small dogs and wild flowers carpet the grasslands keep on the look out nor hawks and ot

enter the webinar id (841)656-0323. this is being broadcast and streamed across the bottom of the screen if you are watching the broadcast.

to block your phone number when calling dial star 67 and the phone number. listen for your item to be called and dial star nine equivalent of raising your hand so we know you want to speak. you will be brought in and have three minutes. you will get a 30 second warning. there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live streamed on the internet. it is very important that you reduce or turnoff the volume or there is interference with the meeting. if the participants on zoom need disability accommodation you can make request in chat function to the legal assistant or send an e-mail to board of appeals. the chat function cannot be used to provide public comment or opinions. now we will swear and affirm all of those who intend to testify. any member of the public may speak without an oath pursuant

to the rights under the nine ordinance. if you intend to test drive the proceedings and wish to give testimony raise your right hand and say i do. do you swear or affirm your testimony will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. thank you. if you are a participant abnot t speaking put your speaker on mute. if you are here for apple 21-010 concerning the notice of violation at 2455 jackson this is the item that is rescheduled to may 5, 2021. if you are here for that matter it will be heard in two weeks at 5:00. you can get information on the website how to access that meeting. now we are moving on to item 1.

this is general public comment. an opportunity for anyone to speak on a matter within the board jurisdiction not on the calendar. any member of the public wishing to speak on an item not on the calendar. please raise your hand. okay. i don't see anybody. we are going to move on to item 2. election of the office of vice president. the vice president resigned. we need to fill that position. any members of the board to nominate a colleague or themselves for office of vice president? i see two hands raised. >> commissioner lazarus had her hand up first. >> i would like to nominate commissioner swig as the next vice president. >> okay. >> since i don't get to make that i will second the motion.

>> okay. is there any public comment on this motion? please raise your hand. okay. i don't see any public comment. let me check. commissioner swig are you willing to serve as vice president? >> i would be pleased and honored to serve. thank you. >> we have a motion from commissioner lazarus to elect commissioner swig as vice president. president honda. >> aye. >> commissioner chang. >> aye. >> commissioner swig. >> aye. >> okay. that motion carries 4-0. congratulations. >> he has to play the drums behind him. >> okay. we are now moving on. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it very much. >> item 3 commissioner comments

and questions. we don't have any. we will move to item 4. adoption of the minutes. before you for discussion are the minutes of the april 14, 2021 meeting. >> motion to accept. >> is there any public comment on the motion to adopt those minutes? seeing none that motion commissioner lazarus. >> aye. >> president honda. >> aye. >> commissioner chang. >> aye. >> thank you. that motion carries. 4-0. the minutes are adopted. >> the attorney for the appellant informed me she is not asking for continuance. >> thank you. we are going to move on to item

5. appeal number 21-015. noel frelicot. at 24/7 2 vallejo street appeals of an alteration permit. kitchen and bath remodel. remove one set of convenience stairs, fully infill small remainder of light well by connecting pre-existing firewalls. we will hear from the appellant first. i believe ms. christ is here. welcome. we can't hear you. >> thank you. i am hoping i have capability to share screens.

i am going to try to do that. >> i won't start the time until you get your screen up. good evening, i am an attorney at hansen and bridgett here today on behalf of noel frelicot. they reside at 2466 vallejo street next door to the permit holder. they are also online this evening. i want to first provide a brief overview of the properties. they are side-by-side buildings. the applicant's property is on the left. the building is on the right. there is a shared light well between them on the second and third floors. you can see it here in this

aerial. it is shown here between the two buildings. it is right here. the permit is for internal remodel. our appeal is focused on the infilling of the shared light well between the buildings. i want to point out the plans that were included with the applicant's brief are from a 2017 believe permit to legalize the rear addition. they are not relevant to the permit before you. plans for the permit at issue we received a copy yesterday. those show on sheet a-1 as well the shared light well between the two buildings. the issue is just procedural because the proposed infill faces our client's light well with windows.

section 311 notification should have been given to our clients. it is not only shared light well. there are three windows facing the proposed infill. not blank wall and that is not shown on the plans submitted for this permit. the rules are clear that section 311 notification is required for any building permit that increases exterior dimensions of the building. bulletin four provides exception for infilling windows. that exception states if the plans number two accompanying photos clearly establish it is against a blank wall at the property line and not havessible from -- visible from outside it may be approved.

default is provide notice. to bypass the plans have to show infill against the blank neighboring wall not havessible from off-site location. here the plans don't show the neighboring wall facing the infill area and the fact it has windows facing it. of course, because there are windows it is visible from off-site from our clients' property. while staff may have considered the proposed wall would have minimal effect as practical matter, as legal matter the noticing was still required. this is the sheet that shows our clients' building. a5. that doesn't really show. it says opening to neighbor but doesn't show there is windows on

the wall on the other side of that. we understand because there is an existing deck above and wall partial wall that comes down filling in the opening may not have significant impact on our clients' light and air, but nonetheless that determination can't be made in order to disregard the noticing requirement. here our clients perceive an impact on light and air. they are entitled to have an opportunity to evaluate what those impacts might be and provide input. they were deprived of that opportunity. to the picture that shows the actual light well area. they also have concerns about access to the area and a drain that is located in their light well. on the left is our clients' property. on the right is the permit holders' property. this is the deck above

unpermitted and wall unpermitted. to some extent infilling this wall we still would perceive an impact in terms of light and air to these windows but certainly to the extent it is relying on these two other components. one significant piece of information not available to the planner is the fact those components are not permitted. just this week we obtained preliminary drawings that labeled deck and wall unpermitted and our clients present tonight were advised by the tenant of that unit he built the deck and wall in the 1990s without a permit. i believe he is online and able to confirm that. our clients who purchased the property in 1994 were not aware they were not permitted until

this week. taking that into consideration if this goes forward it would allow incremental filling of the large light well shared with the neighboring property owner without any notice or opportunity to consider things like design modifications to minimize impacts or otherwise confirm that it would be consistent with residential design guidelines. that is the substance of the procedural issue is 311 noticing. that procedure allows some evaluation of the potential impacts. there is a residential design guideline that clearly states one guideline is to provide shared light wells to provide more light to the properties. all of those components would be needed to fill in the light well. our request tonight is simply the city follow proper procedures, issue 311 notice for

the permit, and allow our clients an opportunity to take closer look. we believe the permit to infill the light well was erroneously issued without complete information. we would respectfully grant you grant the minimum allow the period and possibly -- >> your time is up. >> thank you. >> i see a hand raised as attendee. we are not on public comment. we will get there after we hear from the permit holder and the department. we will now hear from the permit holder, ms. hu. >> welcome. >> hello. i am evelyn hu and this is my

husband. we are the recent owners of 24/7 2 vallejo street. we purchased the property two months ago. there is a whole history of issues of the building currently cleaned up. we are still in the process of cleaning up some of those things. i wanted to address a couple of things that just came up an hour before this hearing. she alluded to a set of plans that referred to the light well area specifically the deck and the stairs as unpermitted. i had a conversation with sanchez an hour ago where i was given notice of this. i just called my drafter. it appears there was a plan set prepared for conversation with our tenant referring to the fact

that the deck that he enjoys currently that i believe he enjoys by himself exclusively we are permitting to be a private deck for him. the landlord tenant attorney wanted to specify between a space that did not be long to the tenanted before to a space that was permitted to him. this language of permitted not permitted refers to the top floor of the community the tenant lived this is now inclusive and fully permitted to include that deck space as private and exclusive use. now the thing that is actually concerns is this was not a submitted plan set for the city permitting purposes.

not a version that was superseded. it was there for visualization purposes. it never happened because he is not wanting to talk to us. that conversation has not happened. that was located in a drawer in our unit on the ground floor which is locked. if the tenant -- if the appellant is in possession of that plan set that would mean they broke into our unit and stole the plan set. i find that extremely distressing and it fits within the pattern of behavior that we have seen and the fact that i am not sure when they broke in and stole the plan set. we are just finding out about it an hour before the hearing. >> could you pause time for a second.

i want to make a comment you have seven minutes to present your days. however you present your days is your choice. at this point you are using a lot of your time. we have to make a decision off what is represented this evening. i want to give you that guidance before you continue. >> so let's move forward with our presentation. this is the visualization of the permitted scope. the area in contest right now is the install of the light well this 6-foot tall 10-foot wide area a gap in the firewall. there is a firewall on the third floor and on the ground floor. we are connecting those disjointed firewalls to have a

continuous firewall. before i leave that page the resulting outcome on that wall would be a window that is fire rated and obviously the wall itself would be a firewall. this is a visualization of the current condition in the light well. you can see up here this is the third floor firewall and the gap. on this picture from the ground floor to second floor you can see the gap and part of the second floor has the firewall and the firewall down below. you have seen the photo. this is to show you the relative sizes of our properties. the appellant is on the fourth floor not impacted by any light whatsoever. on top of that our building, his building is four stories tall. the southern wall of his light well is actually blockage of light to his own light well

because the sun is from the south. the sun in the picture is directly hitting this front portion of his property and passing a shadow to his light well. our property has never produced light for his property. most of the light in this gap is coming from the appellants property. this is to show you the sunlight. look at this line right here it shows where the sun is coming in and the rest is shadows. that is the four-story structure, the wall for the light well on the southern border of the lit well. similar kind of representations of the sunlight. you can see it only hits the northern part of the top part of his light well and the rest is shadows. in the 2017 approved plans he the prior owner represented the light well condition as fully

infilled. there was a 311 notification. this is to show the continuous firewall across all three stories. the 311 notification did not receive any request for discretionary review and there were no complaints lodged on the deck alleged to be unpermitted nor the entire infill condition of the light well. the appellant's residence is on the fourth floor and this looks down to the light well. appellant has issues with histic light well, we are trying to guard against. there is a building code that specifies the distance of set back in a light well that is unprotected. it needs to be 5 feet. sorry 5 feet and then protected with fire assembly.

that is not the case. additionally they have frosted windows which diminish the sunlight to their own windows. this is a log of our attempts to dialogue with the appellant. to this day we don't understand what their concern is. the tenant has also comfort with an extortion letter for $2.5 million buyout of tenancy which we do not wish to entertain. we wish to keep them as a tenant. >> that is time. >> you will have three minutes in rebuttal. thank you. we will hear from the planning department. >> thank you. good evening. congratulations to vice president swig on his elevation to that position. i look forward to working with you in your new role. the subject property 24/7 2 vallejo is rh-2 zoning.

only case on the agenda tonight so it is easy one for the board. it is unique in the scope of work. we don't often see a shared light well filled in with the property line firewall which the permit holder's property has. when we reviewed this application to do work in the light well to add that office area on the second level, we were evaluating it on infilling that 6 by 10 opening. it was more like window opening getting filled in rather than new mask in that area. any impact on light and air to the appellants' property is created by the existing firewall. reswying this we had the assumption that existing firewall and deck were legal. no reason to believe otherwise.

looking back on aerial photos, our aerial photo deposit tore regoes to 20002. i don't see any separate permits for the work in the light well. it does from the photos appear to have been there for quite some time. what is raised now by the appellant in their brief it was unpermitted. we saw that. we didn't have evidence that it was unpermitted. aerial photos showed it more recently today we received a copy of these plans that have it labeled as unpermitted deck. i asked the property owner about that and they had no willing of that. no -- no knowledge of that. they have since contacted the architect and informed them such plans were made and i understand

from their testimony that they were locked in the drawer down stairs. be that as it may, it comes down to if that deck and firewall are illegal, then that needs to be legalized. that would definitely require neighborhood notification. we would also likely require that be set back about three feet from the shared property line. the permit holders property has a large light well, more than a light well, a light court given the large dimensions. they could fill that in under residential design guidelines. we may ask it be set back three feet to match the depth of the appellants property. the reason we didn't ask for it in this case is because of the existing wall that was there on the property line. we were just looking at it as infill of the 6 by 10 opening.

that is where we are. i think a lot of this is new information that came up today. i don't know that we haven't definitely reviewed the legality of it. it is newer information. we may hear more in public comment about the legality of the deck. if the deck is illegal then this needs legalization, notice and probably revision to set back from the side property line. with that i can be available for questions and we will learn more i think during the future comments here. >> thank you. we have a question from vice president swig and then president honda. >> scott, if the planning department doesn't know whether it has been permitted or not,

and you have photos that are two decades old, approximately, that feature that configuration, how do you go about determining the truth? >> the assumption is that it is legal. i think we may need to hear from deputy director for the configuration that is there now. could it have been approvable. we will hear from one of the tenants they built it without permit. there are no permits. in the history there is reroofing permit in 1991. then there is a permit to legalize work in 2016 which is subject to that neighborhood notice referred to. then another kitchen and bath remodel permit for the lower unit. if they say they built it in the

