We have a quorum. Next is item b. The oath. Will all parties giving testimony today please stand and raise your right hand. You may be seated. For your information, i want to let everyone know the department will present the case first, then appellant. Each side has seven minutes. Next is Public Comments with three members each to speak. Lastly rebuttal for three minutes for the department then appellant. C approval of minutes, discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for a meeting held on october 16, 2019. Move to approve. Second. Is there any Public Comment on the minutes . Seeing none are all in favor . Aye. Any opposed. Minutes approved. Item d. Continued new appeals. Board of abatement. 6867. 109113 pierce street. Action asked by applelant complaint 201889001 to be returned to staff and cancel the notice of abatement. Would the Department Like to come forward . Good morning, chief Housing Inspector. We are here again after the case last month was continued. I spent some time looking at the tape, and i want to thank all of the commissioners for their very thoughtful comments on that case last month. I would like to introduce Senior Housing inspector lopez. I want to interrupt everyone. Commissioner do you want to change the timing since this is continued or leave it the same . No, it will continue the same. Good morning. The complaint was received on august 29, 2018 regarding the dangerous conditions resulting from the maintenance, deteriorated stairway and structural issues. The building was first inspected on august 29, 2019, and a notice of violation number 201889001 was issued for serious housing violations. Today this will be hearing number five of the process trying to get compliance with the violations. Our Housing Inspector was there this week, and he took photos. Everything is the same. We havent seen any progress towards any violations being corrected. At the last hearing, the landlord llc had their very talented attorney, ryan patterson, who is here today, and i have to say i was very blown away really by the very compelling argument that mr. Patterson made last time. His firm is really, i would say the top firm in what they do in the city here. They looked at access to the units, and they made that into something that would make one for the tenant had not been cooperative in getting these violations addressed. In the normal procedure that we use if someone is denying access, that means they are not opening the door up, nobody can come in to look at it and make the repair. That is not the case here. The tenant has cooperated, opened the door. What the landlord llc is hoping for is a vacating of the premises. That is much different than gaining access to the unit. My compliments for recasting some of that language, but buti felt it was important to make that distinction. Also, we received a surprising offer from the landlord llc to buy a unit, give it to the tent, making the owner the owner of a new condo. That seems a little out of proportion. I have never really seen that before. That is a lot of expensive to abate an nov with repairs other contractors are able to do with the tenant living in the unit. We see that every day here in the city. I will keep it brief. We saw a lot of the stuff last time. Photos and everything, and i will let the appellant have his say. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Ryan patterson for the appellant Property Owner. Thank you for your time today. We were last before you on october 16th. As a quick recap of where we are and how we got here, my client, the Property Owner, recently purchased this building, obtained permits for major repair work for the building and hired a contractor and did as much as possible while the tenants were in possession of their unit. The contractor has said they can go no further. The work as you saw in the plans last time is quite extensive. The contractor is not willing to do more work while the tenants are in possession of the unit. The tenants, as i suspect they will comment during Public Comment. We have had back and forth. Your direction with the continuance last month, we did make a real effort to try to find resolution here. We tarped the roof to prevent leaks when the rains come, but the bigger issues have yet to be resolved. I would like to pass out a letter which i think you have in your packet, but just in case if you would distribute those. Thank you. There is an offer on the table to the tenants which is, i think, extremely generous. My clients have offered to purchase a condo for the tenant and her family to live in. The San Francisco condo purchase built in 2002, relatively new unit. