♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ good morning. today is wednesday, december 11th, 2024. this is a special meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please mute yourself if you're not speaking. the first item on the agenda is roll call.

president alexander. here. vice president shadix. here. commissioner ming. here. commissioner williams. here. we have a quorum, and commissioner chavez is expected. and commissioner newman is excused. next, we have our land acknowledgment. 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. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their tradition, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on the traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank

you. next, for any members of the public that may be listening in the public comment call in number is (415) 655-0001. access code is. 26635399899. okay. and next we have item two. president opening remarks. good morning. good morning commissioners. director reardon, members of the public. congratulations on the end of a big year. we've had a lot of accomplishments this year, and it can only be with the partnership of our staff, our staff leadership and our commission together, working towards common goals. and i just wanted to highlight some of the things that i think are of

particular note. this year. and one of them is we accomplished the fee study. we have established the fee study to stabilize our finances and created a policy path forward to be able to increase those fees over time. and that's a very significant policy change that took both political will and foresight on the part of the department. so congratulations and thank you to everyone on that. and then of course, we continue to increase our approval rates and permits and streamlined the permitting process. and then finally we have. implemented all of the controller's recommendations and got a glowing report from the controller's office on our ethical standards. and that is something that took an incredible amount of work. and

so i just, you know, i just want to recognize all of that. that is a big accomplishment this year. and congratulations to everybody. and then as we do, we continue the basic work every day of keeping san franciscans safe in their houses, in their homes, in their apartment buildings and their sros and in their places of work and on the streets where they are walking by those buildings. so the day to day work continues to be really important, and a focus for the department. and i just want to take the time to recognize that at the end of the year. so congratulations on all of that, everybody. and to commissioners and yeah, happy new year. thank you. is there any public comment on the president's opening remarks? seeing none, we are on item three. general public comment. the bic will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. good morning. i have a handout.

the time is set for ten minutes. i don't need ten minutes. i'll reset that. just a moment. it would be nice, but inappropriate. if i have a computer presentation. okay. i'm ready. thank you. dbi twice created false complaints after valid complaints were filed against susan mccormick. taylor. building permits once for a foundation repair permit and a second time for a bedroom and bath remodel permit. dbi also improperly closed two complaints for submitting building permits, with plans that misrepresent the number and location of the existing ground floor garage windows. this table is from the building code, and it shows the period of time that's allowed for a building permit before it expires. based on the value of

the permit. a foundation repair permit complaint was opened 78 days ago. it should have been closed. senior inspector mauricio hernandez approved a foundation special inspection 404 days after the foundation repair permit was null and void, and the foundation special inspection was approved without a final affidavit from the architect. the complaint is being researched by inspector gilbert lamb. a second foundation repair complaint was opened one month after the first complaint. the second complaint was opened by inspector sanders, who received the first complaint. we have two open foundation repair complaints. an expired bedroom and bath remodel complaint was improperly closed by inspector sanders seven days after it was opened. inspector sanders approved an extension of a building permit that had been null and void for 127 days. inspector sanders failed to sign

the building permit extension. a second bedroom and bath remodel complaint was opened 40 days after the first complaint was closed by inspector sanders. this complaint is under review by inspector sanders, who closed the first complaint. two susan mccormick taylor building permits were submitted with architectural plans which misrepresent the number and location of the ground floor windows in the picture below. in the picture below, you can see there's a red wheelbarrow. there's a window behind the wheelbarrow. there's a window to the left of the wheelbarrow. there are only two windows. the window above the red wheelbarrow is missing from the plans. the window to the left of the red wheelbarrow is two windows in the plan, and a window was inserted in the plans on the wall with the electrical boxes that's behind the blue tub. here's the plans. you can see

they're wrong. two complaints for inaccurate architectural plans were closed. improperly closed. this is not good. this stuff needs to end. thank you. is there any additional public comment? covid. gavin newsom.

oops. the little thing he fell off. does that matter? can you pick it up? i haven't started your time. okay. i want to pause my time. i know i haven't started, i've got some stuff. i don't want to touch it. thank you. sonia. where is it? right there. thank you. sonia. okay. i'd like to talk about the hiring process. when o'riordan and i were hired, i was hired before him, and i scored higher

on the test. we had three outside people from different jurisdictions doing the hiring. now it's all inside. it appears to be, you know, kind of the good old boys club. and this is the announcement. o'riordan talks about kevin bermingham keeps projects moving along. you never want to fail an inspection, even if it's not per code. okay. and then we have mauricio hernandez here andan me an article was in mission local on this. i will be referring to that. and mauricio hernandez, who is named in a lawsuit by dennis richards. you could that online mission local dennis richards if you google that that was settled in a favor for 1.8 million for the plaintiff, costing the city.

here's another article called bringing down the house. it was in the whatever it says up there, the sf weekly, i believe this is also by the joe. newpor, whatever. and this is about where matt green went out of his district, into my district, and missed the shoring of the building that was supposed to, i believe, have around nine shoring. this is a santos koran. bernie and matt green were all on this as they were on other projects working together. the building went down the hill because of the failed shoring. matt green went out there several times for his friend, who was helping him out in the little situation in golden gate park, which he alludes to in the dennis richards case. there was nothing left of the building. they were supposed to keep it big. tarp was put over. it was

completely demolished. here's another one naming the city families okaying their own family jobs. joe eskenazi, mission local. january 8th. this is how the old. this is how the old test worked. you could see o'riordan came in here at number 13 right in the middle. and then he told me before, we used to commute together that sweeney gave him the answers to the test, and he forgot one of them. and one of the answers was, or one of the questions was, what do you do with an employee who is not performing right? he said, you kind of counsel him or something like that. he told me sweeney had to write it down on a piece of paper and shove it over for him to read. he goes, no, you need. and it said, you need to document everything. here's the score he got on that test overhead, please. you can

wrap up your comments, sir. i'm wrapping it up. the timer is up so you can say your last. oh it's up okay. last. the sprinklers are all abated. on to russo and six russo and 3030 california by newly appointed permanent chief hernandez. thank you. thank you. are there any additional public comment? okay. seeing none, we're on to item four update on the access appeals commission and an overview regarding the appeal process. good morning everyone. i'm mary wilkinson, church department of building inspection. we do have a powerpoint to go along with

this. okay. so the access appeals commission was established by the san francisco building code, section 105.3. the access appeals commission hears appeals of dbi decisions on the enforcement of disabled access and the adaptability provisions of the code. the commission may also make determinations on code equivalences, technical and unreasonable hardship, as well as time extensions. the committee is comprised of five members, each with a four year term. two members do have a physical disability. two members are with the construction industry and one member is of the general public. so the background for the accessible business entrance program is that it was established by city ordinance in 2016, and it's administered by the department of building inspection. the

program requires places of public accommodation to have all primary entries and passive travel into a building, be accessible by persons with disabilities. the ab program has four building categories indicating the barriers of disability access. the primary entry. the first category is that the primary entry already complies. the second category is that there are no steps to the primary entry, and one or more of elements to the entry do not comply with the requirements for accessibility. category three. there is a step to the primary entry and one or more elements of the entry do not comply with the requirements for accessibility. and then of course, category four is that the building has a primary entry with more than one steps, and the elements of the injury do not comply with code requirements. so the role of the

access appeals commission within the ab program building subject to the program, can file for exemptions and claiming for requesting equivalencies for facilitation, technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship as defined in sfbc 11 05.1 through 11 05.3. the access appeals commission is involved in all exemption pathways, including setting the standards for equivalent facilities, facilitation, ratifying nonstructural technical and feasibility claims, and determining financial hardships. so the access appeals commission must ratify all unreasonable hardship requests. approvals in san francisco. so what we really wanted to get to today, in this presentation for you, is the actual process for unreasonable

