do we -- do we have public comment? >> we have one caller in the queue. sonya, shall i unmute it?

>> president mccarthy: unmute them, yeah. >> caller -- >> caller: good morning. >> you're unmuted. >> caller: thank you. this is jerry grantler. i would encourage sam and the new planning commission members to get a copy of the 2007 business process re-engineering study that was very professionally done. and what they'll find is that many of the issues that i think that there were 180 recommendations there to be actively addressed. so i think that is a good jumping off point in terms of looking at business process. you know, there's no point in starting with a blank piece of paper. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. any more callers? >> no, there are not. >> clerk: okay, thank you.

and next item is item 6. update on the single room occupancy s.r.o. program, regarding covid-19 actions. >> hi, good morning good mornin. thanks again for prioritizing s.r.o. issues. i have an update. and inspections in s.r.o.s under the pandemic is fraught with danger for our staff. it is also dangerous just to try to live in that kind of a small room with a common shower and bathroom. the staff member that was recognized here a couple months ago, christina moy, signed on for three more months at the covid center, wearing her hazmat suit.

and forcing the clean-up order to make sure that the facilities in the s.r.o.s are clean and safe for people to use. and lots of complaints, you know, it's dicey, trying to deal with all of these issues, but there are some serious issues that we are dealing with day in and day out, and have done so this entire time since mid-march. so -- and we are working closely with the s.r.o. collaboratives, they're providing really important support for the 20,000 residents of s.r.o.s. yesterday the board of supervisors passed a new program for capping rent contributions at 30% of people's income who live in permanent supportive housing. which was an idea that sort of

originated from the programs and meetings that we participate in with s.r.o. tenants. and then there's the homeless in hotels issue that is still going on at the board of supervisors and around the city. and also the mission, we are trying to help a hotel that's got a prior issue. and street lighting for safety, for seniors who live in the tenderloin. so they can walk to their building when it's dark out, because it gets dark really early. and we concluded the annual unit

usage reporting that was done in november where every s.r.o. has to tell us how they're using their property -- i think that we're going to try to move to having a more online system for that, which will move the need to ask for assistance trying to set that up. to make that easier on all sides, so it wouldn't take us hundreds of hours to process all of the information. so it's going to conclude my update. i'm available for questions for this or any other housing issue that you may want to bring up. >> president mccarthy: commissioners, anybody that wants to weigh in? >> this is kevin clinch. i just want to say that i'm really impressed that we haven't had major breakouts, at least reporting through the media with the s.r.o.s. i think that's probably a

combination of the efforts being made by the staff, and the residents and, certainly, staff from the department enforcing things. i just think that deserves recognition and for the record i think that it is pretty remarkable given what we're seeing in the rest of the country. so hats off to you. >> thank you very much, commissioner. it really is -- well, the rest of our staff is putting in the hard work. i appreciate that. >> president mccarthy: okay. if there's no more commissioners, is there somebody else, commissioners? okay. >> commissioner alexander-tut: i just wanted to say thank you, no, go ahead. >> gratitude to the staff. and giving out there every day and making a difference and, you know, it really does make significant difference, so kudos to you all for going through this process.

>> thank you very much, commissioners. >> president mccarthy: okay. with that, if there's public comment, is that correct, madam secretary? >> there's one caller in the queue. caller, you are unmuted. >> caller: oh, thank you. i would like to know why we -- you know, we have the transparency like with san francisco.building i.com. you used to see on there who did all of the permitting, you know, from the intake to the end, and who did all of of the inspections. now when you go on there, it -- it routes you to -- it won't pull it all up. it routes you to the d.b.i. website. and then when you try to log on to that, then it says "records unavailable." you know, in red letters.

technical, you know, difficulty. this has been reported to d.b.i. so rather than transparency that, you know, we're supposed to be seeing, you know, we're covering up stuff. i would like to, you know, to have an explanation for, you know, why that is happening. i mean, it seems to be more obfiscation rather than transparency. can i get any feedback on that from anybody? >> clerk: sorry, sir, we're not allowed to respond to the public comment. but the staff can look into your inquiry at a later date. >> caller: okay, thank you. >> clerk: thank you. any additional public comments? >> no, there's not -- oh, sorry, there's one more caller.

>> clerk: okay. >> wait, sorry. there it is. >> caller: okay, commissioners, henry. i just wanted with what the last speaker said -- no, the p.t.s. does work pretty good. it happens so every often, but on the whole you can track permits, you can track inspections and you can track complaints. you can get some of the stuff -- you can't get some stuff from housing but, honestly, i think that our system is pretty good. i wanted to say thank you to christina moy who i have done a number of inspections with, she's been great. and the other person who is really cool at housing is matt ruden. he gets here when i go in and have to be signed off by housing, he gets right on it. great job, thank you, guys, i appreciate it. and i think that everybody in