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, three private patios, granite countertops, new refridgerrator and dishwasher and accessible to disabled people. To chair fe clarify, ownership t be given to the tenant. She would be allowed to live there. It would be hers to live in as long as she wanted to. What is the rent be . The answer is my clients are willing to offer 100,000 of rental assistance to them to cover the time period while they obtain section 8 rental assistance or other public assistance to make this agreement pencil out so they can afford to purchase a condo like this for them. Again, i think this is extremely generous. Unfortunately, the tenant did a tour of the unit and said she didnt like it. We dont know why. I have just now received a letter from her attorney. It sounds like maybe they didnt understand the offer somehow, but that is the offer. I dont know if the unit is even Still Available at this point. We would like to reach an agreement here. I think that is showing good faith to find something in San Francisco that would work well for her and her family. I will say again, i think it is deeply wrong to issue an order of abatement where the owners are doing Everything Possible to obtain permits to start work and they cant go further. There is not more they can do when the tenants are in this position. As a further show of good faith to find resolution, my firm has taken over the landlord tenants portion of this case and dismissed the unlawful detainer eviction lawsuit against these tenanteds. I think we are at a point of trying to hit reset on where we are and trying to find some outcome that will work. I would love it if the tenants would come to the table. I continue to extend that offer. Her attorney has mentioned in the letter that i just received we had mediation, which is true, and i dont think i talked about that last time because it is confidential. He put that in the record, and we would be happy to return to mediation. So far it continues to be difficult to find what they are looking for and where we can find agreement there. In the meantime we request that you dont issue this order of abatement. If anything, it will interfere with our ability to obtain Construction Financing to make the repairs the city is ordering them to do. Thank you very much. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Commissioner walker. This might be to a collective ask. Regarding the issues before us which are the items that received a notice of violation and or der derf abatement. Maybe the department could answer. What is to be done. I would like to know that. They are all outstanding. Nothing has been done . If owners representative can speak to that. What has been done, the big safety item was the rear stairs. I made temporary repair to the stairs. They need to be torn down. The immediate danger is fixed on that. As far as other bandaids. I put a tarp on the roof, but the remainder of the work so there are items, the windows dont open. I cant fix the bi the windows i jack up the house. The building is lifted over. It needs to be lifted up. That is the work the contractors are not willing to do with the building being occupied. The mold and paint, again, i cant just go in there and put a coat of paint over it. It may get it off the list, but it is not doing anybody any good. It may get it off the notice of violation. It is not fixing the problem. What about the building leaning. Is that a notice of violation. It is not on the notice of violation, no. Who decided that . Who decided that, no our department . Our building inspectors looked at this . Yes. They didnt give you a violation. There is another notice on the building saying the house is essentially uninhabitable due to the rear stairs. They were fixed . Temporarily fixed. Severe lack of maintenance and water in truce iwater in trusio. I would invite commissioners to view the property. It is in a sad state of affairs. That not before us. We have a solution that deals with stuff that isnt part of the notice of violation. That is my challenge is that we have somebody living in uninhabittable conditions that are fixable with her in the building. Certainly fixable to where she could come back after the items were fix and what we see is that you sort of want to rebuild the whole building. As i understand it there are deeper problems. For example, one issue is mold on the wall. Yes, they could go with a brush and scrub the mold off. The cause is deeper problem goes with in the walls. They need to open that up and repair the underlying problem. Why isnt the tenant coming back in that is what i dont understand. It seems what we are looking at as far as notice of violations doesnt justify evicting somebody. I am just asking why that isnt happening . Well, eviction. It is not our purview but interfering with our ability to look at this. You are giving us way more work as a solution to a smaller defined issue for us. The work that we are talking about cannot be done with the tenanteds in the unit. Housing inspectors say different. The work you want be to do is a solution to the notices of violation maybe. Fixing the underlying problems will inquiry location, and that doesnt have to be by eviction. Ideally we would reach an agreement with the tenants for them to vacate the unit so the work can be done. And come back, vacant as opposed to eviction. Define the difference. Eviction is a Legal Process to regain possession of a unit. Moving out is a physical process of leaving and not being there. That can be done voluntarily by agreement or it can be done through a Legal Process. Again, i would hope to find away for that to work out voluntari voluntarily. I see that you have attempted to, and i feel like, now, others can sort of it seems like you are going far to try to locate this person somewhere else. Again, that is sort of at the issue somewhat getting in the way of what we are looking at. How many units in the building . Three units. The other two are renovated . The other two are vacant and have interior finishes demolished. That is the work we have done that is as far as we can go with getting the finishes offthewall with leveling the building. Where are those tenants . Those units were vacant when it was purchased. Question. You are a contractor and you say that you have put tarps on the roof. Thats correct. When i read the transcript of the last meeting over again, mre done as much work as possible while tenant occupied, everything that can be abated in the situation. Later mr. Fisher speaking for ms. Long emphasized the first point that the need to stabilize the leaking roof was one of the primary considerations that they had so, you know, i am trying to think as a homeowner myself, what does it take to fix a leaking roof . Sometimes if it is a relatively new roof you can just repair it. It sounds like you are doing almost gut renovation on the building. I would have to think that replacing a roof is somewhere in your calendar of work for this, is that correct . Yes, sir. Again, what needs to happen because the building is falling over, leaning over, the dutch gutters between the buildings need to be cut and the building needs raised before the roof is replaced. We need to level the building before anything can happen, and the contractors that i am going to hire to do the work will not do the work with the tenant occupying the unit. Roofing work could not proceed . Correct. Thank you. I just have and this is one question. Is there going to be representing the tenant talking today in Public Comment . We still have Public Comment. That will be through Public Comment, right . Yes. Maybe i will hold my comments until i hear that. I have questions related to construction and so on to help me understand a little bit more. Thank you. Thank you. We have Public Comment on this item. Good morning. I am tom from Legal Assistance to the elderly. I am representing ms. Long in the eviction action which i am surprised to find out is dismissed. We are happy about that. I want to state for the record and for mr. Patterson, we are always willing to talk about settlement in any cases. Very few cases go to trial. We usually settle. I have the personal cell number and chat with him in vacation on hawaii. We were not informed of a hard definite time limited offer. That is not how it was approached to us. As you can see in my written statement, we can talk outside of there, mr. Patterson about resolving the ten and see tenant issues. What is before the board is a situation where they got a notice of violation in august of 2018, and a year and a few months later they put a tarp on the roof. This could have been fixed a year ago. When you are looking at mold in the upper floor and you have a leaky roof one of the first things to look at is fix the roof to take care of the water in truce which leads to mold. Other units are ready to renovate. They havent gone there. What they want to do is have msd from the building. The reason is they want to substantially rehabilitate the building. They dont want to do repair work in the notice of violation. They want to rebuild the entire building, which will take them out of the rent ordinance. When they are done with the substantial rehabilitation, ms. Long will not have the right to return and the building will no longer be rent controlled. It will have a new certificate of occupancy and brandnew and exempt from rent control. That is the big picture what is going on. That is why they have refused to follow the law for the last year. They put so much time and energy into fighting the notice of violation instead of just doing the work. I want to point out a few things the owner said that raised a flag with me. He spoke about the contractors he is willing to hire. Every Single Person that has testified because mr. Patterson told you what other contractors said and the owners said what contractors said. The inspectors said the work can be done with the tenant in place. The owner is not willing to hire the contractors who are willing to do the work. That is all my comment. Thank you very much. I have a question. So there has been no mediation where the offer we are looking at you didnt look at an apartment or any of that . What is the status of that . I am trying to facilitate. The mediation, as mr. Patterson was a little wrong. The terms of what was discussed is confidential. The fact it took place is not. It did take plays with the other council that was in september. That was prior to the last hearing in october. I wont talk about the terms. We are willing to mediate. We did not receive the actual offer mr. Patterson is discussing in his letter as a definite offer with any monetary terms or moveout terms. I was told there is a place available we might be able to move her in there. Will she go out and look at it . She didnt go out the next day because she was sick. She went out two days later and viewed the place and came back and was interested in moving and talking, but the place didnt fit all of her needs for her family. There are five of them. Disabled daughter, daughters husband and son and grandson all live together. I told mr. Zacks we are willing to discuss this concept. Send me more details with the actual offer and have the broker