hardship requests. this was kind of brought up in the last meeting, and additional information was requested by yourselves. and so we're here to talk about that today. so the process for unreasonable hardship requests is one. hire a certified access appeals specialist, architect or engineer to conduct an evaluation and prepare the disabled access compliance checklist. two the casp inspector or architect or engineer submits that checklist and an unreasonable hardship exemption form. they then prepare and submit for a building permit application. cost estimates and construction plans, and to make the primary interest entrance accessible as well as affordable alternatives that may meet the spirit of the code. so the fourth step then, would be that our intake staff,

dbi intake staff, or the permit center confirms the application and submission and verifies that all the materials are complete for the submission. dbi accepts the permit application. we conduct a plan review and we provide comments pertaining to the review to the design professional. the architect, engineer or designer revise and then resubmit the application and plans based upon those comments. the permit is approved by each relevant permitting department, such as dbi planning, the fire department or any other departments that may have a part in the plan review based on the building type and occupancy. and then dbi evaluates the unreasonable hardship, supporting information and alternative accessibility methods. or they approve or deny the request. they then inform

the applicant of that decision. the applicant then comes back and submits the unreasonable hardship application or appeal and supporting documentation documentation to the access appeals commission, and then they pay the appeal fee. the access appeals commission secretary works with the design professional to verify their proposed accessibility improvements are readily achievable, and that the financial information and cost estimates that they've provided as part of their appeal are accurate. the item is put on the arc agenda, and a hearing is conducted where members may identify additional code alternatives to increase access, the design professional may need to revise plans to include any requirements to ratification. the access appeal commission members vote to ratify or deny the unreasonable hardship request or appeal, and then, if

necessary, the plans are resubmitted and evaluated. in plan review, comments are issued and revisions may be required at that point based on any equivalencies that the access appeals commission found. and once approved, the applicant pays their final fees. the permits are issued and work may commence. so the number of current unreasonable hardship requests that we have seen come through. so first, there are 23,522 buildings that are actually within the ab program, 19,584 buildings, or 83% of these buildings, have started or completed the compliance process. 404 buildings. so 1.7% of the buildings that are in the program have completed the compliance checklist and indicated on that checklist that they would like to, that they

are noting an unreasonable hardship. but of those, 137 have applied for a permit. so 1.7 or 0.6% of those buildings have applied for a permit and 14 have included unreasonable hardship as part of their application in their scope of work. so of the buildings that we have or the permits that we have seen come through in the program, in 14 of those permit applications, we have actually seen that someone has requested an unreasonable hardship as part of the program. and that's all we have. as far as an update. okay. thank you. is there any public comment on the item that you can have a seat. then we'll do the question and answer. okay. thank you.

my name is walter park. i'm a member of the access appeals commission. i wrote the ordinance that created the access appeals commission in the mid 1980s, was carried by harry britt, and was signed at the board by president john molinari, was approved as to form by the city attorney and was signed by the mayor. we are scheduled to have two meetings a month because we have often needed to have two meetings a month. the building department i'd like to show this. this is the three pages of their powerpoint, just made into one list of 14 points. i think they're trying to make this

sound incredibly complex and in fact, to make it incredibly complex and difficult to deal with. i pity the fact that the building department is stuck with such an onerous system that doesn't work for anybody. but who designed that onerous system? the building department did. this works well, perhaps for the bank of america, for millennium tower, for the transbay terminal. it doesn't work well for a nail salon that's got a 500 foot square foot space. we don't need all of that. we don't need all of those professionals. we don't need all of that. review. some of the people who testified before and i are talking with supervisor mandelman, and we're going to propose 7 or 8 changes to this. we want to get rid of half of these for sure, so that this system can work. let me point out one other thing. and that is you keep hearing this 82% success rate. wait a minute.

that's based on 16,777 cases. but of those, 11,800 are either exempt or waived. so no access was provided there. so the real universe is not 23,000. it's half of 23,000. that changes all these numbers. it changes the success rate and it changes the scale of the problem. because half of the cases were categorically. dispensed with. then if you look at the number of compliant cases, the total number instead of 16, seven, seven, seven then is 5120, because we're going to subtract the 11,000. so the compliant cases are 5120. the non compliant cases are 6749. out of that 11 some thousand. so it's

about 50% compliant and about 50% non compliant. truly i also want to point out that the building department seems to have a hostility toward the access appeals commission, which i don't understand. all the delays happen in the staff section of the process which they've designed and they implement. there are no no delays happened because of the commission. and i point out the fact that although you're having a hearing on the access appeals commission, our secretary did not inform us of this hearing and none of you invited us, but we're happy to be here. thank you. thank you. is there any additional public comment? okay. seeing none that the commissioners have any questions of staff? yeah. i need a minute. okay, take a minute. i have a

question. could for the members of the access appeals board, could you talk about what is your scope and what. what kind of some historical context for what has come before you, in addition to just this legislation? but what else? what else comes before you? we have a special scope. that is, we only deal with accessibility questions. other questions go to board of permit appeals or to you. so and we have a specialty. so that's why we have two designated members or people with disabilities, two designated members who are from the construction industry. there is no other commission in the city that i know of that has designated disabled members. we're the only one that has to have disability input for obvious reasons. what we hear are appeals from any decision of the building department that relate to accessibility. so if an inspector decides that something is okay is permissible

and a disabled person says, oh, i can't use it, i don't think it complies, they could theoretically appeal to us. it has never happened. what has happened is the owners and the tenants appealed to us over and over and over. and so we're starting with a building department decision and then trying to make something work that's less expensive and that the person can deal with as a reasonable accommodation, not as an unreasonable accommodation. so our scope is, is all of that. why? there are 404 cases listed here that are where someone said, i want an unreasonable hardship determination. and we've only had two cases, i don't know. i'll also point out that a 404 people put that on the form. i'll bet there are another 800 who did not put it on the form. these forms are complex and difficult, and people have been discouraged, obviously, from coming to us because we seem to be short 402

cases. thank you. and then you talked about this process that you laid out for this particular piece of legislation being more cumbersome. do you have examples or of other of less stringent? of other what am i saying? what are the processes that came before you before that maybe didn't require as many professionals being involved? are there other processes that you think that could be replicated? well, our bylaws don't require any professional input. an owner or a tenant can simply appear before us and bring handwritten drawings and testify in their own behalf. and sometimes that's very effective, because a one person who owns a two person shop that's 500ft!s s pretty hard to say no to, whereas their lawyer or their architect or their casp, that's

a professional. we like to argue with them a little more. so our requirement is not that we have all of this, and i'd like to see where we can pull that back. i mean, i have we have other suggestions too. i didn't go through them with you because you've already made your decision. so now we're trying to talk with the board about making changes, and i believe they will because we're engaged in useful discussions. could you email your bylaws to the commission secretary, or do we have a copy of those bylaws? i believe we do. could you provide those to the commission? thank you. any other questions? yeah. i'm ready now for the gentleman. question for you. so, you know, i'm on a particular corridor often, and we have a lot of those nail salons you refer to and those beauty salons that are 400, 500ft!s. many of them have one

step up. you know, when they built a transit line down the corridor, i don't know why they didn't level up the whole sidewalks. they didn't. but, you know, another story for another day. a lot of these small businesses, there's they're just not going to, you know, they're just hoping nobody's going to rat them out or nobody's going to be, you know, the drive bys and stuff. what i did and i worked with, i think several people through dbi, is to get information out to these small businesses that, you know, you had to get a casp inspection that was like everybody said, you had to get a casp inspection. that's just what we were told. and that's what i told everybody is you had to get a casp inspection. many didn't because they saw they had to pay. we did have a grant program at one time where we covered up to like ten people, but there were still far more than ten. the problem or the challenge now that i'm hearing is that you're right on that casp inspection. i don't ever remember seeing anything about an opportunity to appeal or an opportunity to, you

know, have your not day in court, if you will. i mean, who wants to, you know, if you've got two steps leading up to your doorway and you know that you, the nail salon owner and i've worked on some of these projects, i mean, they can run north of 25,000, up to 100,000 to get that, you know, sidewalk level. they're not going to, you know, they're not motivated to try to fix the issue. the landlord's not going to do it unless, you know, they're compelled to do it. so i guess what i'm getting at is where did we miss, you know, from the casp inspection that i was asking everyone to fill out? not everybody did. what did we miss? i'm like. i mean, you're telling me this is the way i'm hearing this is this was a much simpler process than what we were rolling out to the small businesses. and i feel like i missed something here that i have to go back to these, some of these businesses and say, hey, you still have and tell me if i'm wrong. you still have to get a casp inspection. no matter what. you have to have a cast.

