adjournment. >> president: we are adjourned everybody. have agood holiday and new year . >> thank you, you as well. good evening everybody. welcome to the 2021 civic center plaza tree lighting and

toy give away. [ applause ] my name is "ms. kay" and i am going to be your hostess this evening. how are we all feeling? are we good? is everybody excited to be here? i know i'm excited to be here. well, before we get started, we have to give a couple thank yous. so we're going to give a big thanks to the civic center cbd off the grid for helping planning tonight's incredible event. and also, we're going to give a huge thank you to the parks department for providing such an enormous tree. isn't it beautiful. we also want to thank theater's executive director, nick, for this amazing lineup of fabulous

talent. and, of course, a special thank you to the great christmas fair carollers. weren't they amazing. so this year, the great dickens christmas fair will be running as a drive-thru event every weekend from december 4th until december 22nd at the cal palace. so make sure you go to their website, check it out, and do not miss it because this is going to be incredible. you know, the holidays really are a pretty amazing time of year. don't you guys agree. we get to all come together like this and be next to each other which is pretty exciting after last year. and so we're going to go ahead and i think we should get started with the show. what do you think? so our first group is called

business casual and they are an acapella band and voice jam festival champions in 2019. i heard them do their sound check earlier and i was completely blown away. are you guys ready to hear this? let's give it up for business casual. [ applause ] [♪♪]

[♪♪] rock'in around the

christmas tree [♪♪] you will get a sentimental feeling when you see voices singing let's be jolly deck the halls with bows of holly [♪♪] ♪ in a new old-fashioned way ♪♪

>> thank you so much san francisco. we are so exciteded to be here. we're so excited to spread some holiday cheer and enjoy this evening with you. ♪ i want to wish you a merry

christmas ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas ♪♪ [♪♪] ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart ♪♪ ♪ feliz navidad ♪♪

♪ feliz navida ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart ♪♪ [♪♪] ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry

christmas from the bottom of my heart ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart ♪♪ ♪ i want to wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart ♪♪ [♪♪] [ applause ] [♪♪] >> we will definitely be seeing

them a little later. all right. are you guys ready for the next performance? so our next act comes to us under the direction of pam drake and they came to us all the way from the far away land of alameda. they have been seen in many parades all over the country including the festival of lights parade in palm springs as well as five appearances in the macy's day parade, once with the muppets. i know, so cool. are you guys ready to see who it is? please welcome the tap dancing christmas trees. [ applause ] [♪♪]

[♪♪] merry christmas!

♪ happy holidays ♪♪ ♪ happy holidays ♪♪ ♪ while the merry bells keep

ringing ♪♪ ♪ happy holidays to you ♪♪ [♪♪] [ applause ] [♪♪] ♪ it's christmas everywhere you look ♪♪ [♪♪]

[ applause ] >> open your eyes.

[♪♪]

[ applause ] >> let's keep it going for the tap dancing christmas trees. [♪♪]

>> my, oh, my. wasn't that fun. goodness gracious. people are still coming. how many of you have never been to this event before? let me hear you. it's pretty amazing. all right. so before we continue with the show, we would like to give some special thanks to tonight's partners. another planet entertainment for all of their hard work organizing tonight's toy give-away along with the san francisco police department. we also want to go ahead and thank annie's off the grid bbc bake works and to the village for all of the craft and presents. we also have somebody else to

thank. so at some point after the tree is lit and everything is done, you all should check out behind the tree is this really cool art installation that i think you can write on which i think is kind of cool when you can write on art, that's cool. and it's courtesy of shine on sf. make sure you check that out. make sure you give them a big round of applause. okay. so our next performers, i cannot wait until they hit the stage. they are poet athletes. our young poets come from the america sores program at the i think for soccer.

but tonight they're going to go ahead and it's going to be all about poetry and spreading joy. please welcome american scores. [♪♪] >> christmas day.

>> we see santa and snow. >> we found noodles and pine needles. >> we hear talking, playing, and singing. >> we taste turkey and more turkey. >> we give to others. >> christmas day.

cause cause [ applause ] >> christmas day >> we see presents, trees, and family. we smell hot chocolate. we hear bells, music, and laughing. we test samosa ice cream and treats. >> christmas eve. [ applause ] applause] [applause] >> we can see different types of colors. we -- >> we can't hear you.

>> we melt -- and all kinds of yummy food. don't put your mouth on it. >> okay. we hear laughing, playing, and singing. [cheers and applause] >> diwali. [cheers and applause] >> happy christmas.

>> happy christmas eve and happy christmas day. [cheers and applause] >> christmas eve. >> we have been helping with the cookies and making up the pans wrapping our presents and we sing carols. and now there's nothing more to be done except to wait for christmas eve. [cheers and applause]

>> christmas day. the tree lights are blinking, samosas are frying as we gather for presents on crust kris day. family and cookies are the choice. hot chocolate this christmas day. family, food, and cookies are santa's joy as he sips on hot chocolate on this day, christmas day.

[cheers and applause] >> let's hear it for america scores. [♪♪] >> all right. let's all go that way. wave as you leave. say "bye" everybody. [cheers and applause] >> all right. is everybody ready to light this tree? so we're going to bring some people out, some special guests. so ya'll are just going to keep on clapping when i announce them. okay. here we go, we have phil ginsburg, the general manager of the san francisco recreation and parks department. come on up.

as well as our city administrator car men chiu. come on up. we also have the state senator scott weiner and, of course, we have our san francisco mayor london breed. [cheers and applause] [♪♪] all right. so our elfs are going to help us out too. are we all ready to do this? all right. we're going to count down from ten as a group. here we go. ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! [cheers and applause]

[♪♪]

>> say thank you. and now, we have a very special added performance for every class. you may have seen them on "america's got talent" or maybe on their recent jc penney commercial. they're here now to please welcome san francisco's first family of song, the curtis family c-notes. [cheers and applause] >> hi. how are ya'll doing, san francisco?

this is the most beautiful tree i have ever seen and it's so good to be out here with all ya'll. give yourself a round of applause. [applause] and i think i hear the mayor. yes. all right. guys, you ready? [cheers and applause] we've got nile on bass. papa on keys. kiki. zahara, phoenix. and i'm momma c. we need the mic por favor sound

people. so we've got a little technical difficulties. no worries. what we can do, let's give it up for the sound guys. let's clap. [applause] we just need a plug-in. amen. there she is. count us off, baby. she has to take off her one! two! three! [♪♪] ♪ i'm going to get to know you better ♪♪ ♪ how much fun it's going to be

together ♪♪ ♪ this christmas ♪♪ ♪ and this christmas will be a very special christmas for you and me ♪♪ [♪♪] >> you can clap along. [♪♪] ♪ high-ho silver cheer ♪♪ ♪ this christmas ♪♪ ♪ this christmas ♪♪ ♪ we're carolling through the night ♪♪ ♪ and this christmas will be a

very special christmas for you and me ♪♪ >> come on, daddy. give it up for papa c on the keys. [applause] [♪♪] ♪ we're carolling through the night ♪♪ ♪ and this christmas will be a very special christmas for you and me ♪♪ ♪ this christmas will be a very special christmas for you and

me ♪♪ ♪ very special christmas ♪♪ ♪ merry christmas ♪♪ ♪ very special christmas ♪♪ ♪ very special christmas ♪♪ [cheers and applause] >> thank you, san francisco. just so you know, it feels a whole lot like christmas now that we've got this christmas tree lit up. city hall. everyone wearing a santa hat make some noise. wooo! so it's time for christmas and

hanukkah. amen. happy hanukkah. right. yes. [♪♪] ♪ christmas time is here ♪♪ ♪ happiness and cheer ♪♪ ♪ fun for all the children call their favorite time of year ♪♪ ♪ snow flakes in the air ♪♪ ♪ carols everywhere ♪♪ ♪ olden times and ancient rhymes of love and dreams to

share ♪♪ ♪ sleigh bells ring beauty everywhere ♪♪ ♪ yuletide the fireside and joyful memories ♪♪ ♪ christmas time is here ♪♪ >> give it up for papa c on the

keys. cannot forget the drummers. ♪ sleigh bells in the air ♪♪ ♪ beauty everywhere ♪♪ ♪ yuletide by the fireside and joyful memories there ♪♪ ♪ christmas time is here ♪♪ ♪ we'll be joining in ♪♪ [cheers and applause] >> thank you, san francisco. >> thank you. [cheers and applause]

>> let's keep it going. the curtis family c notes. weren't they absolutely incredible? goodness gracious. what do we think about the tree? it's so pretty. oh, my goodness. you know what's better than one tree? five trees that tap dance. what do you say? should we bring them back out here. yeah? give it up for the tap dancing christmas trees. [cheers and applause] [♪♪]

[cheers and applause] >> keep it going for the tap dancing christmas trees. mud mud [♪♪] >> all right. is it feeling like christmas a little bit? yeah. you know, christmas is one of the most magical times of the year. right. we have people going out of their way to be extra nice which is good, which i love, we have really good food. we have hot cocoa and marshmallows. and, of course, we have christmas carols. i love christmas carols. but wouldn't it be really cool if we could get it to snow in san francisco?

so my question is, first of all, i have two questions. do you think we can do it? all right. challenge accepted. and the second question is, how many of you have seen real snow? yeah? okay. well, we're going to do our best tonight to see if we can get some of that snow to land right here in san francisco. [♪♪] ♪ the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful ♪♪ ♪ and since we've no place to go, let it snow let it snow ♪♪ ♪ no it doesn't show signs of stopping and i brought some corn for popping ♪♪ ♪ the lights are turned way down low, let it snow let it snow let it snow ♪♪

♪ when we finally say good night how i hate being out in the cold. but if you only hold me tight ♪♪ ♪ all the way home i'll be warm ♪♪ ♪ oh, my gosh, we're doing it. it's so exciting! ♪ let it snow let it snow let it snow ♪♪ ♪ the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful ♪♪ ♪ and since we've no place to go, let it snow let it snow, let it snow ♪♪ ♪ no, it doesn't show signs of stopping and i brought some corn for popping ♪♪ ♪ the lights are turned way down low, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ♪♪ ♪ when we finally say good night how i hate being out in the cold ♪♪ ♪ but if you only hold me

tight, all the way home i'll be warm ♪♪ ♪ oh, the fire is slowly dying and my dear, we're still good buying ♪♪ ♪ but as long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ♪♪ ♪ i'm dreaming of a white christmas ♪♪ ♪ just like the ones i used to know ♪♪ ♪ where the tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow ♪♪

♪ i'm dreaming of a white christmas ♪♪ ♪ with every christmas ♪♪ ♪ may your days be merry and bright ♪♪ ♪ and may all your christmases be right ♪♪ [♪♪] ♪ sleigh bells ring, a beautiful sight we're happy tonight walking in a winter

wonderland ♪♪ ♪ gone away is the blue bird here to stay is the new bird ♪♪ ♪ singing a song as we stroll along walking in a winter wonderland ♪♪ ♪ in the meadow we can build a snowman ♪♪ ♪ we can even call it ♪♪ ♪ he'll say are you ready, we'll so no man, but you can do the job when you're in town ♪♪ ♪ the plans that we made walking in a winter wonderland ♪♪ that's right right ♪ walking in a winter wonderland ♪♪ [♪♪]

[cheers and applause] >> you guys, we did it. we made it snow in san francisco. wow. that was amazing. let's hear it for the band. so i'm thinking that it's feeling pretty christmasy right now but what is missing? i think there's one thing missing. i'll give you a few hints. he comes in a big red suit. he has a belly full of jelly and a long white beard. it's santa! we're going to go and bring back business casual to bring in santa. [♪♪]

♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ you better watch out you better not cry you better not pout i'm telling you why ♪♪ ♪ santa claus is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ he's making a list, he's checking it twice he's going to find out who's naughty or nice ♪♪ ♪ santa claus is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ he sees you when you're sleeping he knows when you're awake ♪♪ ♪ he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake ♪♪ ♪ you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout i'm telling you why ♪♪