the s.r.o. appreciates it also. so that's my two cents. thank you. >> thank you, caller. >> president mccarthy: madam secretary, anymore? >> clerk: i thank you. we are checking on that right now. just one moment, we are checking. there may be one more person. >> caller: hi there, good morning again commissioners. can you hear me? >> clerk: hi. hello, caller, we can hear you. have you called previously? >> caller: yeah, yeah, but i wanted to comment, like i heard today too is that both what that gentleman asked as far as the r.i.p. for all people to do the -- and those other comments they are easily found on your website. and also in regard to the ga zoneo, that -- gazebo, that

article is ridiculous, because it's easy to find out and i can look up by name and the hierarchy is something that you can just google. so if your defense i think that the information is out there and you are trying to be transparent. people can't just find it. thank you very much, merry christmas. >> clerk: thank you. is that all of the callers? >> no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: okay, thank you. okay, our next item is item 7. discussion and possible action regarding the department of building inspections racial equity plan. >> president mccarthy: thank you, madam secretary. if i may, is deputy director tarlis -- >> yeah. >> president mccarthy: perfect, hand it off there. >> clerk: um-hmm. >> good morning, commissioners, paris madison, with the department of building

inspection and i'll provide the department's racial equity action plan. sonya, i'm going to just share my screen, please. >> clerk: okay. and, john, could you please give the screen sharing duties. thank you. presenter, i'm sorry. >> okay. okay, so let's start with just a brief overview. i think that i have made a presentation a few times before to the commission, but i'll give a brief overview of the racial equity action plan. so, actually, ordinance 188-19, requires all city departments to

submit a racial equity plan in response to the racial disparity. and the office of racial equity which is a human rights department, developed the framework and strategy for the plan. the plan is in two phases. the first phase is a plan focuses on internal programs and policies. primarily focusing on workforce issues such as recruitment and hiring, retention and promotion, and discipline and separation and diverse and leadership and management and culture of inclusion. and also there's a section for boards and commissions. the second phase is focused primarily on our external programs and services and policies but that won't begin until some time next year. and actually it's goodbye toy a senior plan and -- to be part of the racial efforts and the plan is updated annually. so a little bit about the process. we received instructions i think that maybe in july of this year

2020, from the office of racial equity. the department -- our department has two racial equity leaders and i'm a racial equity leader as well as our h.r. manager, so we have been participating in meetings held by the office of racial equity. our h.r. manager has been participating in city-wide workforce work because there's some issues that focus -- require more of a city-wide solution to participate in those. we have shared racial equity information with the b.i.c. staff in emails and meetings in the past and the resolution, i think back in august. and we administered a racial equity survey where about 48% of the staff participated. and we have held additional meetings with employees, particularly (indiscernible) and we have analyzed the demographic and the survey data. so here's a demographic data that we have. the data is taken from the department of human resources.

they provide all departments with demographic data. this is -- the source of this is november 10, 2020, and so as you can see with d.b.i., from our employees, our racial ethnic breakdown is primarily white and asians are the largest portion of employees and they make up 77% of the department workforce. and the remaining racial groups make up about less than 10%. other additional demographic data we decided to look at the information based on classifications. there are actually six classifications that make up the bulk of the d.b.i.'s workforce and that's 85% of all d.b.i. employees work in these classification ooze -- building inspector, electrical inspector, plumbing inspector and permit technician and engineers. what what you see here is race

and ethnicity by classification. so you can see from this chart that our inspector class, excluding housing inspector, but all of the other inspector applications are primarily white. and then in our engineering classifications, those are primarily asian. and then for housing inspector, there's one classification series that tends to be on the most diverse. there's a majority of not one race or ethnicity. and our permit application is more of a reputable representation. so in addition to looking at demographic data, the department also sent out a survey to all employees. and it was an equity survey done in october. and here is a summary of some of the results. most respondents understand the purpose of the racial initiative and the basic concept of racial equity. most of the respondents have positive relationships with those of different races.

and so one of the focuses is that the office of racial equity, one of the departments to look at is both interpersonal racism as well as institutional racism. and on the interpersonal side and from surveys and meetings with others, most felt that d.b.i. was welcoming organizatio.and about 61% state. could do to have workforce inclustivity. and the report from concerns from racial equity in the workforce. and i'll address that a little bit later. in addition, we had meetings with individuals and also we had group meetings. and there were -- those written responses as well as follow-up meetings to have more racial equity training and for open communication and consistent job training and development, particularly in the permit technician series.

and so based on this information, both the demographic information as well as the meetings and the information gained from meetings and from the third, the department will have these major goals over the next three years. for recruit mint anment and hiro have people of color in those classifications that don't have a representation. for retention and promotion, we want to ensure consistent training programs across all divisions and separation, we want have i a transparent disciplinary process. and equitable leadership. we want d.b.i. leadership to value and promote racial equity. and for mobility and professional development, we want to improve the professional development for entry level and frontline staff. and under organizational culture of inclusion we want to create a culture of inclusion with communication, training and also

policies. and the next steps for the plan is that we want to incorporate any additional information into the draft plan, and we can provide information and we will be working on that. there's a part of the plan that also includes -- and you received the entire plan in your packet and this is just a summary of it. there's a template with individual actions that they want each department to who, on. so we're updating that we didn't receive the updated template on december #t 9th so we'll have to in and make updates to that. those are the individual actions that we'll undertake in the next several years. we have to submit by december 31st. and we want to continue to engage and to work with d.b.i. staff and also as well as the commission too. and then we want to continue to work with the office of racial equity. and then although there's a huge