it all starts with that casp. and then and it goes from there. well, the code actually says it can be a licensed professional. it can be an architect and engineer or a casp or certified casp. i don't know which is cheaper or easier to do. our most recent case, which is now many months ago, was a place where the appellant said, well, to fix the sidewalk, we'd have to spend $70,000. and we said, don't fix the sidewalk. it's very simple. they improved the doorway. they made some other improvements. and we just said, don't do that. one advantage of the appeals commission. the law is a blunt instrument. it's all black and white, and you can't change it from minute to minute. we're an appeals body. we hear individual cases and we have somebody say $70,000 is out of our range. it'll never happen. we said, right, don't do it, but do do these things. and so they improved the doorway, but they did not do the sidewalk work. the biggest impediment here

probably is public works. public works is pretty rigid about preserving the public right of way exactly as it exists. and it's very expensive to do that, especially if you have a if you're a private owner, you're responsible for your sidewalk, but you don't. it's the city has the right and we've had case after case where we have gone months with public works. and i think one of the things we're going to suggest is some way to reduce that whole sidewalk condition and either move the responsibility to the city who may choose not to fix it, or in some other way, reduce the role of public works. because public works, i mean, i understand what they're trying to do, and it works great if you're the bank of america, but it doesn't work very well if you're running a nail salon. and that's the biggest change that probably we would have happen is to reduce the role of public works planning. also, there are many

steps just in the planning department review, and i don't quite understand that either. i think both of those could be collapsed somewhat. okay, just my last comment is i just wish this could be maybe repackaged and reintroduced to the business owners that have not complied. i think most that haven't. i my opinion that most that haven't complied just are hoping that nobody notices that they, you know, and i don't blame them because i have personally seen that $70,000 sidewalk repair. and i've seen the $30,000 front entrance door, door, well, you know, expanded. and i think most are just hoping that they don't get, you know, and we've had the drive by, you know, we've had all that the drive by lawsuits. we've had it. so i just i just kind of wish there was another way to repackage this without all the, as you say, all the terms and all the, the, the conditions and the regulations and all the, the things you need, the processes that you need to do. maybe there's just something simple as to just, you know, get, get the inspection and then go right to you. so

i'll stop there. i appreciate you a lot. i thank you. there is. the. go ahead. so i guess my question and my thinking and the reason that i had concerns about the structure of this legislation. and i think that the stats that two thirds of the ones who are considered compliant are exempt or waived proves kind of the point that this is an expensive. well, let's presume that the last 15% 10% are exempt or waived, and 5%, you know, will have to come into some kind of compliance. and maybe it's a bigger percentage. i'm just wondering, like, is it better to just have categorical exemptions? like, if you're this size, then you are exempt because you're probably going to be exempt anyways based on our understanding of two thirds of the people who have

gone through the process are already exempt. it just seems like it's an expensive mandate when most a clear majority are are exempt. and i'm wondering if you have thinking based on your understanding of, you know, who who are you almost guaranteed to exempt? can we put that into the legislation and then focus on the folks who really need to come into compliance? because i do think it's an it's an expensive burden. if we know that the clear majority have to just come in and prove that they're exempt or are going to be waived. well, let me point out that the architect, the female architect who testified before you at the last meeting, came up to us during the break and said we were never i was never told that i could how i could apply for an unreasonable accommodation. so she had this great complaint to you. and as soon as she heard that we existed and what we do, she said, oh, i was never informed of that. so right away the process just is broken. it just doesn't work at all. coming up with categories that are sort of

sub accessible is obviously a touchy thing to do. and i think that's to be discussed. you know, how we would handle sidewalks exactly is important, how to handle power door when there's no side strike clearance. we need to discuss if we simply said any business under 500ft!s is exempt. there are probably times when they could make it accessible by spending a few hundred dollars. and so i hate to give those up. i'd like to actually look at some cases. what we haven't done is see any cases and the ones that have been wavered, or the ones that have applied for unreasonable hardship. i'd like to do a little spot check of those and say, okay, what are the problems? and can we find some sort of categorical way to reduce that? the other thing is that the city could provide more help. you know, we are as as henry elowitz pointed out, we're the only city that's doing this. and he said, therefore, that's bad. and i'm saying, therefore, that's great because san francisco has always been a leader. we always do this stuff

first. if we make it work, other cities will then make it work. if we let it fail, it dies. the city could. city is going to hire a casp, right? what if you have that casp available to people who need some consulting, who have drawings and photographs and they say, how big a job is this? couldn't a city person help them to do that? also, osb has this $10,000 grant. i don't know how much was in the fund, but i'm reading it. i noticed that the grant is only available to. it is not available to owners. it's available to the tenant, the business operator. but arnie testified last time that of 197 cases he's worked on, the vast majority were being handled by the owner. so your loan program doesn't apply to the very people who would benefit from it. now, i understand they own a building, they have real property. and so maybe there's some reason to stay away from them. but i'd say no, that's

wrong. many of these are also small property owners. i'd love to give you some more details as it develops and see what we can come up with. mr. williams. so earlier you stated of the steps in the process you would eliminate half of them. identify which steps you'd eliminate. no, i don't think i said it's you know, a part of it is technical. what what how much information can we get? 80% of the information with 20% of the effort or with 75% of the effort i'd be happy with. but it's also very political. the public works is not going to want to hear us say, forget about sidewalks and, you know, so on. so that's. yeah, we'll we'll write them down. we'll make it possible for everybody to discuss them. but right now i don't want to come to any conclusions about it. i'm

curious what the relationship is between the determinations made by your board and then the federal ada law. if you all grant an unreasonable hardship, or you come up with some sort of equivalent accessibility, would the small business still be at risk to like a civil like federal lawsuit, though? no matter what we do, that's the case. the building department does not enforce the ada. the building department enforces the building code. so then, wouldn't small businesses be lulled into a sense of like, oh, we're safe, but they could. they're still at risk, right? the way the federal law is written, it's not really enforced locally by people like you. it relies on the right of private action. and so a disabled person can file a lawsuit. so then we get at some point somebody realizes we can

make an industry out of this by driving by and just sending a letter and getting $10,000 cash with no remedy. they don't they don't require that it be fixed. they just require they get the 10,000 bucks. so that's horrendous. on the other hand, a disabled person who lives in the neighborhood probably is never going to try to go through the complaint process because they don't know how it would work. but inherent in katie's original law is that we cannot absolutely protect people from an ada lawsuit because we don't control that. what we can do is say that you have made good faith efforts to provide accessibility, and when you are hearing an ada case, the federal courts take into consideration good faith efforts. most people make no efforts whatsoever, and that's why they get sued. in this case, they can say, well, i got a certification from the city that says, i'm good enough given my size. and should they be sued? i think that's a that's a defense. but no, there's no absolute defense because of this. yeah.