1990s there is no permit evidence of that. we may find it is not legal. generally with the legality of structures we rely on d.b.i. for making those determinations. i think we will hear during public comment. >> right now if it was an hour ago and we were having this conversation and you had not determined there had been no mention of this being ill legal, you would be of the opinion that this is a legally properly issued permit and everything is just fine, but somebody is sending messages on the screen. i would rather they don't do that. >> please don't as i said before you cannot use the chat function

to provide opinion or facts. you will have time to speak during public comment. i don't want to remove you. please don't do that again. thank you. >> thanks very much. let me go back again. if it was an hour ago and you hadn't received this, this would be a properly issued permit. right now that new information fact offings muddies the water. -- fact or if it is fiction muddies the water. we were going to postpone the hearing today. if we can't come up with definite information and you can't find permit history right at the tip of your fingertips, should we move to do anything with this today? >> well, i think that there is a lot of other work on this

permit. i think foundation work. i think we can hear from the parties, but it is conceivable the board could remove any work in the light well from the scope of the permit and allow other work to continue. that is a possibility. i think we need to hear from deputy director duffy and also from members of the public about comments on the legality of the deck. i did see the message in the chat related to the fire well and light well which is being removed already as part of this. deputy director duffy could speak to that if it is a concern of anyone. >> final question. you are always very impressive when you are able as you did a couple weeks ago to pull out a photo from 1492.

from a long time ago on many, many properties. what conditions looked like not 20 years ago but 40, 50, 60 years ago. do you have the ability to do that if we require further information as to whether this deck was regional or not? >> yes, i can pull it up. it is a aerial photo from 1938. i did review that already. it seems there is probably no firewall there. it is inconclusive given the shadows on the building. i can show that to the board on rebuttal so you can see what that looks like. >> thank you for your time. >> president honda. >> rick asked primary question i wanted. i have another question. as the permit holder was showing photos that i didn't see in the

brief, it looked like her question regarding 5 feet away for windows. do those need fire rated. it looked like property line windows. >> i think most windows are off the property line. angled to or within three feet of the property line. i would refer to mr. duffy for that. >> did you notice property line windows? >> i don't think they are property line windows, i did not notice that. >> i will after the permit holder is done i will ask her t reshow those. >> we will hear from the department of building inspection. >> good evening, commissioners. congratulations to commissioner swig on vice-presidency, well-done. just on this building permit.

kitchen and bath remodel remove one set of convenience stairs, fully infill small remainder of light well by connecting pre-existing firewalls. it was signed on the 30th of december 2020, issued on february 22, 2021. it was reviewed by planning and building and meckcan can cal plan check and the permit issued and suspended. the voting permit from building code point of view i didn't see anything untoward about it on the initial review. we do check for building code compliance on these. as we see them, obviously, with the issues brought up with legality of the deck and questions about property line windows, firewall, all of that stuff is building code related.

i will touch on the deck and issue that has come up lately. as you all know and we speak about it every week we have a lot of buildings in san francisco where in a light well previous owners got along great, work done, permits done. it existed for many years. they are difficult when they arrive at our door and we have to look at the permits. we check the microphone and ask for records. they are hard sometimes to determine the legality or what the conditions are. it looked from the photographs that they had been there a long time. it is unfortunate for a new property owner but it is a fact of life. when new owners come in and don't get along. a neighbor brings these up. d.b.i. looks into it.

i don't know if we would issue a violation. we might ask the property owner to provide records and make a determination. we work with colleagues in planning on these things as well. the window issue. it is not usual in believes of this age. those would be allowed to remain if someone doesn't change the size of them. we do see this as well. they are not -- we wouldn't require because of this work being done on 24/7 2 that someone on the neighbor's side would have to do the windows. [indiscernable] i am not sure. you shouldn't depend on someone

else's light well. your light well should be sufficient. they are going to lose some light because the light well infill if permitted would definitely darken their light well. my understanding in reading of the code over the years is that your light well is your light well and that should pro are ride you -- provide you with light and ventilation. i am available for any questions from the commissioners. >> vice president swig has a question. thank you. >> same question, mr. duffy. up until an hour ago there wasn't this extra conversation about legal versus illegal. without this conversation and this knowledge dropped in our

laps a few moments ago, would you see any problem with this permit in the way it was issued? >> when a permit is presented we look at it how it was presented. if new information comes in and this could arrive with us tomorrow morning in the form of a complaint. if we decided planning or building could look at this and say you got a permit on the deck, now we got a complaint the deck is illegal. we might ask that and look further and see if the deck is something that was built without a permit. i do think we are going to hear from somebody here. i think we heard already they built the deck without a permit. that statement alone is sometimes we have a historic

photograph. [indiscernable] it looks like at one point it was filled in. we could look at it differently, yes, based on new information that was received. it is very unfortunate. it didn't seem like it just cage up in the last -- came up in the last hour which is a little bizarre. we could deal with it if the permit went ahead we could deal with it as part of the complaint in a week's time. >> would it be your recommendation that we should take action tonight or would you like to do further research on this element of the permit or barring that should we heed mr. sanchez's suggestion we not stop this and move the rest of

the permit forward and by fir bifurcatethis from the permit. >> mr. sanchez is correct or not. there seems to be work that the people want to get done. i don't think anyone has a problem with that. with the deck issue here i might be better prepared to take rebuttal on that. you wouldn't want to kill the project if this just come up an hour ago. if they can get other work done, i would be in favor with that. i just said the light wells are very difficult because, you know, this is the planning department process. i thought everybody had to get a letter from the neighbor to say it was okay. there are different

interpretations. if that is the case if we did go back to say we are going through a different process from the people on the other side appealing you would wonder if it would ever get done. they may not agree to that, you know. the notification period would be opened up and might change things. i think allowing someone to work is a good idea. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you. we are moving on to public comment now. what did you say, president honda? >> i said thank you, deputy director. >> thank you. we are moving to public comment. i see one hand raised. the person who has the number 14152. i don't see the rest. you can go ahead. >> i am eugene anthony the resident on the top floor that seems to be the culprit in all

of this. i have been there since 1988. my cousins and my aunt owned the house. it was a family residence. i was one of the members of the family residing there for the last 33 years. we built the terrace upstairs without a permit. the walls that everyone refers to as firewalls do not exist. they are two by fours cedar with siding on them on both sides, i believe, that does not constitute a one hour firewall. i don't know what other firewalls they are talking about in the area. there is a garbage room down stairs under the staircase but i put siding on to not look at the garbage cans. i don't think that is a one or two hour firewall. that is the set of circumstances. i am the only living relative left who can attest to the

building. it was done without a permit that we just wanted to do something to make me happy. that is it. >> president honda has a question. >> my question is so were you the seller in this transaction? >> no. >> you were not the seller. >> no, no. it was inherited by my cousin's two boys and her granddaughter was executor in the whole thing. >> that was my question. >> thank you. we will hear from zack ar m.o.u. r. please go ahead. >> zack armor. >> hi.

i would like to take public comment. i am the former tenant. i moved into the place back in 2017. i would like to comment on the landlord. the renovation that she does. in 2017 me and my friends. [indiscernable] newly renovated, beautiful. with the most modern gadgets. it was a focal point of gatherings. they were a thing. the family was a great experience. she responded to me very quickly. white a pleasant experience. gorgeous renovated place. if i wasn't moving to new york soon i would be living there for years to come. i would like to say my guests would comment on that as well. this is a quick comment and i

hope you deny the appeal and allow her to continue to remodel as i am sure it will turn-out great. >> any other public comment? i see ms. denise clancy. please go ahead. >> i speak on behalf of the permit holders. we hope that you deny the appeal. we live on green street just one block away from vallejo. i can see their property from our property. when we found they were moving to the neighborhood we were very excited. i walk my dog all of the time and walk by their property all of the time, from the

neighborhood resident i can't imagine that the type of construction they were doing would involve this type of malaise and hope that the board would deny this. i am an attorney myself as is my husband. it seems clear from listening to mr. sanchez and the others absent this last minute surprise an hour before the hearing this would have been permitted to go forward. i find it disturbing and i know this is very reasonable commission. i find it quite disturbing an ongoing campaign includes throwing a tornado into the hearing right before it goes because it seems to violate all forms of due process for them. in the absence of denial of the

appeal, i would hope that mr. sanchez's suggestion they could continue with construction and then delay resolution of the firewall issue would be adopted. they are a lovely family with young children. i have a 6-year-old. we would love them in the neighborhood. >> thank you. anyone else here for public comment? please raise your hand. i don't see any hands raised. we will move to rebuttal. ms. crisp, you have three minutes. >> are you there in. >> hi. i just have a couple of points i would like to make. first on the timing of the

information regarding the illinois legality or unpermitted nature of the deck. that is an issue that they raise understand the appeal brief filed a couple weeks ago. this was not just raised an hour ago. it is an issue that came up an hour ago are copies of drawings that seem to indicate they were unpermitted and information from the tenant who constructed the deck. this is not some sort of intentional sabotaging. our office got involved very recently. we worked as quickly as we could to try to get the plans. we were not able to do that. the permit holder kindly sent them over yesterday afternoon on my request. i appreciate that. the illegal deck is not an issue that just came up an hour ago. some evidence of that is what we

received earlier today. second point is the 2017 permit that the permit holder shared. again, that permit really is not relevant to this permit. it clearly shows the scope of work limited to the rear addition. to the extent that anything else is depicted on that plan, the permit didn't have the effect of legalizing any of that. my final point is that they have no issue with the rest of the project they would support the permit without the work in the infill area. the concern is the shared light well and i know that there is the relationship hasn't gotten off on the best foot, and the frelicots are elderly and live

therant don't have a personal van debt take and didn't break into property and steal plans. you know, i feel like i need to speak to that. it is just not a fair depiction of their character. i didn't want to have to address it, but to some extent i feel i have to address it. they should be given the benefit of the doubt. they are only concerned about the light well and have no issue with the rest of the permit issuing. they want to understand these issues better and have their light well. >> thank you. we have a president honda has a question. >> the question as you brought up. as you saw the permit holder was quite distressed these plans stolen showed up. how did you acquire them? >> i believe and the frelicots

are on the line and my understanding these were preliminary plans the tenant had possession of and those were transmitted to me by e-mail this afternoon. >> e-mail from? >> from our client, from the frelicots. >> are they online? are they here. >> they are. >> i will ask them a question. how did you acquire those plans? you are on mute right now. >> the tenant. >> your tent or the neighbor. >> no the neighbor. >> thank you very much. >> you are welcome. >> is the tenant still online?

>> yes, he is here. >> i have a question for you. how did you acquire those plans? as you saw the permit holder says they were in a locked drawer? >> i have no idea what she is talking about. she showed me her drawings when she first came to the property, and i do this for a living. i have an interior design firm. i was able to sort of say rebuild them as best i possibly could. that is all i can tell you. i don't know what she is talking about. i don't know what they are doing down stairs. my laundry room. >> the question is you did not supply the original plans. >> no, no, no. >> from your memory. >> correct. >> not original plans. >> no, i have no idea about

locked cases. >> that is all interpretation from you, correct, sir? >> yes. >> thank you. >> you are welcome. >> we will hear from the permit holder ms. hu. >> this is her husband. i think what you just heard from the tenant is that he magically recreated the plans from memory. those plans. [indiscernable] they he were in a locked drawer in a unit not his. this court can make a decision about whether he created from memory or obtained plans from an empty unit illegally. as far as his testimony that he illegally built the unit. we have a long correspondence with him during the buyout where he insisted that deck was legal

and he was insisting on that during the course that he be allowed to retain access to the deck. now today he comes back to the committee in support of the claim and saying, no, he built them and he as the tenant built that deck illegally. i think that is the credibility of his testimony. as far as 311 notification. the reason we are reluctant. normally we would be happy. because of the behavior. we have photographic evidence and happy to get the contractor to testify. we have photos. we can provide to the board. this is the level of harassment which has resulted in us having to obtain temporary restraining

order granted against the frelicots. we don't want to go through 311. we believe they are prejudice against us to renovate. as their lawyer said they are relying on technicality that they weren't given technical notice despite they are living with the deck for 20 or so years. they have been living here for 20 years. new owner comes in, hostile to the new owner. now they are insisting on sort of having 311 notification as a way to get the construction. we have tried to engage with them. they are unresponsive. i would finally ask the board it is a technicality as to whether

this deck was permitted. it has been there 20 years at least. they never complained. the building department can't figure it out. we as good faith purchasers were told originally it was permitted. now there is evidence all over the place. you should focus on practicality. this is not something that would actually -- >> that is your time. thank you. >> we do center a few questions from president honda and commissioner lazarus. >> she had her hand up first. >> thank you. i just want to ask mr. lu or ms wu the purpose is to complete the firewall? is that the reason for it? >> correct. >> a couple reasons. one is we would like to have a

full vertical continuous firewall because at the same time that we do not want to turn this into a discussion or bring down the neighbor, there are significant issues with the fire protection in the light well. the light well is actually set three feet seven inches. it is required five foot set back with sprinklers and fire rated windows. in addition there is a certain density of windows they exceed. we don't want to bring them down. this is never but we want to protect our property the duplex. you saw the magnitude. >> thank you. >> president honda. >> couple questions. one, you recently purchased the

property, correct? >> yes, correct. >> this is a full disclosure state. when you purchased the property did they disclose that work was done unpermitted. >> no, not at all. >> the sellers sold that property to you and did not disclose it was unpermitted and they were living in the property? >> the seller passed away from cancer. our understanding she never really lived at the building. eugene anthony the tenant was the caretaker for the property. he did the horizontal addition. he most likely built that deck. i don't know. >> was it a trust or probate sale? >> yes. >> trust or probate?

>> trust sale. >> trustees didn't live on the property correct. >> correct. >> we were represented that the deck was legal. that was the tenant's position until this hearing. you heard from the lawyer he came forward the testimony it is not legal. as of a day ago it was a legal deck. >> unfortunately we have one case and it was easy. now it is not easy night. more than likely because of the information that was thrown at the last minute there will be aa continuance. for me it goes to integrity of the testimony. you heard that they received those plans from the tenant. tenant did this from memory recall. he is a professional. did you get an opportunity to look at the plans submitted?

