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Its my opinion only. President breed thank you, supervisor kim. Now, we will have up to two minutes for those persons wishing to speak who oppose thus rescinding the sale. Please come forward; youll have up to two minutes, and if theres anyone else that wants to speak, please lineup up to your right. Okay. Board of supervisors, my name is michael chang, and ive spoken with several of you in the past about this case in particular. Right now, im just looking at it as a situation where i followed all the laws, the Tax Collector followed the laws, and now were being burdened by the fact that other people dont know the laws and were being penalized for their lack of knowledge about it. The fact is thats not an excuse for not following the law. We all know weve got to pay our taxes. We all know if you dont, the only resource the stacourse is property, and the state has taken it before. In that case, they should have known it could happen. For them to ask for a third chance, i think its really unfair, for us that have lawfully owned this property for the past 2. 5 years, we have been paying all the taxes. We have been paying the taxes pretty much for the last 40 years because they havent been paying the taxes. They have been asking what negative impact our owning the property could impact the neighborhood. I can tell you were going to be very responsible stewards of this street, make sure the property taxes are paid. Because that is the most important act of ownership. If they want to maintain the property in whatever way they want, were perfectly open to let them have all the free reign. We propose a no cost agreement for them to continue matching their property, continuing the way they want to, and they havent taken it. We think its a very generous offer at this point, and theyve still rebuffed that offer and refuse to strengthen the kmubt Going Forward. President breed thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. President breed im sorry. Just one second. Supervisor tang, do you want to wait . Okay. Hi. My name is tina lamb. Im the owner of Presidio Terrace. Im just an skbreer with the south bay with a simple dream of owning a piece of San Francisco. Im not rich enough to live on that street, but i would like to think that by owning that, im a San Francisco resident in spirit. The homeowners make it sound like im taking away the home. I did not and i will not. In the 2. 5 years ive been owning the street, they have been still walking on the street, theyve been still driving on the street. As one homeowner has told me, his son is still riding his bike. I did not impact their life in any way, and theres no way in the future i would do so. All i did for the past two years was being a good San Francisco resident, a good owner and dutifully pay my property tax so it will not fall into the tax sale again, and what did they do . When they realized mistake, they blamed the Tax Collectors office. When i tried to contact them by being a good governor contact of the street, they sued me. Do you call that behavior good San Francisco . So and then, i want to assure the board of supervisors that i will be a good stewardess of the street. I will work with the neighbors, with the homeowners, work with the pastor of the Emanuel Church so that the street will be benefiting to the neighbors and to the community. At the same time, preserve the beauty and integrity of the street. Thank you. President breed thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, supervisors. I just want to say this is clearly a case of arrogant rich people trying to be cheap and not pay their taxes. Its well known fact that its been going on for years, and theyre cheap and they dont want to pay their taxes and they think they could get away with it. If it was a poor person, we wouldnt even be here. This is ridiculous. These people bought the stuff fair and square. They dwaumted. They should suffer. This is sour grapes by rich people, and arrogant rich people think they can get away on it. The public cant go on that street. You and i cant go on that street, yet they think they still owe it even though they dont pay the taxes on it, yet these people bought it, and they own the street. Thank you very much. President breed thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, supervisors. Im a San Francisco resident. I lived here fore 20 years, and im a taxpayer. I think the Homeowner Association is really unreasonable because this is mistake and they want the city to pay for it. This is our taxpayers money and its unreasonable that were using taxpayer money to pay for Homeowners Association mistake. President breed thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. I believe that miss lamb and mr. Chang have purchased this property fairly. I believe the Tax Collectors office has done their duty, and it seems unreasonable that the homeowners should ask the Tax Collectors office to try harder to notify the homeowners. It costs money, like the previous speaker said, and as honest Tax Collectors, by rescinding this deal, it seems like you would just be helping the rich people and and its it should be on them. It was their mistake. Thank you. President breed thank you. Are there any other members of the public whod like to speak . If there are any other members of the public, please lineup now, otherwise, after this speaker, i will close Public Comment. My name is teresa duque. I think this young couple, they paid their fair share, and they should own the land, because i dont think those rich people can come and say oh, you pay and then they sue you and this is not the right thing to do. This is not right. I dont think its fair. They pay, they should owns it. President breed thank you. Next speaker, please. I just have a feeling, i want to say if this street was purchased by dianne feinstein, i best all of you would shoo up your