thank you. thank you. i'll just make a comment that in general, i'm very supportive of the idea, especially for folks who are going to get a waiver or an exemption, that there is some kind of other good faith effort. right? like, i would love to see an amendment or changes that improve accessibility in some way or another. and you gave many examples at the last hearing, and i those have definitely stuck with me. so thank you for those examples. i think that we can do i think the department can do a better job of informing people that this exists. it's a difficult thing for the for the department enforces black and white law rules. and then there's a, an appeals board that has much a larger has more discretion. but

i think that the you know, we can think about, you know, working with the department on educational efforts. but i think the idea like the policy, i think can be hopefully amended if that's where you guys are going with to really kind of reflect the full like your, your team's full thinking about what is accessibility and build those things in so that folks aren't like small businesses, aren't spending tens of thousands of dollars just to get a waiver signed. right. like, that's i don't think anyone thinks that that's a good a good process. and i and i appreciate your kind of seeing both sides of, of this, of this issue and wanting to, to make it smoother for, for small business owners. almost never do we tell an appellant, okay, just go home. we always get some access out of it. we always improve the level of

access. and let me also remind you, access does not trigger access. so if you get a permit to change the bathroom you may have to do the path of travel. but if you get a permit to fix the front door, that doesn't trigger anything else. so what we agree on is what they have to do. they've made their good faith effort. and we always get some kind of improved access. if it's only a doorbell to let people know, okay, i can't get up the eight flights of the eight steps. and also we can't fix the eight steps, but we know you're here and we'll come to you. that's the simplest. there are other, you know, automatic door openers when there's no side strike. there are many other ways that people can do something less than the code would prefer. interestingly, we're not bound by the code when we make an agreement. that's our agreement. so we can be a little bit creative. and nobody has. the only appeal after us is a court case, and nobody's ever challenged one of our decisions.

okay. other questions. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. yes. my name is arnie lerner. i'm also a member of the access appeals commission. i'm an architect. the one words that i haven't heard anybody say at all is. what walter was just referring to in terms of when there was steps and somebody had a doorbell. and the words are curbside service. if you go to the to the access to the justice department's website about the ada, you'll find that they have a number of publications that they have put together just for small businesses. and one of the things they talk about is something called curbside service, something that i've used a number of times. a restaurant's up on the second floor. there was a yogurt frozen

yogurt place on on market street that had a step. and we weren't going to change all of market street. so we put in that doorbell and we put in a little so they could then ring somebody to come out and take their order and, and give them that, that ice cream on the, on the sidewalk. there are all kinds of alternatives in terms of the unreasonable hardship. regina andrizzi, who was the director of the office of small business back in 2018, produced this paper about dealing with unreasonable hardships that i'd like to give to you so that maybe you can make copies, because i think some really smart things in here that she talked about that could help the department in terms of dealing with that. so anyway, i just wanted to throw those two things out there. thank you. yeah. good morning. my name is jerry dratler. i'd like to talk about

meeting disclosure. so if you go to the dbi and you google dbi meeting calendar for december, it's blank. so that's not acceptable. thank you. you're welcome. not sure about that item, but just to clarify that our meetings are publicly noticed and on the website and available. but i'll look into that issue. make sure we're in compliance. thank you. okay. thank you. we're on to the next item. item five update regarding the status of current technical services division, or tsd programs. hello again, mary wilkinson church, department of building inspection. so i'm here today to

provide a quick update on our compliance programs that are part of our tech technical services division. so dbi compliance programs, they many of these or they have been amended into the building code by the board of supervisors and the mayor. they are administered by permit services technical services division. currently we have the soft story program, accessible business entrance program, facade inspection and maintenance program, and we also have the borp program. additionally, in the future, we foresee having the concrete building seismic evaluation program. so for the soft story program, this requires the seismic retrofitting of all wood frame structures with five or more residential units having two or more stories over a soft story and permitted for

construction prior to 1978. so the final deadline for this program is september 15th of 2021. so, you know, we have surpassed the deadline. we've had good compliance in the program. we've had 4941 buildings in this program. as for a total completion rate for the compliance process, we've met a completion rate of 94%, and that is 4648 buildings that have complied 293 buildings, or 6% of the total buildings, are out of compliance. so 30 of those have not applied for a permit, 44 have applied for a permit, but have yet to obtain that permit, 174 have been issued a permit but have not completed the work. that's part

of that retrofit. and then we have 45 that have not completed their certificate, certificate of final completion yet. so they've completed the work, but they have not gotten to the point where they've been able to actually close the permit. so for the for the next program, the accessible business entrance program, we've had some discussion about that already today. the final deadline for that program is september 29th of 25. in this program, we have 23,533 buildings, 19,596 buildings, or 83% of the buildings have started or completed the compliance process. 3937 buildings, or 17% we have not received response, and then 958 buildings, or 4% exceptions have been requested, so 554 buildings, technical

infeasibility. so there's actually a structural limitation that creates the noncompliance issue. 378 have requested on the checklist a financial hardship, but have not necessarily applied for a permit to go through the steps for the appeal. and then 26 qualified for both the technical and feasibility or and a financial hardship. and in that case, the technical infeasibility would prevent the need for appeal. the facade inspection and maintenance program is it requires the exterior of all buildings that are five or more storeys tall to be regularly inspected by a california licensed architect or engineer. the reporting deadlines are are staggered, and they are between 1231 of 21 and

1231 of 32, and there are ongoing requirements for that program. 1791 buildings in the comprehensive program of five stories or more, 328 started or completed comprehensive compliance process. that's an overall percentage of 18%, 1548 or 82%. the deadline has not passed or they they are not out of compliance for their comprehensive program, 255 buildings are also in the supplemental program. this program includes buildings that are 15 stories or more, 38 or 15% started or completed the supplemental compliance process, and then 217 or 85%. the deadline has not passed, or they

are not out of compliance for their supplemental program. so for the future, what we foresee coming down the pike and we have been working as a team with the department of. i just lost the name of the department, but we have been working with the department of. excuse me. the department that is working on the earthquake program directly. i will think of it, the office of mandelman. correct? yes, yes. thank you so much. sorry about that. so we've been working dbi has been working with the office of. resilient resiliency through the earthquake program screenin.

and mayor breed has issued an executive director to draft legislation mandating screening of concrete buildings for seismic vulnerabilities and to publish retrofit standards in the san francisco building code. so the deadline for this was ten, 16, 24. drafts are completed for both both the standards and also the draft for the legislation. the pending these two drafts are pending. introduction to the board of supervisors. and we foresee that that will be introduced in the new year. and then the program will the screening portion of the program will go into effect, most likely in summer of 2025. thank you. thank you. we'll call for public comment. and then the commissioners will do their question and answer. thank you. so is there a public comment on

item five? is there any any remotely seeing. none. commissioners have any questions on this or comments on this item. thank you. miss miss church or yes yes please. you can you can come back up mary. i was curious. so you're how does your your division refer out of compliance or buildings that are not are non-compliant. do you refer them to code enforcement or how does enforcement work. is that performed within your division or does that get referred out to inspectors. so it is referred to code enforcement when the when a building is established to be out of compliance. actually, we've been working directly with code enforcement on a way to make some alterations to our

existing permitting system where we can actually flag code enforcement when that happens. so we've been making some miss changes in our existing permitting system, and we've been working with mauricio from code enforcement, and we're getting there. and we hope to actually see that in place by january. but it's going to be really helpful because it will be rather than sort of, you know, a referral via an excel spreadsheet. it will be something that automatically flags the inspectors, and they can see the compliance history on the building before they go out into the field to perform their inspections. that's great. thank you. do you happen to know how many notices of violation have been issued on any of these divisions or any of these programs? let me see. let me have that information. if you