>> are you on moot? >> the plans you said in the locked drawer. did you get to review the once submitted? >> yes. >> are they the exact plans? >> they are the exact plans. i apologize. he called an hour before the hearing. they are the exact plans. >> early draft. we had a full understanding of the situation. >> okay. >> during our negotiations. >> i get it. unfortunately we are the board that hears that neighbors are not going to be friends for quite some time. i was asking a question. it may or may not be pertinent but it goes to integrity of the

testimony. thank you. >> thank you. we will hear from the planning department. >> thank you. in terms of the plans that were provided today, i received a photo of plans. it seems someone had seen the plans and taken photos and shared them. i am confused by the testimony of the member of the public tenant who said they just from memory and it wasn't clear what they did from memory other than they are a professional. not that he recreated the plans. i don't know why anyone would go that that level of extent. i can share with the board the plans. i will put them on the overhead here. we are not in city hall. these are the plans.

this is not something that i think someone would just put together one day. these are plans that someone took a picture of. you can zoom out. it looks like maybe it was if we can identify whose tablecloth that may be we know where this was taken. it seems this is a photo taken somewhere and sent along. it is the same scope of work that is being proposed currently and this is where it says the unpermitted deck. this is a concern to us because we know the appellant raised this issue in their brief. we didn't have any supporting evidence of that. i have been in communication with the permit holder. they said maybe that the tenant would say they built it but there was otherwise no evidence of it being unpermitted. that is why i was surprised

there were plans prepared by the property owner that show unpermitted light well. when i asked about that toed they said, no, they are not aware of plans that show this but there are plans in the lock box. i can only report to the board what i am aware of. i am telling you everything i am aware of. it is unfortunate in this case that is complicated. maybe i could provide two orbits of information for the board. there is questions about property line windows. it looks like there are two windows on the permit holder's property adjacent to the light well. they appear on one of the sheets but not both of the sheets. second and third floors. also i have the 1938 aerial photo if the board is interested. it sounds like everyone will

agree it was built in 1990s or late 1980s by the current tenant. i am available for questions. >> vice president swig. >> show us, please, the 1938 photo and that is not my question. can you give us, can you orient us? >> it brings me joy to share the photos. this the one of the best inventions our staff put together. on the right appellants property with the light well. you can see to the left the permit holder's property. large light well square. you can see the firewall, that light line between the two properties. you can see the shade structure overhead. going back to 1938 aerial photo,

this is where i am saying with shadows and resolution it is hard to tell if there is anything in the area. if there had been a firewall up to the roof it would have at least shown as white line in that area but it looks like there is probably some shade structure here which is where the door is into that light well. there are stairs that go to the ground level, this doesn't, you know, indicate to me there is a deck in that area. that is the best that we have on that. >> no permit history that indicates prior to 2002 there were any other permits issued for something that might impact that area? >> no, a permit from 1991, no other permit for work in that area. >> there was a claim and this

may be a joe duffy question as opposed to yourself. you are referring to a firewall. there was mention in testimony that that is not a firewall that is plywood. if we moved forward and approved this permit and i am not saying we are. if we did because you have already told us it would be otherwise legal, wouldn't that show up -- wouldn't d.b.i. or somebody find out in the process of construction that was not a firewall and would that not trigger an nov? >> that would be for deputy director duffy to answer. >> thank you. >> now we will hear commissioner lazarus. >> thank you. this is more of a legal question. if you don't want to answer it

that is fine. maybe based on your experience with these things. we seem to have an admission of somebody having built something without a permit. whose responsibility is it then to fix that? >> it would be the property owner's responsibility for any work on the property. department of building inspection determines that the structure is not permitted then they could require the property owner to obtain a permit to legalize that work. it is the responsibility of the property owner ultimately to make sure the property is code compliant. >> second question. this may reveal my ignore ranges about the structure. if the issue seems to be around the illegal deck, is it possible to do this project and subsequently deal with the deck or does that interfere with the

building of the extended firewall? >> i mean i think it is hard for me to understand what the real concern is here as well. i think that the issue seems to be the neighbor and maybe now they have more information about the firewall and deck that are there now that they don't like it. certainly the property owner wouldn't be obligated to legalize it. they could remove the deck for the third floor and go about some other project at their level, second level where the office is. we would need to review whatever proposal they were to come up with. as we reviewed this we found this to be code compliant and ditch require notice based -- didn't require notice based on the information. now there are new questions calling into question our

decision on the permit. >> from a structural point of view. am i clear if we approved the permit can you deal separately with the deck? >> the deck is the roof of the room underneath. i don't know exactly what their construction plans are there. i doubt they are going to retain the existing deck. i think they will remove it and replace it with a new roof. that is the roof of the office below it. they can address better the property owner can better address their methods for the construction. maybe even the firewall will come down and get rebuilt. i don't know if they have more details to share on how they will construct the project. the deck is right above the room

below. they are infilling the room for the office on the second floor. the roof of that is the deck. it is hard too separate the two. >> thank you. >> president honda. >> we are way deep in the weeds in this, to be honest. they are infilling that light well and then they were retaining the deck, is that correct? >> the plans show the deck will be retained in the new project. at the end of the day a deck for the third floor unit and there will be the room below. that is the end results. >> it was mentioned earlier there is previous permits and there was previous. >> construction, yes. >> i believe it was stated that the tenant also did illegal

construction at the rear of the property. that was found and abatement was started under the previous ownership. >> thank you. >> we will hear from the department of building inspections. >> commissioners, d.b.i. i just the more you get into these cases the uglier they get. it is unfortunate when we deal with older buildings in the city of san francisco and all of the buildings and i talk about that. this is obviously sometimes you can live your life and nothing is never said about your building. unfortunately in this case we have neighbors that brought up issues. the problem is for the property owners having the date with this. you get into the mix d.b.i. and

planning looking at records and can't find anything. we don't have anything in our system. we are not going to get an answer or he wills we get the answer there was no permit. what do we do? you know, it is a case-by-case basis. you are not going to run a notice of violation right away. this was 30 years ago. i thought we were going to hear that. the concern there was a deck built at some point not designed by a structural engineer and architect. that is great. you know if you were building that deck today and come in with the permit for new deck because it is so close to the property line it would require a foundation at the ground level and 1r firewall continuous to the level of the deck probably to the roof level.

that wall is for your foundation you can easily they are made out of 3 by four studs. you are putting sheetrock on either side and building paper and siding the whole way up. the point of structure, to be honest. that is what you are building today. like i said at the start we know sitting here from week to weak people bring up issues all of the time, a fence, window or some appendage on the building that may have got built in the '70s, 80s or 90s without a permit. what do you do? this is unfortunate situation. maybe they need to rethink the infill of the light well. i printed the plans on my desk. i didn't cedi tail for the -- didn't see any detail for

infill. as the permit is sharoned. the only part 1r is the middle infill. the rest would remain noncomplaint. it seems there is new information. i am available for questions. i could talk all night. the permit holder brought up something about the other building not right sprinklers. >> that is your time. thank you. >> please finish. >> i will over rule and let you finish. >> it is good you stop me. the other building, those again these buildings are 100 years old. i appreciate scott putting up the 1930 photograph. when those buildings were built, i see even the house i live in like this. at one time everybody was open to each other.

the light wells were open. two stairs going downsides by side in both buildings. you could have jumped to your neighbors. as the years go on people put up walls, plastic sheeting over them, they don't want water coming in. 100 years ago the water and rain came in. that is the way they were built. that is why they are floor drains. over the years this is more install issue. it is really unfortunate. it is something the owners have to deal with. one way or the other tonight or through a complaint at d.b.i. we will deal with. >> questions from all of the commissioners for you. >> thank you. we will hear from vice president swig. >> i want to take a chapter out of commissioner lazarus' song

book and state to the task at hand which is the filling in of the light well. this is not about a deck. this is about filling in the light well as well as the other elements of the permit which are not under question at the moment. mr. duffy, if this board approves this permit tonight and the construction began and you sent folks out to inspect the light well portion of the permit and they discovered the site as it is today or they stumble upon something else and you said something that is really important that was brought up as something that it was unacceptable. you just accepted it which is i

think you said that the firewall above and the firewall below are accepted as noncompliant. did you say that? >> what you meant was that if you were going to inspect that if this project was approved, if the work doesn't show you are upgrading those, you are probably going to be okay with it. that is not part of what was approved. from what i am reading i don't say they are demolishing the existing wall and rebuilding from ground up. this looks like 6 by 10. that is what they are talking about a partial firewall less than 10 by 6 feet. the inspector might bring it up, you know, you can't make them rebuild it again if you are looking at an approved permit. >> i will cut you off.

i think you answered my question. really what we are dealing with the an inspector went there yes or no, if inspector went there to in that infill wall which is the subject of this permit, the inspector would say construction on assuming it was built right, the insulation of this new firewall as infill is appropriate and legal and we notice that above and below are noncompliant period. no notice of violation, no nothing, correct, yes or no? >> you said noncompliant. nonconforms is the word. you have a lot of nonconforming. you have looking at something that is existing already approved by the inspector. you might look at other

structural issues to say i don't like the look of this. get the architect and revisit this. it is a possibility we would bring it up. because 90% of that wall is nonconforming you are not going to make them knock it all down. you could. depends on the condition of the wall. we are not going to let something go that looks unsafe. we didn't hear that tonight. if the wall above and the wall below are in good structural condition and no dry rot or failure that is evidence to the inspector he is going to look at the new infill and say this is fine and notice that the two other walls are nonconforming. the fact that there is an illegal deck on the top has nothing to do with this permit in this case. >> it all depends.

again, if i go out there and i am inspector talking about my own personal experience. you are looking at a deck. if i saw the joints under sized you are going to ask that question, you are the inspector. it could come up in the inspection. >> but the portion of that portion which is the infill portion of the wall would be approved and the inspector might say i am approving this portion of the construction and by the way have you ever heard the term nov? if you haven't i am going to introduce you because i noticed there is an illegal deck that might be illegal. should expect a notice for you to take action on that deck. that would be separate from -- this is where i am going -- separate from what we hear tonight.

is it okay to do that infill? >> well, it is going to create a room that wasn't there before. i am looking at the drawings. there are questions about the structural detail on the drawings. not partial infill. this is a question for the permit holder. it is portrayed as partial infull. the drawings show enough infill. i don't know enough forecast if they are intending to rebuild the wall the whole way and what is going to support the whole new room there. i am not seeing the roof detail on the plans. there are definitely questions about the drawings. >> can we deviate and digress from mr. duffy and ask mr. duffy's question of the permit holder, please. >> of course. if you have a question. ms. hu.

>> so when we had the approved plans we assumed everything was a firewall. it is correct that i think within the recent investigation period leading us to this appealing we have reason to believe some of those firewalls are just plywood. >> the question is -- mr. duffy would you ask the question complete infill or partial. >> are you building a new wall from the ground to the roof that is a wall or infilling 10 by 6. >> we want a full one hour wall. we thought that it would just be the 10 by 6. i think we have to redo the wall that is potentially not a firewall. the intent is a full firewall. does that answer the question?

if not i can clarify. >> that is not on the plans. it is good to know. that is another permit you need. >> absolutely. we would file an addendum or another permit as appropriate to paysicly rectify the site position which is our intent full firewall. >> i am done. >> president honda has a question for deputy director duffy. >> i will let my fellow commissioners ask questions first. >> commissioner lazarus and commissioner chang. >> mr. duffy, under the circumstances and with everything you have heard what would be your comfort level with continuing with this permit as is.