hands and be in support of it. Why is it so unfair treatment . President breed im going to ask members of the public to please refrain from using vocal expression in the chamber. If youd like to express any support for a speaker, please just wave your hands. Any opposition, thumbs down, but please respect our process so that we can move forward with this meeting. And if there are any members of the public for the sake of moving this process forward in a more timely manner, please lineup now. Thank you. Next speaker. Maam, im going to stop you. One second, one second. Im going to pause your time. Were going to need an interpreter, so if you can hold on just a second. Im going to interpret for myself. Im going to speak in english right now. My question is if it happens to any of the nonchinese people, will the result is the same . The question is, why the Tax Collector take 20 years to collect 1,000 on this property . Is this a problem or is this a discrimination . Please, this is a very good example about discrimination. We came here for opposing cannabis. Our item is number 8 and number 9, but we president breed maam, im going to stop you right now and pause your time. You need to stick to the item before you and not deviate from speaking about this particular item. We are not having Public Comment on cannabis, so you can not make any comments related to cannabis or item number 8 or 9. Thank you. Thank you. The people behind me, if you support the owner of this new owner for land, please wise up, please. We, the community done the research, and we had a radio show last night. The owner spoke in the Chinese Community and asked the people to rally and support them. It is important for people to know the government did a wonderful job to search everything to put it in newspaper, to put it on the website, and to put notify. The question is why did it take 20 years . Why . Why 20 years to collect less than 2,000 . Why the mistake repeated three different times in history . Why . Are we are we in this rich and poor game . Are we not . The owner, right here behind me, i dont know her, but i support her, because she said it clearly. Shes not meeting anyones demands, she is just the owner and willing to cooperate with anybody whos in there and willing to maintain their livlyhood. Shes not taking away anyones life, she is only auction to property that you, the government put it out there. She followed the law, so therefore, the law should be on with her and support her. Thank you. President breed thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Yes, supervisors, ladies and gentlemen. Im here to support the fair government policy. Everybody deserves the right to buy, to sell, and if they dont buy, they dont sell, i mean, you just it would be the normal people that you dont have any arguments. Look, this situation is very obviously. Transaction in presidio, in and out you know, everybody can sell, but they have to go through the title research. Who is responsible for the last of the land, the common area . The Title Company will be responsible. The homeowner is doing the Due Diligence, be responsible for what they entitled to pay, so i hope that these supervisor board of supervisors are not voting anything against the law, that we sat a long time ago in the city of San Francisco. We will have a big lawsuit and im not willing to pay for that. Im not willing to say hey no, for example, my friend, her father was about to die, and she forgot to pay her tax, and she went to the assessors office, providing the medical reports, the death certificate, and ask for waiving of penalties, and she expected no way. No way that this penalty would be waived. Where is the compassion from the city . The city has been mentioning about compassion to people who use medical, but what about the compassion of people who are really in desperate of taking care of their dying father and forgot to pay their taxes . So what is fair in i support the fair policy of the government, and i think the rules and regulation has to be applied just like our rules and laws president breed thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi, supervisors. I am also here to support fair government policy. I believe the house owners and the couple legally buy from the city. Both should not liable for the mistake make by the h. O. A. Thank you. President breed thank you for your comments. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak . Seeing none, Public Comment is now closed, and we will have up to three minutes for rebuttal by the petitioner or their representative. Thank you, madam president. Very quickly, we commend the steps that the treasurer takes when it comes to occupied property. Thats great. He goes the extra mile. He should go the extra mile. We shouldnt be selling occupied property or resulting in evictions if we can possibly avoid that, but the distinction that hes making between occupied property and vacant property has no basis in factor in law. And let me tell you what i mean by that. Lets google vacant property, all right . Thats what youll come up with, something that looks like that. This is the property were talking about today. Does that look like vacant property . Is it as far from vacant property as you can get, but more importantly, whether you call it vacant or not, the law doesnt make that distinction. The term let me just quote from a California Appellate Court case from just a few years ago about the question of due process and property. The term property is sufficiently comprehensive to include every species of estate real and personal, and everything which a person can own or transfer to another. No one has cited a case, and i know of no case that says its okay to take someones property when its vacant under different rules than had it been occupied. Theres simply no distinction under constitutional law, and thats the keouy omission in wt you heard the