don't, we can maybe get that through the director at a later time. yeah, we can get them for you for sure. yeah, i can get that information to you. i'm not sure that i did bring it with me today. no problem. okay. all right. i have a question for you as well. i was wondering if there's some kind of balcony inspection and maintenance program. because i feel like a lot of times i'm just thinking of the accident that happened in berkeley. i think it was semi-recently. and so because of that accident, i know berkeley started a i think they i don't know what the status is, but i think they're starting like a balcony maintenance program. and it seems like for balconies, these have been sort of after a tragedy happens. and so i'm wondering if maybe as part of the facade inspection, there should be an offshoot to balconies. i don't know if this is the proper forum to talk about this, but just hearing you speak about the facade inspection made me think about

balconies as part of that, you know, can we have a new piece of legislation so we can have matt green address that one for you? yeah. so there's in the san francisco housing code, there's existing requirement that every five years the appendages for residential buildings must be inspected. and there's submit a report to the department. there's also some state law requirements that we're trying to wrap into that housing code requirement. but i could prepare a more detailed report for that if you want, in a future meeting. all right. thank you. any further questions or comments? i have one more question. i don't know which of these microphones you hear. i okay, well, if you can hear me, that's all that matters. i so we just had this conversation about the appeals and how i'm curious about how materials get sent out about compliance for these programs. are people aware of

appeals processes? is that a is there an appeals process for each of these programs? and just if you could speak a little bit to that, especially with some of these programs already, their due dates have their compliance dates have passed. so i'm wondering like have people appealed? how do we get those last that last percentage into compliance? okay, so you're asking about all the programs, whether or not there's an appeal process for each program. yes. okay. so we do have our department of building inspection appeals that we use as our general format or platform for appeals. the access appeals commission is a specific commission that was, you know, developed as part of the development of the ab program. and their appeal process is specific to accessibility appeals. thank you. can i

somewhat along that lines, could you talk about the process for the exemptions requested? you said is there an internal process for granting exemptions for technical and feasibility or financial hardship. and could you talk about that. so financial hardship would be the unreasonable hardship. and the building code does not really speak to unreasonable hardship. the building code has specific expectations for accessibility. but of course the building code requires accessibility to come along with the improvement of a building over time. so the ab program is actually sort of it's part of our san francisco building code, but it's not part of the state building code, and it's not a requirement of state building code that if a building is not being improved, that they're required to bring the

building into compliance with accessibility. so the access appeals commission does hear the unreasonable hardship requests. however, there is building code criteria for establishing a technical infeasibility. so technical and feasibility are actually determined within the department as part of the plan review process. thank you. and the we heard, do you know and if you don't have it with you that's to be that's that's fine. but we saw the public comment that approximately two thirds of the 83% that are compliant in compliance were either waived or sought to be exempt. do you know, can you verify that or do you do you have any information to collaborate? i would have to confirm that. take a look at the data. yeah, that'd be that'd be helpful if we can get that to the director. thank you. i'll be

happy to do that. thank you so much. i have no further questions. anybody else? thank you so much for your presentations. thank you. our next item is item six. director's report six a director's update. good morning. it's good morning, president biden administration. members of the moderna's vaccine. i'm patrick o'riordan, director of the department of building inspection. first, i'd like to thank president alexander and the other commissioners who joined us this morning for our all hands, both remotely and in person. twice a year, we get all our staff together for an hour to acknowledge new and long tenured employees, discuss changes at the department, provide updates on our strategic plan, and share data on how we are performing. so many of our employees are in the field or working directly with customers, that these meetings are really our chance to get together, learn about each other's work,

and really understand the impact of the improvements that we're making. if you weren't able to make it this time, i hope you will join us for the next meeting in the spring. last, i want to thank you, commissioners, for your support and dedication to our department and to the city. your willingness to dedicate your time, energy and intelligence to overseeing dbi is welcome and appreciated. from your tough questions to your thoughtful discussions, to your ongoing support for our efforts to improve the department, you push us to be better. and for that, we're deeply grateful. thank you. happy holidays from all of us at dbi. we look forward to working with you in the new year. and that almost concludes

my report, because i just wanted to mention orp is the office of resilience and capital planning. it's a cross-departmental agency that that that focuses on resilience in the both infrastructure and in housing in the city. so just i'm sure you're aware of that, but i just thought i'd mention it. so that does conclude my report. okay. thank you. next is item six b update on major projects. we have the deck. it's showing here. sfgov. can we get that? thank you. there there there there it is. and good morning

again, commissioners. the following slides are intended to highlight the volume and valuation of projects costing 5 million or more that have been filed, issued or completed in the past month. we will profile a few projects that bring especially high value in terms of their contribution to both housing and community assets. in november of 2024, seven permit applications with an estimated construction value of 5 million or more were filed with dbi. one application was for a new three story office building for the new southeast treatment plant at 750 phelps street that was valued at 75 million. another was for the new carpenters union hall at 3430 three third street, that was valued at 15.6 million. last month we issued one high value permit. it was for the conversion of the hearst

building at five third street to a hotel. the valuation of that project is $53.3 million. and lastly, dbi filed two high value permits. one was for a medical office tenant improvement at 1635 divisadero street, which was valued at $8.9 million, and the other was for a new preschool facility at 333 dolores street that was valued at $7.5 million. thank you. thank you. thank you. next we have item six c update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation. thank you. morning. president

alexander. commission members. ted hanna, legislative affairs manager. it should be a relatively quick update given the legislative session is wrapping up and folks are gearing up for the new year, but we can run through next slide, please. file number 241005. this is an ordinance adopting chapter six through 11 of the 2022 california existing building code. we are not planning any amendments for that adoption. it is being reviewed by the code advisory committee. they've seen this twice now but are asking for additional time. and so we're willing to grant that, have it go through the subcommittees before it reaches you all for additional review. next slide please. next is file number 240982. this is an ordinance amending the building, administrative and public works codes to remove the local requirement for existing buildings with a place of public accommodation to have all primary entries and passive travel into the building accessible to persons with disabilities, or to receive a city. determination of equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship. this is the av reform ordinance that we've been discussing that you all reviewed back on november 20th. next slide please. and the last local ordinance is file

number 241067. this is an ordinance allowing interim housing in hotels and motels without requiring a change of use or use classification. this is also reviewed by you all and approved unanimously on november 20th. next slide please. and then the state legislative calendar on january 1st, unless otherwise indicated within a law, those statutes will take effect january 6th. the legislature will reconvene january 10th. the budget must be submitted by the governor. the first draft of his budget. and then by february 21st, bills will be introduced. and so we should have a good understanding of what's going to be pending before us. obviously, bills can be cut and amended, and so we'll have new things throughout the legislative cycle, but we'll have a general understanding by february 21st. happy to answer any questions. thank you. thank you. thank you. next is item six d update on inspection services. good morning commissioners. i'm matthew green, deputy director

for inspection services. i'm pleased to provide an update of the activities performance of the inspection services division for november. next slide please. in november of 2024, the building, electrical and plumbing divisions conducted 9254 inspections. 91% of these inspections were conducted within two business days of the date requested by the customer. meeting our target of 90%. next slide. in the same month, our housing inspection services conducted 702 inspections, with 58 of them being the routine inspections of residential housing. residential apartment building. sorry. next slide. the building, electrical and plumbing divisions received 415 complaints. additionally, our code enforcement division sent 102 cases onto directors hearings. lastly, our housing inspection services received 333 non life hazard complaints and responded to 88% of them within