♪ santa claus is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ you better watch out you better not cry ♪♪ ♪ i'm telling you why ♪♪ ♪ santa claus is coming, santa claus is coming, santa claus is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ ♪ santa is coming to town ♪♪ >> oh, pipe down. i'm here. i'm here! >> whoa, santa. you are not looking well >> all right. now everybody go home! >> boo! >> why aren't you going home? go home. excuse me. were you guys making all that

beautiful music i was hearing? >> that was us. >> well, put a sock in it. get lost. move. we don't want christmas carols, do we? christmas, boo! say it with me. [♪♪] >> well, i kind of like this song. ♪ you're as charming as an eel, mr. grinch ♪♪ >> they're singing about me. ♪ you're a vile one, mr. grinch ♪♪ ♪ you have termites in your smile ♪♪ ♪ you have all the of a seasick crocodile, mr. grinch ♪♪ ♪ i'd take the seasick

crocodile ♪♪ [♪♪] >> i was just checking it. ♪ the grinch when he heard a small sound ♪♪ [♪♪] >> you're missing my song. >> get my good side. i'm just kidding. i don't have a good side. ♪ mr. grinch, you're a nasty

wassy skunk ♪♪ ♪ the three words are best as follows stink, stang, stunk ♪♪ ♪ you're a rotter, mr. grinch ♪♪ [♪♪]

>> that was really great, you guys. now, beat it! let's hear for the singers. boo! boo! [please stand by]

>> all right. i want to prove i don't hate everything christmas is kind of gross but i do have things i like . do you want to know what they are?you want me to sing about them? here's what i like.raindrops on rosesand whimpering ♪ ♪ kittens, scratchy bowl ♪ ♪ mittens .♪ ♪ freezing thebathtub with ♪ ♪ some scummy rings, these are ♪ ♪ a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ .♪ ♪ one leg and ponies and burnt ♪

♪ apple strudel.♪ ♪ doorbells and death nels and ♪ ♪ saw the old noodles.♪ ♪ people who cover their ears ♪ ♪ when ising .♪ ♪ these are afew of my ♪ ♪ favorite things .♪ ♪ the sound of a pumpkin.♪ ♪ something it smashes.♪ ♪ cookies who mind me with ♪ ♪ just a few glasses.♪ ♪ greeting your vendor with ♪ ♪ seven new things, these are ♪ ♪ a few of my favorite things.♪ ♪ when the dog bites, when the ♪ ♪ bee stings, when i'm feeling ♪ ♪ mad, i simply remember my ♪ ♪ favorite things and then i ♪ ♪ don't feel so glad.♪ ♪ when the dog bites.♪ ♪ when the bee stings.♪ ♪ when i'm feeling sad.♪ ♪ i simply remember my ♪ ♪ favorite things and then i ♪ ♪ don't feel so bad.♪

♪ everybody clapped. >> wait a minute, wait a minut . hold up. we came here to see the real santa. not some slimy green one of th . whatever you are. i think that the only way we're going to get to seesanta is if we sing . do you guys want to sing to celebrate the year? well, i think it's pretty obvious. here comes santa claus! >> excuse me, sorry. silent but deadly.

>> are you guys ready?♪ ♪ >>.♪ ♪ [singing] here comes santa ♪ ♪ claus,here comes santaclaus, ♪ ♪ right down santa claus lane ♪ ♪ .♪ ♪ he's got his reindeer ♪ ♪ pulling on the reins .♪ ♪ ... because santa claus ♪ ♪ comes tonight.♪ ♪ here comes santa claus, here ♪ ♪ comes santaclaus, right down ♪ ♪ santa claus lane.♪ ♪ he's got his bag and lots of ♪ ♪ presents for all the ♪ ♪ children again .♪ ♪ all is merry and bright.♪ ♪ so just keep that upover ♪ ♪ your head because santa ♪ ♪ claus comes tonight .♪ ♪ oh my goodness you guys.

look! it's santa! oh my goodness. can you see him look at that . >> ho ho ho. >> your days arenumbered , grinch. >> merry christmas! >> can you hear them? everybody say santa claus! >> merry christmas!>> ho ho ho! he's my rudolph. how are all my wonderful childrenin san francisco ?

merry christmas everyone. merry christmas. there is a handsome young man. hello. merry christmas. ho ho ho! look atall these wonderful children . hello, hello. [music] merry christmas. hello, merrychristmas . i see my favoriteyoung man . i see my favorite young man.

here's that big fella. this is my favorite fellow. i remember when youwere only this may . you sat right on my lap. >> i did? >> you did, drench.in fact i rememberwhat you asked for . you were a young young boy. >> i just know i didn't get it. >> i think i can make up for that. >> you don't have what i want. i wanted a footballand i never got it . >> can you look over here? >> is that for me? >> this is for you.i'm sorry it's a little late santa always gets his presence. >> i don't care what they say, you're okay. >> you're okay yourself, miste

grinch. and i get a big hug from my friend ? i think i feel a very big hear . a big part. with my good friend the grinch. well everyone, merry christmas. merry christmas.>> let's hear it for santa claus. >> oh my. ho hoho. merry christmas . >> i was wondering grinch do you have a favorite christmas song? >> do you know anything by nine inch nails? baby got back? i don't know, what do you know? >> do you know the one about the reindeer? >> you guys know the one about the reindeer western mark let's sing rudolph the red nosed reindeer. >> he's my favorite reindeer.

>> you know or and dancer ♪ ♪ and prancerand vixen .♪ ♪ but do you recall the most ♪ ♪ famousreindeer of all ?♪ ♪ rudolph the red nosed ♪ ♪ reindeer had a very shiny♪ ♪ nose.♪ ♪ and if you ever saw it , you ♪ ♪ would even sayit glows .♪ ♪ all of the other reindeer's ♪ ♪ used to laugh andcall him ♪ ♪ names .♪ ♪ they never let poor rudolph ♪ ♪ join in any reindeer games.♪ ♪ then one foggy christmas eve♪ ♪ , santa came to say.♪ ♪ rudolph, with your nose so ♪ ♪ bright won't you guide my ♪ ♪ sleigh tonight then how the ♪

♪ reindeer loved him

>> it's great to see everyone kind of get together and prove, that you know, building our

culture is something that can be reckoned with. >> i am desi, chair of economic development for soma filipinos. so that -- [ inaudible ] know that soma filipino exists, and it's also our economic platform, so we can start to build filipino businesses so we can start to build the cultural district. >> i studied the bok chase choy

heritage, and i discovered this awesome bok choy. working at i-market is amazing. you've got all these amazing people coming out here to share one culture. >> when i heard that there was a market with, like, a lot of filipino food, it was like oh, wow, that's the closest thing i've got to home, so, like, i'm going to try everything. >> fried rice, and wings, and three different cliefz sliders. i haven't tried the adobe yet, but just smelling it yet brings back home and a ton of memories. >> the binca is made out of different ingredients, including cheese.

but here, we put a twist on it. why not have nutella, rocky road, we have blue berry. we're not just limiting it to just the classic with salted egg and cheese. >> we try to cook food that you don't normally find from filipino food vendors, like the lichon, for example. it's something that it took years to come up with, to perfect, to get the skin just right, the flavor, and it's one of our most popular dishes, and people love it. this, it's kind of me trying to chase a dream that i had for a long time. when i got tired of the corporate world, i decided that i wanted to give it a try and see if people would actually

like our food. i think it's a wonderful opportunity for the filipino culture to shine. everybody keeps saying filipino food is the next big thing. i think it's already big, and to have all of us here together, it's just -- it just blows my mind sometimes that there's so many of us bringing -- bringing filipino food to the city finally. >> i'm alex, the owner of the lumpia company. the food that i create is basically the filipino-american experience. i wasn't a chef to start with, but i literally love lumpia, but my food is my favorite foods i like to eat, put into my favorite filipino foods, put together. it's not based off of recipes i learned from my mom.

maybe i learned the rolling technique from my mom, but the different things that i put in are just the different things that i like, and i like to think that i have good taste. well, the very first lumpia that i came out with that really build the lumpia -- it wasn't the poerk and shrimp shanghai, but my favorite thing after partying is that bakon cheese burger lumpia. there was a time in our generation where we didn't have our own place, our own feed to eat. before, i used to promote filipino gatherings to share the love.

now, i'm taking the most exciting filipino appetizer and sharing it with other filipinos. >> it can happen in the san francisco mint, it can happen in a park, it can happen in a street park, it can happen in a tech campus. it's basically where we bring the hardware, the culture, the operating system. >> so right now, i'm eating something that brings me back to every filipino party from my childhood. it's really cool to be part of the community and reconnect with the neighborhood. >> one of our largest challenges in creating this cultural district when we compare ourselves to chinatown, japantown or little saigon,

there's little communities there that act as place makers. when you enter into little philippines, you're like where are the businesses, and that's one of the challenges we're trying to solve. >> undercover love wouldn't be possible without the help of the mayor and all of our

community partnerships out there. it costs approximately $60,000 for every event. undiscovered is a great tool for the cultural district to bring awareness by bringing the best parts of our culture which is food, music, the arts and being ativism all under one roof, and by seeing it all in this way, what it allows san franciscans to see is the dynamics of the filipino-american culture. i think in san francisco, we've kind of lost track of one of our values that makes san francisco unique with just empathy, love, of being

acceptable of different people, the out liers, the crazy ones. we've become so focused onic maing money that we forgot about those that make our city and community unique. when people come to discover, i want them to rediscover the magic of what diversity and empathy can create. when you're positive and committed to using that energy, >> there are kids and families ever were. it is really an extraordinary playground. it has got a little something for everyone. it is aesthetically billion. it is completely accessible. you can see how excited people are for this playground.

it is very special. >> on opening day in the brand- new helen diller playground at north park, children can be seen swinging, gliding, swinging, exploring, digging, hanging, jumping, and even making drumming sounds. this major renovation was possible with the generous donation of more than $1.5 million from the mercer fund in honor of san francisco bay area philanthropist helen diller. together with the clean and safe neighborhood parks fund and the city's general fund. >> 4. 3. 2. 1. [applause] >> the playground is broken into three general areas. one for the preschool set, another for older children, and a sand area designed for kids of all ages. unlike the old playground, the new one is accessible to people with disabilities.

this brand-new playground has several unique and exciting features. two slides, including one 45- foot super slide with an elevation change of nearly 30 feet. climbing ropes and walls, including one made of granite. 88 suspension bridge. recycling, traditional swing, plus a therapeutics win for children with disabilities, and even a sand garden with chines and drums. >> it is a visionary $3.5 million world class playground in the heart of san francisco. this is just really a big, community win and a celebration for us all. >> to learn more about the helen diller playground in dolores park, go to sfrecpark.org. bayview. >> a lot discussion how residents in san francisco are

displaced how businesses are displaced and there's not as much discussion how many nonprofits are displaced i think a general concern in the arts community is the testimony loss of performance spaces and venues no renderings for establishes when our lease is up you have to deal with what the market bears in terms of of rent. >> nonprofits can't afford to operate here. >> my name is bill henry the executive director of aids passage l lp provides services for people with hispanics and aids and 9 advertising that fight for the clients in housing insurance and migration in the last two years we negotiated a lease that saw 0 rent more than doubled. >> my name is ross the

executive directors of current pulls for the last 10 years at 9 and mission we were known for the projection of sfwrath with taking art and moving both a experiment art our lease expired our rent went from 5 thousand dollars to $10,000 a most. >> and chad of the arts project pursue. >> the evolution of the orientation the focus on art education between children and patrol officer artist we offer a full range of rhythms and dance and theatre music theatre about in the last few years it is more and more difficult to find space for the program that we run. >> i'm the nonprofit manager for the mayor's office of economic workforce development one of the reasons why the mayor has invested in nonprofit

displacement is because of the challenge and because nonprofits often commute technical assistance to understand the negotiate for a commercial lease. >> snooechlz is rob the executive director and co-founder of at the crossroads we want to reach the disconnected young people not streets of san francisco for young adults are kicked out of the services our building was sold no 2015 they let us know they'll not renew our lease the last year's the city with the nonprofit displacement litigation program held over 75 nonprofits financial sanction and technical assistance. >> fortunate the city hesitate set aside funds for businesses

facing increased rent we believable to get some relief in the form of a grant that helped us to cover the increase in rent our rent had been around $40,000 a year now $87,000 taylor's dollars a year we got a grant that covered 22 thousands of that but and came to the minnesota street project in two people that development in the better streets plan project they saved us space for a nonprofit organization national anthem and turned out the northern california fund they accepted us into the real estate program to see if we could withstand the stress and after the program was in full swinging skinning they brought up the litigation fund and the grants were made we applied for that we received a

one thousand dollars granted and that grant allowed us to move in to the space to finish the space as we needed it to furniture is for classes the building opened on schedule on march 18, 2016 and by july we were teaching classed here. >> which we found out we were going to have to leave it was overwhelm didn't know anything about commercial real estate we suggested to a bunch of people to look at the nonprofits displacement mitigation program you have access to commercial real estate either city owned or city leased and a city lease space become available there is a $946,000 grant that is provided through the mayor's office of economic workforce development and that's going to go towards boulder the space

covers a little bit less than half the cost it is critical. >> the purpose of the organization trust to stabilize the arts in san francisco working with local agency i go like the northern california platoon fund that helped to establish documents of our long track record of stvent and working to find the right partner with the organization of our size and budget the opportunity with the purchase of property we're sitting in the former disposal house theatre that expired 5 to 10 years ago we get to operate under the old lease and not receive a rent increase for the next 5 to 7 years we'll renting $10,000 square feet for the next 5 to seven years we pay off the balance of the purpose of this and the cost of the renovation. >> the loophole will that is

unfortunate fortunate we have buy out a reserve our organization not reduce the services found a way to send some of the reserves to be able to continue the serves we know our clients need them we were able to get relief when was needed the most as we were fortunate to arrive that he location at the time, we did in that regard the city has been - we've had tremendous support from the mayor's office of economic workforce development and apg and helped to roommate the facade of the building and complete the renovation inside of the building without the sport support. >> our lease is for 5 years with a 5 year onyx by the city has an 86 year lease that made

that clear as long as we're doing the work we've been we should be able to stay there for decades and decades. >> the single most important thing we know that is that meaningful. >> it has been here 5 months and even better than that we could image. >> with the economic development have announced an initiative if ours is a nonprofit or know of a nonprofit looking for more resources they can go to the office of economic workforce development oewd.com slashing nonprofit and found out about the mayors nonprofit mitigation program and the sustainability initiative and find their information through technical assistance as much as how to get started with more fundraising or the real estate

assistance and they can find my contact and reach out to me through the circles of the city through the