treasurer talk about. Im not here saying chehe didn check the boxes and send the mail. He did that, but when the mail comes back and you know the Property Owner didnt get it, the law says you have to do more and he didnt. Now, much has been made that this happened once before, why didnt they know they should have been paying taxes . Ive got a couple responses. One, even if the association was some sort of chronic tax delinquent, that wouldnt change the issue before you, and jones versus flowers addresses it right on point. Let me quote from the Supreme Court again jones should have been more diligent with respect to his property, no question. People must pay their taxes, and the government may hold citizens accountable fore tax delinquency by taking their property, but before forcing a citizen to satisfy his debt by forfeiting his property, due process requires the government to provide adequate notice of the impending taking. Bad they didnt pay their taxes, bad on them, but that doesnt eliminate the constitutional obligation, and on supervisor peskins question about easements, they were recorded in this parcel. In our propose skbral, youll see the title reports. President breed thank you very much. Supervisor peskin. Brody breed oh, supervisor tang was on the roster first, and i removed here. Supervisor tang. Supervisor tang yes. I had a question, and i dont know who this question would go to, the Tax Collector orrine the planning department, but under the tax code, 3692, it does say that there should be an alternative sales process for property that are unusable by their size, location or conditions and that process involves contacting quote owners of continuous parcels, holders of easement, including right of way easements to see if theyre interested in purchasing the property. Im skbrust wondering, would the presid yo terrace residents be considered as owner of a contiguous parcel, so i dont know who that would go to. Im sorry. President breed perhaps do you want to come back to that question because it sounds like someone from our Treasurers Office. Supervisor tang i think maybe because it falls under the tax code, we could hear from the treasurer later. Second question to the treasurer is that so during the auction process, there are bids that are submitted for these parcels. My understanding is that if there are any excess proceeds, that they should be sent to the previous Property Owners. Im just wondering, if there were excess proceeds, where did they go. Again, there were excess proceeds, go, aand theyre to made available to the previous owners. We mailed to previous address of record which we did for all previous excess proceeds, and we also publish in the newspaper that those excess proceeds are available. The parties who are eligible to receive the excess proceeds have one year from the time of the sale to make themselves known and come and receive the excess proceeds. Supervisor tang and so were the excess proceeds mailed to that kearny address. Yes. Supervisor tang okay, and so then im assuming that bounced back and returned to your office, then. Like many of the mailings we sent out for parcels from this office, yes. Supervisor tang and do you have a process for resending those returned parcels . Yes. Its published in the newspaper, and therefore its know identified in a couple of different ways. Supervisor tang and i dont know if you had an answer for the continuous parcels, and if the owners of Presidio Terrace would be considered owners of continuous parcels. My understanding is theres a section that has to do with a particular type of treatment called sealed bids of parcels, and i would invite the City Attorneys Office whos more learned on that than i am to comment on what that refers to. President breed one second. Well turn your mic on. It should be on now. Supervisor tang, my name is carol roark, deputy city attorney, and the sealed auction process contemplates that adjacent Property Owners and others are to be notified. Its a limited auction process, and it is not a mandatory procedure, its optional, and my understanding is the Tax Collector may use this process in the future, but there are a lot of issues with it that they want to consider, and not all properties are suitable for it. Supervisor tang thank you for that. So i would just say that those are all my questions, thank you, mr. Treasurer, but im going to answer the question that was presented in miss lambs the brief that was submitted by her attorney. That question was is the city and county of San Francisco in the city and county of San Francisco, does this exist a different standard of Government Service which guarantees different results for the wealthy and politically connected than there is for others. Im going to answer that and say absolutely not, and so i heard from a lot of Public Commenters that oh, the people who live here in Presidio Terrace, theyre wealthy, theyve not met their tax obligations. It was 14 a year, to my understanding. I dont think that that probably was a problem for them, so no, it doesnt matter who you are. If it were any of you in this situation, i would apply the same standards, and i would look to not only the laws, which i believe yes, according to at least the bare minimum for under our tax law and so forth, but when i look to constitution and the taking of property from individuals, i think that is a High Standard that really hasnt been met here, so no, we do not apply different standards based on who you are, and i think it is quite offensive to even ask whether that is something that we would consider there. President breed thank you, supervisor tang, and before i call on other members of the board, id like to know, does besides supervisor peskin, who i know has questions, are any of the other members of the board has questions before you make any Closing Remarks . Okay. So supervisor peskin, if we could keep it to questions, so that