three business days for life hazard and heat complaints. housing received 44 complaints and responded to 84% of those within one business day. housing inspection services was also able to abate 266 cases with a notice of violation, and sent 22 additional cases on to directors hearing. that concludes my report. i'm available for any questions you may have. thank you. thank you. next we have six e update on dbi finances. good morning commissioners. alex koskinen, deputy director, administration. this month i have a regular financial update, some news about the budget and some other programmatic news to share with you. so we're five months of the way through the year. we will make projections

in january for six months and then again at nine month. next slide please. november was not our greatest month. financially. it was a bit slower. hopefully that is just slow winter time. and it picks up especially compared to last year. there was one very large project last year. so comparatively this november does not look great, but we're still on track to come in on budget by the end of the year. next slide please. expenditures. it's still early, but we're tracking at or below budget for expenditures. next slide please. again as as previously mentioned this november was not great. we're still at the same number of permits for the same time period, the first five months of the year as compared to last year. however, the valuation is now lower again due to one very large project. next slide

please. so i mentioned last meeting and i'll mention again. now i'm very interested to hear feedback from all commissioners on what they would like to see for next month's budget presentations, what information they're hoping to see in order to make informed decisions in the upcoming vote, on whether to send the approved budget to the board and the mayor. mayor's budget office has just released budget instructions for the next fiscal year. the. among the main point in their presentation was that they are projecting a $1.5 billion deficit over the next five years, and that is higher than i have seen in the past. they always project deficits and then lower expenditures to get that under control. but things seem a bit worse because the projection or the deficit has caused at least partially by

lower revenue estimates. they're not projecting an overall deficit or a recession in the economy, but they're they're cautioning that recovery remains slow in san francisco. and so the general fund will not be there to bail programs out. so they have given instructions to all departments citywide that they want to see a 15% reduction to all general fund supported expenditures. and the cbo that applies to dbi cbo grants, which are dbi only general fund supported expenditures. so we were given the amount that will be in the department's budget submission. that's the $3.672 million, down from the 4.32 as approved last year. there is a lot of uncertainty with the budget overall. we have a new

mayor, a new administration coming in, so it remains to be seen what the new administration will do, what changes they will make in the mayor's budget office, what their priorities will be. so we have i think the whole city is in a general holding pattern. they've been told to make these reductions for now, and then we will have new conversations in the mayor's phase of the budget with the new administration. and also recently, after this presentation was developed, we learned some news about one of the cbos that i'd like to share, casa justa just cause one of the smaller psyop program cbos has let us know that they will close permanently and cease operations very soon, december 20th. so we're meeting with them to determine what that means, what the impacts are. are they shutting down all services or exactly what that means for the

services they provide, and exploring options for how to how to ensure that the service continues to be provided. and that's it. i'd be happy to answer any questions. one for me. just one. oh, sorry. thank you. just one. alex, it's the same question. i think we keep asking. we as a commission can't change the budget. so i recommend we can make we can recommend or pass it with recommendations, but we can't change any light items. we can't say alex, go back to the board and like change those numbers. move that over there. we can't do any of that or can we? thank you for bringing that up. and sorry, i was going to mention thank you very much, vice president, for your questions that you sent in. hopefully you received the responses. correct.

the commission cannot make line item changes to the budget. the commission interacts with the department through the department heads. so the commission would send a request to director o'riordan through the commission secretary, with its priorities and wishes and potential changes to the budget, and to get into some of the other questions that you had asked. the department is one of the earlier phases of the budget. after the department submits its budget, it goes to the mayor's office. who who makes changes? they will submit mayor's proposed budget on june 1st. they can make any changes they want. after that. then the supervisors take over and they can make limited changes. they can't change anything. they can't increase the oversight overall size of the budget. but they make their changes. and

then it's passed by the full board and signed by the mayor again. so that's the order of operations. it doesn't come back to the budget, does not come back to the bic after it, after the department submission is made in february. okay. thank you. i think you actually answered my question. i was going to ask timing and phases of this, but it sounds like we make our recommendations in february and then it kind of goes off into other hands from there. and we don't know until after june what the final decisions are. correct. the final budget, final decisions are made in july, and then the mayor officially signs around august 1st. thank you. so,

commissioners, please, if you want to see things as part of alex's budget presentation, please make those requests through the secretary so that they can he can be sure to include those as part of his budget presentation and some of the background materials. thank you. so is there any public comment on the director's report? item six a through e? there is. i have a handout. thank you. wow.

okay i'm ready. thank you for waiting. this slide is from my november 24th. excuse me 2024 presentation of inspector mark wahl's 95 orange alley condo project. and it deals with the 30 suppressed complaints. i sent dbi a request for copies of the 30 suppressed complaints. when i didn't get them, i filed followed up with director o'riordan, who instructed the sunshine team to deal with my request. they told me they don't have the complaints. they say the complaints are test files, but if you look at the first page, you know there they have condo numbers on them. it doesn't make any sense. two days ago, i asked dbi to send me the 30 test file documents and they

told me they were double checking yesterday. they told me they have no responsive documents in tts. but if you see on the right side of the screen, i called up one of those documents. so there are 30 documents in tts complaints with complaint numbers. so that's not true. i mean, this is nonsense. this is like total freaking nonsense. and it needs to stop. i have one more thing i'd like to show you. and that is. this is the. if you could turn the computer on. this is the dbi meeting calendar for

december 2024. very useful. not. thank you, thank you. any additional public comment in person or remotely? seeing none. item seven. commissioners. questions and matters seven a 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 and seven be future meeting 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. the next regular meeting will be on january 15th, 2025. and are there any inquiries to staff? or

future items for the january meeting? no. january 15th okay okay okay. thank you. sorry. and then all of you can reach out to me if you'd like. i'm just going to make a quick comment about okay, go ahead. go ahead and speak. just an update. i met with matt green to talk about our backlog on arb, so just keep an eye out for 2025. we might be having a few extra arb meetings to get through that backlog. there's been a lot of other work done to address permits that are moving forward and trying to reduce the number of cases that we have to hear, but we just simply cannot get through all of them if we maintain our current cadence. so we'll have a few extra meetings next year and we'll be reaching out about time that works. okay. thank you.

okay. is there any public comment on seven a and b? seeing none? item eight review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of november 20th, 2024. so moved. there's a motion by president alexander two. is there a second, second and a second by commissioner williams. is there any public comment on the minutes seeing none? are all commissioners in favor? i any opposed? and the motion carries unanimously. thank you. next item nine adjournment. is there a motion to adjourn? so moved. and there a second. second okay. all commissioners in favor. aye, aye. we are now adjourned. it is 11:27 a.m. and happy holidays everyone. happy holidays.

when i shoot chinatown, i shoot the architecture that people not just events, i shoot what's going on in daily life and everything changes. murals, graffiti, store

opening. store closing. the bakery. i shoot anything and everything in chinatown. i shoot daily life. i'm a crazy animal. i'm shooting for fun. that's what i love. >> i'm frank jane. i'm a community photographer for the last i think about 20 years. i joined the chinese historical society. it was a way i could practice my society and i can give the community memories. i've been practicing and get to

know everybody and everybody knew me pretty much documenting the history i don't just shoot events. i'm telling a story in whatever photos that i post on facebook, it's just like being there from front to end, i do a good job and i take hundreds and hundreds of photos. and i was specializing in chinese american history. i want to cover what's happening in chinatown. what's happening in my community. i shoot a lot of government officials. i probably have thousands of photos of mayor lee and all the dignitaries. but they treat me like one of the family members because they see me all the time. they appreciate me. even the local cops, the firemen, you know, i feel at

home. i was born in chinese hospital 1954. we grew up dirt poor. our family was lucky to grew up. when i was in junior high, i had a degree in hotel management restaurant. i was working in the restaurant business for probably about 15 years. i started when i was 12 years old. when i got married, my wife had an import business. i figured, the restaurant business, i got tired of it. i said come work for the family business. i said, okay. it's going to be interesting and so interesting i lasted for 30 years. i'm married i have one daughter. she's a registered nurse. she lives in los angeles now. and two grandsons.