>> i am not sure you can go ahead on the current plans i am looking at. there are details missing that are required anyway. i am not too sure. mr. sanchez did say about taking the light well. but the light well, i think that is creating an office on one floor. you are getting a new roof. if there the other work they are willing to do and address the light well under a new permit that is the best for them, the best option. as you heards the permit holders speak there is going to be another permit required. maybe that should be to construct 1r firewall and legalize deck and go through the process with that. i am not hearing that. that might be the way to go. maybe they do that on this

project. >> your comments about the details that weren't providing or missing information, should that not have been determined or observed when the permit was approved by your department? >> yes. >> i will stop there. thank you. >> commissioner chang. >> commissioner duffy, your question about the infill versus full firewall. how does that change how you would have otherwise observed this or do you just state it that you would recommend that the permit holder submit a new permit altogether in order to construct or have the entire

firewall from the ground up be approved. >> if it is missing details. now we hear somebody built the deck without a permit. there are a lot of unanswered questions about the permit. [indiscernable] the language of kitchen and bath remodel. they want to do work there. this light well area seems to be the bone of contention. you know, i don't like to be put on the spot what i would like. that is what the commission is for. i definitely think if we would do inspections on the project there would be questions about the extent of the light well, of the firewall and how it is going to be built and stuff like that. i see some structural details on the drawings but i think there

is stuff missing on the drawings in that area. you know, that does happen. in answer to commissioner lazarus' comment. the inspectors are good about i noticed you have the permit the drawings are good but no detail. you have to go back get revision permits. they are common. they are something you will see. if there is something missing on the plan the architect missed there has to be detail for firewall on the plans. >> if i may, deputy sanchez. if i understand correctly what was initially presented to the planning staff was the permit

request to infill a level that was underneath the deck and therefore because it was a small portion that had little to no impact to the adjacent property it could be approved without notification. now with the new information about the deck being permitted that is what would otherwise give the planning department pause because in order to have it fully legalized you would need both the light well and the deck to be legalized. in that case, how would the planning department typically process such a request? >> thank you, commissioner chang. you are correct. we viewed this as basically filling in a 6 by 10 opening in an existing wall. if now what we are hearing that wall itself is not properly

permitted and would need to be legalized that would trigger notification. it wouldn't be full 311 owners within 150 feet. it would be a notice to the adjacent property. we would apply residential design guidelines on the infill and generally look at setting it back at least 3 feet the wall from the shared property line to match the depth of the light well on the appellants property. there are cases where maybe we would allow them to build to the property line. for example sometimes we get a project where the maybe says we are filling in our light well, too, and they come in towing and we allow them to both remove the light wells. that is not the case here. at the end of the day if we look at legalizing that wall we will set it back three feet to match.

we didn't review that. would would need to bereviewed by the staff on the permit application. they may come to a different conclusion. i am stating what is likely to happen. that being said while there is a lot of discussion today about the illinois legality of the deck it is possible permits could be found and the deck determined to be legal or has that been ruled out as possibility? >> it would be difficult given the testimony this evening. the person is still there, they built the deck, they were a relative of the property owner at the time which i wasn't aware of. it seems that i would find it unlikely there is a permit for that. >> president honda. >> first of all, we have gone way into the weeds here and got offline. what is in front of us is a

fully approved project by both parties. because of the last minute testimony of the illinois legality of the deck which came from an individual that said he rerecalled andrew it by total recall which i don't find that to be truthful myself. one question is if the deck is illegal, then does the permit older are they required to remove it. that is one. anybody. >> president honda, you know the language that d.b.i. uses in these legalize or remove. we give them the option to remove it. >> since it was illegally put on the permit holder has the right

to remove it? >> you can remove it. as property owner, as i tell people you can do that. >> we have spent at least an hour just on the legality and illegal part of it, right? no one proved it is illegal, right? we have photographs from before indicating it was there on the last known photograph we took and prior to that. how do you tell me if it was legal on my building that it is now illegal. we don't have the original plan on file? >> no, we don't have a plan, no, no, no. high rise buildings. >> i will ask if question to the person that supplied the photographic memory drawing. are you still online, sir?

>> he is here eugene anthony. >> question for you, sir. >> yes. since you built this illegally and besides the drawing or architectural rendering you recreated yourself, what evidence do you have that this deck is illegal since you built it. do you have a picture of it or receipt for the work done at the time. >> it was built back in i am going to say. >> that wassents my question. >> i am trying to give you how far back it was to help you so you don't understand i don't have receipts for it. >> do you have any pictures? you have lived there a long time. >> 33 years. you have no picture of it in the prior condition? >> no, we didn't have cameras any more. the phone cameras. >> i am telling you we built it.

>> you redrew that from photographic memory which is hard to believe. >> i also photographed it so it was easy to do. >> that is not what you said earlier. >> you didn't ask that question. i have photographs of it. >> thank you. >> you are welcome. >> commissioners this matter is submitted. >> i would like to start, if i may. i have gone around it probably 260 degrees pay couple times on this. i don't necessarily agree that we have spent most of the time on the deck. i think commissioner duffy or inspector duffy has raised some issues concerning the permit itself. my inclination would be to do what i think commissioner sanchez to bring everybody up to the same level suggested earlier

if we can sever parts of the permit if it is clear enough to do that so that the work on the back and kitchen could proceed and the rest would need to be subject to a new permit and potentially a new process. >> i see deputy commissioner vice president duffy's hand up. >> i am sorry. one other thing i want to alert the commissioners to as well. when you look at these things in the case i did notice the permit holders were adding the property line and new office. i don't see that process described on the plans as well. that would be something we would look for as well. i want to bring that up.

the permit holder can confirm they are creating an office with new property line window. that is not on the plans either. >> i think after commissioner lazarus' questions i would want to talk to the permit holder or architect. i believe mr. gee is online. >> i am done for the moment. >> commissioner swig. >> i would like to take the same direction as commissioner lazarus. i see no reason to hold up this permit for the other elements. i would think that it is putting the permit holder at a distinct and unnecessary advantage. hearing the permit holder tell us that they actually would like to go further than just building the 10 by 10 space and in fact, they now want to build a

firewall that goes from ground level to the top, then why not stop this process at this point. let them review that whole construction program in general. there are now questions mr. duffy brought up about a window a question by mr. sanchez as to a setback that should occur. i think we should move forward approve the permit but exorcize the portion which includes closing in the space and let them come back, refile for another permit, go through the programming and really do the detail about the infill, come up

with the detail about going from ground to roof with a different firewall, set back to make it legal and also within that i am sure the deck will come up because it will. that is kind of where i am going. >> i am similar. i would like to hear from permit holders. i see an architect are you for permit holder or appellant? >> permit holder's architect is not present. are you available? >> yes, we are available. >> the question is you see where the board is going with this. is your engineer or architect online or do you have the ability to answer and go forward. >> i can probably answer. is the question if i can clarify. if the question is whether we

can provide further detail as to how the firewall would be erected at the property line? >> we are not -- it is mentioned by two commissioners they don't want to hold up the project going forward but they are going to put an x on the firewall portion until that is straightened out. >> i do understand that. if i may offer a suggestion because we are in a pretty hostile environment and it appears that whatever we do is going to attempt to be blocked by either the tent or neighbor. that light wall area, you know, i wrote this in my brief. we have three generations of

people living with us. we would like to have a way to two separate units have a way of internally connecting between them. that was in the light wall area. >> at this point i don't think that is going to be -- you have answered my question. thank you. >> i appreciate the fact you guys are saying you are willing to let the project continue. that is very constructive. i think in terms of next step certainly you have heard us say we are willing to do the firewall. we would appreciate guidance on separating the two portions. >> that is what i was asking if you had the ability to do that. if you have a paid professional that is an architect or engineer here. that is why you said that. >> we could continue with our construction.

we would not be able to wrap up our construction without having resolution on this issue. as you might appreciate it is hard to finish the building. >> let me add something if i can, darrell. with regard to the permit holders concern there is a hostile environment. the law is the law. if you all come back with a revised plan for that section which i am advocating that we abandoned for you tonight because there are so many things up in the air that when you resubmit and resubmit a plan that is acceptable to the planning department, that is legal by review of d.b.i., then you will get your permit. if it is legal.

if somebody is upset about that like your next door neighbor, they can be upset about that, but that is why we are here. if you come up with a legal program and design that works for planning and d.b.i., you should have no worry other than the fact you will have a bad relationship and that is their choice with your neighbor to get your job done. right now there is so much hair on this dog that i see no other direction than for us to help you buy separating out the firewall portion, infill portion and letting you move on with other portions of your project to allow you to improve the building and file a separate project as you have been advised by planning and d.b.i. and move it forward legally.

are we clear? >> yes, we appreciate that. >> question. i don't know if it is from mr. duffy, is it easy enough if we were to grant appeal and condition permit on x portion being excised is that clear from the way the permit is written? >> i can answer the question. it is probably do-able but i think the architect needs to answer the question on the drawings. there is work here. what are you going to do remodel kitchen and bathroom? is that what they are going to do? we like to see plans what the work would entail because it does away with the office, the 1r window and does away with a

lot of things. >> i automatic d.b.i. would want revised -- i assume that d.b.i. would want approved plans to draw the process out. >> do we need to continue this to just take that action potentially, mr. duffy? >> i think a continuance is good in this case to give them time to rethink what happened tonight as well with the new information. maybe they can look at the the project with the architect to say what they are going ahead within this case. maybe it is an easier permit to get internally. yes, they need time to think about this. continuance is good. >> that is a different direction. that is the one you think is best suited to the issues? >> i do, yes, i wouldn't hurt

here. it is up to the commissioners. the project is going the change significantly in my opinion from what i see on the plans from what they are able to do on the inside. it could be done on special conditions permit. it is not appealable and they can do some work on the inside. >> thank you. >> permit holders i want to ask you a question. you can't speak. commissioner chang you have a question? >> yes. i have been on this deputy administrator answered and communicated and just hearing the permit holder's concern about the situation and wanted to just offer a suggestion.

you said that from your perspective if this were to move forward as a brandna permit and you apply the residential design guidelines that the light well could be matching, that staff with support 3-foot light well which would match the appellant's light well. i guess my question is would we as the board and i guess i would ask if the permit holder would be, if this would, you know, achieve some of their goals. could we as a board grant the appeal on the condition that the proposed light well be reduced or the fill in be reduced such

that there is a matching light well and that the deck be legalized in is that a potential packet that we could explore and that way still protect light and air for the appellant but help the permit holder in achieving what they desire and the other goals? >> excellent question. the board has jurisdiction over the permit. the board can take any action appropriate. we would support something along those lines. maybe it would be good to hear from appellant if that is something they would support. they would be in better condition than what is there currently. in terms i would discuss with our residential staff if we would have the 3-foot set back just at the third level or both

second and third level. if it is second and third level that would be supportable by the appellant and maybe we could have a moment where we come back at future hearing and everyone agrees and we can move on with things. >> can we hear from the permit holder? is that something to help achieve your family goals and potentially be a compromise? if you understand you wouldn't need the firewall. there would be space to fill in more of it. >> thank you, commissioner chang for that helpful suggestion. we would support what commissioner sanchez just said d third floors. our concern is frankly moving our family in as soon as possible. if we could be permitted to

continue work to revise our plans to reflect 3-foot set back on second and third floors we would support that decision. >> thank you. i think that would be my recommendation. i would seek counsel from fellow commissioners to see what their thoughts would be on that. >> the only thing i thought i heard some hesitation on the part of mr. sanchez about needing to corroborate that would work are we talking about continuance or going that direction tonight? >> i think it is up to the second and third level that would be as much as we would require in our application design guidelines. we can hear from the appellant

as well. some feedback from them. >> i will ask whether the appellant would find that to be a satisfactory condition. please answer that question. >> what do you want? [indiscernable] >> i don't know. i am thinking. issue no permit? [indiscernable] >> can he answer this tomorrow

to talk about it? can we talk about it and answer it tomorrow? >> this matter would get continued for two weeks at least. we have no meeting next week. the meeting will conclude tonight. >> they are going to move it three feet. not going to be closed. >> you know what? we are waiting at the end. [indiscernable] the answer is not right. i think. [indiscernable] do we make sure they do the right thing? >> i honestly think that the

appellant is correct putting this position is awkward. two week continuance will result in an opportunity for all parties to think, revision of plans, a clear and concise direction to make everybody comfortable or hopefully make people more comfortable. i don't believe a two week continuance and stall of this project for the permit holders will put them at a significant disadvantage or cause them harm. i suggest we take all of the advice offered, great advice by commissioner chang, the flexibility of the permit holders that we just heard and the opportunity and i hope that the appellant will be gracious to open up lines of communication between themselves and the permit holder and that

two weeks you will come back and we put this to bed in the most positive of fashions. that would be my suggestion. >> thank you, sir. >> two weeks. i want to thank commissioner chang, excellent idea. to the permit holders, sorry for the delay. there is a lot of stuff uncertain at this point. because you don't have your architect and engineer you don't have the ability to answer the questions we asked. following the direction of the board i will make a motion to continue this for two weeks. at that time three pages of briefing. >> okay. each party three minutes. do you want to specify the purpose or just to clarify for the parties the purpose of the continuance? >> i think the reason why is to clarify what has transpired. >> so all of the parties have an

opportunity to contemplate commissioner chang's suggestion. >> or come up with their own. i do advice to the apple applelantsyou have not responde. in two weeks this board will make a decision one way or the other this board will make a decision. it would be best if you sat down and hashed this out if you like each other or not. you have millions of dollars of real estate here. you need to sit down. in two weeks this board will make a decision if you like it or not. that is to both parties permit holder and applelant. >> so the parties can try to work together on a solution. >> correct. >> if i may add something that is important to address --

duffy. it would be are you department s the concerns and ensure that you provide detail on structural concerns or anything like that. this might go away there may no longer be a firewall if you proceed. i want to make sure that we are covering our bases in terms of the concerns but ensuring full permit you are talking to the planning department as necessary and things like that so we can put this to bed. >> ensuring that deputy director duffy concerns are addressed and appropriate detail is provided? >> with building and planning. decks and everything requires both departments.

>> okay. we have a motion from president honda to continue this matter to may 5th so the parties can work on a solution. they can address the concerns expressed by deputy director duffy and deputy administrator scott sanchez. commissioner lazarus. >> aye. >> commissioner chang. >> aye. >> commissioner swig. >> aye. >> that passes. thank you 4-0. this matter is kinked to may 5th. to the parties. the president allowed three pages of briefing. your brief is due 4:30 p.m. on the thursday prior to the hearing. i will send out an e-mail with the details tomorrow. this concludes this matter for now. >> thank you everyone. see you in two weeks.

>> thank you, sir.