or who is finding a place talk to ms. Long directly instead of going through the lawyers. You decide what your needs are for your family and that kind of thing. Very few people decide to move on two days notice having seen one place. You mentioned by doing the work it takes the building out of rent control . Correct. Is that true that it is no longer rent controlled or is it just that the costs it comes up to market rate now under rent control. I want to get clear about that in my head. Two steps. One, a vacant building and you do a certain amount of work and you take that work to the rent board and ask for the building to be decontrolled. You have done the substantial rehabilitation and be the benchmark is 75 of market value into the work. The first part of the step process, which and i will just say i have never seen one of these types of evictions in 27 years in San Francisco. It is 37. 9 a 12 of the rent ordinance to evict the tenant for substantial rehabilitation. Most are the a11 where they ask the tenant to move out three months then sometimes they get permission longer. This is a permanent eviction. The tenants are permanently gone and when the certification is finished at the rent board. That can take a long time. You have to finish the work first. Is the difference between a 12 and a11 a timeframe . The main difference is the right to return. Not by definition if the rehabtakes over x number of months or Something Like that . No a 11 is moved out for capital improvements, right to return. A12 eviction they get relocation payments. The eviction is permanent. Thank you. I mean i want be to reiterate we are looking at notice of violation, but it is often the case in things that we look at where more if there is mold, there is dry rot. Those things are true. There is a broader context here. It is where they are headed, and i appreciate you coming and helping. I am happy to answer any other questions. Thank you. I appreciate you coming here today. It is very helpful for us. I dont know if you had a chance to watch the hearing last month. I have gone over it. I didnt go into detail orally but in my letter to the board. I think the ultimate goal was to find resolve what we saw as a dispute between landlord and tenant and try to come to a fair and equitable resolution so that our process to uphold this abatement of the application for permit to improve the building. I am definitely of the mind set this home is not habitable to do the work to get it done to make it up to standards. That is just i feel that we should really stop pretending this could be done with People Living in the building, especially a woman with special needs and child with special needs. What if goal here was to try to see if there was a solution. The solution offered up here. We really commend the offer. It seems generous in the level of the way it was offered. However, it is obvious it is not suitable to your client, is that correct . No that is not correct. We have not rejected the offer. That is not correct. We have not received the actual offer. It was never made known to us these are terms. I was told have your client go look at this place, and she did. It wasnt really suitable for her family. I responded by saying let her talk to whoever is finding this place for you and the way anybody would when they are looking for a new place and there is a broker involved you tell the broker what you are looking for, obviously, they should know what ms. Longs needs are before they just pluck something. She is totally willing to work within that framework. It is not until i get the letter from mr. Patterson on november 13th. I was informed this was a definite offer with termed and we had rejected those terms. None of that is true. That is important. I agree with you. The timeframe to make a decision is very difficult. I certainly wouldnt do it. I am in agreement that timeframe was a bit too short. That one issue. We now can understand this is something that could be acceptable to your client if presented correctly and if it takes the boxes for them to make that decision, correct . That is true, yes. The fact that i have now been informed the unlawful retainer action is dismissed, it takes pressure off the time pressure from that standpoint. To your point earlier which i would be very cog an cognizant. Would they like to move back into that building when it is done and live like the they havr 40 years, i believe . She understands there might be because we are aware of the big picture here, substantial rehabilitation they wantheywant to have going, extrs in the garage and staircases from the top to the bottom floor so the place that we originally started when we were negotiating is that since the middle floor is already gutted, if they finish that and they dont have to put in granite countertops, but if they finish that the family would move down stairs and have the top and bottom floor unit to put the roof deck in and extra rooms in the basement and make the 11 room unit they are looking for. I get that, but i still go back to my position. No one has seen the drawings of the work to be done. That is going to be a hardship on that family. As a contractor i wouldnt want to do that job with a Family Living in a building like that. That is just me. I. Ei see that as a stretch. I know