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

commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and members of the ramaytush ohlone and their sovereign rights as first peoples. >> clerk: also, members of the public who are calling in, the listen public comment number is 415-655-0001. the meeting being assess code

is 2498-548-8259. to enter public comment on a particular item, press star, three when prompted by the meeting moderator. okay. and the next item is item 2, president's announcement. >> okay. good morning. can everybody hear me okay? >> clerk: yes. >> okay. please stop me if i should have some technical issues here, and i will reposition. good morning and welcome to the building inspection commission of december 15, 2021. i am president angus mccarthy, and i am joined by commissioners as well as interim commissioner patrick o'riordan. he's running late and will be here in about 30 minutes, and i'm joined by building

inspection staff. i am also joined by board of supervisors president shamann walton. [indiscernible] and on the potrero hill dogpatch merchants association. j.r.'s combination of unique business and community issues and commitment to equality will make him an excellent addition to this commission, and i look forward to working with him. please join everybody, commissioners, this is his first official b.i.c. meeting. we did have a closed session, but please join me in welcoming j.r. to the building inspection commission. coming up in our meeting, we will have an update on the soft story retrofit, which gas lines

are embedded in the beam. it was quite a big hearing last time. thank you to the d.b.i. team led by mr. jeff buckley, who did a great job on this issue and collaborated with pg&e. the report is concise and thorough, and they did a good job on the information, and we look forward on hearing that information shortly. finally, as we near the end of the year, i want to thank the staff of d.b.i. for their hard work in what was a very challenging year of this pandemic. at the beginning of 2021, the department was still closed and looking to innovative ways to issue more permits. now that the over-the-counter service is working well, the department offers electronic plan review for all in-house review projects. we've worked through the

backlog, which was very important, and we've got a new executive team in place. so thank you to the team, and i know that next year is going to be even better. thank you for participating in the virtual meeting today, and participate in the public process. social distance, wear your mask, and get your boosters. happy holidays to everyone out there. madam secretary, that is my comment. >> clerk: thank you, and commissioner eppler, do you have any comments? >> no. i just wanted to say thank you for the appointment and i look forward to working with each of you. >> clerk: are there any public comments?

>> operator: there's no public comment. >> clerk: thank you. the next item is item 3, general public comment. the b.i.c. will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> operator: there's one hand raised. >> clerk: [indiscernible] just a moment. >> operator: caller six, 415-641, you are unmuted. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is ross lee. i am an architect and 25-year resident of san francisco. i'm calling to address a general trend that seems to be moved to eliminate the administrative bulletins from -- as a portion of

building code for the unique conditions in san francisco. this will not only render a lot of buildings in formance with the code, but it makes a lot of future development virtually impossible because we have a lot of unique conditions here in san francisco. i'd ask the board not to remove the administrative bulletins without input from public process, architects, and public, and city officials. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. are there any other callers? >> operator: there are none. >> clerk: thank you. and then, president mccarthy, you are going to request that items be called out of order?

>> if i've got this right, madam secretary, what we wanted to do is take item 6, is that correct? >> clerk: yes, that's correct. >> and move it to the next item, before item 4. if there's no objection, it's just a scheduling and people aren't available. if there's no objection, i would move that, and we will now hear item 6. any objections? okay. that's fine, madam clerk. call item 6. >> clerk: okay. all commissioners are in favor of calling item 6, so for the listening public, we are now on agenda item 6, discussion regarding 6, discussion regarding information sheet eg-02, emergenciscape and

rescue openings to yard for existing or negate building of r-3 occupancies. >> good morning, commissioners. i am neville herrera, the director of services at d.b.i., and i will be conducting this presentation. i apologize for scheduling priorities. i have a hard stop at 10:50, but my associate, michelle yu, will be here to answer any questions. if you remember the last meeting, eg-02 had been brought to light in that it had been rescinded from our [indiscernible], information sheet from d.b.i. for various reasons.

the commission, particularly president mccarthy, asked that it be brought forward to this meeting with an explanation and update. so eg-02 is an -- has to do with the -- essentially approving emergency rescue openings, which is -- i'll use the acronym eero several times in my presentation. it stands for emergency escape rescue openings. allowing eero on the back of our zero lot line buildings, and basically, without access -- direct access to the public way, which is what the code requires. so next slide. i don't want to get heavy into

the code, and this is not a direct code from the code, but the california building code and the san francisco building code requires that in addition to the means of egress that's required for singing-family dwellings -- and i want to reiterate that this only relates to single-family dwellings. it's not the rest of the occupancies that we deal with. emergency escape and rescue openings are to be provided for the following occupancies. it takes about only families, and it takes about one and two families, which we're going to talk about today, and it talks about residential care-type occupancies. so it says sleeping rooms below

the fourth floor are to have no fewer than within emergency escape and rescue openings. [indiscernible] and there's no other way of using other escapes in the building, so for sleeping rooms in particular to have these rescue-type openings to have a rescue opening. it needs to have access to the public way. so it's either open directly to the public way or to a yard or court that opens to the public way. and as we know, without existing building inventory, the majority of the homes have zero lot lines, and there is no direct passage way to the

public way from the rear yard, so next slide. so this information sheet relates to a significant portion of what comes through d.b.i. or permitting. it deals with vertical and horizontal additions. it deals with vert raremodels to existing spaces, maybe creating or remodelling a bedroom at the rear space of the building, and right now, of particular interest is accessory dwelling units andory accessory dwelling units, a.d.u. -- and accessory dwelling units, a.d.u.s and jadus. it modifies the requirements of the code in the following ways. it allows emergency egress,

which is self-rescue of the building occupants into an area of refuge in the backyard. the code allows this, however, the code allows the area of refuge to be a minimum of 50 feet away from the building. eg-02 modifies that requirement down to 25 feet to essentially accommodate building lot sizes in san francisco, which is typically about 25 to 100 -- it's 25 by 100 feet in lot size. and it also requires that when these types of permits are sought, that we file a piece of paper work that's known as a code modification. in san francisco, we call it a.b. 005, that says that we understand that we are approving this with the understanding that everybody in

the future knows that that piece of -- that change was affected legitimately. and i have a diagram here to show a typical development where there's an addition to the back of the house, and it shows from the back of the house to the lot line. it allows the occupants to hangout in the back while the fire is being mitigated or the hazard is being mitigated, and they can safely remain in an area away from the building. next slide, please.

so what changed? eg-02 has been in effect for quite a while. at some point, the state fire marshal made the determination that these emergency escape and rescue openings off of the back of a building or any emergency escape and rescue opening needed to be accessible to rescue personnel. so the fire department looked at that building clarification and realized that they themselves didn't have a way to get to the backyard to effectuate ladder rescue, which is the primary way of rescuing on the second and third floor, so they effectively couldn't get their ladders to the backyard to effectuate rescue out of these rescue openings. so they determined that eg-02 didn't adequately address their rescue needs and weren't able

to support it any longer, and subsequently, that information sheet was rescinded. and what happened immediately, building and fire understood what the ramifications were going to happen, and we immediately started discussions between ourselves to be kept -- to be able to replace it with something that works for both departments as well as for the public, as well. next slide. we have actually met several times already since october, and so the question is what now? what are we going to do? in the last building inspection commission meeting, and subsequent to the code advisory committee, where we had a discussion about the very same topic, we had consensus with the fire department that we can immediately reinstate eg-02

with a clarification that the project sponsor needs to demonstrate that that opening somehow takes care of the cape and rescue portion. so if it's on the second floor, that they need to provide some sort of means to safely allow egress from or fire department access for rescue. a code modification request in a.b. 005 will still be required for modified eeros on the buildings that don't have direct access to the public way. this is effect differently the -- this is effectively the

way to [indiscernible] however, when there are exceptions, we need to view this in unison, so when it comes to these exceptions, the fire department will need to concur on the applications for code modification. and then, so after -- you know, during the period of immediate reinstatement, we will continue our discussions to find prescriptive ways to find modifications to certain buildings, and we will be working with the design community and whoever wanted to get involved to establish these guidelines going forward on a permanent basis. next slide. so one of the options is to have a dedicated 3 foot wide straight and protected passage

way from the home directly to the right-of-way. this could be problematic because 3 feet out of a 25-foot-wide lot is a lot of space to dedicate to a space that may never be used in a building's life. and also, we understand that this space potentially could be used for storage and may get cluttered to a point that when it is actually necessary to use it, it becomes essentially unuseable and will delay the fire department in getting back, even though the path is dedicated. in our discussions, it is necessary to have a passage way to accommodate a 25-foot ladder from the public right-of-way all the way to the backyard, so

it's not something we can jog through the building. next slide. the other thing is to have a dedicated vertical access to the area or a flat roof area where the occupants could either be extricated and, like, i said, hangout in the backyard or, if there was a flat roof, perhaps climb up on that roof and wait to be picked off by the fire department at the public way. to through this presentation, there's been various images presented to you, examples of how this could look on a design standpoint. on this particular slide, it shows a roof deck, which could be a different way of, you know, familiarityizing the occupants with the except --

familiarizing the occupants with the exception. as much as you could introduce the occupants of the building to the rescue mode on a regular basis, for example, if you provide a stairway down from a deck on the yard, this could be their regular way of living and recreating, as opposed to, say, a bolt-on ladder, which they would never use unless they had to. so in this case, maybe it would be the first time they've ever used it, and maybe they have small kids or adults that have never used it, and therefore, a sense of panic and fear sets in. so we want to come up with something that's useable. the other thing that's being proposed is to have a flush bolt-on ladder to the rear of

the building. however, fire rescue personnel aren't able to scale these flush ladders because of their turnout gear, their large boots and so forth. so they're not necessarily able to get up on the window, let alone have somebody on their shoulder to make it down to the ground. so these are some of the things that we're discussing on an active basis, and that discussion is on going. and with that, president mccarthy, that ends my presentation. >> thank you, deputy director. what i'd like to do, madam secretary, if we can get our screen back, is maybe just open it up for public comment and then come back to my commissioners and see if there's any public comment on this. >> clerk: yes, president

mccarthy, the call-in for public comment on this agenda item number 6, we've actually received an e-mail, so i'll read up to the two minutes for this one public comment. and this is from georgia schiutish. it says, this is a very important issue. i became aware of this in a real-world experience with a project across the street from the 463 [indiscernible] street. this project is an expansion of a 1927 marina style house by adding a unit below the existing garage. to do this required a full lot 12-foot-deep excavation. during d.b.i.s review, it was discovered that two of the three bedrooms did not have legal egress. the architect changed their

designation to nonsleeping rooms. the rear yard was reduced to near the 25% line and became a cement patio and was below grade. the first was an internal stair into the garage area, but that didn't fly. the second was light wells into each of the bedrooms and then a deck to the upper unit. this seems very minimal and dangerous. as i've said at the hearing today, i don't think anyone would really want their children or elders sleeping in such a room. i use this example because it is an example being used right now, and make projects like this are considered d.b.i.s responsibility. this requirement will have an

impact on the following excavations, light wells, rear yards. this does not take into effect the matters discussed by d.b.i. commissioners today as pressing and closing, and that is the end of that comment. so is there any additional public comment on item 6? >> operator: there are two hands raised. >> clerk: okay. just one moment. >> operator: caller 5, 415-999,

you are unmuted. >> hello. this is jeremy [indiscernible] calling. i would like to suggest this is a problem that's being created by the agency involved, that there is no epidemiological basis. there has been no sudden uptick in death or injury to firefighters or residents. what san francisco needs to do is protect its housing resources and protect our opportunities to create more housing resources, and to continue the type of pattern that has proved safe, to provide safe housing for so many decades is important for us to be able to do so. otherwise, the sprawl into the surrounding agricultural regions is going to continue, and san francisco will lose the urban aspects that we so love.