we have fun. i got into photography when i was in junior high and high school. shooting cameras. the black and white days, i was able to process my own film. i wasn't really that good because you know color film and processing was expensive and i kind of left it alone for about 30 years. i was doing product photography for advertising. and kind of got back into it. everybody said, oh, digital photography, the year 2000. it was a ghost town in chinatown. i figured it's time to shoot chinatown store front nobody. everybody on grand avenue. there was not a soul out walking around chinatown.

a new asia restaurant, it used to be the biggest restaurant in chinatown. it can hold about a 1,000 people and i had been shooting events there for many years. it turned into a supermarket. and i got in. i shot the supermarket. you know, and its transformation. even the owner of the restaurant the restaurant, it's 50 years old. i said, yeah. it looks awful. history. because i'm shooting history. and it's impressive because it's history because you can't repeat. it's gone it's gone. >> you stick with her, she'll teach you everything. >> cellphone photography,

that's going to be the generation. i think cellphones in the next two, three years, the big cameras are obsolete already. mirrorless camera is going to take over market and the cellphone is going to be better. but nobody's going to archive it. nobody's going to keep good history. everybody's going to take snapshots, but nobody's going to catalog. they don't care. >> i want to see you. >> it's not a keepsake. there's no memories behind it. everybody's sticking in the cloud. they lose it, who cares. but, you know, i care. >> last september of 2020, i had a minor stroke, and my

daughter caught it on zoom. i was having a zoom call for my grand kids. and my daughter and my these little kids said, hey, you sound strange. yeah. i said i'm not able to speak properly. they said what happened. my wife was taking a nap and my daughter, she called home and said he's having a stroke. get him to the hospital. five minutes later, you know, the ambulance came and took me away and i was at i.c.u. for four days. i have hundreds of messages wishing me get well soon. everybody wished that i'm okay and back to normal.

you know, i was up and kicking two weeks after my hospital stay. it was a wake-up call. i needed to get my life in order and try to organize things especially organize my photos. >> probably took two million photos in the last 20 years. i want to donate to an organization that's going to use it. i'm just doing it from the heart. i enjoy doing it to give back to the community. that's the most important. give back to the community. >> it's a lot for the community. >> i was a born hustler. i'm too busy to slow down. i love what i'm doing. i love to be busy. i go nuts when i'm not doing anything.

i'm 67 this year. i figured 70 i'm ready to retire. i'm wishing to train a couple for photographers to take over my place. the younger generation, they have a passion, to document the history because it's going to be forgotten in ten years, 20 years, maybe i will be forgotten when i'm gone in a couple years but i want to be remembered for my work and, you know, photographs will be a remembrance.

i'm frank jane. i'm a community photographer. this is my story. >> when you're not looking, frank's there. he'll snap that and then he'll send me an e-mail or two and they're always the best. >> these are all my p as latinos we are unified in some ways and incredibly diverse in others and this exhibit really is an exploration of nuance in how we present those

ideas. ♪♪ our debts are not for sale. >> a piece about sanctuary and how his whole family served in the army and it's a long family tradition and these people that look at us as foreigners, we have been here and we are part of america, you know, and we had to reinforce that. i have been cure rating here for about 18 year. we started with a table top, candle, flowers, and a picture and people reacted to that like it was the monna lisa.

>> the most important tradition as it relates to the show is idea of making offering. in traditional mexican alters, you see food, candy, drinks, cigarettes, the things that the person that the offerings where being made to can take with them into the next word, the next life. >> keeps us connects to the people who have passed and because family is so important to us, that community dynamic makes it stick and makes it visible and it humanizes it and makes it present again. ♪♪ >> when i first started doing it back in '71, i wanted to do something with ritual, ceremony and history and you know i talked to my partner ross about the research and we opened and

it hit a cord and people loved it. >> i think the line between engaging everyone with our culture and appropriating it. i think it goes back to asking people to bring their visions of what it means to honor the dead, and so for us it's not asking us to make mexican altars if they are not mexican, it's really to share and expand our vision of what it means to honor the dead. >> people are very respectful. i can show you this year alone of people who call tol ask is it okay if we come, we are hawaii or asian or we are this. what should we wear? what do you recommend that we do? >> they say oh, you know, we

want a four day of the dead and it's all hybrid in this country. what has happened are paper cuts, it's so hybrid. it has spread to mexico from the bay area. we have influence on a lot of people, and i'm proud of it. >> a lot of times they don't represent we represent a lot of cultures with a lot of different perspectives and beliefs. >> i can see the city changes and it's scary. >> when we first started a lot of people freaked out thinking we were a cult and things like that, but we went out of our way to also make it educational through outreach and that is why we started doing the prosession in 1979.

>> as someone who grew up attending the yearly processions and who has seen them change incrementally every year into kind of what they are now, i feel in many ways that the cat is out of the bag and there is no putting the genie back into the bottle in how the wider public accesses the day of the dead. >> i have been through three different generations of children who were brought to the procession when they were very young that are now bringing their children or grandchildren. >> in the '80s, the processions were just kind of electric. families with their homemade visuals walking down the street in san francisco. service so much more intimate and personal and so much more rooted in kind of a family practice of a very strong cultural practice.

it kind of is what it is now and it has gone off in many different directions but i will always love the early days in the '80s where it was so intimate and sofa millial. >> our goal is to rescue a part of the culture that was a part that we could invite others to join in there there by where we invite the person to come help us rescue it also. that's what makes it unique. >> you have to know how to approach this changing situation, it's exhausting and i have seen how it has affected everybody. >> what's happening in mission and the relationship with the police, well it's relevant and

it's relevant that people think about it that day of the dead is not just sugar skulls and paper flowers and candles, but it's become a nondenominational tradition that people celebrate. >> our culture is about color and family and if that is not present in your life, there is just no meaning to it you know? >> we have artists as black and brown people that are in direct danger of the direct policies of the trump administration and i think how each of the artists has responded so that call is interesting. the common >> you are watching san francisco rising. [music] today's special guest is

mano raju. hi. i'm chris and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting and rebuilding and reimagineings our city. our guest is mano raju san francisco's public defender great you could be here. actual at this time us about yourself how you became the public defend and why it is important to provide legal representtation to people that can't afford council. >> i started in contra costa county graduated from berkeley and a liven deputy for you a number of years special jeff recruited me to san francisco the former elected public defender of san francisco and i began as a line department here and then asked me to be training direct and the managers of the felony unit the unit most

serious case. after he passed away, i was appointed to be the public defend and electd and recently reelected. but you know what i think about what you know the story of public to the office i like to start with my parents. they come from a farming village in india and dad was the first in family to finish high school. there were a couple people in his village who saw him and encouraged his parentses to pursue studies and move in the country when i think of what public defenders dot most person thing is to see our clients so than i can hopefully realize their full potential that is important to me and to our office and the cult usual of our office. >> you know the right to a public defender was developed in 1963 in gideon case ensuring the right to a public defender. we take this very seriously in our office. my vision is that anyone in our