i can close the hearing, and then, you can do your summaries after i close the hearing. Supervisor peskin. Supervisor peskin thank you, madam president. I have two questions for the president of the Presidio Terrace Homeowners Association. Mr. Emblich, the first question is how you respond to the reply brief by counsel fore the owners, mr. Kopp, with regard to his statement, which i assume is a statement of fact that had notice been mailed to some of the other addresses that you say the Tax Collector could have easily found that these two would have been returned to sender . So he says with regard to the 28 Presidio Terrace address, that mr. Snow sold the property in 1995 and has not lived at that address for 20 years. He further says that as to the 214 grant avenue address, that William Sherr has not used that address for several years, and in fact, today was a different address thats set forth on the kyle bar website. How do you respond to that . I assure you if you sent a piece of mail to the Presidio Terrace association, 28 Presidio Terrace, it would get to the association. Regardless of who the person is residing there, they would provide it to their association. As for mr. Sherr, i spoke to him did you get any of those notices . No. Did you have a policy in 2014 of forwarding mail from your old office to your new office, yes, we had a policy, and thats cherry picking, too, about eight different addresses that i pointed out could have been gleaned from the addresses of an adequate title search or an adequate property search or an adequate search of the secretary of states records. Supervisor peskin i wont bother asking my second question. Oh, please. Thank you. President breed thank you. Supervisor safai . Supervisor safai sir, if you could just come on up because i dont think you were able to yelucidate this board about what the Treasurers Office was required to do in terms oflenes, monetary abrupt se bankruptcies and deeds of trust. Yes, thank you supervisor. If you look at exhibit 7 to our brief, it is the c. C. And r. s. They are from the treasurers files. It shows that they are recorded against the property. They are recorded against lot 1, which is the common area property. Page 33 of those c. C. And r. s provides for the recorded easement that run in favor of all the homeowners. The reason the treasurer didnt come up with that is look at exhibit 14. The title search that you had done did not look for easements, it specifically relates to irslenes, bankruptcy sees, and deeds of trust. If anybody had been looking for easements they would have been found as you see the regular titles research that we did, which is exhibit 27, and then on item 9, comes up with the c. C. And r. s which are recorded against the property. They have the easements. Anybody that looked at that would have known that they were parties of interest and therefore would have provided notice to the individual homeowners and we wouldnt be here today. Supervisor safai so in fact there was not just to be very clear, on the title search or the work that was required by the contractor for the Treasurers Office, easements were not actually searched. The scope of work that was given to that title Search Company did not include easements. Supervisor safai and what youre stating is if that had been done, it would have come up as parties of interest, the association would have been identified very clearly. Undeniably because theres no dispute the c. C. And r. s were recorded against this lot. Supervisor safai thank you. President breed thank you. Mr. Cisneros. Weve checked that sorry, i just want to weigh in and say weve checked that document and do not find the block and lot for that auction parcel in there, in spite of what mr. Emblich says. President breed supervisor kim. Supervisor kim mr. Emblich, would you just address that point that the supervisor brought up, that the block and lot are not listed . I dont know what that means. If you run a title search on the block and lot, the common area, you find recorded against it the c. C. And r. s. Its right there. Its in the title search that we did. It is exhibit 27. If you look at the c. C. And r. s that are recorded against that lot and block, you see the easements. I im were having a disconnect because i dont understand how ecohe could be making those statements. Supervisor kim i do have a few more statements, but i wanted to give the Treasurers Office a chance to respond. We dont know what the office was asked to look for. It could be more than just the block and lot, but when we look for the block and lot in that document, its not there. Theres no other way to search the title on this lot. I mean, its a block and lot title search. I mean, im just mystified. Supervisor kim okay. We can go back and forth on this. If you look at page 1 of title 21, it says what was searched and its the block and lot. Supervisor kim okay. I had just a few quick questions. You had mentioned that the Homeowners Association was aware of the need to have sort of an address forwarding means, and so if they were aware of that, why is it they didnt file their address change with either the assessor or Treasurers Office . Well, i cant answer as to what happened back in 1996, but that accountant is deceased, and since then, none of the accountants that have worked for the association, nonof the Property Managers that worked for the association was aware that this street was a separately taxable lot, so somebody should have caught it, and somebody should have provided an updated address to the assessors office, no doubt about it ja. Supervisor kim i guess, yeah, and i was also curious in opposing counsel brief that the h. O. A. Does hire a property Manager Company whose job is also ensuring that property taxes are paid on time. I guess im not understanding why the h. O. A. Wasnt able to pay their taxes . Right. So let me try to explain that. They hired Property