so i would suggest that we need to staunchly defend these bulletins and staunchly defend like the previous commenter was stating, that many thousands of hours of very smart people have put lots of time, lots of effort, and lots of money into developing solutions for how we can live in a fully developed environment, and that's what these documents reflect, and for us to allow them to be tossed aside for, what seems to me, for my perspective, for little more than whim, is a nonstarter, and we should push back against it. thank you very much for your attention, and i appreciate all the work that you guys do. >> thank you, mr. paul.

next caller, please. >> operator: caller 5, 415-641, you are unmuted. >> hello, commissioners. ross leavy again, architect and resident. i just want to agree with the comments made by the previous caller, that we have extremely unique conditions here in the city of san francisco. we appreciate the unique conditions that deputy director herrera explained. we certainly don't want to compromise life safety, and at the same time, we want to encourage the urban development that san francisco is known for and is required to produce housing in accord with the

state mandates and the new rules and regs and s.b. 9 and 10. so we would encourage a continued public conversation of these administrative bulletins in the interest of the general public, in the interest of the creation of public housing here, and in the interest of life safety here. once again, breesh deputy deputy -- appreciate deputy director herrera's willingness to have a conversation to modify these existing rules and regulations. thank you. >> operator: there is one more caller. >> thank you. caller? >> operator: caller l.w.? >> yeah. good morning, commission. this is len wisebach.

i think russ leavy was using far too much tact. i think this has caused an incredibly calamitous situation for project planners because they're deeming that any work is going to trigger the requirement for this access. i think the suspension should be immediately revoked, and that while other viable solutions to try to increase fire and life safety, to try to come up with some alignment with the state code needs to happen so that permitting can continue, is going to affect all ends of the economic engine

that san francisco architects, project sponsors, engineers -- i think this is going to exacerbate the homeless problem, and with the winter, it is just a horrible situation, and we're just putting more and more costs and more and more restrictions on building housing in san francisco, and it's absolutely the wrong way to go. i think the process was really unfortunate. i think public should have been included in any discussions about this. building commission should have been included in discussions with this, and this was made unilaterally with very little warning is not in the interest of the citizens of san francisco. i'm working with the mayor's office, and we're going to try to have this rescinded as soon as possible so that things can move forward in an orderly

time. thank you for your time. >> thank you, caller. can i please have your name one more time for the record, please? >> my name is lev wisebach. >> can you please it, please? >> certainly, angus. my name is l-e-v, and my name is w-e-i-s-b-a-c-h. >> thank you. >> operator: there's another caller. >> clerk: are you unmuting the caller? >> hello? hello? >> clerk: hello, yes, we can hear you, caller. >> hi.

my name is heidi leivas. i'm an architect in san francisco, and yes, revoking eg-02 affects almost all of my projects, and i understand the safety issues and that kind of thing, and i guess, yeah, my question is have there been, you know, issues with existing and safety and that kind of thing because i haven't heard anything like that, you know, like, why -- what has implemented this revoking? but my second thing is with the e-mail from the first person, i think a lot of homeowners will just call those rear bedrooms offices, and then, we will have a problem. you're putting us in it a really, really difficult position. i have a lot of historic

projects with bedrooms not in the front, and it would be difficult to find a way out without battling historic preservation. i'm glad there's public comment, and yeah, thank you, and please listen to the local architect here. thank you. >> thank you. >> operator: there's one more caller. caller s.q., you are unmuted. >> this is [indiscernible] architect in san francisco, and actually, the previous commenter raised a lot of the issues i was going to raise. it's starting to encourage single-family homeowners to misinterpret what they're using their homes as, starting to call bedrooms dens. if you're doing a small remodel and not making a change or increasing the intensification of the bedroom access to the

backyard, this is encouraging a misrepresentation of how people are using their homes, and this is not making things safer. it's actually making things a lot worse, and i think there's a huge percentage of homes that are immediately affected by this crisis. looking at the housing crisis in san francisco, looking at upsloping lots and down sloping lots, i think there's a disconnect of trying to connect front to back on these properties, and i think the comment that you've heard today is just the tip of the iceberg on what you're going to have on single-family properties and even two-family properties, yeah, so thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> operator: there's no further commenters. >> close public comment. what i'm going to do is i'm

going to close it out, but i'll go to vice president tam, please, if he wants to weigh-in on this. >> thank you, vice president mccarthy. i do echo some of the commenters that san francisco does have a unique architectural landscape, but d.b.i.s main priority is to save life. i'm curious what my colleagues think, and also, the representatives from the san francisco fire department that are here today, as well, so thank you. >> thank you. and commissioner alexander-tut? >> oh, yes, absolutely. thank you. are we able to hear from the fire department because i -- >> okay. absolutely, no problem. yeah, okay, maybe that's the correct order here. is somebody from the fire department here?

i don't believe so. >> yes. >> okay. so is this marshal? is this the fire marshal? >> this is assistant fire marshal rich brown. >> oh, sorry, rich. i did not know you were on the line. i was going to call for fire marshal coughlin. if it's okay with the fire marshal, i can give a little background and a little explanation on what transpired in the last couple months. >> okay. my apologies to my fellow commissioners. i did not realize the fire marshal was also on the line. they were going to come on on another hearing, so i'll backtrack and come back to your comments, commissioner alexander-tut, is that okay?

>> yes, please. >> okay. >> thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to speak on this. yes, we're an important stakeholder on this info sheet back in 2013, when it first -- i believe the code, you know, 2010, maybe, when this emergency escape and rescue opening came into the code. again, we all know it was a very challenging code, and it continues to be a very challenging code section to design around, especially with our zero lot lines and most of our housing stock. so again, back in 2013, this was an agreement between the previous fire marshal and a previous d.b.i. director. fast forward a few years, some other agency requested a code interpretation at the state level, the state fire marshal level -- basically, let me read it right here. the question was, are the

emergency escape and rescue openings in r occupancies required to be made available to the fire department using ladders? the response from the state was yes. so how do we -- yeah, i can read your mind a little bit there, president mccarthy, very difficult in san francisco. when some of our plan checkers started noticing some designs that were not meeting our fire department access requirements based here in san francisco, and that's the only reason why we look at these r-3 either brand-new buildings or additions, is for fire department access and, of course, do you have enough water for this addition, and water -- we call it fire flow or water flow out of the

hydrants.

>> clerk: president mccarthy, there's another caller with the hand raised. >> i'm going to come back to the fire marshal. let me reopen public comment, and then we will do that again and then close it again and come back, and then, i will go around to my fellow commissioners. is that okay, madam secretary? did i lose you? >> clerk: yes, that's fine. thank you. >> operator: carrie bernstein? >> so i'm sorry i was late. i was on a previous zoom meeting before this. i'm an owner and live in a two-unit building where the other unit is entirely in the back. there is no front option for

egress. everything complies with light and air, and i have a direct stair down to the backyard. this basically would say that my unit has no bedroom. it is no longer an apartment if i were to modify or do other things to trigger this. it has removed a legal unit from the housing supply because there is no front option. the front portion is behind the hill. there's nothing wrong with the unit, and the property has a 15-foot easement -- fire department easement in the back. the whole mid block has this open space, this easement. how is this even going to possibly be the case because it's literally going to remove housing stock, especially from

the supply. >> clerk: is that the end of your comment, caller? >> thank you. >> clerk: okay. thank you very much. >> so, madam secretary, if there's no more public comment, i will close public comment. is there more public comment? >> operator: there are no more hands raised. >> okay. public comment is closed. back to -- does the fire marshal want to weigh-in or does he want to wait for commissioner's comments and then weigh-in? >> i'd like to weigh-in. department fire marshal rich brown. we are made aware of the interpretation. i think some of the examples that deputy director pereira put out there are good, and we

are open for alternatives. stair out the back, fire escapes, access openings, things like that, i think we should be -- we're open to it, and by reinitiating the bulletin by this point is putting it back on the architect to go ahead and design egress. you need to get to the people, like you said, in the back of the building and find out -- a single story in the backyard is not an issue. you can climb out the back window, you're four or 5 feet off the ground. love to hear from the commission or fire marshal brown. i'll be available for your questions. >> thank you. thank you very much. so wanted to go back to vice president tam. did you want to weigh back in

again because you wanted to hear from the fire? >> no, thank you, president mccarthy. it's good to hear that the fire department is open to a meeting of the minds and accommodate our architectural landscape. appreciate that. >> commissioner tut, please? >> yeah, so i think i'm confused about the policy, so i want to some ask questions. as a member of the commission, i've lived in many, many units with zero lot lines, and this is -- that is normal housing in san francisco, with two or three units stacked on top. so what is the current practice

if there's a fire in the building with 25 or 50 foot egress and you still can't get there, like, because of the lot line? what is the current practice for getting a ladder back there? i've only seen them go to a neighbor's roof, but i guess, like, what is the problem because is it seems to be, like, how most housing is in san francisco currently, so i think i'm a little bit confused about kind of what the definition -- kind of what is the current practice with the housing we have -- what is the current practice, and what is the problem that we're trying to solve? i have other questions, but i want to understand, on a deeper level, with real housing, what does the fire department do when there's that situation? >> yeah, appreciate the

question. so we have old housing in san francisco. fire department has been around from that time, as well. we have very skilled first responders that show up. they know what to do. we call them existing nonconforming in the code world. they were built before the code came into existence. these codes and any new projects, it's very difficult for designers to bring existing buildings and design it to today's code because most of the codes were written for brand-new structures. it's very difficult. i've been here a long time, and i've seen a lot of

equivalencies. this info sheet lays out an acceptable equivalency when an r-3 is a single-family addition that we'd allow an escape to an area of refuge in the backyard. we are in discussions with our fire department training facility about, you know, creative ways to rescue -- usually, to your question, if there is a fire and emergency, we do what's necessary at that moment. so again, codes evolve over time because of some event that was unfortunate, and that's why

we're here today. >> yeah. the caller that was concerned about her unit being illegal, we're not concerned with that, we're not concerned about what is now or what's coming if it was approved prior, is that correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> okay. great. thank you. and then, i would like to see the tenant community engaged in these discussions. i am very sensitive both to the architect comments but also the rest of the comments about people labelling things as

nonbedrooms. the people who will live in these are ultimately the stakeholders that we also really care about. that's all i have. i'd like to hear from my fellow commissioners. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner tut.

can i have commissioner bito, please. >> can you hear me? i thank you for the presentation about eg-02. i think that was a really good presentation. i also want to disclose to my fellow commissioners that i communicated with -- as part of the [indiscernible] at the time that this was brought to my attention, this was a single-family residence [indiscernible] at the moment, so i wanted to learn more about the issues around it, but the [indiscernible] deputy director pereira, and the feedback, this was also brought by [indiscernible] mission. and secondly, i felt as the person sitting in the architect

seat and as the architect -- and i have had to deal with these variances, but the concerns of the fire department's operation is just as important as the concerns of the architect, so being sensitive to the concerns of the operations of their firefighters is something that we have to bear in mind and keep in mind as part of these compromises but also our collaboration, so i am very sensitive to that. so that being said, i had a couple of questions for deputy director pereira. along with the comments from mr. weisbach, i think the fire department already clarified that existing nonconforming

uses is exactly that. they're not illegal, they're just existing nonconforming. the other concern that i have -- and i think that the presentation that deputy director pereira provided were examples of creative ways that you can provide access by a deck and a stair so they serve double duty. it's not just a fire access, but there's some recreational use out of it. but i also wanted to express my concerns that the modifications that are being proposed for this, that there's some consistency in how the building deputy renders an approval for the applicant and the architect. the images that we saw were

very specific examples. in many cases, when a homeowner is looking at -- not all homeowners have the luxury that will extra touches. a deck may cutoff some light to the lower level of their home that they may not want to include; and i believe in one of the slides, it was talked about having a much more streamlined process of approval. but having some minimum requirements that the building department and the fire department will have, that they will accept. if you don't have a deck, we'll

accept a certain size deck with a stair that's leading down to an area of refuge in the backyard, so it's creative solutions like that with the building department and the fire department being acceptable, but i think it's coming to the city with an alternate means or alternate amendment to the code.