>> the city of san jose and i'm honored to be joined by friends and colleagues as part of the california big city mayor's coalition united for a common and urgent cause that is well after this pandemic has passed and an even pandemic will persist and that is homelessness. our city mayors no far too well

that affects 161,000 of our fellow californians we have convened today. this year's budget presents california with a once in a generation opportunity to dramatically reduce homelessness. if we can muster the collective courage and will to stand up for our most vulnerable neighbors. today, we stand together to issue a clearing call for historic investment against california's shameful scourge against homelessness. we sent a letter to our governor and legislative leadership encouraging that they commit a substantial share of this year's more than $40 billion budgetary surplus toward a multi-year funding strategy towards this crisis. a commitment of $4 billion per year. we call for flexibility of

dollars to prevent homelessness to triple down on successful initiative such as governor newsol's project home to get more of our neighbors off the streets. sustained successful models of emergency transitional permanent housing, tiny homes and many other initiatives that have emerged in our city. $4 billion per year over the next half decade. this commitment would be bold, part of this pandemic, the state of california had never spent more than a billion dollars to address homelessness, but we stand together to say we need to treat homelessness like the crisis that it is. we have met with the governor and legislative leadership to discuss our options and opportunities, we've pressed our case and they have

responded. in mid april, our senate leader rose and the california senate issued its budget plan called "build it back boldly." they called for precisely $4 billion in investment and homelessness solutions in each of the next five years for a total of $20 billion and just yesterday, the assembly released its budget and their colleagues similarly called for a $20 billion investment spread over the next half decade. we express our immense gratitude to our leadership and staff for recognizing this unique moment and for their continued partnership in this fight. and fortunately, we have a governor who gets it and who has already made historic commitments towards housing solutions and many others have

forged a set of initiatives. project "room key" serving more than 35,000 homeless residents. and certainly this is greater progress than we've ever seen, but we have much more work to do. i want to thank the amazing leaders who are about to speak after me and who i'm honored to call my colleagues and friends and enable timely flexible dollars they use to address the unique needs of their cities and to do so quickly. we'll be displaying this in the backgrounds behind us. behind me, next to this freeway, that is the 101, the emergency housing community we built here and just opened in recent weeks. although, building apartments in the bay area typically cost about $700,000 per apartment

building, we've shown how we can utilize and neglect publicland and innovative like this one in less than six months. we've built three of these already in the last year and a fourth one will be under way shortly. it's my great honor to introduce my friend and colleague he's just announced an epic commitment to address homelessness. welcome eric garcetti. >> thank you so much. and to this incredible group of brother and sister mayors across the state. to come across partisan,

bipartisan gentlemen graphy and it was in 2017, maybe 2016 when i was chairing this group and we were the big 11 before we became the big 13 and so glad to have both stockton and riverside as part of this organization now where we were with the last governor saying this homelessness thing is pretty big, we'd love to see the state get involved and we all love jerry brown. but we wouldn't quit. and we convinced him grudgingly because he only spent money grudgingly, but happily in the end knowing cities can turn around solutions to homelessness immediately. we had a governor who had as a mayor tackled homelessness, governor newsome saw that and tackled it and then doing cutting edge work which is now making a national splash with programs like "operation home

key" and los angeles resulted with the state buying 15 buildings and on our own another five that inspired us to get the twenty buildings we purchased in just three months. this is the biggest crisis in california. we see them under our bridges and, unfortunately, it's not just there anymore in the shadows. it's in front of businesses and homes. it is everywhere. it's the first thing people talk about and the second thing they talk about. and long after this pandemic is done, the pandemic of homelessness let's be clear what the consequences are and the worst cases, people die from homelessness. it's time for california at a moment of a historic surplus to speak to our values and to step up and i know we have the dream team with this governor and two legislative leaders and their fellow colleagues. this is why we were overjoyed to see both president and the speaker put together the support of $4 billion a year to

have a 5-year commitment, $20 billion to go straight into california's communities and in those concentrated areas of california's biggest cities to make sure we continue that momentum. behind each one of us, you see how we spend it. it's for shelter, permanent housing, it's for everything we need to address the complexity of homelessness. and, typically, those who are listening from the media are used to folks from cities or folks from an issue area coming to sacramento and saying "solve this problem for us. here's our empty hat and hand." we're not coming with empty hats in hand. and pockets full of investments. in los angeles, what that meant and when i became manager of the state, we're not lucky like london to have a county and city together was just $10 million. in the budget i released last

week, it's $955 million. part of that is state money. part of that is local measure that we passed and part of that is every extra ounce that we can find in this budget because this is our top priority. add that up between 13 cities. we are putting billions of dollars of money on the line and saying match us. meet this. get it right. it's not an either or. it is housing. it is shelter. yes, it is services. it is also trusting that cutting through red tape works when you empower local communities to make the decisions and spend quickly the money and we have a record and the data to show of the dollars effectively quickly, and happily being spent in our communities. i want to hand it over to my brother mayor in san diego who is one of our newest mayors, but also one of our boldest leaders. you know him from his state legislative work. by ty gloria, the floor is

yours. let's get this done. >> thank you, mayor garcetti. thank you my fellow mayor who is are here today. to help this issue in housing and homelessness. you were saying a moment ago, it resinated for me. we were leading during the pandemic and economic slowdown. it is striking to me the thing i'm asked about the most is what are you doing about homelessness. a moment where their health and health of their loved ones. fearful about their finances and the finances of loved ones that this is the issue they talked the most about and that's precisely why this group of leaders in cities across the state. bipartisan leaders say we need to continue state assistance in order to be able to respond to that about what we're doing about homelessness. i want to acknowledge the

leadership of our governor and my former colleagues and my former speaker or the current speaker, my former legislative leader anthony rendon and $20 billion over multiple years understanding that we can't solve this problem in one fiscal year. it then takes the repeated commitment of state, federal, and local leadership to get the job done. now, eric was talking about bringing some hard hats to the table, i'm bringing some [inaudible] to the table. my former colleagues in the legislature. we really want to see how we're bringing these dollars to work. to make sure that the dollars that californians entrust their state government with that those dollars are actually getting the job done. and, i'll tell you down here in san diego, we've been working extremely hard to change the status quo on homelessness. to move away from shiny objects, instead, invest in proven strategies that are

housing first spoken, human centered and compassionate in their approach. i want to tell you about a couple key stories. number one, we converted our city convention center into a temporary homeless shelter during the pandemic. collaborations between the city, the county, and nonprofit partners, we were able toll house over 4,000 san diegans. 43 families housed through that process. it really shows what happens when we choose to make this a priority and tapped with the urgency that californians are asking. through that process, we were able to vaccinate many of our homeless in our san diego community making sure our worst fears of outbreak and our population did not come. more importantly for our friends, we used a significant amount of home key dollars to purchase two extended stay

hotels and convert them into new, permanent supportive homes for four hundred high need clients. you can see one of those hotels behind me. the 332 homes we were able to build of acquired $2.3 million of annual funds to keep people housed. the housing unit is helpful, but as my fellow mayors know, it's the services that keep people housed for the long term. the city of san diego is prepared, ready, anxious to be able to acquire more of these hotels to convert them to supportive housing to get people off the streets for good. we need flexible funding as well to provide those services to say with a straight face to our residents and to our bosses that we will keep people housed and keep them off the street permanently. i will just tell you when we follow the housing first strategies, when we invest in more housing, permanent housing, we know that we can

get people off the streets and we can use innovative concepts that are seen behind so many of my colleagues here to see even more. emergency beds, safe parking program. dollars entrusted to us by the state that are getting results. and so it's my colleagues in sacramento who are diffeying up the budget as we speak and doing the difficult things like siting those housing projects, by executing the contracts to get the housing done. in my proposed budget, we are making an unprecedented commitment to this particular problem. we can do even more. so we are calling upon our state leaders for their continued partnership to take advantage of this once in a generation opportunity to fund the housing and the services that we know work for people

experiencing homelessness and to make a lasting impact on this crisis that i believe all of us were elected to solve. so, with those comments, it gives me great pleasure to turn the mic over to my friend up in san francisco. some people that's the second largest city in the state. i'll remind them it is san diego. my friend, mayor london breed. >> thank you, mayor gloria. and, thank you so much everyone for joining us here today and for coming together on these very important issues that impact our cities. here in san francisco, we've been working really hard to build housing, more shelters, and to connect people with the services they need. we've developed over 9,000 permanent housing placements and we created thousands more, but in our last point in time count, we still have over 5,000 people who are facing unsheltered homelessness. the reality is not one city can do this alone. not one city can fully address

this problem because it's clearly a statewide crisis. we all need more resources to truly face this challenge of the scale that's needed to make a real difference. and, we need to acknowledge that this problem won't be fixed overnight. it will require a sustained commitment over multiple years. this is a challenge that's developed over decades and our response will take multiple years to really solve what is truly an embedded problem. we need to build more housing, of course, provide rental assistance for people in need and create connections to employment, education, health care and behavioral resources. there's no one solution to homelessness. it requires a number of different approaches and many of them take time. that's why we're all here today. we're calling for a commitment from the state to provide the resources we need to make a difference over multiple years. there's so much to do. we have to reactivate our shelter systems after covid.

to house people from shelter-in-place hotels and continue to move people off the streets. some of us have been able to purchase hotels and make them permanent housing options for formally homeless people. that has been incredible. has a lot to do with project room key. in our reaction with this pandemic if we were provided the resources, it can be done. i look forward to making sure we have partners and resources and support in the state. and, with that, i'd like to introduce mayor jerry drier from fresno. thank you. >> thank you, mayor breed. i appreciate it. again, jerry dyer mayor of the city of fresno. i can't say enough about the

unprecedented partnership that exists between california's largest cities, governor newsome and our state legislaturers and it is a crisis. this partnership is allowing us to rescue our most vulnerable population providing them with a safe environment to live. much needed services and ultimately hope for a future, a better future. and, in fresno, we've used "project home key" dollars to purchase and operate five motels to house and provide services to our homeless population here. these motels have allowed us to initiate what we refer to as "project offramp" in our city. it is an offramp from our freeways and life of homelessness and an onramp to

services. our freeways which quite frankly once reasonable urban campgrounds are very close to becoming homeless-free in fresno thanks to "project home key" and our state legislative leaders and governor newsome. however, this success story is only the beginning. it is our plan to take project offramp and replicate it city wide and neighborhood by neighborhood. in order to do so, we need long-term flexible funding and to provide services and alternative housing models for our homeless population. absent that, we ultimately displacing homelessness from one neighborhood to the next neighborhood without real solutions. with the state's budget surplus and one time federal stimulus dollars, i believe we have a

unique opportunity to make transformative investments putting an end to homelessness once and for all. i urge our state legislative leaders and governor newsome to continue with what i believe the most meaningful partnership in our state's history and to be able to allocate the $20 billion in order for us to address homelessness over the next five years. and so it's my honor at this time to be able to introduce a long-time state leader, a senator pro temp for seven years and that is mayor darrell steinberg from the city of sacramento. darrell. >> have to unmute. thank you very much, mayor dyer. i really appreciate that. i am sitting virtually as it is

virtual in one of sacramento's sprung shelters. a quality facility where we have the capacity to house up to 100 women suffering from homelessness and as my colleagues have said, it's one of the many strategies that we as big city mayors are employing to combat this seemingly intractable issue of homelessness. it's not intractable. it just requires will and resources. i'm worried about the big city mayors because i want to make sure those listening understand how impactful this group of mayors has been and continues to be. and mayor garcetti to continue that history it was this organization that for the first time convinced excessive governors and the legislature

to direct resources directly to cities to combat homelessness. because we're not health and human services agencies and yet homelessness as is evident is our most significant urban problem. i was thinking about last night and pride and how he talked about seizing the moment and how he talked about a rare opportunity. to make a fundamental change that changes the course of history. to make a change that affects in a positive way. the lives of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. an opportunity to prove the impossible is possible. this is the moment in california to take that and make homelessness dramatically

different in all of our cities. it need not be hopelessness for we know what works. we are doing it. we are getting thousands of people off the street and now with the additional resources to be able to help those dealing with rent struggles and to be able to prevent evictions and to be able to prevent people from losing their homes. with $20 billion of state resources which is about ten times more than we have ever gotten even with heap and hap and "project room key" and "home key" what we are demonstrating in realtime works and imagine a californian with these kind of investments, people breathing a sigh of relief because we've done the

humane thing. we've done the right thing on behalf of suffering people and our business communities in our neighborhoods. not that we cure it, but that we make it dramatically and visibly better. that's the moon shot we have here in california over these next couple of weeks. i agree with mayor ricardo and the other mayors. so grateful for the legislative leadership for putting forth that $20 billion proposal and we know the governor, whatever the number is is also going to go big as he has in the past. let's get this done and let's start getting more people indoors. thank you. it's my honor now to turn it over to my friend, our mayor, demonstrating that homelessness knows no partisan boundaries and that's the mayor of bakersfield, karen dough. >> thank you, mayor steinberg. my fellow mayors and i want to

take the backgrounds that are behind them right now and have our homeless brothers and sisters have a background in their own home in their own office like the one behind me. combatting homelessness in our state continues to be a paramount issue. requires a broad range of resources for persons who find themselves in the most vulnerable situation of their lives. our california cities are on the front line of addressing the homeless crisis. we've demonstrated success in adding emergency bed space creating permanent housing solutions and now we must address and sustain the next phase of the challenge including providing housing, supporting services for severely mentally ill and drug

addicted persons. we are so grateful for the state's funding that's enabled bakersfield to double our emergency shelter bed space. yet, we find many of our homeless brothers and sisters on the street. we need ongoing resources to change the plight of jonathan, sharika, and karen who i met on the street yesterday and this morning. today, we're calling on state leaders to prioritize the much needed, ongoing flexible investments that will empower and address the youth challenges before us and sustain our progress. a $20, $20 billion funding investment will change the futures of the many jonathans,

the many sharikas and the many karen-anns in our great state. we are our brother's keeper. let us build back boldly to improve the lives of all californians. and now it's my pleasure to introduce anaheim mayor harry sadue from the happiest city in california. mayor sadue. >> thank you, mayor. good morning everyone. i'm anaheim mayor harry sadu. anaheim has been a leader in addressing homelessness for more than six years. since two thousand seventeen, we have opened four homeless shelters, including two temporary facilities that continue today. these efforts were assisted by

homeless emergency aid program funding. working with u.s. district judge david coder, we have cleared inhumane homeless encampments from the parks, and freeway underpasses. by maximizing city, state, and federal resources. but we are far from finished. we are working with the salvation army under long-term facility call center of hope as you see behind me. it will include shelter beds, supportive housing, health care and drug treatment. this public private partnership will be a game-changer for anaheim and orange county. you can see that these efforts in anaheim have proven to be a stronger turn on investment for california and we have made a

great gain. but these are, there are still too many homeless and the need for affordable housing is great. and this crisis is bigger than anaheim. with ongoing flexible support with state partners to meet this challenge and change lives. now, it's my pleasure to introduce riverside mayor patricia lock douzen. >> thank you, mayor sadu. one of the newest mayors in the big city mayor coalition, i appreciate the power that we have in our collective voice. so i have really appreciated being able to be part of this group and i want to echo the sentiment of my fellow mayors. i know we all want to thank our state legislatures and governors for being proactive.