you are not questioning that, but we talk about that here. I see that as a real problem for the family. I will always take that point of view. My end game, and i am sure the commissions end game is a fair and equitable outcome that works for everybody. Since you havent rejected mr. Pattersons original idea, the other part this could be that they move back in there, like commissioner walker was saying when this was remodeled as part of the agreement. What they want is could we get that. That could be part of it, too. We are putting everything on the table. Would h we are available to talk. Miss long. Good morning. I am jackie long. I have resided at 109 pierce street for 40 years. It is my home. I would like to stay there. No, i dont own it. I rent it. The issue is my expanded family. My daughter is mentality disabled, my soninlaw is physically disabled and they have a 9yearold son. My presence is required in the home to just try to keep the waters calm for the 9yearold. My adopted 23yearold sons also lives there. The issue is i need at least a three bedroom house and space for my family. The unit i looked at even though i was ill, it was nice. I liked it. The problem, the open kitchen. There is insufficient space to store foodstuffs and cooking utensils for a family of three stay at home people, income is limited, budget would go up 90 to 100 be per month just for transportation because we cant carry food on the muni, which means we would have to use a taxi. That is not feasible, and the kitchen is so tiny that if you are preparing a peopl a meal, it go in to make a cup of coffee. Thus, the refusal of the unit. Everything after looking at the unit are things i am learning of. Never received a firm offer, and lastly, i would like to address the issue of my sunglasses. Due to years of diabetes, i am experiencing bleeding in the eye. For the last 11 months i have received an injection in my right eye. As timing will have it, i had it yesterday afternoon. Hence, the sun glasses. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I addressed you last month. I am back. I did take ms. Long to look at the unit. I drove her over there. She was sick and i was leaving to go out of the country. I want to to respond. The generous offer of 100,000. I did the math. 100,000 rent supplement would cover them for about 18 months of rent in San Francisco at this point. What are they to do after the 18 months . The other thing i wanted to address since i am the next door neighbor is the ridiculousness of the building leaning. I have intimate knowledge of that building. It is identical to my building. I have knowledge of the dutch gutter. The building is not falling over. It needs work, but this exaggeration is ridiculous. I do want to get on to what i wanted to get on to having been the neighbor for 26 years. I have been to weddings, funerals, they are one of the last remaining africanamerican families in our neighborhood. I didnt need this project and i took it on and filed the original appeal because i was so outraged about them coming in. I want to remind you, jackie long didnt contact d. B. I. The owner contacted d. B. I. To get violations to wave in her face. He didnt count on her being smart and didnt count on a snarky neighbor to get involved which everybody should count on a snarky neighbor in San Francisco. I have been there and watched her raise three children then she raised her husbands grandson. Now she is raising a 9yearold. Her daughter is seriously disabled. I know this from what i have witnessed first hand. Her own significant disabilities trying to do what is right by her grandson. I will leave one last thing. How much profit does someone have to make. They can accommodate them and make a profit on this building. Thank you. Any further Public Comment . Public comment is closed. Is there rebuttal . Commissioner walker. This is a hard one because. We will do rebuttal for the department first, im sorry. Department has rebuttal . Thank you, chief Housing Inspector. This case touches on a lot of different dynamics in the city right now. Real estate speculation replacement of people from an africanamerican neighborhood. Our deadline for the work to be completed was september of last year so we are 14, 15 months out. I have been to five hearings now. Simple request. All we ask is the order of abatement. Thank you. Appellant. Thank you. I want to start by thanking ms. Long for speaking. I think that was helpful to understand and hear directly from her, especially what her concerns were about the unit that was offered, and i really am sympathetic, i think we are all to the challenges that she faces here. The owner also has a set of challenges with the building. It sounds like there was a misunderstanding with the offer of that unit. These were phone calls between my partner and her attorney. I wish i had been in hawaii with him, but i was not. The fact of the matter is ms. Long confirmed they rejected that unit. Adding more items to that offer, you know, i dont know what they wanted in terms of a firm offer. It was offered and rejected. It sounds like it was rejected because of inadequate Storage Space for food and utensils. Food storage is an important thing. I wonder if maybe we could add a cabinet to the unit to help with that. You know, if that separates