if deputy director pereira could clarify, for the time being, would could an applicant do to propose a modification to a variant? what exactly is that? >> okay. now i believe, commissioner, deputy director pereira is not with us, is that correct? >> clerk: that's correct, but michelle yu is speaking on his

behalf. >> so michelle, could you weigh-in? i believe there's about three questions there, so michelle, could you weigh? >> yes, hi. good morning, commissioners. i'm going to try to address each of commissioner bito's questions as best i can. so the first question about the consensus overall regarding a prescriptive method, the fire department and d.b.i. have gotten together to think of different solutions, different possible design alternatives, and we will continue, and we are continuing that discussion to ensure that also, and also

that the design can't be met concurrently. so we hope to work together and update you all as well as the c.a.c. on our developments. secondly, with the a.b. 05, initially, with the eg-02, it is required that you submit a local equivalency, and that is required because the eg-02 was not conforming with the california building code, and it's how we in san francisco acknowledge our geographic constraints, and therefore, on

a project by project, we are reviewing this and accepting those constraints, and that has been agreed upon by the fire department and us in the development of the previous eg-002, so hope that -- and going further, we will continue -- sorry. going further, we will continue with any modifications that we have because it will not be conforming to the california building code, so none of that process will be changing. i don't quite remember the third question, sorry. i think it might have answered the third question, as well, but commissioner bito, please, if you can remind me of your third question, i would be happy to provide more clarification. >> i think you answered as a

follow up on this prescriptive -- the accepted prescriptive proposals that architects could make. the question to you and perhaps to the deputy director, this commission has engaged with the a.i.a., is that something that they had in mind to basically get feedback because architects are a creative bunch of people with feedback.

these are things that you can rely on and be approvable. when things are open-ended, then, it becomes an expensive process, and not just in money but in time, so i'd like to pose that question to deputy or director o'riordan. >> thank you for the good question, commissioner bito, and obviously, we appreciate the feedback of the architectural community, and we will be reaching out to the b.i.a. and others for stakeholder engagement to update the eg-02 information sheets, and we're happy to do that, and i think it's the

right thing to do. >> thank you. i don't -- president mccarthy, i don't have any further comments on that. >> thank you. thank you, commissioner bito. commissioner eppler, please. >> thank you, president mccarthy. first, i have a question for ms. yu. correct me if i am wrong, but i understand there could be an internal remodel that would trigger the need for the policy, and could be give us an example -- could you give us an example of what would trigger the compliance and what would not trigger the compliance? >> thank you, commissioner. i want to be as specific as possible because we see so many projects coming through d.b.i., and as commissioner bito

stated, architects are very creative. i just wanted to state that the code states you have this bedroom that needs to lead to the right-of-way and to the backyard, as well, or self-rescue. so that constrains in our majority of lot line -- or if you were to comply with the code, the bedrooms would face the public way. basically, the street. so if you can achieve that, then, you meet the code requirement, correct? so the reason why you may not or the design may not meet the

code is if the interior remodel proposes bedrooms to face the rear of the building, and where the rear of the building doesn't have any side setbacks, that person can go to the right-of-way. if you're reconfiguring the lay out of the floor plan such that, you know, the sleeping bedrooms are facing the rear, then you would fall into the category of potentially requiring this local equivalency of using the rear yard as a means to escape an area to be rescued? but if your design project of reconfiguring your space has the bedrooms facing the public -- the street, which there are many projects that that is the case, as well,

then, you don't trigger the need for this local equivalency. did that answer your question? >> almost. let me get at it this way. let's say i have an interior remodel, little bit of structural because it's 1909. would this remodel then trigger the change? >> no, and we are pretty consistent and -- with the fire department, as well, in that definition of existing nonconforming. so with that configuration, we do need to provide the architect or the design professional will be required to show the existing floor plans, and for existing floor plans where that is already the

case where the rear bedroom is facing the rear yard. it does not trigger them the need to reassess that, so that would not be the case. we're just talking about where the reconfiguration of the lay out where the bedrooms are facing the rear or a new design where the bedrooms are facing the rear. >> thank you for those clarifications because my concerns i think have been expressed pretty well by the other commissioners, but i want to make sure that the hurdles that we're putting into place actually address an existing safety problems, and we have so many existing nonconforming units in the city, and unfortunately, due to age and upkeep and other matters, they tend to be the ones, at least in my anecdotal recollection of the news, they end up needing fire department supports,

particularly those that are more dense and have a lot of different units to it, so, you know, we're not materially increasing safety across a large number of the residential units within the city with this policy, and we're creating another level of, it seems like lack of safety for creating the incentive for creators to rely on that incentive. i hope that what we come up with is actually improving in public safety so that that additional safety gets carried on for your time. that's the extent of my

comments at this time. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner moss, please? >> hi, thank you. so i have a question about a.d.u.s. mission housing owns a lot of old housing stock, and they have a lot of only rear facing bedrooms with small housing with the addition of a.d.u.s. as i'm sure you're aware, the upcoming housing requirement requires that san francisco is zoned for 85,000 new units of housing over the next five years, and the mayor as will -- as well as the board of supervisors said that zoning is one way we're going to reach those 85,000 units. so is there any survey being performed of potential lots that could negatively be affected? i know you're just in the initial stages, but i do think

we should be conscious of the fact that one arm is saying, we're going to use a.d.u.s, especially in single-family homes, to add thousands and thousands of new units, where if we're on this side, kind of making it a little bit harder to do that, so i guess i'm just wondering if you can comment on that -- anyone from the fire department. >> yes, thank you, commissioner moss, for your concerns. very aware of the challenges for a.d.u.s. [indiscernible]. >> we see many, many submittals a week, and when we first started seeing these when the proposals were passed, 2015, 2016, the fire department and d.b.i. came together back then, and they have a different information sheet that's published on d.b.i.s websites

that calls out specific needs for a.d.u. information. again, that's a different call-out sheet that addresses our concerns for the eero, so you can look at that, and i think we have solid ground, and all designers are using that info sheet eg-05, eg-05. so i think we're going to keep on that same path. i don't see us changing that at the moment. >> okay. yeah. no more further question requests. thank you. >> okay. thank you, commissioner moss. can i have commissioner sommer, please. >> hi. thank you for this discussion. it was really helpful, and i just wanted to note, as a

design professional who also works through design provisions for very infrequent events, i understand the fire department's concerns. obviously, safe is huge, you know, but i live in one of these conditions, as well. i certainly, you know, want to be able to exit or have help when needed. to me, the thing that i'm hearing, public comment, from other commissioners, is one comment by which this occurred -- and thank you, everyone, for the background earlier when this was created, how this was creates, so it's been in effect not for a very long time, since 2013, and then, sort of rescinded, from

what sounded to me, like, kind of quite suddenly. i know we're working through the discussions of an acceptable way to find some common ground that sort of works for everyone. one of the public comment mentioned that the public should, could really be involved in that discussion. i'm not sure exactly the discussion for how that -- an ordinance, a bulletin like this is, you know, rescinded, per se, and i understand that the fire marshal has that authority and, you know, should have that authority. i'm just wondering if there could have been or would have been some reparations to that process to make it -- to gain some buy in from the community -- different users from the community and also

prepare people for a change. i know every few years, we go through a process, and codes are enacted and policies need to change. that's regarding safety, and i think we all accept that and take those steps incrementally together. i think what i'm hearing is there was sort of a process in place, and then it was gone all of a sudden, so i think to me, that sounds like one of the harder pieces to swallow here. so i know we're on a trajectory, but i don't know that i have anything more to add on that front, but that's sort of my thoughts on this discussion. i'll pass it back to you, president mccarthy. >> thank you to you, miss sommer. and i'll thank you, department

pereira and michelle yu, and thank you to the deputy fire marshal, rich brown. >> president -- i thought you were [indiscernible]. >> no, i'm not finished. i'll swing back, commissioner bito. so, look, i've been doing this long enough to know you never shoot the piano players particularly in situations like this when it comes to our code, and particularly to the fire department, but, you know, what we have is this one size fits all that we seem to suffer from, particularly at the state level where other municipalities are at, and then, we rescind that decision, and you can even see by mr. brown's reaction, we're just not that city, and i think

we're very unique, and we've always met that argument, and i do believe before we had a -- and i don't know, mr. brown, if you were here then, where we had another discussion around fire decks, and everything which was very -- and i know that was a very contentious one, too. i think that the comments from the architectural community was very strong, because when they show up like this and talk in those terms, i think they're not trying to [indiscernible] and i am concerned, and i am getting phone calls from people who are caught in this decision

process right now because the plan checking are -- their hands are tied a little bit here, so i am kind of worried about that, and i think we don't have a lot of time here because [indiscernible] are not moving through the system efficiently because this is up in the air. and, you know, to mr. paul's comments, why not defend the bulletin? we have in the past, and kind of a question more to the marshal on that, because as i look at the options here, and i want to thank the roof deck as an option, i'm sorry, it's really hard to get a roof deck through planning approval in this town right now. as a matter of fact, planning don't want a roof deck as an option. a side yard, a 25-foot is small

enough, and now, we've got to give 3 feet off the side. i don't think that's an option. and i even said it to director o'riordan, what about this flush ladder? it's an option that i could see, and i'm just seeing that this is an option that the fire department doesn't like. but this is an option for the kind of housing that sour see produces, and i think because of the nature of our city, we have to defend our bull engines there, and sometimes, we can't comply with the state because of who we are, and i want to just see what other option do we have to -- what are our solutions if we can't come to a workable solution here? i don't think that can be

answered today, but i think -- i'd be very interested in scene of the accident steps, when you'll be expected to come back here, when it can be resolved? i know there's a dearth of projects that need to be solved. but i know that there is a problem between staff and the fire department, and we need to work on this. i'll turn it back over to commissioner bito, and then, if anyone wants to weigh-in, commissioner or staff, but commissioner bito. >> apologies, president mccarthy, but one of the things that came out of this discussion is that creative solutions came out of these collaborative discussions, creative solutions or alternate

equivalencies is that they meet life safety, that any one of those wouldn't be accepted -- wouldn't be included or accepted unless the fire department and d.b.i. reach concurrency on them, so it was based on that basic premise. the only other question that you brought -- the only other situation you broached, president mccarthy, is if you had the option on the three-foot set back, which is a very big if, there has to be a certain or a minimum or a height limit that it only sneeds to be clear up to the first story. so if you -- it would allow the flexibility of -- of the designer or the applicant or homeowner to cantilever over

that yards. so if you're wanting to meet the egress, a certain height, it could canti lever all the way up to the sky. those were my comments. >> i'd like to say just a few words about what this is, and i apologize for missing the beginning of the meeting. i was in a department heads meeting. so there are two elements to this, and this is state code, escape and rescue.

so escape is not the rescue here because people will still have the required dimensions of the escape and rescue from the new bedroom at the rear. the issue is, as assistant fire department brown can weigh-in, is the rescue. so that is the ability of the require department to get access to the areas with new sleeping rooms above the first floor area. any design that would come to us and be looked at by us or the fire department would have a cantilever of the floors above the rear floors would be acceptable to me, but i also understand that given the geographic considerations of san francisco, we have all of these zero lot line buildings,

that if somebody adds a new sleeping room at the rear of the residence, that becomes an immediate issue. and i think commissioner eppler mentioned interior remodels, and i'd like to weigh-in a little bit on that. so existing is nonconforming and would not be impacted. the only way i could see that would be a concern is if it was a rear model was if it were to be converted to a sleeping room. let's say you had an office at the rear of the building and you wanted to convert that to a sleeping room, then, you would have to have this conversation.

of course, we're going to work collaboratively with the fire department and come up with what would be acceptable based on san francisco's specific geographic conditions with all of these zero lot line buildings, and we would be engaging with the stakeholders, and this is something that would be fleshed out completely, and our design professionals will be given direction on what will be acceptable for approval. >> any ideas as to when you think this would come back to us here because this today is just informational. >> well, as you know, president mccarthy, we've reinstated eg-02, and we're working on a 90-day timeline for closure surrounding this requirement. >> okay.