template of individual actions that need to take place, there are some priorities that we want to focus on in year one, meaning in 2021. and these are the priorities that kind of bubbled up to the top because of the results that we received from the survey and also from the demographic data that we have. and so want to first to continue to improve the organizational culture of inclusion through expanding the racial equity team and developing the racial equity training modules. and as i mentioned earlier, there were some concerns from staff in the anonymous survey, a big concern that race would be a factor in determining who or who would not be employed. so, obviously, we need to make sure that we reach out to everyone and have everyone to understand what racial equity is. because that is not what racial equity is. racial equity is trying to make sure that you're inclusive but it doesn't mean that you're going to be targeting or you're going to be hiring someone who

isn't qualified for the job. we also want to expand with outreach in our applicant pool. once again that is doing more outreach specifically to different organizations to make sure that we have a more diverse applicant pool. and more diverse applicant pool with qualified applicants that can assist us in diversifying the department. and then we also want to develop standard on boarding and processes to ensure that staff have equal access to tools to successfully perform their jobs. those are the three of the major things that we'll be doing. and we'll do smaller actions that are included in the template but these are the three things to focus on in firs the t year. and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> president mccarthy: thank you, deputy director madison, for that presentation and

helping to walk us through it. so we have two choices. we could go to public comment or go -- is there public comment and then swing back to my commissioners if that works. >> there is no public comment. >> president mccarthy: okay. so with that then if i could -- >> we lost you there. >> president mccarthy: sorry, can you hear me now? vice president moss? >> vice-president moss: sorry, everyone, there we go. i want to again thank everyone for, you know, this initial putting this report together. there's certainly plenty of issues with racial disparity or a lack of. i know that we have racial equity sub-committee as well and i certainly would like to hear from them. but at this time those are my comments. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank

you. commissioner alexander-tut please. >> commissioner alexander-tut: first, i want to just thank you to the deputy director and the h.r. director and the madam secretary with all of your hard work on this. i know that it's been a lot on top of so many other duties that you have, with such an important issue. and i really appreciate how -- how tailored your goals in year one really are to the needs of d.b.i. and they don't feel generic. they really do feel responsive to issues that have been identified by staff. and i really appreciate that, particularly the -- the issues raised by the permit technicians. and i think that it's exciting to be very specific issues

raised by classifications being addressed, because so often we only go for the broad strokes and miss the opportunity to really improve people's experience by focusing on the nuances in -- within -- the classifications. so i want to acknowledge that and to thank you for your work and i'm excited to see what comes. >> thank you. >> president mccarthy: commissioner clinch, please. >> commissioner clinch: thank you, it commissioner alexander-tut you stole some of my thunder. we have similar thinking. and the slide on the screen right now, i want to similarly sort of commend you, deputy director, for these bullets which are a lot of times that we -- we all worked on these kind of initiatives, and sometimes

the ambitions can be, you know, hard to work towards. but these are very tangible and i think that really well written. so i want to say that they'll be easy to achieve but they'll certainly -- you have laid it out well so they're more achievable. and the second bullet is one that i'm particularly curious about and i'm interested in because i understand that the city as a whole has -- is working on outreach and i would assume that we're -- our department is working with that initiative. but that's where a lot of gains can be made and i think that is pretty exciting. so looking forward to seeing something coming out of that. that's it for me, thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioner clinch. commissioner jacobo, please. >> commissioner jacobo: yeah, deputy director, thank you for the work on this. it was -- it was good to read i think even the fact that we had so many survey respondents

having the ability to not just respond to the survey, with just jernerrigeneric answers, but toe comments on what they thought to be the problem. and if this is good or bad or yes or no will not give you the full picture and i think that your comments were very helpful in guiding some of the work that will happen from this point forward. so i really do thank you for that. i know that, you know, it always seems like, you know, a lot of this race and equity work is still a huge hurdle to overcome, but i know that we are making progress i think every day with these increments. and changing the course of, you know, the demographics within individual departments which will be a more diverse leadership and a more diverse department of building inspection which i think we all want to achieve. so thank you for your work and look forward to continuing to support in any way that we can.

>> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioner jacobo. commissioner tam, please. >> commissioner tam: thank you, deputy chief, and for everyone that worked on this. i definitely agree with my commissioner here and i know that this is definitely a right direction here and positive for the department as a whole. and i definitely would love to see some of these ideas implemented as well, so, good stuff. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioner tam. and i also want to just echo the director and the fellow commissioner's comments and compliments to you and also to commissioner jacobo and commissioner alexander-tut who worked on this on behalf of the commission. and, you know, it's just a plethora of information here that could really help to understand the make-up of our department. i think that what is fascinating

is the classification and things like that. so the inclusiveness is the main goal here and, you know, i'm glad to hear you say that, you know, we have to get qualified people as well. so it's a tough challenge. and to try to balance. but, thank you again, deputy director. i know that you have a lot going on right now so to have this on this, and such a detailed document is appreciated on behalf of the commission. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. i just wanted to also thank all of the commissioners for their assistance and to say that i appreciate that our sub-committee with president mccarthy and the president alexander-tut and commissioner jacobo for their input for section 7 with the building inspection commission. and we coordinated together and, you know, i also received some

input from other policy body administrators or the commission secretaries that we have met and tried to come up together with ideas and i appreciate their input and assistance as well. and so we start, as deputy director madison mentioned, we have a lot of work to do. and on the 31st the commission has to come up with the overall goal and i'll be reaching back to you guys for that to come up with our overall goal. great, thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, madam secretary, and thank you for all of your work as well. >> clerk: okay, thank you. and there's no public comment on this item. so our next item is item 8, director's report. 8a, update on d.b.i.'s finances.

>> sorry. >> clerk: take your time. i know that we're switching on to the next thing. take your time.

okay. okay. okay. good morning, commissioners, taris madison, from the department of the building inspection. the 2020 monthly financial report that includes the revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year 2021, july-november, 2020. similar to prior months, we continue to see a decline in revenues. so on the first page you can see the budget of $47 million and that is projected to come in at $49 million so we're projected to come in higher than budgeted but, once again, that is because

we're extremely competitive with our budget in june. and so we are -- and this number is coming down. and last month it was expected to come in two million more. so this number is going down too. and to get a true picture what is going on we'd have to go to the second page. and so if we look at the second page we will see from revenues that last year this time we were at $33.2 million and now we're at 16.2 million. so we're still at about that 50% reduction. and that reduction is primarily due to the reductions in plan revenue and building permit revenue and the electrical permit revenue. and then on the expenditure side, we are at $27 million, and that's up from $25 million that was last year. that's primarily because we have more buildings certifications from other department work

orders. we normally don't do expenditure projections until we get about six months of data, so probably in the december report that you will receive in january will have projections on expenditures. but we have been trying to keep up with our revenues, keep up with the revenues, and the projections so that we can track them to make sure that you know what is going on. and then we have the building permit data. this is issued permit building information. and it's to show valuation and the number of permits that are still down. and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> president mccarthy: commissioners, is there anybody with a question here? anyone to weigh? in? >> nope. >> president mccarthy: yeah, taris, just looking -- the 50%, obviously, that's troubling.

so i guess that we'll just keep an eye on that and keep talking about it every month. but it's going to be tough times ahead for a while. so i want to just keep stressing that, that this number is concerning -- very concerning. so, okay, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut. >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you. this might be too early to ask or to know, but i'm curious if the -- you have any data on the permit operations. is there -- in terms -- i know that we have heard -- more with people, but is there a financial analysis on that? i'm wondering as we look at, you know, moving forward from a fiscal perspective how those

saturday permit days -- i don't know what they're calling them -- are, you know, is it helpful? >> president mccarthy: interim director, i think that you could talk to that, right? >> yeah, i'm happy to speak to that and thanks for the question commissioner tut. so one saturday permit day, simply because we realized that people were working here on saturday anyway. and if we were going to be open to customers on saturday, then people would have to work sunday as well to process some of the work that took place over the six days. so we realized that it's probably best if staff don't have to work seven days -- seven conseconsecutive days and they d that sunday to rest up and be ready for another week.

so that's why that is the situation. thank you. >> president mccarthy: if i may also, director. i think that the other part of this is that i know that saturday for me was a big part was to help with the backlog and the intake and, you know, just kind of -- i know that at that time you were dealing with the intake problems and the long lines and so on. you're not experiencing that now? >> so thanks for mentioning that. so we were experiencing, you know, these long wait times for people to get appointments. so that was why we were thinking about all of these things that we could do and that was one of the things that we did, having a saturday permit day. but since then we have established as christine said the wait list and anyone who wants to get in for an appointment now is able to get in in the next few weeks.

so we don't have that same pressure in regards to being able to accommodate appointments. they're literally getting in if they wish to in the next several weeks. you know, at that time it was -- it was -- it was months. so that's why we did that. >> president mccarthy: thank you. is there any other commissioner that would like to weigh in? if not, next item. >> clerk: thanks, next item is item 8b, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation. >> good morning, commissioners, john marie. i have these items for you. and the building ordinance and on november 25th, so it will go into effect on june 1, 2020.

and then to the a.b. for the implementation of it. but we will be -- we're on track to (indiscernible). so the next -- supervisor peskin's ordinance, it says renewing his shelter in place. that is still in committee. we haven't heard anything (indiscernible). supervisor safai's legislation to require demolition debris to obtain permits from the department of the environment. it was continued in land use. my understanding is that it will be heard again in late january or early february. i think that supervisor peskin wanted to clarify some jurisdictional issues with d.p.w. and the san francisco department of the environment, and there's not a lot of -- not

a lot of sort of operational impact on d.b.i., but it sort of is intentional to us. and the hearing to review the consultant access and involvement and permitting process was held on november 19th and filed. and finally we have the proposed ordinance to require landlords to report, maintain an inventory -- sorry, the rent board to maintain an inventory of all residential rental units and that was passed by the board on december 1st and is awaiting the investigate and is, as i said, mainly a rent board issue and should not impact the d.b.i. operations. with that i'm happy to answer any questions. >> president mccarthy: thank you, mr. murray. do any of my fellow commissioners -- >> nope. >> nothing. >> president mccarthy: thank you.