Management companies. Those Chandler Properties is their current Property Management company. They manage condominium and other Homeowners Associations throughout San Francisco. Theyve never seen a situation like this where the common area of the association is separately taxable skbr but the h. O. A. Is aware of it bau as has been pointed out many, mnyy times, h. O. A. Was delinquent on their taxes in the 1980s. I understand that, but unfortunately, i cant go back in time why mr. Mendelssohn, who they hired to take care of this problem, i cant tell you who he communicated with. He didnt pass that information forward. Supervisor kim thats fine. I understand that. You had enumerated a number of things that the Treasurers Office could have done to find the correct address, but i guess my question to you would be based on what the Treasurers Office has stated in their presentation, do you believe that their work was reasonable and practical . I believe their work was reasonable and practical up until the point that the mail came back. Thats the key point here. They followed the tax code. They did what the tax code says youre supposed to do for these sales, but then, they got the letter back that said undeliverable. That imposes on them a burden to do something more to make sure that that particular Property Owner gets notice, whether its posting the property, which would have been incredibly simple here, whether its researching as i showed you all the policies from the other counties, researching for a better address. That would have been quite simple here. That is the burden that they have before they can sell someones property. Supervisor kim dow thi youk its practical for the treasurers notice in the city, 600 lots, some underwater and other cliffs. I dont think the wyattest thing to do for an underwater lot is posted, but i do think theyre responsible to make sure that that Property Owner is notified. Today, come on. Today, lets compare what the tax code requires an ad in the local paper versus the internet age were living in . Its just antiquated. Nobody who doesnt know that they paid their taxes is going to look at the San Francisco examiner in the fine print to see if gee, am i listed there, but a Google Search would find plenty of addresses. For example, when the buyers wanted to approach the Presidio Terrace association to let them know two years after they bought the property that guess what, we now own your property, they had no trouble finding the Presidio Terrace association. They called up miss wientraub whos the president , so in this day and age, its not that hard to take some additional steps is not that hard. Supervisor kim we know that local governments, courts often issue notices and mandate notification for things, even like child custody and other very important issues via the newspaper, and so while i agree with you on that point, just from a pure laypersons perspective, i agree, i would not be looking for the newspapers for something that i didnt even know ioed taxes on. I just think it gets hard when youre talking about a large agency that has 1500 parcels to look at. I just have a hard time thinking about what it means for the Treasurers Office to perform reasonable work thats practical and in this particular case. First of all, the child custody example, that is a notice of last resort, so yes, the Legal Process allows sometimes notice to be published in the newspaper, but thats only after ive tried to serve you personally, and ive had somebody go to your house three times and go to your business address, and if theres no way i can serve you, in some cases, i get to publish in the newspaper, not a matter of first resort, which is what happened here. And i understand i am not the Tax Collector. I am not schooled in what their jobs are and what they need to do, so i couldnt tell you what the right policy is for them to adopt for what classifications of property. All i can tell you is what the law says, and that is if you get that notice back and you know it didnt reach the person, youve got to do something more, and that something more could be a policy matter Going Forward for the board or for the treasurer, but something more wasnt done here. Thats why the sale should be rescinded. Supervisor kim thank you. I think, you know, the under lying one of the issues that, you know, i would like some clarification on, but im not sure we can get to a resolution on are the fact that there are two different statements in terms of the block and lot number being included or not, and so i dont know how to resolve that issue. I think thats actually a very important piece of this. Thank you. President breed thank you. Supervisor safai . Supervisor safai yes. I just have one more question for the treasurer. Its my understanding, based on the information provided that theres over 200 streets that fall into this category of privately owned and not owned by the city, is that correct. Im not aware of exactly how many private streets there are in the city . Supervisor safai you dont have any idea of how many of these streets exist . No, i havent done a count. The information we get is from the assessors database. I havent done a count, and beyond that, im not sure how many of them are standalone parcels as opposed to private streets that are part of a different part of the property that has a structure on it or a condominium building or whatever. Supervisor safai i think it would be really important based on this situation to define that. And define whats an extra long street and whats an extra long driveway. Im not aware of anybody whos done that or researched those classifications. Supervisor safai that would be helpful because i have a number of them, as i said to you, in our district, but my other question is do you know of any other instances other than this one where a third party owns that a third party actually would own the private street