require, do you want to weigh-in? are we going? i think we're good, president mccarthy. i've taken this all in, and i understand the seriousness and the challenges of it for the homeowners, designers, and contractors. we're responsible for all walks of life in the city, tenants, landlords, and first responders. there's a lot to this, there's a lot we have to take in when we plan review and apply the codes. i'm confident we'll come up with a solution and move forward in an amicable way. we're okay. >> mr. brown, can you give us your feeling on the flush ladder? >> so the flush ladder has been allowed in some cases. one of the main concerns is the

maintenance of said ladder, how it's fastened to the structure. is it bolted? is it screwed? ten years go by, and we've seen this with other members -- other structural members attached to the building. what is the length of the ladder or weight wise? i'm a large man, and when i put on all my gear, will it hold me? and when i rescue someone, that's added weight. so we're putting all of those things on the table. i want to add to my answer to commissioner moss, eg-05, that

is strictly for three-unit or more buildings, three units or more. thank you. >> thank you. as always, informative, mr. brown, and maybe, there could be a certification, which we have to do with our life and safety. and thank you for all of your work, and as i said, i know you're reacting to a decision that was made somewhere else. >> president mccarthy, something else, if i may. kathy harold will be taking over my duties, so please welcome her here as the senior fire department supervisor. >> thank you, mr. brown. will you be retiring? >> let's just say by the end of

the year. >> i hope i would get to say good-bye. >> it would be it. >> thank you for all of your service. >> no problem. thanks for working together. i've been here 12 years, and it's been a great experience. i love working with all of my counterparts at the city. >> so president mccarthy, if i might weigh-in and say what a privilege it's been to work with rich over the years. we discussed anything and everything as it had to do with code as it might affect our customers. the affect he's shown has been incredible, and i wish him all the best in his retirement, and maybe we can talk him out of it. >> i don't think we've seen the

last of mr. brown. i don't think so. thank you, rich. thank you, fire marshal, too. >> thank you. >> okay. now, madam secretary, we did public comment. you want me to make another adjustment, if that's the way i understand it? >> clerk: yes. if possible, regarding item 7, if we could possibly hear that item because we have representatives from pg&e here. >> okay. okay. let's do that. we're going there now? >> clerk: yes, if our commissioners are in favor of going to agenda item 7. so read that? okay. so agenda item 7 is update and discussion on the department's oversight and safety of construction conducted under the mandatory soft-sory --

soft-story retrofit program. >> thank you. and i believe that mr. buckley is make the presentation? >> yes. i'm jeff buckley, and i'm with the department of building inspection, here to present on the report that you should have received already. it was originally heard by the board of supervisors in june where they expressed concerns over gas lines running through beams and structures in the retrofit program. i'm here to present the methodology of our investigative work, our efforts, and the next steps needed to complete the work. so sonia, if i could have the

ability to share my screen? >> clerk: it should be coming. >> operator: there you are. sorry. >> great. thanks, monique. thanks, sonia. so hopefully you can see it all. >> clerk: yes, we can see it clear. >> great. as you can see from this slide, we began with 4,942 projects, which is the entirety of the mandatory soft-story retrofit program, and through the course of our review, we were able to review all of those properties. i'm just going to stop here for

a second because i know you're probably focused on the bottom number, which is 75, and i will walk you through -- the purpose of this presentation is kind of walk you through each step how we got to this number of 75, and then talk about what the next steps will be around it. so after the hearing, i just want to point out that we formed an investigative review team with various divisions in the department, and the group developed the identity to determine where gas lines were running through the beams and any coordinating elements, and then representatives from pg&e will be here to answer any of your questions. we needed that coordination on issues that were really under their jurisdiction. and just as a reminder, their jurisdiction is the gas lines

that run through the street to the meter. and so their cooperation was essential to making us be able to come up with the findings that you've hopefully read in this report and that i will be discussing with you. in addition to that, this group worked with technical services and plan review services to develop an information sheet to provide guidance for design professionals for both current as well as future soft story retrofit programs -- excuse me, retrofits that encouraged or encountered this position. that is included in appendix a, which is at the back of the report that we produced for you. so just very briefly, a little bit about some of our principles because i think our principles are key here. when in doubt, we always erred on the side of caution in safety. so if we could not

concluesively rule a property out, we'd keep that in. in addition to collaborating with pg&e to investigate the issue, it was apparent that pg&e had information that was crucial to coming up with the findings in the report, and then, we also had access to information that pg&e did not have access to, so i think the combination allowed us to achieve the results. in addition, it's very important to ensure is our methods and results.

prior to publishing, we doubled back with representatives from ceonc to provide our findings and get feedback on the conclusions and the next steps, so that work was crucial to being able to advance this effort. what we did, after reviewing all of the projects, we reviewed all the existing projects, we were able to remove about 30% of properties from our investigation, and so we retained 3,497 properties at

this point in our investigation. at that point, we talked about pg&e and engaged with them, and really, we cross-referenced the addresses that we had as well as to determine if pg&e records showed that these gas lines were cased or replaced with newer gas lines and that's upgraded to better withstand earth movement. as a result of that reduction,

we were able to -- excuse me. as a result of that review, we were able to reduce the total of 520 addresses. so then, we focused on the addresses that pg&e records showed had not been upgraded yet, and which our inspection codes indicated have had a gray beam or concrete pour at the address. so we conducted a manual review and checked to see if new grade beams were added in the front or rear of the property and whether there was any possibility that the new beam and the gas line intersected using google earth and paper vision. if it was at all possible they would intersect, we confirmed

the locations whether they crossed with a grade beam, and we were able to further reduce that to 246 addresses. and so our next steps after this is both pg&e as well as d.b.i. conducted in-person site inspections for all of the remaining 246 properties to determine if some were in fact cased, and they were able to conclude 118 properties had not been cased. and d.b.i. conducted, as i mentioned, our own site inspections of 246 properties to determine whether the gas lines intersected or ran through or were near real to

where the new lines were affected. so d.b.i. determined that 70 could have the possibility of a gas line running through a foundational element. so 75 properties could not be ruled out at this point in the investigation, so they remained, you know, as part of the focus. so our next steps is that the 75 properties that may have gas lines running through a grade beam at this point, i do want to point out that the 75 remaining properties have had inspections, special inspections and other records that show that these soft story retrofits performed according to code, that those properties have been protected according to code, but to protect those properties and out of an

abundance of caution, pg&e has agreed to upgrade the service lines at those addresses, and they agreed to do that by the end of 2022, but that is dependent on city cooperation to meet that schedule. and you have before you a draft report, so i'm interested in getting your feedback on that report. after this meeting, staff will finalize that report and transmit that report to you as well as to the board of supervisors, and we will do that by the end of the year. pg&e and d.b.i. will collaborate on a letter to any property owners regarding any project activity, and we'll work with public works to obtain any permits.

if you have any questions, we have building staff, and staff from pg&e. with that, i'm going to stop sharing my screen and happy to answer any questions you have or direct them to the appropriate staff. >> thank you, mr. buckley, and thank you for that presentation. if i may first, i'd like to go to public comment, if that's okay with my fellow commissioners, and then, we can circle back and we can close

out next steps. madam secretary, can we go to public comment, please? >> clerk: is there any public comment on agenda item 7? >> operator: no, there's no hands raised. >> clerk: okay. okay. thank you. >> okay. that amazes me. okay. so vice chair tam, please. >> thank you, president mccarthy, and thank you, jeff, for the work, as well as pg&e on the collaboration. i know we talked about this before, but to go from that 5,000 number or 4,942 number to 75, it's significant. when do you think the work will

be finished? >> i will say the work is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, but if you want to hear from pg&e, they can tell you about some of the aspects of city cooperation that's necessary to be able to meet that deadline. >> thank you. that would be great, if pg&e can chime in, just so, you know -- is there a representative from pg&e? >> sure. president mccarthy, can you guys hear me? >> [indiscernible]. >> thank you, president mccarthy, and thank you for letting me joining this day. 75 service replacements isn't anything other than normal than what we would say in san francisco -- would see in san

francisco, but it's having to do with a couple of things. if we have to replace the meter and house line extension, if we can get some help from building inspection so the city is not necessarily in a bottle neck. and then, the other piece was with the department of public works when it comes to encroachment permits. if we're going to replace the service -- typically, if we're going to replace it and there's no encroachment, you're usually talking about one hole and the main and the tee. we're asking for a little bit of cooperation so we can get

those 75 done by the end of next year. >> thank you for that. and then, just one more thing. i know with the 75, you know, remaining properties, the owners or the occupants there, i'm sure they're aware of this -- how has the cooperation been in terms of getting this rectified? >> it's been mixed, you know. some tenants like them, and some don't, and some of them are good about providing access, and some of them don't, and we saw this when conducting our fielding, so it's no surprise that we have a small number of customers that are resistant when performing this work on the property. that's why mr. buckley talked about a joint letter so people

have a number to call so they don't have to call a pg&e 5,000 number and they can talk to a live body. >> president mccarthy, there's a caller with their hand up. >> so we're back in public comment, yeah? >> yes. >> okay. so what i'm going to do is i'm going to reopen public comment for that one caller. please, public caller? >> operator: caller 415-467, you're unmuted. >> thank you. hello? >> operator: go ahead. >> clerk: we can hear you. go ahead. >> commissioners, my name is francisco dacosta, and i've been following this for about the last ten years.

in the last five years, we, meaning the department of building inspection and some of the advocates who were following this issue of soft-story retrofit programs and alternatives found out that this was a very, very, very slow process. i myself was involved with two buildings, one at 4917 third street, and the other one, 152 one-third street. it cost us a lot of money to work with pg&e, which i'll let you all keep mentioning as if they're very cooperative, and etc., etc.

this is very important to address. in doing the needs assessment, anybody who needs a major assessment, and it can be done in many ways, and you all have done it in one week, but i know there are thousands of homes that [indiscernible] but i'm not going to focus on what i know, in my experience in the presidio, where we had a similar issue, so i know how to do the kind of logistics. have empathy on san franciscans when it comes to fixing the problem. it costs a lot of money, a lot of money, and not everybody can afford it.

>> clerk: caller, your -- >> thank you very much. >> clerk: okay. thank you. thanks so much. >> thank you, mr. dacosta. good to hear from you, so i'll close public comment. >> vice president -- there are no other hands raised. >> vice president tam, thank you for your comments. commissioner alexander-tut, you had your hand raised? >> i do have some questions,

some clarifying, some asking what you're thinking. so one of my questions is do we know it -- how many -- how many okay to pour or how many concrete -- how many new foundations -- i think i'm using the right term -- were put in without pg&e sign-off? do we have that number? not who's outstanding, but who's in the global -- you know, like, globally? do we know the number of foundations without pg&e sign-off? >> we don't have that number. >> that number seems important. i guess what i'm trying to understand, i'm not hearing this in the report is, did we do anything wrong? is there any lessons learned

here? was there a problem? how widespread was the problem? i see the solution, okay, there's 75 that we don't really know about, and we're going to take extra precaution of, like, having pg&e come in and expedite their retrofit and to solve any problems but we don't know if there's a problem. that sounds like a varying conclusion to a spectacular kind of board hearing, getting ready for a board hearing. there's a lot of questions about what happened, and i guess i'm not hearing that in the presentation or the report of, like -- like, i hear there was a lot of public feedback, and here's 75, and we're going to kind of do the best we can

to make sure these are safe. but i guess, like, was there anything we would have done differently had the -- know where we are today and if we're going to start over again? like, was there anything we would have done differently? like, i'm kind of looking for some lessons learned or -- i'm kind of confused by that part. >> so if i could take a step back, commissioner, i think the under lying issue that we heard from both the board and the public is they had concerned about safety of the gas lines. the way we were able to address that is based on the information that we had available to us. and so the principal data analyst was able to look through all the inspections, codes that were entered, as well as the notes that were

provided to really identify, first off, where did a pour occur? i think that's the first attempt to try to shrink down this universe to try and identify the particular instances where a gas line was running through a grade beam, and then, i think we were trying to identify where this issue existed in the city. we did not want to presuppose but use the information available to us. ultimately, what we came to understand was that program really, it's understanding where it happened within the city and where it would happen in the city, i think really helped us to address, you know, that safety issue, because

ultimately, it's the way that pg&e has to be able to upgrade their gas lines? it provides a flexible line that gets installed and one through kind of the existing olden pipe? and we felt if an earthquake was to occur, any type of earth movement, would the pipe not be able to have a gas leak occur? and i think as a result of pg&es assurances, i think having that as an important component of this study would go a long way to being able to address that concern around safety. as far as lessons learned, i was not here during the prior effort. i can simply say that i think we would probably agree that increased coordination with pg&e, and that is identified as one of the next steps, as both

trainings of pg&e said they would be willing to provide. and i think the info sheet itself contains certainly clear instructions to call pg&e. i think increased instructions certainly would be better and certainly would have been better in the past. and i think based on that and the info sheet here, we'll be able to see that in the future. >> i guess for the folks that work here, is there any other kind of feedback when concrete is poured and there isn't any pg&e sign off? is there any, any feedback?