>> no, thank you. >> clerk: okay, next item is 8c, update on major projects. >> good morning again, commissioners. this is mat rick o'riordan here. this is an update based on major projects. and it lists the differences between 80's 2020 and september of 2020. there was .74% increase which equates to $159.2 million in construction costs from october over september. and we had a 1% increase from 63 additional units that were added in october. i'm available for any questions. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, director. i'll open up the floor to my fellow commissioners. >> no thanks. >> i'm okay.

>> president mccarthy: seeing none, next item. >> clerk: next item is 8d, update on code enforcement. mr. duffy doing that item? >> good morning, commissioners. joe duffy. just on our code enforcement and d.b.i. monthly update, we've gos performed, 3,785, and 383 complaints received and complaint response within 24-72 hours was 370. and our inspection services, a hundred in whichions performed and 240 complaints received and 174 complaint responses within 24-72 hours was 136. and we complaints were issued were 43, and the code

enforcement division, the number of cases sent to the director hearing was 49. and we issued 10 order of abatements and we've had 12 of those cases in code enforcement abated with permits completed and the cases closed. and our -- as you heard earlier, all of our inspection staff are participating in the covid joit outreach program with the city administrator's department and a few other d.s.w. people working with us as well. basically our inspectors are having sites to comply with the covid protocols and there's a spike in the cases. we're helping with that and collecting data from the building deficiencies and we are collecting that and forwarding it to the health department and possibly the city attorney. so that's a very worthwhile

program. that's all from me. and i just wanted to personally wish mr. sweeney all the best in his retirement. i worked with him since 1999 and as patrick mentioned he had such knowledge and he'll be missed around the department. and, again, just wish him all the best. thank you. >> clerk: great. >> president mccarthy: thank you, mr. duffy. >> clerk: okay, and is there any public comment on the director's reports items, 8a through d? >> there is none. >> clerk: okay, thank you. our next item is item 9, revie and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of september 16, 2020. >> move to approve. >> second. >> clerk: okay, motion and a second. is there any public comment on the minutes?

none? are all commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> clerk: any opposed? the minutes are approved. and our next item is item 10, adjournment. is there a motion to adjourn? >> so moved. >> clerk: okay, a second? >> second. >> clerk: all commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> clerk: then we are now adjourned. - >> shop & dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges resident to do their showing up and dining within the

49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services within the neighborhood we help san francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so where will you shop & dine in the 49 san francisco owes must of the charm to the unique characterization of each corridor has a distinction permanent our neighbors are the economic engine of the city. >> if we could a afford the lot by these we'll not to have the kind of store in the future the kids will eat from some restaurants chinatown has phobia one of the best the most unique neighborhood shopping areas of san francisco. >> chinatown is one of the

oldest chinatown in the state we need to be able allergies the people and that's the reason chinatown is showing more of the people will the traditional thepg. >> north beach is i know one of the last little italian community. >> one of the last neighborhood that hadn't changed a whole lot and san francisco community so strong and the sense of partnership with businesses as well and i just love north beach community old school italian comfort and love that is what italians are all about we need people to come here and shop here so we can keep this going not only us but, of course, everything else in the

community i think local businesses the small ones and coffee shops are unique in their own way that is the characteristic of the neighborhood i peace officer prefer it is local character you have to support them. >> really notice the port this community we really need to kind of really shop locally and support the communityly live in it is more economic for people to survive here. >> i came down to treasure island to look for a we've got a long ways to go. ring i just got married and didn't want something on line i've met artists and local

business owners they need money to go out and shop this is important to short them i think you get better things. >> definitely supporting the local community always good is it interesting to find things i never knew existed or see that that way. >> i think that is really great that san francisco seize the vails of small business and creates the shop & dine in the 49 to support businesses make people all the residents and visitors realize had cool things are made and produced in san >> good afternoon, everyone. today in san francisco we have 20,976 cases of covid-19. 173 people in a hospital. and sadly, 176 people have died

from this virus. while san francisco's death rate remains very low, that is far too many families that will be celebrating the holiday this is year with a recent loss and heavy hearts. my thoughts go out to all the families and to everyone who has lost someone to covid this year. now, we have been in this current stay at home order for two weeks now. and while our cases are still high, we have some data that shows people in san francisco have been moving around less over the past two weeks. that means people are being mindful and doing their best to comply. dr. colfax will show some numbers after me to demonstrate our stay at home orders are starting to have an effect, but we also know that number of cases and people in the hospital remain as high as they have ever been, and we are in a very