that has no immediate connection to that . I wouldnt have an exhaustive knowledge of who owns what and how its related to other properties, no. Supervisor safai so you dont know of any other example like this . No. Supervisor safai okay. Thank you. President breed thank you. Supervisor peskin, do you have another question . Supervisor peskin i dont have another question, but i have gone through the c. C. And r. s, and theres a metes and bounds, but i cannot find any description of a block and lot as mr. Cisneros has indicated. President breed okay. Seeing no other comments from my colleagues, this hearing has been heard and is now closed and is now in the hands of my colleagues. Supervisor farrell . Supervisor farrell thank you. Im going to address a few things that i heard during the heard today. First of all, as an initial matter, want to address the contention of the attorneys for the people who purchased the lot, that its an inappropriate role for this board to consider constitutional due process matters. Supervisor kim actually asked that question. I appreciate the attorney doesnt want us to consider anything else except for the statute, but the law says different and the statute says different. It doesnt limit us as to what we can consider, and as supervisor kim mentioned, we listen to and adjudicate in a quasijudicial setting ceqa matters feels weekly around here, monthly, matters, at supervisors, its what we do. But it was a little offensive because it said the quote in his brief says a legislative body consisting of a majority of nonlawyers simply cannot contend with the legal issues of this complexity. Look, im one of the people here that went to law school, but i dont that gives a fair shake to everybody else here. First of all, nothing is a novel constitutional interpretation here. This is around due process, and not only is it an appropriate role for the board of supervisors in this case, its a job requirement, and this is something thats in front of us and legally in front of us today. Second of all, look, this is obviously a very, very unique and bizarre situation. Hopefully, the last time we will ever see one of these at the board of supervisors, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Fo for the homeowners and the h. O. A. , they fully accept responsibility for not updating the homeowners address. This board, and me in particular, i owe a share of the blame as we approved the sale back in 2015, but to remind everyone what we did approve and we as the board of supervisors get these Committee Packets and i made photocopies of everything that we do approve, over 20 pages of single spaced lines that dont even identify the street address or supervisorial district. Block and lot to me, until today didnt mean much. I couldnt tell you the block and lot that i live on, but i think its something, certainly in 2015, that i relied upon, that these issues were being adjudicated, the numbers that were on here, because they didnt say hey, mark, supervisor farrell, this is one thats in your district, this is a little bit different. You should take a look at it. I thought they were all taken care of and handled appropriately, and i dont think that was the case. In terms of our treasurers and Tax Collectors office, first of all, i need to say, i am in the beginning and he needs to know this, i am a huge permanent fan of mr. Cisneros and i will continue to be, and everyone that ive had contact with in his office, ive had great interactions with over the years shs so its nothing on a personal level, but as defensive actions here, to me, what happened is totally inappropriate, and i think we need to have a little bit of a shift here. I appreciate some of the comments of my colleagues of the attorney of the people who bought the lot, that its about the statute itself, but theres a lot of discussions about is it reasonable . Could our treasurer and Tax Collectors office have done more . We need to flip this and think what do our residents and taxpayers expect from us as a City Government, and when we do that, we are here to serve the residents of San Francisco in my opinion, not people who are speculators from out of town on our property. And since ive been involved with this issue for more months than id like to admit, i wanted to frame the issue as i see it, and supervisor safai asked the question. San francisco there are 264 private streets that we know of, as we did the research literally scattered throughout San Francisco in every single one of our districts, except i think supervisor fewer might be the loan island in the city of San Francisco. The bottom line is this situation can happen to any one of us as supervisors, as representatives of the people that are in front of us today here talking about this, so to me, theres two things one, from a procedural perspective, was this handled appropriately, and second of all, from a policy perspective, is this the type of behavior that we want to condone and facilitate at the board of supervisors, so in terms of what wasnt handled appropriately, a lot of discussion. I agree with mr. Emblich, that once the treasurers and tax collect jorz office received a returned letter downtown, do we think we did Due Diligence enough to sell the property and too bad for the homeowners. Again, they should have updated their address with the assessors office, no doubt, however, i think its absurd to think that failure to do that would result in your land being sold out from under you. Talk about the law. There is one Supreme Court case on point here, two Supreme Court discussions. There was a lot of discussions back and forth. The one thing i want to say, every one of these cases, for those that are lawyers and have gone through this exercise before was about a piece of property that was occupied, for sure. But each one of the holdings did not distinguish between occupied or unoccupied property. They just talk