we don't often have to seek them out, they come to us and they listen which i appreciate so much and like mayor gloria said i think it's true with most of us that they've made it clear homelessness is one of the greatest challenges of our time and leaders must rise to this occasion. we must rise to meet this challenge. and, you heard from every mayor here. each city faces its own unique but as you've also heard much more work remains to be done. we all know uniquely that the crisis of homelessness transcends our individual cities. the funding that we're asking

for for the legislature and that they have now budgeted gives us a unified front from the state things that we all need not just the beds, but mental health services. without ongoing funding, our efforts, our momentum will be solved and we won't be able to move forward. now the city of riverside has a proven track record of using direct funding from the state in an innovative and prudent manner. we are often the ones who roll up our sleeves and get to work because we've not always been included in things. we've worked very hard to spend our money frugally and with great impact.

this million dollars proposal will allow riverside to support long-term solutions. such as "project home key" or nontraditional models. this is the first of its kind in southern california and has provided a model that other cities have emulated and it's also where i met powerful paul this past week. he is is a pro boxer who is now getting into permanent supportive housing and he's very grateful for the work we have done here. so while we remain certain from recovering from this pandemic, we must also be equally certain and optimistic in our ability to meet the crisis of homelessness in our city. and, with this funding, i'm hopeful. we just have a sense of

optimism here and we can begin to move the needle and make a change and i'm pleased to be part of this historic day today. with that, i want to turn it over to the mayor of santa ana. >> thank you, mayor. i'm proud to stand with well virtually stand with all the mayors here on this call. so i'm not going to repeat what was said because i think a lot of the theme has already been articulately made. i just want to say that one thing we all can agree on as mayors and staff is that the buck stops with us and we get those tough questions and demands and we know that here, for us, what we've found most interesting was that when we were talking about different issues like public safety and now public health, homelessness is still holding higher than either of those two critical issues that we deal with, so we

know it's on the minds and hearts of many of our fellow residents. and so, for us, i know what we've tried to do is make sure we invest intelligently and we're looking at the background in the front of which is a permanent supportive housing project and we do a lot of service providing there, not only spaces and placements, but also wrap around services and, you know, one of the things i wanted to talk to you about is that santa ana's in orange county where 80% latino. many of our residents live below the poverty line. this is also an equity issue when we talk about homelessness. we want to deliver those services to unsheltered residents and population. but, at the same time, we want to create a quality of life that's going to be proud for our low income communities of color to be able to thrive in and that's the fairness that they deserve and that's something that we have to deliver and be conscious of.

so i know that when we talk about, you know, $20 billion's a big number. we have to have a proportional response to that issue. it's something that we know as mayors, it's not going to be a long-time lump sol approach. it's a multi-year effort that we have to all work together on and i'm proud of all the efforts we're doing collectively, but we all have unique communities and orange county and the minds of others may seem like -- and harry can speak to this, it's depicted as an affluent county. you see some real despair and that's where we have to use this money intelligently to address those things and so i'm really proud to say and we're blessed to be living in a state that i think there's an understanding and there's humanity that we all want to deliver these services in. but, i think the moment is now and i think that we all have to, you know, ban together and

use this opportunity and use it wisely because, look, if it goes away, it can be spent or miss spent other places and i think all of us are saying we can do things intelligently together and cohesively and make the state, again, one of the best places to live in and a place that i've grown up in myself. to the extent i'm completely supportive of what was said out of the effort that's going to be requested, we're grateful to the governor and his staff for being able to work with us. so let me go ahead and just because i know we're short on time. i want to turn it over to my friend and other newly elected mayor from the great city of stockton, mayor kevin lincoln. kevin, the floor is yours. >> thank you, mayor. and, again, just thank you to my fellow mayors here for your leadership. the image that you see behind me is the image of count center studios here in stockton,

california. this location was formerly a hotel that was converted. as a result of "project home key" and units that were provided to our shelter. over 80% of stockton residents view homelessness affecting the quality of life for all stocktonians. and over 50% are experiencing behavioral health challenges in the areas of mental health and substance abuse disorder. the need to expand wrap around services, emergency shelter capacity, transitional and permanent housing opportunities has never been greater. the fundamental allocate -- the $20 billion funding allocations to our cities would help us take bold actionable steps to mitigate homelessness by addressing the root cause of homelessness in our communities and bring healing to

unsheltered residents. it is imperative that our cities have access to increased levels of flexible funding from the state to adequately address the crisis through more positive initiatives like "project home key," community outreach efforts and ultimately homeless prevention. once again, this flexible funding allocation for homelessness would provide us with the opportunity to meet the immediate needs in our city. at this time, i'd like to turn it over to mayor shaft of oakland, california. >> thank you, mayor lincoln. i believe mayor shaft will be joining us momentarily. we can proceed with questions and perhaps come back if mayor shaft is able to jump on. so we welcome questions from anyone in the media to any of the members. >> mayor shaft is here now. >> great. welcome. >> hi, i apologize. >> from the great city of oakland, i want to welcome my

colleague and friend from across the bay mayor libby shaft. >> thank you so much, i know my job is to wrap us up and send us home. the state of california has made an amazing impact in our city in bending the curve to start to address this moral outrage that is homelessness. i'm sure you heard from all my colleagues there is nothing that our residents care more about than this. in oakland, the state's assistance has helped us double our shelter capacity. that means double the number of people that we have been able to get off of the streets and allow them to sleep with a roof over their heads. it's allowed us to advance innovations in shelters like our cabin communities, our safe rv parks. we also have used the "home key

program" to do miracles. i don't think anybody imagines that we could create permanent affordable housing for our homeless so rapidly using existing buildings and not just hotels and motels. in oakland, we converted a former college dormitory into housing and bought single-family homes to advance a very innovative model of shared housing for our formally homeless seniors. it's truly beautiful. we know that this problem -- we know how to fix this problem. each of our jurisdictions have done detailed analysis, have regional plans in the bay area, all homes just unveiled their regional action plan. and in alameda county, the second largest county in the bay area, we also just released this week a detailed systems

analysis that shows exactly how we can end homelessness. we know how to do it, we just need the resources. $20 billion is an appropriate, large investment in california's largest problem. it is something as mayors are

this request. >> thank you, mayor libby shaft. as members of the media can see, we have a great lineup but it's wonderful having a great clean-up hitter like mayor libby shaft to really drive us home. so the message is very clear. we're happy to take questions from members of the media to any of the big city mayors here today. >> absolutely. thank you, mayor. we're going to start with chris win from abc 7. chris, you should be able to speak now. >> great.

thank you so much, rachel. chris win from san francisco. this question is for san jose mayor licardo. this would be a big investment. what do you say to people who are on the fence that it will be money well spent. and, secondly, for mayor breed, some have the notion if you build it they will come. for those who might come here in search of housing and services. first, let's start with mayor licardo? >> that's, chris. it's no question it's a big investment. when we emerge from this pandemic, this will remain our biggest problem and the evidence is clear that we haven't spent nearly enough addressing this crisis. we believe this budget surplus will be something on the order of $40 billion, perhaps more.

obviously, the numbers change as we get closer to the final decision, but spending half of a surplus on the biggest problem we face in california and making that commitment last for a half decade, that's money well spent. mayor breed. i think -- >> mayor breed had to jump off for a scheduling conflict. chris, we'll connect you with her office after this. my apologies. >> great. thank you, chris. >> next question comes from telemundo sacramento. her question is the money will be used to continue the existing programs or to create a state program that will be implemented in every city and only the cities in this petition will have access to the money or will be distributed to every city.

>> i'm sorry, the question was how will the money be distributed? >> correct. >> yeah. again, i welcome any of my colleagues to jump in. we know that the funding formulas from the state have typically allocated dollars to counties and because of the leadership of predecessors like mayor darrell steinberg and eric garcetti we now have direct allocation to the cities. obviously, we'd love to have even larger allocations to the cities. we know this is going to be a partnership. cities and counties working together because we each have critical roles to play. homelessness is worse and that is in our big cities. mayor steinberg. >> i'll just try just on the question of how the money will be allocated. what we seek is maximum flexibility, to be able to balance both the capital that's necessary to build whatever

kind of structures we need to bring people under a roof, but then secondly and mayor shaft is absolutely correct, the five-year piece of this is important. it enables us to use flexible money for operations and to be able to spread that money out over five years. it's a combination of the capital and the operation that creates the magic that allows people to regain their lives off the streets. >> thank you, mayor steinberg. anyone else like to respond? okay. >> i'd just add that this is -- we're not asking for a new program. we all know what the proven strategies are. our issue is scaling them and so this is not a new state program. it is investing in evidence-based strategies to

prevent and end homelessness and the flexibility allows californians to get more bang for their buck. each one of us knows the investments we have made locally and where that added state dollar is going to have the biggest impact. that's what's so important about this request. >> thanks. i have a question from christina kim from ks. how many funds would san diego county expect to get and what programs or projects would you want to prioritize? >> appreciate the question. like our chair licardo mentioned, last year, home key dollars, we were able to receive over $30 million having housing for over 400 san diegans. that's a budget decision that will be made by others. where i would like to see

dollars, i would like to see the number of growing supportive housing units in our city. that's how you solve homelessness. that's what we did with the hotels. we are prepared to acquire hotels. we can also help provide gap funding. things that city council has already authorized. get more deeply affordable units, work with our county. i had a long meeting very early this morning with the county of san diego trying to coordinate our federal relief dollars. that probably looks like more detox beds, more recoup and care beds. the kind of niche spaces that we're looking with super sick people on the streets. it's the permanent housing that addresses the issues in the long run. some of these intermediate beds in between. everything's on the table and what i would refer to is look at our city's homelessness

plan. the full implementation of that plan will require $1.9 billion. you understand very clearly why i'm here today and so strongly in support of this proposal. it will help us get much closer to the interventions in that plan. it will reduce homelessness by half in the next couple of years in san diego. >> thanks. eric, you should be able to speak now. >> hello, my name is eric galicia. i'm the editor of the local college over here. my question is for mayor lock-dawson. in terms of the spending that riverside implements, how would you go about that when it comes to the fires that we've been seeing in the river bottom and other parts of the city? and, also, you campaigned on

tackling homelessness through a regional approach, so if, you know, do you plan to use some of the funds at river side we get to help out our neighboring cities with homelessness? >> well, thanks for the question, eric. i appreciate that. both of those questions are related to each other, but i will tell you fires aren't necessarily a homeless related problem. i mean, some of it can be, but this money, we will use for most likely not just housing, but services. we're going to bring services to this region. and, also, we're already working with a regional coalition right now and we've made a plan to tackle these kinds of things where we are working with our surrounding cities, we're working with the county. we're working with the state and we have a plan to address

not only the fires in the river bottom but also just the folks that are down there and getting them into housing and getting the services that they need. so the money will be used wisely as it has in the past. as you know, we have in riverside here, the office of homeless solutions. on there, you can see our dash board and we've planned to use that money to just build on the programs as mayor shaft said. build on the programs that are successful. we know what works, so we just need to make sure we have the funding to continue that work. >> thank you, mayor. >> thank you. we have megan. megan, you should be allowed to speak now. please tell us your outlet as well. >> thank you, this is megan with los angeles magazine. my question is for mayor garcetti. this request comes as you know at this time in the federal lawsuit, mayor, you had said after he issued this injunction

that you would still hope to sit down and work something out with him. his order on the stay request sunday night opens the door for that. have you or anyone else at city hall talked with the judge this week, and, if so, how did those discussions go? >> i can't speak for everybody, but i was pleased to see him back off of the order and to sit down with us which we've never not wanted to do and engaging and making promises and meeting those promises. i just said stay out of the way of progress. i'm happy. i think the council president spoke to him briefly and we agreed to sit down on the 27th of may. i know he has a big case he's doing but in the meantime, we're not waiting one minute. but i certainly don't want to see anything of what we're

advocating here. we're acting too quickly to be able to stand up. >> so it doesn't sound like there's any discussion then before the stay request. that's still pending and it doesn't sound like there's any kind of settlement or negotiation. >> i would hope so. that's what we were aiming for. we already made one huge settlement jump. as you saw in my budget historic funding to get there we hope the county matches as well. but, no, we're ready. if we wants to talk to me tomorrow. >> may 27th is a long ways off. >> that's what he asked for. in the meantime we're satisfied with what he's withdrawn. >> okay. i did have another question regarding the pallet shelters that are going up everywhere

especially in north hollywood. these same shelters had a pretty bad fire last december and the mayor of redlands is citing that fire as a reason to go with another type of tiny home that he says isn't as flammable. i understand that i think the city bought these pallet shelters before the incident and banning, but i'm just wondering if there's been any review of the shelters? >> yeah. very expensively and folks wanted to build them much more densely, but our fire inspectors insisted on the space between them. because you can have them with or without those hvac extinguishers so we've done a lot of extensive work to make sure they're going to be safe and spaced out from each other. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, both. we've got about three more questions here. gina from bay city news. gina, go ahead. >> hi, can you hear me?