dangerous place if we get a post-holiday surge. if we can just keep limiting our interactions in the public, we can reduce our exposure to each other and slow the spread. i know it's hard. especially with the holidays. but the people of this city have shown again and again that even with all the fatigue and exhaustion we all feel, that we care about public health. look, it's been hard on me. i have been working out of my home and every day i take walks to get fresh air, exercise, and see the city, and shop at our local businesses and support our restaurants by ordering food directly there and picking it up from there. it is the bright spot of my day, visiting our local businesses and supporting them and seeing the holiday second racingses around town. i especially love what's happening with our fire station which i know are taking part in a holiday decorating contest, and i was really excited to be a

judge in that contest, and i definitely have my favorites. the winner will be announced tomorrow, but really i want to thank all the firefighters for taking part in this contest and doing their part to brighten up our city. in these tough times, it is the little things that can make a big difference. i will also say that walking around the city i notice that so many people have christmas countries in their windows which is really exciting to see the decorations and all the things that folks in san francisco are doing to just really provide that holiday cheer. as you can see, i am trying to focus on the positive, especially as we enter the holidays. you can imagine what christmas is like in the breed family in a normal year. we get really loud. we have a lot of fun and it's really just an opportunity for us to forget all the drama we have with work or other stuff in our lives. and just be together. i really love the holidays. so yes, it's hard not to do that

this year. it's hard not to see family and friends and hang out and go to all the great events, but that's what we have to do. we know if we can just get through these holidays and avoid any significant surge, we have an opportunity to get this virus under control so that next year we have an opportunity to celebrate with our loved ones which is so important i know to to many people. but we are still in a very dangerous place. just look at what's happening in southern california. los angeles is really struggling and overwhelming -- they have an overwhelming case load. field hospitals are being set up in laces like imperial county to deal with the overflow. nothing scares me more than if we get to a point where we have to turn someone away from the hospital because it's not just about the number of beds. it's also about the people who work in these hospitals

specifically with covid patients. i don't even want to look someone in the eye and say to their mom or dad that their mom or dad died because we didn't have space in our hospitals for them. that we couldn't give them a fighting chance, so as you make your choice this is holiday, please think about that. think about what you can do to get us through these next few weeks. now, there are bright spots. we are vaccinating people every day. yes, we started vaccinating our paramedics, the people who are going to be out on the streets saving lives. this week we are receiving more shipments of the pfizer vaccine and, well, as newly approved moderna vaccine gets done, we'll get those as well. but the distribution of the vaccine is a marathon. it's not a sprint. it's going to take time and patience. as we get through these coming weeks and months, we need to continue to find ways to support those who are struggling the most.

yesterday we got some good news when congress finally passed a $900 billion relief package. i know speaker pelosi worked incredibly hard to get this deal done, and i really want to appreciate her leadership. she overcame a lot of opposition and obstruction, and while the deal isn't perfect, there are some real bright lights for our city including support for our small businesses through the extension of the ppp loan and it's supposed to be a lot easier for small businesses to apply than it was the first time. there is direct support for the entertainment and theater venues which is not been able to open and are such an important part of what makes san francisco so special. i can't wait until we reopen and the opportunity to go to a concert or listen to live music. emergency funds that will stabilize muni and our public school, funds to shore up our covid public health response including testing and

vaccinations. more money for snap benefits for our most vulnerable so we can make sure that no one goes hungry. and new programs to provide rental assistance. i'm frustrated that the republicans blocked any effort to deliver relief to our local and state government, so we still have an enormous deficit to face, and i wish we could have provided more direct support for our families who are struggling, but orr all, it is good holiday news that some relief is on the way. my staff is currently analyzing the del days of this package and seeing what more we need to do here locally to fill the gaps, especially for our small businesses and i know that there is more to come. while we have provided tens of millions of dollars in loans, grants and tax waivers to small businesses through this pandemic, we know there is so much more to do. and i'm hopeful in hearing the

news that president-elect joe biden will keep pushing for more federal support when he takes office next month, but like i said, we have a long way to go. please keep doing what you are doing. wear the mask and sign up for the california notify alert on the phone to find out if you come in contact with anyone who has covid. keep your distance from others and please stay safe this holiday season. again, thank you for your cooperation. we are in a much better place but we're still in a very, very dangerous place in this city, and your work and your following these orders have been instrumental in helping us get there. now i want to turn it over to dr. grant colfax from the department of public health to share more data of where we are and what lies ahead. dr. colfax. >> thank you, mayor breed. we so appreciate your steadfast

and steady leadership and support. good afternoon, everybody. i would also like to thank everyone in san francisco for all of your support during this last 10 months. this has been a long and hard road, and as we continue through this holiday season, i know it is likely to get harder for many of us. unfortunately, the situation remains dire. the virus is running rampant across the state, and as the mayor referenced, southern california now lacks the i.c.u., the intensive care unit beds, to care for sick people. in fact, the entire southern california region is at zero percent i.c.u. capacity. health care providers working 24 hours a day are overwhelmed. tragically in this country this month alone we have hit days