about property, so therefore, by not distinguishing, they are including both occupied and unoccupied property in terms of the Constitutional Rights of the people that own them. That is a very, very big distinction. Second of all, we also should be looking at what other jurisdictions do. Now, i appreciate and i absolutely appreciate the tone of mr. Cisneros today and the fact that he believes, at that point in time, he did what he needed to do, but since then, there have been a lot of things that theyve done to improve their process inside the treasurer and Tax Collectors office. I distributed this letter that i printed out for the first time this morning. I have never met this person or spoke to him, mr. Drasba, but talked about the four main things that as he was in charge of the 2017 auction at the treasurer and Tax Collectors office, he said dwhoo, there was a bunch of things that we need to change. Those were the basis for significant changes to the citys tax sale procedures and are evidenced by the resulted of the 2017 tax sale. Because such drastic improvements were made and because of their timing, they seem significant to merit your attention. In contra costa and san luis obispo, the staff has to consult a lexus next i sus wou have solved the issue. In this case, i appreciate our treasurer and Tax Collectors office, but what reasonable people, reasonable residents should expect of our City Government, the only thing they did was post in the examiner, and again, i go back to perhaps im not the right audience here, but they posted lot and block number. They didnt post address. They didnt post on the property, they didnt check lexus nexus or do other things that other counties do. And again, what i would like to do Going Forward is work with my colleagues, if theres additional things we need to do, codified in law or other things, im certainly willing to do that. I look forward to working with you all with this. And again, lets talk about what a reasonable person who expect. If you are a Property Owner in San Francisco, if i own property and the city was going to sell it, i would expect absolutely expect the city to do everything it can to locate me. And after multiple years of getting returned mail, the only thing that results is the placing of an ad in the examiner is ridiculous. Its not assessing fine or increasing a penalty, its a sale. I would expect a notice on my property. I would expect the city would check all of its recorded. I would simply expect more because this is a serious matter. And lastly, from a policy perspective, is this what we want to be supporting or condoning at the board of supervisors . Do we want to allow speculators, out of town to bid on San Francisco pieces of property and purchase streets and then charge our residents for access to those streets . Or to make a quick buck on their backs . As a supervisor representing Presidio Terrace, obviously, im offended by it, but it happened in any one of your districts, i would also be offended by it. On its face, its a ridiculous idea that we want to condone that here. Again, we can debate the fwlam of what happened, but i cant imagine anyone on this board, literally anyone in the entire city. I think its not a good idea to auction off our streets to force residents to pay for the use of their streets outside their homes. It shouldnt happen in any district. And the current Property Owners, they were very nice when they dame in any office a came in my office and spoke with me. They didnt want to change anything on the property. Since then i have learned that they wanted to entertain a longterm lease with the residents, so they want to make money, and last night their attorney offered the h. O. A. s a settlement of 950,000, so they wanted to make close to 1 million to sell it back to the h. O. A. That, to me is offensive, to we want to condone that at the board of supervisors . We want to condone speculators buying peoples streets and making Million Dollars off their backs . I dont. So look, what should we do . We have two choices keep the sale and place or rescind the sale and give everyone their money back, and while this is the first time weve had this hearing in San Francisco, it happens in other jurisdictions unfortunately all the time. Los angeles, 15 times in the last four years this exact thing has happened, and its been property sales have been rescinded. Its happened in Contra Costa County in the last five years, and its happened in Alameda County in the last five years. Whats the right thing to do . Its an obvious answer. Given this is totally bungled i dont believe this body wants to set a policy which facilitates speculators buying roads in our cities and then holding the homeowners hostage, whether they want to rent it back to them so their kids can ride their bikes in the street or making a Million Dollars off of it. I think theres only one reasonable out come rescind the sale. Give the speculators their money back. No harm, no foul except the massive profit expecting to make off of our residents back, and require the property taxes to be paid now, and im sure the h. O. A. Has their checkbook ready and will be happy to pay those taxes at this time. So what i would like to do it make a motion to approve item 30 and table item 31. President breed supervisor has made a motion to approve item 30 and table item 31, and theres a second. Supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen look, i dont think were dealing with an actor thats blameless in such a critical situation where their life would be ruined if we voted one way or another on this individual case, and i have a lot of respect for supervisor farrell, but im not going to be supporting this motion today, and i wanted to explain a little bit why. First of all, what i believe my duty is is to look back at 2015 and evaluate the treasurers judgment about how to use limited resources, which there always are