the parties from agreement, i have got to believe there is a way to find agreement there. The issue around timing with that, i appreciate that she came out after a couple days to look at it. The units dont stay on the market that long. As everyone familiar with real estate in San Francisco knows, things move quickly and opportunities with a unit affordable at 849,000 asking price is something that doesnt last for long. I dont know if it is Still Available. If so, lets talk quickly. The 100,000 offer that the neighbor mentioned to clarify is stated in our letter. We would be willing to offer up to 100,000 of rent subsidy so that ms. Longs recent would not go up even though she is getting a three bedroom two bath condo with private patio. It is a nice place. That amount of money would presumably cover plenty of time for her to obtain section 8 rent subsidies or public assistance so we can pencil out this deal. My request at this point is to the tenant lets find a resolution. To the commission, to the board, an order of abatement should not stand where the owner does not have the ability to solve these problems while the tenant is still in possession. We ask it be returned to staff. I offer to return to mediation at next available date with Andrew Wesley if the tenants attorney will accept that. Thank you. Commissioners. Commissioner walker. I know it is simple in one way but difficult in another when these cases come to us. What we do change is the dynamic of it. My fear is no matter what we do that the tenant is not going to be served, and after we do our hearing whatever else happens is sort of we lose the ability to do this. I want to thank the staff at housing for bringing this forward. These are important issues, and i think that it has been really helpful to illuminate what is going on. I mean we deal with this a lot in many of the cases we see where there is unintended consequences to fix the cure the notices of violation other issues that come up in trying to resolve that realizing that the owner did more work to find the problem. I mean, clearly, we know when there is mold and leaks, there is a reason for it. I am not a structural engineer. Maybe they can weigh in. I cant address what the plans that were submitted, i cant address whether that is appropriate or not. It is the case of what the owner of the building wants to do. That is out of our jurisdiction, whether or not that goes forward. What we have before us is a notice of violation that is re real. The solution that has been put forward by the Property Owner is way more extensive than that, than the immediate cure or simple cure for the violations. But it doesnt change the fact that the violations are there and still not fixed. You know, i dont think that there was any error in issuing the order of abatement at all. If we had a solution coming forward that just addressed those issues, we wouldnt be here, but that is not what is going on. I want be to make sure that whatever we do ends up not hurting the tenant and that it doesnt three months from now when all of this other stuff is resolved, all of a sudden she is on the street without a place to live with her family, that is a failure of our system. I want to encourage a resolution to this, and i appreciate that what you are telling us on both sides there is a willingness to do that. I wouldtend, and i am willing to discuss this that may be we uphold the order and hold it in abeyance as long as we can and there will be a resolution one way or another to go forward after that. There is a resolution and the Property Owner can do their work within that timeframe or not. It is what we are dealing with. Those are the facts. There is violations, there is no clear proposal to fix it except as to a larger solution, and that creates problems that create the delay. I would like to hear about other solutions. May i ask the City Attorney what options we would have as commission in terms of uphold be and holding it in abeyance. Yes, the commission could hold it in abeyance for 18 months if you find no life safety hazard. Is there alive safety issue . Apparently not or we would know about it, right . I guess if the foundation needs leveled. It would be helpful to know what the status of that is. Let me clarify. The code provides that the language the code uses is abatement appeals board finds not a serious and implement hazard it can be held in abeyance for a period of 18 months. Inspector is it your opinion there are serious hazards here . Structurally there was a concern about the second means of egress which they have obtained a permit to temporarily do repairs. Those repairs have been done . Temporary. Our main concern we are not experts, but our concern is Environmental Issues such as the severe mold formation in the tenant occupying the bedrooms and kitchens and so on. That will be a concern of us. Here we have some pictures taken on november 18th. I will have christina explain what we are looking at. Hi, i went over to the unit on november 18th to take a look at the work to see if everything was completed or fixed, and in one of the bedrooms, i found there is still peeling paint on the wall, as you can see here, and mold. Is that a window silthat we are looking at. Yes, a window sil. On the right side i took a photo of this because this