office should be representing the people represent the same way they want their love 1s to representd and people think if you have a public defender representing you in san francisco you will bet better than a private attorney. we will leave no stone unturned no motion unfiled and try to perform the highest level for clients >> that's fantastic >> often when people think public defenders they jump to the idea of somebody defending somebody in court your office does more than courtroom representation. >> i'm an elected public dem felonieder i campaigned on that it is important we break the mold of what is public for our office on accomplish. fiercely defending is the core of what we do and that will never go, way. as the only elected public defender there is an elected da and sheriff in every county. in the state but one elected

public defender. it is important our office pushed envelope and engage in the national and state wide and local policy that will impact community how public safety and our clients. we have local policy directors, state policy director. we are active in sacramento in trying to make the law change in order to be more humane system for our clients. we are believer in advocating for community power. we have two 501c3's in bayview and fillmore that are be more magic under the umbrelast public defender's office. these are youth empowerment organizations that do programming throughout the summers. which back pack give, ways to kid school sflois start the school year and believe engaging youth will prevent them from

become clients. and put people on the path to thrive. we have a program, end of cycle program. culturally competent social workers going to the jails and finding out what the individual needs. we'll fight for their best legal outcome in the case. and the position of trust the fifth amendment protects the conversations that our clients can have with us. we can use that to really encourage a trusting rep and telling us what they need and be frank and connect that individual with the substance abuse or mentor or housing or employment and educational opportunities hamp that individual needs to thrive and reach their full potential. that is another piece behalf we do. 17 units across our department and you know we take collaborating across units something we try to do every tail to meet our mission, vision and values

>>. a part is ensuring recidivism does not reoccur >> of course the left thing we want to see is a client to return to be a client again. we work intentionally from the moment we start representing a client with our skilled staff and other members of our team to try to figure out what is that future going to be for the client when they leave our care? >> now, some critics argue public defenders have a heavy case load. how is your office mechanicing this and what issues are most important to you. why we have a heavy case load. unfortunately, this is a problem across the country, public defenders are not funds equal low to da offices our fund suggest 61% of the da office. and the police department has 14 time the our budget. and there is the sheriff's department and any time the entities are detaining our

cloinlt in i way it is up to us to defend this is manage we are working on locally. and alsoination wide to change that. we need more staff and every wing of our office. the logo is greater than one. so we know that we need to be greater twhoon individual in the office and use our teams effectively and strategically and skillfully and put in more hours to make sure we reveal truth and make justice happen in courtrooms. greater than one also symbolizes the fact we are collaborating with other communities organizations to try to support and help our client and move policies that will help our clients. an example of this is the pretextual stop campaign we collaborated with 110 organizations throughout the city to convince the police commission to pass the general order that stops some of the

stops traffic stops for things that don't impact public safety and lead to often con41ational interactions with the police and civil yens and. we wanted to minimize that mostly the shootings we read about and the the violence of inneraction gets in car and tragic occurrence that can happen. by collaborating we can be powerful than the sheer numbers in our organization. >> sure. so you know like cities cross the country san francisco struggling with fentanyl and homelessness, how can our office contribute to help mitigate or solve those problems? >> one thing we can do, again often times with community based organizations; is to really try and figure out how we address the demand. you know. treatment on demand.

again. finding people opportunity with housing or employment opportunity. you know mitigation or just any form of counciling that helps people. move in more positive direction in a way more inviting oppose to co hearsive. now we don't have enough beds for everyone who needs that intensive treatment. contributing to staffers to get more funding for people to get treatment they need. because the reality is there will always be someone to fill the need. we work on the demand, which evidence based there was fee of dealing with addiction will move in a more positive direction. >> then, finally, what else would you like residents of san francisco to know about you and your office? >> i think what i like the san francisco residents to know is how muchow important it is that the public defender be

aggressive. right now we had a huge backlog of cases in san francisco. there were over a housand passed the last day. a right to a speedy try and have case passed the last day. we had to plaintiff and against the court t. is important this we have an independent public defend 30 is willing to do that. and we got a good decision from the court of appeal and now the courts move quick and are honoring this and the effort from policy team to 850 bryant the courthouse is to draw attention to this issue it is important we have an aggressive public defender. had someone gets convicted for something they did not do it impacts their family. clients are greater than one, it is important we fierce low

defend. the same time because when someone gets convicted of something they did not do they are less likely to access the j.w. they need for stability or housing and then will impability a lot of people and lead to more issues on the streets and affect public safety. also to realize we are a public safety organization. we have social workers and take this social worker mentality or support facilitative prop and get cloinlts to a better place. when our clients get to a better place we are all safer >> thank you mr. raju. we appreciate the work. thank you for your interest in the development. you know i wanted to say if anyone wants to know more about a lot of the initiatives and unit in our department they can go to you tube we have a dairy defender series. and people should look at that

to learn more about the different units. also we talked about the dibilltating impact of convictions we have a clean slate program exsponging hundreds of records every year. and people can go to our website sfpublicdefender. org and move their live in a positive direction >> thank you very much. >> thank you >> that's it for this episode we will be back shortly for government government i'm chris manners, t - >> tenderloin is unique neighborhood where geographically place in downtown san francisco and on every street corner have liquor store in the corner it stores pretty much every single block has a liquor store but there are

impoverishes grocery stores i'm the co-coordinated of the healthy corner store collaboration close to 35 hundred residents 4 thousand are children the medium is about $23,000 a year so a low income neighborhood many new immigrants and many people on fixed incomes residents have it travel outside of their neighborhood to assess fruits and vegetables it can be come senator for seniors and hard to travel get on a bus to get an apple or a pear or like tomatoes to fit into their meals

my my name is ryan the co-coordinate for the tenderloin healthy store he coalition we work in the neighborhood trying to support small businesses and improving access to healthy produce in the tenderloin that is one of the most neighborhoods that didn't have access to a full service grocery store and we california together out of the meeting held in 2012 through the major development center the survey with the corners stores many stores do have access and some are bad quality and an overwhelming support from community members wanting to utilities the service spas we decided to work with the small businesses as their role within the community and bringing more fresh produce produce cerebrothe

neighborhood their compassionate about creating a healthy environment when we get into the work they rise up to leadership. >> the different stores and assessment and trying to get them to understand the value of having healthy foods at a reasonable price you can offer people fruits and vegetables and healthy produce they can't afford it not going to be able to allow it so that's why i want to get involved and we just make sure that there are alternatives to people can come into a store and not just see cookies and candies and potting chips and that kind of thing hi, i'm cindy the director of the a preif you believe program it is so important about healthy

retail in the low income community is how it brings that health and hope to the communities i worked in the tenderloin for 20 years the difference you walk out the door and there is a bright new list of fresh fruits and vegetables some place you know is safe and welcoming it makes. >> huge difference to the whole environment of the community what so important about retail environments in those neighborhoods it that sense of dignity and community safe way. >> this is why it is important for the neighborhood we have families that needs healthy have a lot of families that live up here most of them fruits and vegetables so that's good as far

been doing good. >> now that i had this this is really great for me, i, go and get fresh fruits and vegetables it is healthy being a diabetic you're not supposed to get carbons but getting extra food a all carbons not eating a lot of vegetables was bringing up my whether or not pressure once i got on the program everybody o everything i lost weight and my blood pressure came down helped in so many different ways the most important piece to me when we start seeing the

business owners engagement and their participation in the program but how proud to speak that is the most moving piece of this program yes economic and social benefits and so forth but the personal pride business owners talk about in the program is interesting and regarding starting to understand how they're part of the larger fabric of the community and this is just not the corner store they have influence over their community. >> it is an owner of this in the department of interior i see the great impact usually that is like people having especially with a small family think liquor store sells alcohol traditional

alcohol but when they see this their vision is changed it is a small grocery store for them so they more options not just beer and wine but healthy options good for the business and good for the community i wish to have more >> 2:22 p.m. this is the state water control board for