oh, okay. if not...thank you, mr. buckley. i'll have to sit with that for a little bit. i do want to ask for clarification from the notification team. i understand that there's construction notification, but i didn't catch the nuances when pg&e, mr. kent spoke. do the 75 building owners and occupants, do they know about this or do they not know about it yet? >> yeah, if i could, from the d.b.i. side, this is also something that commissioner tam asked about. so the investigation we did on the d.b.i. side did not include

gaining access to the property, so we have not contacted the 75 building owners. that is something that we will do in coordination with pg&e, and frankly, at a time to be determined in advance of the construction work. so for example, if we were to notify them by letter in january and the work would start in june or july, that probably wouldn't be an effective communication, so we'd like to do it in an effective time before construction at each of the sites. but to answer your questions, neither the property owners or tenants at this point have been notified by d.b.i. about this particular issue. >> i want to remind folks that it was the last hearing that we

had that tenant groups were asking for notification of tenants, and i tried to make a motion, but it was ruled to be a suggestion, so i'm reminding everyone of the suggestion that was not, i guess, resolution appropriate, but i'm reminding everyone from the feedback from the tenant community that that was something that they wanted to be included on. let me just look at my list. >> commissioner tut, it is our intention to notify the tenants at the appropriate time and make sure people are aware of the activity that's going to occur. i think we're doing this in the least intensive manner possible at the buildings for the work that will be conducted. >> thank you. that eases my little concern.

and my final question is, is this mostly internal, external construction that would be done? there's a question about cost from a previous person. is this something that people are going to have to incur costs for? tenants might have to put out for? how kind of [indiscernible] is the right word, but how big of a deal is this construction is how pays for it ultimately? >> so that's a great question. i would defer to derek kent at pg&e to talk about that part of the work. >> thank you. >> sure. thanks, jeff. yeah, commissioner tut. impact to the customer, generally speaking, is going to be a temporary outage.

they're existing structures, so we can't bottle them or tank them. they may have a disruption in their gas for a few hours a day that the installation is scheduled for, and the paving. the actual, the regular gas service piece, the financial component, we're not completely sold on it, but from this point, it's the due diligence of pg&e to upgrade these lines now that we're aware of the position, so it's not something necessarily that we're looking

for the city to refund. we're looking to bring these up to code in addition to the gray beam casing. does that answer your question, commissioner tut? >> it does. as someone who sits on a policy kind of oversight body, i like some, you know, some kind of element, like, this is what happened, this is how we could have done it differently, or this is a policy -- we're kind of, like, in the weeds but not, like, that much in the weeds in this policy or commission. if that's something that comes up, that's something of interest to me, like, how does this -- how does this -- how does, like, policy and procedures, you know, how can we prevent something, you know, like, a lack of coordination like this in the future?

like, but i see the tremendous amount of coordination that went into this, possibly historic amount of coordination that went into this, but thank you for everyone who worked on this, and yeah, i look forward to hearing other people's comments and questions. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner tut. commissioner bito, please? >> [indiscernible] for a clear and cogent presentation. this is the second time i've heard it, and i heard it the first time at [indiscernible] so thank you. >> commissioner eppler, please? >> thank you, and yes, thank you for the presentation, and thank you, pg&e, for being here, as well. couple of questions for pg&e at the beginning, and this is a

clarification on terminology that was used in the report. we have, as part of the gas line replacement program, the identification of lines that were already cased, and, you know, that's very clear about what that is, and then, we talk about pipelines that are also just upgraded. is there a difference in ways that you upgraded the pipelines or the replacements in the replacement code ram, and what are you going to be doing in terms of remediating the other 75 that need remediation? >> sure, mr. eppler. so typically, one of the questions that i ask is can we move the meter outside of the structure, right? so the -- that casing

implement, right, really coming into the conversation that i'm talking about, risers that are inside the structure or inside, under neath the building. so the first goal is if we can move the meter outside, if there's a location that's acceptable to the property owner, it's acceptable to pg&e, and it's just space because in san francisco we're constrained where we can move this. the first question is hey, can we move this outside, because if we can move it outside with the casing or sleeving, there's no problem at that point. pull the meter set apart, and we deactivate the old steel pipe and insert the plastic

pipe in that. >> next question is about this -- the funnel that these cases were put into to get down to the 75. i note that when we got down to the 246 properties that were identified, pg&e went back in and found 128 of them that had been upgraded as part of the replacement program but had not been identified in the first replacement program and went onto the -- to these properties. were those, the properties that took everything from 2.6 to 128, were those properties that weren't inputted into the database correctly or were they properties that had been identified by the database? >> it can get a little confusing because when we talk about the replacement, we're talking about replacement of

main and lateral service levels, but that's not the only time we replace gas service laterals. if there's other concern, lateral leakage being one of them, we would replace the services, too. so other services have been replaced, [indiscernible], so they weren't on the radar as far as gprp [indiscernible] so the whole block hasn't necessarily come up hot as a scoring for gprp, where some of these 75 may be in areas of -- it's just the main is in good shape, there's no issue there. that's why some of these ended up in locations where we hadn't replaced the whole neighborhood yet. >> so, so the reason why i

asked because in the draft report, the department says, you know, of the 246 properties determined, pg&e determined that 128 had been upgrades as part of the gprp, what you're saying is those weren't part of the gprp but had otherwise been upgraded through other programs? >> some of them may have been through gprp. some of them could have been through other replacement program that we had. copper, for one, so it could have been a different program, not just necessarily with gprp. >> the reason i ask is one of the biggest screens we have here is the database that knocked out so many cases that are under examination so to the

extent that there are false negatives that should have been reported, i'm worried about false positives, that we've let too many properties through as a result of only relying on that database, when we should be looking at what comes out on the other side. >> yeah. now you're getting to the topic of data quality. >> yeah, and there may be a little bit of data quality mismatch on one side of the coin. i'm worried about the data quality on the other side of the coin. as opposed to looking at one side, we have 277 positives, and how many of them were false positives? >> we went by what our records are, not necessarily gprp records are, and that's been fairly robust. we took all of our paperworks that had been digitized and

this was historic pg&e paperwork, so all of them have been digitized in the system of record relatively quickly, and it's that system that we used. if there was a question, we automatically flagged those for further investigation. we didn't necessarily completely automatically discount them, so we're completely confident in the service records, that it's basically accurate. if there was questions, we erred on the side of caution and put it in the field investigate file. >> thank you. couple of questions for mr. buckley. so i know that we are focused on the places where new concrete had been poured -- thank you for my commissioners

for suffering with me as i ask some of these basic questions. are the inspectors supposed to just take a general look at the situation and say that if old concrete had been poured in the past, if that had been, you know, poured incorrectly around the pipeline, that that should be noted and remediated as a part of that inspection, even though new concrete was not being poured at that time? >> commissioner eppler, i would defer that question to senior building inspector matthew green who may be able to answer it based on his experience. >> thank you, commissioner. i would say the inspector would be looking at the job at hand, not necessarily previous pours.

>> so we don't have any visibility into these buildings on the gas lines that didn't have new pours? >> that's correct? >> okay. and one last question, and it would be interesting to see, you know, to me to see for those 16% of identified reference program buildings that noncomplied with the retrofit requirements to see where they are in the enforcement practices and see how long they've been out, i know we've had a completion of work period in 2021, are all of those in that 2021 cohort just a little bit late. or how do they separate out, and what is being done to ensure that they very promptly

become client? i'm sure that it's being addressed, and thank you, commissioners, for bearing with me. >> so i believe the department distributes that on a monthly basis, if not more frequently? so i can say in terms of the noncompliant buildings, we have from those buildings, they're both in tier two, tier three, as well as tier four, so i believe that's where those building lie in terms of the enforcement process, and then, as far as where we are now, you know, i think that's -- we can come back to you as a commission and talk about the enforcement process on a kind of go-forward basis if that's something that you would like for staff to drill down on at a future date. >> all right.

thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner moss? >> thank you. no questions. >> commissioner sommer? >> apologies. can you hear? >> commissioner sommer. >> thank you. thank you for all this information. i don't have any further questions. >> thank you. thank you, mr. buckley, and i can't thank pg&e enough for being here today, you know, and answering questions for us. it's really helpful. and i also just want to thank the whole team at d.b.i. for delivering this report to us here today. fitting at the end of the year, and there was some spectacular hearings around this, as commissioner tut pointed out, and i'm glad to see the results that we had come back with. i do know the next steps is we will make any comments that we have back to your report, and

then i'm presuming you're going to bring this to the board of supervisors because i know that's where the major concerns were where they wanted feedback on, is that correct? >> that's correct. we plan on submitting the final report to you and the board of supervisors by the end of the year, if not sooner. >> thank you. to mr. kent's question, on the 75, which is remarkable depending on where we started [indiscernible] that shocks me, to talk about this start. on that 75, is it possible that they are actually safe, with your current safety analysis right now, and that the 75

might actually be smaller? are we sure that they are ones that need to be upgraded? >> you know, it -- good question, president mccarthy. we get to talking about what is the grade beam actually doing? it fixes the service pipe in position. casing it allows for some flexibility, some axial motion and some strain relief. we don't necessarily see it as a safety risk or a huge risk unless there's a seismic motion, and that's when you essentially secure the pipe to the structure. i don't necessarily see these as being unsafe, but the question was if there's a grade beam there, we do want to remove any risk associated with it, and when we went through

this evaluation, we said oh, these are inside risers that are uncased, and now that we're aware of it, we went out and it made sense to go out and do that, and because of its current condition today, it makes sense to target these as well as all the other replacements that we do in san francisco. >> and i believe mr. buckley in his presentation is 2022 to potentially have those 75 engaged if there's any, correct? >> correct. we're looking at replacing them

regardless. i think we're going to reduce that number, but yeah, we're very comfortable we can meet 75 by the end of next year, should be a nonissue unless they're really held out by a customer or a permit issue, and that's why we've asked for permission by the city. >> thank you, and i can't stress more, thank you, mr. kent, for working with the city on this. and just to commissioner -- kent green and to mr. buckley,

to commissioner tut's question, is there an actual kind of infection, just what procedures are we putting in place to make sure that we have this kind of buttoned up in the future? >> thanks for the question, president mccarthy. i think the information sheet is a very important piece of this. in addition, we are conducting staff trainings for our inspectors to make them aware of what the information includes, but this one specifically will be focused on, and i'd like to go back and say what jeff said earlier. i'd like to say what he said, the 75 are safe, we believe them are safe, and the installation was done properly,

but out of an abundance of caution, and a big thank you to pg&e for working with us on this, and a big thank you to d.b.i. staff for all the hours in getting us to this point. i think 75 is an amazing number based on where we were, with less ans learned and, you know, we will have processes and protocols in place for dealing with these things in the future. >> thank you, interim director. with that, madam secretary, i'd like to close this, and we will go to item 4, please. >> clerk: thank you. we are aagenda item 4, commissioners' questions and matters. inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures which are of

interest to the commission. >> commissioner tam, please? >> i have no inquiries at this time. thank you. >> commissioner tut, please? >> i meant to unmute myself, not my video. i have a question, and this is more -- this might be something that you may not have off the top of your head, but there is an issue before planning, 628 shotwell, of converting a residential facility into a one-unit building. is that before d.b.i., and if you don't know that off the top of your head, that's totally fine? >> yeah, commissioner tut, these issues typically, for change of use, is what you are describing, they typically go through planning before they come to us for the planning

approval before the change of use, so we probably haven't seen that come through just yet, but i can definitely look at it and get back to you with information. >> yeah, i was just more of a status and is it going to go through planning, and is it going to come before us as well. just more informational. yeah, thank you. yeah, i have no further questions, just, like, shoutout to the housing department, who i imagine is flooded with heat complaints and hot water complaints and all the thing -- flooding and all the things that happen to the tenant community during the rainy season. just -- you note, i note, like,

on the tenant side, so just a shoutout to those services. >> thank you. commissioner bito, please. >> no questions. thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioner eppler. >> no questions right now. thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioner moss? >> no questions. >> commissioner sommer? >> no questions from me. >> madam clerk? >> clerk: item 4-b, future meetings and agendas. at this time, the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspection commission. our next meeting is scheduled for january 15, 2022, and there could be a special meeting the week of january 25, but i'll reach out to everybody regarding schedules. >> how is everybody's schedule

regarding scheduling? >> clerk: i think it's summed up for right now. madam bito -- or commissioner bito, sorry? >> this is for future agenda items on our schedule? >> clerk: yeah, you can mention the agenda item. >> the only agenda item that would speak about is i believe we're 90 days out on the eg-02 [indiscernible] for the e.o.r. thank you. >> did you get that? >> clerk: yes. yes, i did. thank you. >> okay. perfect, and if there is nobody else -- >> oh, through the chair. >> commissioner tut, please. >> i don't know if it's anything about the agenda, and i don't know if it's going to go to a.a.b., but are we going

to meet in person in january or are we still going to do virtual and do we have to make a decision? >> clerk: currently, it's still virtual. it's -- once i get the word from the, you know, from the mayor's office and city hall and everybody. i haven't gotten word from anybody yet. as of now, it's going to be virtual. >> and so we have to do the notification, remember how last month, like, we had a 30-day notification? >> clerk: yeah, we didn't do it this time because it was sooner than 30 days. when we met last time, it seemed like it was 28 days so that's why we didn't have to do it. >> okay. and we don't have to do it for january. >> clerk: i don't know. i'll seek advice on that.