where a person died every 30 seconds from covid-19. think about that. every 30 seconds. this would have been unfathomable just a year ago as reports of the virus began. now, here in san francisco our cases are still climbing, but there is some relatively -- and i stress relatively -- good news which is that the pace of increase is slowing down. now, we are still locally in a very dangerous position with the virus, but we are starting to see that our collective efforts are making a difference. as we enter these next challenging two weeks, these vital two weeks, let's remind ourselves that our collective actions change the course of this virus in march and again in july. while our infection rate is twice what it was in prior surges and many more people are

getting sick, this could be temporary if we support each other and continue to make the good choices that we know slow the spread of the virus. let me take you through some date. >> as this slide shows, cases in deaths across the state continue to increase at a staggering pace. california now has one of the highest covid case rates in the country at more than 100 cases per 100,000 people per day. across the state cases have increased by a staggering 96% over the last two weeks. and the entire state is experiencing widespread transmission of the virus. and what this means locally is that many behaviors we have gotten away with in the spring or summer are much riskier now. there is so much more virus out

there that the likelihood of coming into contact with someone asifrpt mat wick the virus but still infection remains higher -- but still infectious remains higher. this slide shows that our case count continues to increase, but as this slide also indicates on the far right, our case count is increasing at a somewhat slower pace than right after thanksgiving. but we are now averaging about 275 cases per day, the highest since the onset of this pandemic. but our changes in behavior are starting to show an impact. two weeks ago when we started the limited stay at home order, our cases were increasing on an average of 8% every day. today our cases are increasing on average at 2% per day. this is because of the changes

that we have made in our behavior. now, this is a hopeful sign. it is an improvement, but i must stress we still have a long way to go. remember, it is so key to get that rate actually decreasing even if we were to continue at this current rate, our situation would be very dire in the next few months. so, let's keep what we're doing and slow this virus. let's not have the situation that we had right after thanksgiving, a massive surge that increased cases by 50% given where we are now, we simply cannot afford that, and that would be catastrophic. let's keep slowing this virus. this slide shows how changing our behavior can have tremendous impact on the spread of the virus. on december 6, the day we started the limited shelter in

place, our reproductive rate was estimated to be 1.46. and remember, when the reproductive rate is above one, that means the virus is spreading out of control. as of december 20, our reproductive rate was 1.24. now, the virus is still spreading, the reproductive rate is still above 1, but -- and i know that this estimate, these differences, 1.45 versus 1.24, that doesn't sound like a lot. but as a result of that change, projected, peak median hospitalizations have decreased from 1490 to 590. and the additional estimated median death have increased by

330. that is 330 people who are projected to die from covid-19 in san francisco that may not die. and that is what we have done and must continue to do together as we go forward. by limiting our mobility, by wearing a mask, by social distancing and not gathering, even in small groups among people outside of our households, we have saved lives. but we need to continue to work together to further slow the spread of the virus and not overwhelm our health care system. if we reduce the reproductive rate further, we will continue to make progress. our destiny is truly in our hands. there is a slight improvement, and we have made progress.

this slide show what is can happen if we come together and focus our efforts on staying at home and beating back covid-19. in the next two weeks, if we reduce the reproductive rate below one, we would have 74 additional deaths here in san francisco compared to an estimate of 214. through our actions if we can get the reproductive rate below one, we are saving hundreds, hundreds of people from being hospitalized. pause for a moment. think about those numbers. the lives that we could save and the hospitalizations we could prevent if we work together, if we continue to work together and stay home. i hope everyone sees that by working together and making

sacrifices and changes to our behavior we are saving lives, and we can still do more. think about that as you make decisions over the next two weeks. we simply cannot afford to have another surge in cases that we had after thanksgiving. and this situation could be temporary if we all do this together. san francisco, we can beat back this third surge and give the gift of health to our community this holiday season. thank you for your sacrifice and perseverance. and i want to wish everyone a good holiday. be safe and during these challenging times, please be sure to take care of yourself and your loved ones, even if it has to be remotely for now. this isn't going to last forever. the new year brings hope and is

filled with possibilities of what we can do. our destiny for 2021 is in our hands. thank you. >> thank you, mayor breed and dr. colfax for your remarks. i am with the san francisco covid command center and i am going to help facilitate some questions from the press today. let's just pause for a quick moment so that we have enough time to let reporters submit their questions, and then i will go ahead and start with questions for mayor breed. just a few more moments. and madam mayor, whenever you

are ready. all right. mayor breed, your first question comes from stephanie sierra with abc 7. what was your initial reaction to the governor appointing alex padilla to feel vice president elect kamala harris' seat? how do you feel about no black women remitted in the u.s. senate? was this a missed opportunity? >> i think there was a lot of pride when not only kamala was selected as the vice president nomination for the party and is now our vice president elect for the country. and especially with that pride came, i believe, another opportunity with her seat to ensure as she continued to say, even though you may be the

first, you are not the last. the sad reality is she was the only african-american woman in the senate at this time. and when you think about the history of this country and the challenges that exist for african-americans especially african-american women in the senate, definitely this is a real blow to the african-american community, to african-american women, to women in general. i think it is really challenging to put it in words, but it was definitely a surprise and it's an unfortunate situation as we are trying to move this country forward and making sure that black lives truly matter and that african-americans have a seat at the table, especially african-american women after what was done in this race on a national level. definitely it is unfortunate.