>> we can. >> great. so i have two questions. the first one is more general, but how exactly will the $20 billion proposal be split among cities? i mean, is it just the major cities here on this call or in this coalition and will it be based off maybe population? how do you anticipate that will be split. ? and the other one is specifically for mayor licardo, what issues would you prioritize in san jose and how much do you anticipate san jose would get if this was passed? >> thank you. the allocation will be determined by the legislature and the governor, but what we've seen in the past is essentially allocation that goes both to counties and to large cities. counties obviously have smaller cities within them and the allocation will be based on a formula that combines both point in time homeless count and population and so we'd

expect those kinds of formulas to continue and we'll be certainly advocating to ensure that the hardest hit cities after all it's large cities that suffered most from homelessness are in fact front and center in focus. in terms of san jose, i think what you've heard from my colleagues is very true in san jose as well. we need many different solutions because homelessness is a complex problem or diversity in which ways come into homelessness. we'll be spending dollars to prevent homelessness. very effective strategies using relatively small amounts of money that keeps families housed. that's a much more proactive way of addressing this problem. obviously. we'll be building more of these permanent supportive housing in shelters as well. we need all the above strategy because we know we can't wait

for one solution while others are still on the street. we're going to need multiple solutions. >> thank you. and just sorry. we know we've heard a lot this is a multi-pronged solution that the mayors already know. i mean, what are the main solutions to, you know end homelessness or at least curb it? >> i'll kick it off and ask my colleagues to jump in. the one solution is housing. we need to build a lot of housing than in the past and we need to be able to do it quickly and that requires some innovation and what you're seeing throughout these 13 cities are innovative approaches everything from tiny homes to various approaches and

density enabling more people to get off the street. we're able to get a lot of red tape out of the way the governor's been forthright. so we need flexibility and the ability to move quickly. i've also learned, preventing people from getting into homelessness is a much more cost effective approach. so we need housing and homelessness preevengs. >> tim, did you want to go ahead. go ahead, mayor shaft. >> i just wanted to lift up a reasonable action plan. and what it puts forth is really how we can maximize the flow to our system and make the investments that are going to be the fastest and most efficient at bending the curve and that's the 1:2:4 ratio.

every interim bed that we have, we need to create two permanent affordable houses for people to live in forever in security and we need to fund four prevention interventions. what we're seeing is we're getting people out of homelessness, but new people are getting homeless at a faster rate. in two years it's prevented 5,000 house holds from falling in to homelessness or rapidly resolving their homelessness and the average cost has been about $4,000 for average housing and allows us to maximize our speed at which we

completely end homelessness. 1:2:4. thank you. >> yeah. i wanted to address it from our perspective. the question is often answered, what is the process? and i think it's unique for every city. i can tell you in fresno, what has been working, you need to be able to fund outreach workers. there has to be that repore established and it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. the second thing is to be able to take those individuals and place them into transitional housing and that transitional housing must have security, it needs services for mental health, for alcohol substance abuse, addiction to address the growing population domestic violence. victims and their families out there on our streets. our veterans who are often times abandoned. all of those services need to be provided and not on the

short term, long-term and there has to be an exit strategy from that transitional housing and that's permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, alternative housing models like tiny homes, accessory dwelling units, as well as apartment complexes. all of those things have to happen. if not, we run into stagnation. and the fact that we ultimately end up with people remaining in transitional housing or emergency shelter for longer periods of time ultimately transitioning back out onto the streets in continuing with that life and lastly making sure that these folks have skills that will allow them to be gainfully employed. and so we need all of those services over a multiple period of time which is why we're asking for four to five years of funding and sustained

funding. so. >> would you like to jump in. >> one of the reasons why people are homeless is for different reasons and there's a different set of solutions for people for example who have become homeless for a short period of time because of an economic circumstance. contrast that with people who are living with severe mental illness or drug addiction we know what to do. the interventions are different. it's immediate housing to make sure that homelessness doesn't last long. for those who are chronically homeless, we call it a continuum of care. and what this funding would allow us to do would be able to fund the assertive outreach,

the case management, the wrap around services, the temporary housing that's needed and then the transition to longer term or permanent housing. it's all about getting to scale on all of the interventions and strategies that we know work because we're doing them, we just can't do it for enough. >> we'll take these two last questions and then we'll wrap up. >> this is christy growth with kthl. this question is for mayor steinberg and for mayor lincoln. if you guys are able to get this commitment, what programs and specific projects do you guys have ready to go. to hit the ground running and

going with that, how do you convent. ( who don't want those shelters and centers and affordable housing near them. >> i'll go ahead and start it off. thank you, christy for that question. when it comes to the matter, you know, it's very important to understand and have community buy-in and work alongside and through our current community based organizations that are currently partnering in the space to help the needs of the most vulnerable in our community. in order to get public buy-in. we have to make sure we're enhancing the services that are in place to meet the specific needs. what was the other question, i'm sorry. >> what specific projects do you have ready to go if you were to get this allocation of

money? >> yeah. so they're currently projects in place right now. one of the things we have to do is we have to expand that emergency so the capacity and enhance our transitional housing, but also work very hard towards that permanent affordable housing, you know, for our unsheltered population like many of our colleagues had said over the past hour that this is very multi-facetted. this is a very complex issue when it comes to homelessness and every community is impacted differently, but we can't forget the hard work that our community stakeholders are doing right now. and the people in our community that have been, have developed that repore to mayor dyer's point with the community, we have to work with and we have to double down on those resources so that they can be

as affected as they possibly can with reaching this most vulnerable population. >> darrell, did you want to respond? >> how will having more state money help solving this problem? >> i think it's been alluded to in a couple of the other questions and answers. it's not just getting people into beds. we have prevention strategies.

>> but also, we need better exit strategies. as mayor steinberg alluded to, we know what our population is. it's not just one monotypical population. we know we have people suffering from mental illness. we know we have people suffering from drug addiction. we know people have physical disabilities. people who are just down on their luck. need a leg up and help. so the money that we will be getting will be going towards each one of those programs. mostly what i would like to see though is focus on services. we have very -- the strategies that we've put in place now.

>> thank you. with that, i think that's a good note on which we should wrap this up. i want to thank all the members of the media for being with us and thank all of my colleagues for their forceful advocacy. we'll continue to push forth in the weeks ahead, we look forward to celebrating by getting more housing built in our communities and helping our homeless neighbors get off the streets. thank you all.

everybody wants to be at chase center, don't they. well, good morning still, everybody. i started real early so i don't even know what time it is. hi, i'm san francisco mayor london breed. really excited to be here with you all today here at thrive plaza, here at chase center, the home of the golden state warriors who for the first time tomorrow will be playing with

an audience of fans. what that says is we are well on our way to recovering in the city. we are well on our way to re-opening and gradually taking those steps. most importantly, as great as we have done here in san francisco, 64% of san franciscans have received at least their first vaccine dose and about 85% of those over the age of 65, we're seeing our reproductive rates decline. we are feeling good. we are feeling excited and happy and anxious to get back to our lives; but at the end of the day, you all know we're still in the midst of a pandemic. so as comfortable as we may be with our progress, let's make sure we continue to wear our

mask and follow our health directive so that we can finally get to a place where we can watch a game without our mask on. and, the reason why we are here is not just because the warriors are playing tomorrow with fans for the first time in almost a year, just think about it. last year, at this time, the city was closed. and, now, look at where we are. last year this time, we had a different president who pulled us out of the paris agreement to meet our climate goals, but san francisco didn't let that stop us. fortunately now under president biden who made a great announcement today for the country on earth day, we in san francisco are not only well on

our way to exceed the goal that he set for the nation. we are well on our way to exceed the goals we set right here in san francisco. in fact, we are 41% less in carbon emissions in san francisco since one thousand nine hundred ninety. this is six years ahead of the goal that we set initially. and it's the reason why we are so successful and the goals we set around climate change has a lot to do with partners like the warriors. this chase center is not just beautiful and fun and exciting to watch a game in. this is one of our very important environmental sustainable buildings in san francisco. this is the future. and some of the things that we did here in san francisco in addition to implementing clean

power sf, you all remember years ago that big push to get that program started. you all remember the conversations around making sure that in new buildings we ban natural gas. you all know that we in san francisco have a climate action plan, a plan that's not just a plan that discusses what we're going to do, it's a plan that actually puts into action the work that needs to be done to address climate change. this climate action plan is being revised as we speak thanks to the leadership of debbie rafael and the staff of department and environment. and what i am most appreciative is they not only are focusing on equity as it relates to geographic equity here in san francisco. they are making sure that young people have a voice in this action plan which is why mayor

from george washington high school is joining us here today. so, folks, san francisco should be proud. we're leading in the vaccination effort. higher numbers than the state and the entire country. we're leading in addressing issues around climate change with our carbon emissions and other challenges that we face and we're going to continue to lead. and it's time to start upping the ante and setting new goals. at the end of the day, san francisco has been a leader. we know that we can't just operate in our own bubble and make changes to support and uplift the environment without making sure that we are demonstrating how it can be done for others to follow.

this entire planet and the future of our planet and the generations to come, there's so much at stake here. i don't want the next generation of young people to look back and say, "what did they do? why didn't they act sooner?" you see this windy clean air we're breathing, it has everything to do with everything that we have been doing in san francisco. today, clean power sf our city's clean power program is going to beat our target of being one hundred% renewable by five years. all clean power sf customers will receive 100% renewable energy by 2025. and, let me tell you why that is so significant. when we first, debbie, you remember and, michael, you remember this too, when we

first launched clean power sf, there was just a little more money that people had to pay for 80% renewable energy and the super green 100%. now, by two thousand twenty-five, everyone gets, every one of our customers gets super green, but they don't pay anything extra. now, how significant is that? that is going to change the game for clean power in this city moving towards our future to a more seasonable, environmentally friendly city that sets an example for other places to follow. we're going to be introducing legislation that will update our climate targets to san francisco so that san francisco can be carbon neutral. instead of by 2050, when i'm

probably going to be real old and the rest of us will too. by 2045. is part of the paris agreement. and so, i know that these numbers and these environmental things don't seem like they're really cool, but they are really cool because the clean air that we drink, i mean, clean air that we breathe, the clean water that we drink, some of the best water that you could ever taste anywhere. you can drink it right out of the faucet without a filter. being able to see the green trees grow, everything has an impact. and that's why having partners like chase center working with us to make sure that they are

not only creating the incredible environment they do to make games exciting even though i know the players can do that all on their own, but this facility doesn't hurt. they have been partners as i said earlier in creating one of the newest green buildings in san francisco and i'm pleased to welcome to the podium kim stone, the chase center's general manager. >> thank you. welcome everybody. and, thank you, mayor breed. it is so important that we all work together to combat climate change and, at chase center, we value setting the example for others in san francisco. thank you to debbie rafael, the department of environment for working with us to become a green certified business.