in City Government to perform his job duties. And at that time prior to a situation like that revealing gaps in the system, the treasurer decided to put more resources into lots that were not vacant and many times, ive heard mr. Emblich refer to it as vacant property. Its not vacant property, its vacant lots, and thats a very different. The picture that you put up of a vacant piece of property that doesnt have a structure on it is very different from vacant lots. And the treasurer deciding at that time hes going to put limited resources into noticing of lots that are not vacant to make sure theres nobody living there seems actually like an appropriate use of limited resources to me. And that the measures at the time that the treasurer went through were reasonable. Were they the best measures . No, and the fact that the treasurer is changing his practice, i think shows that i realizes he can always learn and do better because the intention is never to deprive someone of their property, the intention is to make sure that individuals pay their property taxes. And so, you know, i even looking at the due process issues, and mr. Kopp, i think, as a licensed attorney, i might be a little more sympathetic to your argument than some of my colleagues who are a little more offended by it, i think i do need to read more of the cases to decide whether theyre relevant or not. But i i think that theres an elephant in the room here that we have to talk about and to respond a little bit to supervisor tang, you know, there are so many laws in this city where poor people never get discretion. They never get a second bite at the apple. They never get to come to the board of supervisors and say, you know, you know, that this isnt fair. Its like oh, youre going to be homeless and youre going to get kicked out of your house because you know, the sheriffs going to come and evict you because you forgot to pay your property taxes. Oh, youre an elderly person who didnt understand the paperwork and youre in your wheelchair . Do we give you any discretion or opportunity . No, and so this has viscerally San Francisco residents because theres no discretion in the law when it comes to poor people, theres no discretion in the law when it comes to people of color, and thats what people learn again and again and again and again. And here is a situation where homeowners in a wealthy part of town and i dont blame them. I could see where they didnt think they had to pay taxes for the street in front of their home. I dont think theyre bad people. I understand why theyre angry that this is happening, theyre being reasonable in that anger, but this property was taken away at one point, and they had notice that this was a responsibility of theirs. And mr. Emblich started his presentation saying that most people wouldnt think the area in front of their home is taxable. Well, most people in San Francisco dont expect exclusive use of the sidewalk and the street in front of our homes. In fact, most people in San Francisco pay for the roof to park their car, and most people in San Francisco either do that by finding one of the very coveted spaces that exist in the garage, or they find if in some way, shape or form a mile from their house or they pay parking tickets, because thats what a person without a parking garage does, they pay regular parking tickets, and this is not the end of the world. Youve been enjoying it does suck for you, and i get that, but did the treasurer act unreasonably . I dont think so. And should we give a second bite of the apple to these homeowners when most people never get that . I dont think so. Thank you. President breed thank you, supervisor ronen, and again, remind members of the public, no audible expression is allowed in the chamber. Seeing no other names on the roster, madam clerk on the motion, please call the role. Clerk [ roll call. ] clerk there are 7 ayes and four knows with supervisors kim, peskin ronen and yee, in the dissent. President breed the motion passes. Madam clerk, lets go back to items 8 and 9. Clerk we are discussing items amendments to the planning code and discussing president breed i want to ask members of the public to please exit the chamber quietly. We are still conducting business. Thank you. Madam clerk . Clerk just to repeat that we are now discussing amidvarious amendments to the planning code to discuss the regulation of retail [ gavel ]. Clerk thank you, madam president. Clerk discussion of cannabis and the retail president breed madam clerk, madam clerk . Clerk yes. President breed i want to ask the members who are here who are going to remain, to please be quiet. Madam clerk . Clerk yes, for purposes of the members of the public who came late, we have already called items 8 and 9 together. These are various amendments to various codes regarding cannabis regulation. President breed thank you, madam clerk, and as i said earlier, there will be no Public Comment on these items, and we will continue our discussion here at the board. We left off with supervisor cohen has introduced a motion to amend and im sure youre weve had sufficient time to review those amendments and colleagues, is there a second to supervisor cohens amendment . Seconded by supervisor sheehy, and just so you know, colleagues, i will list out these particular amendments and we can vote on them when were finished at the end. I have a list of 34e78 berz who a are members who are already on the roster, and supervisor cohen had finished her comments, and we left off with supervisor fewer. Supervisor fewer thank you very much chair. I, today, just want to make a comment on the amendment that one amendment that supervisor cohen has proposed, and that is amendment section 10. 00162, office of cannabis and changing it to office of Cannabis Community reinvestment fund. I just want to state that the original intent of this

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