>> thank you. the next set of questions come from christian captain with kccu. where do we stand and what can be done to help san francisco public schools reopen? >> this is, of course, been really hard, but let me just start by saying because i know a number of teachers have been concerned that they don't feel supported because they are still doing distance learning in the best way that they can. and this is not to say that teachers are not doing their part, but what we're being asked to do by the teachers union specifically is just not realistic. and when i say we, there is an expectation that the school district needs to provide a certain level of assurance in order to get the classrooms open. and what we have done as a city is provide that level of support to the school districts. to not only make sure that

testing based on the guidelines of the department of public health is available, but also that we are evaluating the buildings and the classrooms and other things because, of course, the last thing we want is something to happen to not just our students but our educators as well. so we are doing everything we can, financial resources, resources from city departments, and everything we can. we have really put everything on the table that we could to provide the level of support that we know the school district needs in order to move things forward, but ultimately it really is up to the school district working with the teachers union to come to some level of an agreement so that we can move forward. we were at a bter place at one point. the requirements have changed, and have been a little bit unfortunately unrealistic and not even recommended by the department of public health.

i know the question is, how can we move forward? at this time we are going to continue to be as aggressive and push to move forward as much as we possibly can. we do appreciate our educators for the work they are doing on distance learning. but the sad reality is we all know that our students are suffering, and we need to try and be prepared to get them back in the classroom as quickly as possible. and it will be up to the teachers union and the school district working together to do that. we will continue to do everything we can to support and facilitate that process. >> thank you, madam mayor. thank you for your remarks and for your time. we will now take a minute to gather the health-related questions for director colfax. director, we'll check in to go through the rest of the health care-related questions.

all right, dr. colfax. first question comes from ron lynn with the l.a. times. what explains why the current surge has been so bad? when was the moment you realized this wave would be far worse than anticipateed? and what kind of change in

strategy did it cause you to pursue? >> well, i think the surge is worse than other surges for a number of reasons. why prayerly there is more virus -- primarily there is more virus circulating in the country and the region than ever before so cases started to go up in san francisco. we were watching that very carefully and also people get tired, right? this is a long 10 months and we started seeing cases go up and that became great cause for concern which is why we moved quickly and with regard to getting the message out that people needed to socially distance, avoid gatherings, and we were very clear about that and issued a stay at home order that was consistent with the state's order early along with other neighboring counties to slow the spread of the virus.

the travel quarantine issue is commensurate with the steps to slow the spread of the virus to return to a deliberate reopening and to go back to business while also slowing the spread of the virus. >> i know that contact tracing is falling behind a bit and where people are getting infected now and to finish and we know there is like widespread community transmission, right? and the people may have gotten away with in the spring or

summer are simply transmitting the virus and activities at much higher rates. and with the scene to continue to reach out to people and doing contact investigation and supporting the people who are testing positive. but right now i think we just need to understand that behaviors that were lower risk before are now high risk and particularly around gatherings outside of the household needs to be avoided at all cost. we cannot -- and if we had case increases like after thanksgiving, this would be catastrophic. let's stay at home and be home for the vaccine to gather together next year and be with the people that we love in

person. >> thanks, doctor. from jamie harr with the associated press. as of yesterday, ucsf had not delayed elective surgeries. if so, the city and county, can they require them to stop? >> a we aren't aware of any hospitals that has cancelled elective surgeries. we are working closely with the hospital c.e.o.s and the chief medical officers to monitor bed capacity and elective surgeries could be cancelled and hospital beds available should it get to that point. >> thanks. next question, the pay area region will currently be eligible to lift the stay at home order on january 8. will san francisco extend the order further if not required by the state?

>> the regional stay at home order by the state was in effect as of december 17. and the state will lift it after three weeks have passed. so that is really dependent on the regional capacity. and with the local commentators and on that side. >> the next question from the san francisco chronicle. he has two sets so we'll start with the first one. and issue the phase one guidelines and which populations are likely to be included during this phase?

>> we don't have information and when the state issues information, we will continue to follow the state guidelines going forward. >> also, are we aware if the new variant is circulating in san francisco? is it cause for concern? >> we are not aware if the variant is circulating -- the new variant. this is the british variant, i assume that is being asked about. we are not aware at this time whether it's circulating in san francisco. and is cause for concern and number of scientists and looking to confirm the transmission and the increased transmission risk but i think that to emphasize the need for people not to travel and to stay t a home and for the travel quarantine guidelines to stay home so people returning to the city do not transmit covid-19.

>> thank you, doctor. we will give it just a moment. thanks for your time. >> all right, dr. colfax. that is it for today. thank you to madam mayor and for your time. that concludes today's press conference. >> thank you so much. goodbye.

>> clerk: (roll call) >> president bernal: we'll take some of the agenda items out of order. we'll be appng