these aren't -- these are high targets, but they are achievable targets so other private businesses that are listening in, i want to encourage you to join us here. be part of the family about being green certified business. michael carlin as well. his group at sfpuc for all the hard work ensuring facilities like chase center can be powered by clean energy. and, as mayor breed said, today, the stars are aligning for us because we get to celebrate this great achievement for chase center and tomorrow we get to welcome fans back to the building. we hope chase center can serve as an example to any size business that if we can do it, you can do it. let's go green together and inspire the private sector to do so. so how did we do this? what are we doing? so as chase center, we focus on sustainability from the beginning of this construction project. we are a lead goal certified

building design and construction that was during our three year construction process and then for ongoing maintenance and operations. we know being in california, the conserving water is critical for all of us in our futures. so we're designed to recover gray water from our laboratories and our showers. from the roof, we collect rain water and even just condensation and we are able to reuse that. and, through those collective efforts, we have reduced our water consumption by 84%. thank you. you can imagine it takes a lot of energy to run 1 million square feet and what we do for games and concerts. so this is another area we place high priority. our state of the art hvac system allows us to take advantage of this great climate that we have here to keep the building cool without having to

add extra energy to do so. we also integrated a highly efficient lighting system with customizable local controls that ensure that when you walk out of a room and it's unused for a certain period of time, the lights automatically go off. in a million square feet that is an important component to our energy saving efforts. so these features and a lot others that i won't go into the details on, but we can certainly provide them if you would like them, these have resulted in us saving 35% of our energy usage. lastly, i want to highlight our waste management program. trash is a beautiful thing and so we focus on this and so we have dramatically reduced our construction waste during construction and diverted 78% of our waste out of landfills. very proud of that. and, then, on an ongoing basis, we sort our waste daily and we

sort it after every game. the importance of this is that it ensures that we are reducing waste. san francisco has an amazing infrastructure for compostables, recyclables. it just takes that little extra effort and it has a big impact. and, materials aren't the only thing we're sorting. we are also since our opening in 2019, gosh, i can't believe it will be 409 days since we've had fans in the building. 2019 just seems like such a long time ago. but when the fans come at the end of the game, any of our unused food and raw ingredientsings, we give that to the food runners program and they reuse it and repurpose it. so we aren't throwing extra food into our compost. while we're excited to open our doors to fans tomorrow, i want everyone to rest assured that we operate in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner

here. one last reminder for all your fans remember your game ticket is a muni ticket as well so you can reduce your footprint that way as well. thank you all and i want to say with leaders like mayor breed, san francisco will -- has and continued to be a global leader in the environment and we continue to be partners in if that environment. go doves. mayor breed. >> thank you so much, kim. and, thank you, for all that the warriors are doing to really protect our planet and that's what this is all about. one of the things that i'd like to, you know, tell debbie every time i see her because she's like, you know, i would call her "madam green." she's always looking for ways to save and support the environment and i'm always so proud about how much trash i don't have anymore. and, in fact, i share a trash

bin with two other people and every time they pick up the trash, it may be one or two small bags in the trash and everything is recyclable. your plastic bags. you put them all in a bag and wrap them. it's easy. once you start doing it just becomes habit. from the coffee filters. you just throw those in the compost. i have more compost and more recycles than anything. i'm proud in doing it, but also it's second nature and anyone can do it and i would just say that when your kids tell you to do it, make sure you listen to your kids. children are like don't put that in the trash. i'm like okay. good, they're starting early. children working in our

community young people to understand. in high school, i can tell

>> hi everyone. i've really seen the students value the importance of taking action towards climate issues and how we address climate issues is is clearly one of the biggest issues of my generation and we can't avoid this problem any longer. that's why at george washington high school, i'm really proud of our work of improving my school's waste management issues. we've taken small, but mighty steps bringing awareness to our community about recycling, composting and finding other ways to improve students' environmental habits and behaviors. additionally, i want to mention the students from academy high school for joining my school's environmental club for climate action month. our club's work has brought in many students to want to participate in more action based projects to see the change that's needed.

it's really exciting to see so many youth from across the city to join one another to amplify their voices. when the mayor kicked off a series of workshops and events, so many of us youth jumped in on the opportunity to provide more ideas. the process and courage so many youth to conduct their own plans within their own communities. another good thing, i want to commemorate the notable youth organization as they've been at the forefront of the movement this past year. and, during this pandemic, there's so many obstacles. they've had so many virtual workshops each month and keeps the momentum going. they've encouraged so many youth from all over the bay area to keep educating and fighting for climate justice. not only in the city of san francisco, but in our country.

while i'm inspired by all of this, the work of youth is not enough. thank you to the san francisco leadership, our mayor and businesses like the chase center who can actually see real change together and meet our city's new environmental goals. today, let's celebrate how far we've come this earth day and look forward to see the process ahead of us. i'm graduating really soon and heading off to college, so i'm really excited to take this transformative work with me. continue to inspire one another. and i look forward to seeing how san francisco continues to pave the way. thank you so much and i hope everyone has a good earth day. >> thank you, mary. wow, that was impressive. not just her leadership at washington high school, but you notice that she talked about collaborating with other high schools who have joined the efforts of washington high school. and as a graduate of gallaleo

high school. and, most importantly, that the environment is more important than our high school rivals from back in the day. right. but, thank you so much, mary, for your words and your leadership and good luck with college. we really appreciate that you're going to probably continue this work and it will be an important part of your legacy and you will represent san francisco well. today, we also have joining us and i mentioned debbie rafael and the department of environment as well as acting public utilities director michael carlin both are here to answer any questions if you have them about our new announcements.

>> reporter: [ indiscernible ] >> yes. debbie, you want to talk about that. i'm sure she's itching to talk about that. but the fact is it shouldn't be something that interferes with anyone's life. we are trying to naturally incorporate these changes to make it easy for people just like what i talked about as it relates to composting and recycling. but i'll let debbie say a few words about it as well. >> yeah. that is absolutely right. our goal is very simple for carbon neutrality. we need to be an all-electric city who's operating on 100% renewable electricity. what you heard the mayor say today is we will reach that renewable mark by 2025 and we are continuing under the mayor's leadership to transfer off of fossil fuels and become

all electric. her bold decision to ban natural gas and new construction is just the first step. so san franciscans will just see that the way they operate is sustainable because we make it easy, we make it the law, and we make sure that everyone is in it together. students, businesses, government we're all in this together. >> all right. any questions? thank you all so much for joining us. go doves!

hi everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and it has been a very, very challenging year for all of us in san francisco, but i've got to tell you, we're coming alive again. we're starting to open the city

again. i see you urban alkamine. thank you for all the work you do to keep us safe out here. we are here today because we are taking an additional step further to get the city re-opened. i'm joined by a number of our city department heads including our city administrator car men chiu and our librarian michael lambert. and, let me tell you, michael has not only been running this library, he and so many of our librarians and the people who work for the library here in san francisco, they more than almost any other department have been working as disaster service workers to help address this pandemic. they've been down at covid command at mascone center showing up every day doing whatever it takes. organization. going out to our hotels where we are helping to support our

homeless residents. going out to the community hubs to help support our kids. preparing virtual lesson plans and reading time. i did a reading time for kids during this pandemic as well virtually, of course. doing so many incredible things to help get our city going during a very challenging time. i know many of us, we wish we didn't have to go through this this past year, but what we should look at is the sacrifices we made and where we are now today. san francisco has vaccinated about 60% of the residents here in the city, more than the state and national average. and, over 85% of of those who are over the age of 65 have been vaccinated. we are on the road to recovery.

yes, covid is still here whether we want it to be or not. yes, we still have to do our parts and distance and wear a mask and not get too comfortable because the last thing we need is another surge and the need to shut this city down again, but the fact is san franciscans, we are on the road to recovery. we are on the road to building a stronger san francisco. and, that gives me hope for the future and, today is not just talking about our recovery. it's also looking at re-opening our city. re-opening our libraries. of course, we're going to start with the main library and then we're going to head over to

chinatown, mission, and a number of the community libraries and i don't know if you know this, but i grew up in san francisco, and, at that time, there wasn't all this computer internet stuff that we had today. we had to actually go to the library because we would get a look report assignment and the western edition library was my library of choice. i went to ben franklin middle school. and we had to go through a card catalog to find the book, it was in alphabetical order and that's how we did things. now it's all computerized, it's easy. and, in fact, i still have a library card and now i download my audio books and other things for free. so all those books i forgot to bring back, they just disappear after they expire on my phone. a lot different than it used to be. no excuse for those of us who want to take advantage of

reading, of using the computers and other things in the library, we're finally opening and i just, i can't be more grateful to this department and what they have done. all of its employees. all of the people of san francisco, we did this together. we made this happen together. yes, we have our challenges like any other major city. we still have so much work to do to unaddress the inequities that continue to exist in our society. but we're in a good place right now and we should be proud. we can take a moment. we can take a moment to enjoy this time and to recognize the fact that we are here, that we have an incredible opportunity, and we have a future to look forward to. that's what today is about. it starts with our libraries. the giants and the warriors are

now able to play with fans. i saw folks out there soccer leagues, a bunch of kids playing in soccer leagues. i went to the tennis center in golden gate park, packed with people. of course, being responsible, i saw folks walking their dogs and doing all kinds of fun stuff in our amazing parks system. so we are on the road to recovery and i am looking forward to the day when we can finally throw these masks in the area and wave them like we just don't care because i don't even know what any of you look like anymore. so, with that, thank you so much. today is about opening our libraries as a first step in our road to recovery along with other many of our incredible city assets for the public to enjoy and, with that, to talk more specifically about our library and the work that we're going to be doing to move our

city forward is our city librarian michael lambert. >> thank you so much. it feels so good to be here. thank you, madam mayor. thank you, so much for your leadership for guiding us all through this past year and welcome everyone. today is a special day. i'm so honored to be here with mayor breed and announce the books are back and your san francisco public library is re-opening. as our mayor mentioned, she is a power user of the library's collections and we appreciate all her support for our institution and our library staff. i also want to acknowledge the president of the san francisco public library commission,

dr. mary wardell garduzi and library commissioners connie wolf, dr. aronia lopez and commissioner john lee and the executive director marie zapella. thank you all so much for your advocacy and leadership on behalf of our library system. also here, is carol eisen. i have to say carol has been a tremendous partner this past year working with our staff who have been activated as disaster service workers and more recently helping us to recall staff so we can re-open the library. thank you, carol, for your partnership. it's so excitingtor here at this moment and i am beyond thankful that we're finally able to re-open our libraries for in-person services. it's been a long, hard 13

months, but now we're in a position to safely re-open our libraries for brows and bounce. patrons will be able to experience browsing our stacks again something i know they have dearly missed. we'll also have our public access computers available for printers and high-speed internet access. and, it's really fitting

we'll still be offering spl to go and next week we're going to open the patrero branch and the west portal branch tuesday. we should have all of our branches re-opened by the fall before the start of school. and i really want to thank the community for all your patience and support. you've hung in there and i just

really appreciate all your patience as we phase this re-opening and the coming weeks and months ahead. at this time, i'd like to introduce our city administrator carmen chiu. in 2019, city administrator chiu partnered with the challenge initiative to compile a woman's book list to inspire the next generation of women leaders. we're so fortunate to have her support in getting our libraries re-open. city administrator chiu. >> when i was a little girl, i can remember going to the library. i maxed out every single book i could possibly get with my library card. it was always some kind of a cartoon, garfield or whatever it might have been at the time. and, i have to say how important it was for me to be able to access the library. my parents didn't have a whole

lot of money. it wasn't as if we could go to a store and pick out a book or the latest edition we've been hearing about or reading about in school. for me, and many people like me in my community, being able to go to the public library was the one place you got to go where you had the opportunity to get the books you saw in school. you were able to borrow and bring it home. take to your bed or read it on the couch. it was a place that created opportunities. the opportunity to dream and the opportunity to learn. and i think for so many san franciscans, being able to see the libraries re-open, our public libraries re-open is a blessing. i think san francisco has among the best library system in the entire country and i want to thank michael lambert, our city librarian and all of our commissioners, our friends of the library, our mayor for your support of our library system. today, when we think about this

announcement, why i'm so excited, you know, covid-19 has not been kind to people. it's a disease that has required that we went against every single nature of our being staying away from our friends, our families, being disconnected from one another, being isolated and, in particular, for people who are seniors, for our kids. and, so, when we think about bringing back our libraries, it's more than just being able to access books free and wonderful library services and education, it's about coming back together as a community. and, when i think about how exciting it is that not only the main is opening but that chinatown branch is opening and mission branch is opening, it makes me proud because we're also thinking about the communities that are underserved and not only that, but the community that is live in the most community residential neighborhoods. so i want to thank the library for not only being a place where we can learn but being a safe place for our community to

come back together. i want to thank the mayor for all of 0er leadership. i can't imagine a single meeting with the mayor that she hasn't thought about what are we going to do about bringing people back together. what are we going to do about mental health and i want to thank her because she has been constantly pushing not only for us to re-open, but to do it in a safe way, to remember that at the end of the day, we have to make sure we keep our community safe and to do this together. so i want to thank her for her leadership. and, finally, my last thanks really goes to the workers, the staff of the public library. at its peak, there were 600 san francisco public library workers who were deployed as disaster service workers. the folks helping to pass out food at the pantries. the folks coming to the command center coming to help with all the things we needed. now, we still have 150 who are still deployed. they have been a critical part

of our whole response and i just want to thank them for not only the work they continue to do in our emergency response, but for all the work that they are going to be going as we re-open our branches. today is a great day. the sun is shining on us and we are so thrilled. congratulations to the library system. >> thank you. speaking of the san francisco public library staff, we want to thank shauna sherman for joining us today. she runs the african american center here at the main, but she worked as a contact tracer and we really appreciate people like you and others for the work that you continue to do to uplift the community. and so, i know that and, again, carol, thank you for getting all of the staff back to the library because, let me tell you, i know it was hard work but because many of the library staff felt so dedicated to the work of helping to support the

city, yes, they wanted to come back to work, but they also wanted to finish the work they were doing to address this pandemic. so, again, we want to say thank you so much for your hard work and all that you did to help this city throughout this pandemic. and, unlike carmen chiu who probably returned her books to the library when she was a kid, thank goodness i waived all those fines and fees of the past because i'd be in real trouble right now. forgive me, library. forgive me. [ laughter ] but, with that, thank you all again to the commissioners, the friends of the public library. so many incredible people who care deeply about making sure that people in this city have access to books, that they have access to educational materials to computers and all the things that can help nurture and grow your mind, but also a really good for your soul. so, with that, i want to open

it up to questions. do we have any questions? no questions. easy. easy day today. all right. thank you all so much. take care.

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