>> thank you, commissioner tut. hopefully soon because that's where it needs -- business needs to be done is in the chambers. so okay, madam secretary, is there -- public comment, is it? >> clerk: okay. is there public comment on agenda items 4-a and 4-b? >> operator: there is one hand raised. >> commissioners, i am the director of environmental justice advocacy, and i have been addressing issues, quality of life issues, housing, transportation, planning department, land use, and what i find missing, and maybe i can

bring it to your attention, is in view of climate change, the role of the building inspection is important, and you have to be in synch with the planning department, land use, permitting, but most importantly, in san francisco, we have to embrace our young people, including our children.

>> mr. dacosta, as always,

thank you for your comments. madam clerk. >> clerk: next item is item 5, discussion and possible action to adopt a ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement, and i believe commissioners sommer and alexander-tut worked on this. >> i'm happy to walk us through it a little bit. >> commissioner sommer, thank you. >> oh, sorry, yes, of course. through the chair. we presented so that this should have been with your -- i believe i sent this out to everyone. it is a draft resolution that is very -- it's similar to a lot of other statements that other san francisco bodies have adopted. if you recall our meeting with

dr. cordero, who we invited as a member of the ramaytush ohlone community, there was a statement that commissioner alexander-tut and i are working with sonia added in there.

>> public comment, please. >> clerk: any public comment on this item? >> operator: there are no hands raised. >> clerk: okay. so this is the discussion and possible action item, so i will do a roll call vote on this item. if there's -- is there a motion to approve and adopt the land acknowledgement motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> clerk: there's a motion and a second. i'll do the roll call vote. [roll call]

>> clerk: that motion carries unanimously, and thank you for your work on this. i forgot to mention. we'll kind of share the duties. commissioner sommer has graciously read the land acknowledgement, and we'll kind of rotate. we're onto item 8, update on the client services subcommittee. >> commissioner bito, quick one you said. >> yes. we had a brief meeting on

december 9. deputy director neville presented -- well, actually back up. deputy director [indiscernible] and megan presented the performance dated from 2019-2020 as a baseline, from which director neville will work from to categorize the various projects and turnaround time, so i was very pleased to see that the information was very clear. i think that he'll find a way to graphically show that so that it is something that we can follow through in 2022. that's it. thank you. thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioners, if there's no more comment on that, we'll just go to public comment.

>> clerk: is there any public comment on agenda item 8? >> operator: there are no hands raised. >> clerk: okay. the next item is item 9, update on d.b.i. finances. >> good afternoon, commissioners. [indiscernible] with the department of building inspection. this is the fifth month of the fiscal year, and similar to the prior months, we are seeing a steady increase in our revenues, so we're doing better than we did the prior year, but we're still lower than we were prepandemic. the projections are just to budget, and what i will have in december, after six months, i'll have more additional information to make better predictions and also to give you a little bit more

information. on the expense side, we're pretty much at the same level as we were last fiscal year. our expenses are usually flat during the first six months of the year, too, because a lot of our building doesn't come in until after november, and i'm happy to answer questions, too. >> clerk: if i have no qis, i'll go onto 9-b, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation. john? >> can you hear me? sorry about that. >> clerk: yes, we can hear you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. [indiscernible], legislative affairs. got a few items for you. yesterday at the board of supervisors, supervisors melgar, peskin, ronen, and

preston made a proposal to change the building inspection commission. the b.i.c. would be split 4-3 favoring mayoral appointments, but it removes dedicated seats on the building inspection commission, and it would change the way the director of the department is selected, with the b.i.c. forwarding candidates to the mayor, with the mayor making a selection among the candidates, so if that is approved, it would be on the june ballot, so i'm sure we'll have more information for you on that as it proceeds. second, supervisor haney proposed an ordinance

combatting wage theft. it would require certain project sponsors to post a bond to cover any potential violations of determinations of city laid protections. so if there's a charge of wage theft, [indiscernible] investigates and determines there was an instance of wage theft, the bond would cover whatever the wage thefts were. the ordinance would largely be administered by the office of labor standards and enforcement and the controller, but it would require d.b.i. to inform the controller if the permit has been met before we continue with these projects, so it's a condition of permit issuance. and then finally, supervisor preston introduced an item last night deappropriating $200,000 that had been previously

appropriating it to the mayor's office of housing and urban development and reappropriating it to outreach for h.u.d. buildings and other publicly financed buildings, sort of an expansion of what we were doing, i think, through the c-out program, and with that, i'm happy to answer any questions. >> commissioners, any questions on the new legislations that are coming out there, or measures? okay. >> clerk: if there's no questions -- >> sorry. madam secretary, regarding the -- or john, regarding the post bond, that was just introduced yesterday, right? >> yes, and it's largely a police code amendment, but there is a -- there's a small portion in the building code

that would -- that basically says that we can't issue the permits for the subject projects -- the defined projects as it's adding -- adding ten or more units, so if you are adding ten units in an existing units, or if you're adding ten or more units, they would be coming to the b.i.c. to present. >> oh, they are coming to the b.i.c. >> there is a building code involved. >> is it under the 30-day rule? >> yes. >> so it'll come to the b.i.c. here within the next couple of weeks or something? >> it'll come in january. >> and i'm sorry. i know you probably don't have the answer to this, but was there any outreach done as to what this bond looks like and how -- you know, i know a

little bit about bonding, and it's a very difficult threshold to meet in the construction industry, and my first praex p -- reaction is was there any discussion what this bonding looks like? if i understand it right, you can't get your building permit unless you have your bond posted, is that correct? >> yes, yes. initially, what was proposed by supervisor haney was actually making this a requirement of the p.f.c., and, you know, the department did have some concerns regarding that, regarding that to the c.f.c.,

and we expressed that, and haney opted to go in this direction. regarding the amount, i'm not sure how they landed on the specific amounts or the bonding, but the point was i think they were looking for sort of a point of leverage, essentially, to ensure that the labor requirements were met. >> i'm just concerned because i know people in that world that are super qualified who can't get bonding, so was there any due diligence done in regards of trying to get bonding, and i'm just wondering,

[indiscernible] or continue it further or can you just give me an idea? because i see this as something that a lot of people are going to have to weigh-in because i don't think they realize the complexity to getting these bonds are. >> well, the commission can certainly make the recommendations for the amendments ultimately. it's up to the board to go forward with the organization. >> i think it's important to, after meeting the minimum, reach out to the supervisor's

office because this is something that i know nobody knows anything about, really. >> my understanding was they had heard from stakeholders on this, but -- >> really? >> -- but i'm not sure which ones or who. >> i know there was conversations around the certificates, but i haven't heard any conversations around that. okay. there are my concerns, and i think it's important. okay. thank you for entertaining me on that, john. >> you're welcome. >> commissioners, if there's no further comment, we'll do public comment, madam secretary?

>> clerk: we'll go through the other report item, so item 9-c, update on major projects. >> good afternoon, commissioners. this is an update on major projects, and this represents the change from november to october. so in november shows a 12% increase in construction valuation over october, and representing also is a .87% decrease in units. that is 396 units, so if you have any questions, i'm available for questions. >> see none. >> clerk: okay. thank you. the next item is 9-d, update on code enforcement. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. joe duffy, deputy director of inspection services. i'll quickly run through some of our code enforcement and inspection activity for november. the housing inspection services, the number of housing inspection services performed were 684. we received, for housing, 322 complaints. our code enforcement team sent 53 cases through for director's hearing, and then, the orders of abatement issued was 20. and the inspection activity for november and interesting inspection division performed 2,568 inspections. plumbing inspection division was 2,739 inspections, and then building inspection division was 4,557. that number's pretty consistent with the previous month. it does usually drop around the holiday season, understandably, and i'm available for any

questions. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. there's -- is there any questions? >> there's no questions. >> clerk: okay. thank you. is there any public comment on the director's report, items 9-a through d? >> clerk: caller 415-667 -- >> yeah, commissioners, let me take your agenda items one by one. so on new legislation, some of you all spoke, the contractors are having a very difficult time with bonding, and we do have the contract monitoring division, we have our city administrator, of course, we have our mayor, and the department of building inspection plays a role in doing a good outreach. bonding is important. not all the contractors are

able to obtain the permits unless they can get bonding. also, they passed legislation -- and i can talk for hours on it, but we don't do too much about it. for example, we know that the department of building inspection can go on building skyscrapers, but where are you going to get the water from? and where is the sewage going to go? now, as part of this legislation, i want to say something.

i represent the first people of san francisco, the muwekma ohlone, and you all want to do some research, you can go to our website, www.muwekma.org. and i'll spell it, m-u-w-e-k-m-a. my name is francisco dacosta. i'm saying this, as with other legislation that is passed, if we do not do our homework, if we are not educated on issues, if we do not have our heart in the right place, then we cannot do our work. >> clerk: thank you, sir.

that was the end of your time. >> can i say something important? >> clerk: yes, please go ahead. >> at this time, i would like to mention a name, a person who played an important role in creating the department of building inspection, my very good friend, joe donaghue. we need to pray for this man and honor this man for doing a lot of good for our city. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. dacosta, for your comments, sir. madam secretary? >> clerk: item 10, review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting november 17, 2021. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> clerk: okay. there's a motion and a second. is there any public comment on

the minutes? i'm seeing none. all commissioners in favor? any opposed? thank you. the minutes are approved. okay. the next item is item 11, closed session, action item. public employee employment, director of the department of about building inspection. item a, public comment on all matters pertaining to the closed session. is there any public comment? >> operator: there is none. >> clerk: okay. thank you. then the next item is 11-b, possible action to convene a closed session. is there a motion to convene a closed session? >> so moved. >> second. >> clerk: second? who seconded? i'm sorry. >> second. >> okay. so there's a motion and a

second to convene a closed session. i'll have to do a roll call vote on this item. [roll call] >> clerk: that motion carries unanimously. the time is 1:13 p.m. we will now be going into closed session. is --

>> our united states constitution requires every ten years that america counts every

human being in the united states, which is incredibly important for many reasons. it's important for preliminary representation because if -- political representation because if we under count california, we get less representatives in congress. it's important for san francisco because if we don't have all of the people in our city, if we don't have all of the folks in california, california and san francisco stand to lose billions of dollars in funding. >> it's really important to the city of san francisco that the federal government gets the count right, so we've created count sf to motivate all -- sf count to motivate all citizens to participate in the census.

>> for the immigrant community, a lot of people aren't sure whether they should take part, whether this is something for u.s. citizens or whether it's something for anybody who's in the united states, and it is something for everybody. census counts the entire population. >> we've given out $2 million to over 30 community-based organizations to help people do the census in the communities where they live and work. we've also partnered with the public libraries here in the city and also the public schools to make sure there are informational materials to make sure the folks do the census at those sites, as well, and we've initiated a campaign to

motivate the citizens and make sure they participate in census 2020. because of the language issues that many chinese community and families experience, there is a lot of mistrust in the federal government and whether their private information will be kept private and confidential. >> so it's really important that communities like bayview-hunters point participate because in the past, they've been under counted, so what that means is that funding that should have gone to these communities, it wasn't enough. >> we're going to help educate people in the tenderloin, the multicultural residents of the tenderloin. you know, any one of our given

blocks, there's 35 different languages spoken, so we are the original u.n. of san francisco. so it's -- our job is to educate people and be able to familiarize themselves on doing this census. >> you go on-line and do the census. it's available in 13 languages, and you don't need anything. it's based on household. you put in your address and answer nine simple questions. how many people are in your household, do you rent, and your information. your name, your age, your race, your gender. >> everybody is $2,000 in funding for our child care, housing, food stamps, and medical care. >> all of the residents in the city and county of san francisco need to be counted in census 2020. if you're not counted, then your community is underrepresented and will be underserved.

>> this meeting is held being tele conference pursuant to the governor's order and crash supplement and with the assistance of the local emergency from february 25 and before we proceed, i will ask today's moderator to go over the procedures for today's meeting. and due to the covid-19 the meeting in the city hall are closed. however, commission members will be