is right under the stairway they temporarily fixed, and this is the dry rotted wood that is upholding that stairway. Is that consistent with the drawings on the permit or a description in the permit . That is in the description of the permit. Next, this wall right here, there is mold and peeling paint. This is also in the same bedroom where i was showing the window. This is the part of it as well. Would you describe this as imminent danger . What we are trying to figure out if we can give time for a solution to play out as there is an active abatement pending. Stairs are typically a serious hazard. That item is still outstanding. There is a temporary fix. The item is serious. Is it okay right now . From is a temporary solution, but the item is not closed. I get there. Is there imminent danger. There is a temporary fix that we do not consider a serious imminent hazard. Your opinion on the mold issue, do you consider that alivesafety hazard. Yes, i consider it a health hazard. This mold right here in the kitchen is where the tenants are using their dishes and washing them. It is right above them. Not only that, they have a nineyearold child in the unit and he is breathing this. I get that it. In the legal sense at the moment we do not have serious imminent hazard. These are not permanent solutions. I got it. Perfect. Thank you. When you went out, did you have a chance to observe the temporary fix on the tarping of the roof . Yes, i did, and that tarp was actually halfway blown off of the roof. Unfortunately and i apologize, i wasnt able to take photos for that. I am more than happy to do that the next time. That tarp, basically, is a blue tarp and nothing is holding it down. There is no tape around it, and because of wind or whatever weather issue, it has blown off halfway. What was identified by the tenant as one of her primary concerns that it is a persistent problem, the fix that was put into effect, in your opinion, is completely inadequate . Right. I agree with that. It is inadequate because if there has been rain, that season is coming, and that part is right above the tenants room. [please stand by] so i think that all parties need to come and i dont know i feel like we cant we cant tell the Property Owner what to do. This is what they cant to do iwant todo in response to bug the building and owning it in the future and fixing it up. And Old Buildings need fixing up, and i dont think we have the ability to limit what people do. Until we do, were hamstrung. So i would make a recommendation to uphold the order of abatement. I think that the fee issue is one that im not sure it is fair to keep charging fees if there is actually a resolution process going on. So we should talk about that. I dont know maybe president commissioner m mccarthur. I concur with how youre trying to frame this. Okay. I believe thats where we should go if we cant try another possible scenario here. Im not trying to complicate it. But it was very helpful mr. Lang to be here, and thank you for coming, to hear your testimony, and to your neighbor, who has your back, i do agree with everything you said there as well. So it is good that you guys are working well together and protecting each other like Good Neighbors in this town. We dont see too much of it often, so i commend you for that. I know we talked last week, and we had made a statement we would give it one month to try to resolve this, and i really believe that that is kind of my line on this issue, but ive heard two things today. First of all, mr. Duran came here today and kind of laying out how he felt the negotiations went, and open they are to further negotiations, and that was important. And mr. Pattersons point of view that he really doesnt want this to be upheld because it affects the overall Business Plan for his client, and i get that as well. So the question is, is mr. Graham forgive me if this is inappropriate or appropriate i would be interested to hear what your position would be. I have just one question for you, where you would weigh in on commissioner walker, to your point, if we were to, lets say, not uphold it here today and send you guys back together to talk further, and honoring kind of both parties, really. One is, obviously, you need more time and exploration on a possible settlement, based on the last settlement, which i thought it was a good step forward. Obviously it has to be vetted. And mr. Pattersons position that he would rather not have this upheld today and give us more time to work out a deal, that works for everybody. What would your feelings be on that . Well, to be blunt, were going to be working on a deal no matter what happens here today. We think that the notice of violation should be upheld because it has been over a year, you know. Justice becausjust because theye better plans for this building later on, it doesnt mean they couldnt have been taking care of the mold and things like that. Im going to assure the board, were going to still be talking no matter what happens here today because no matter what happens here today, there is still going to be that elephant in the room, that isnt going to go away. So we will be talking no matter what. Okay. I guess im just trying to keep everybody at the table, but us upholding the abatement today, which, obviously, i believe we could do, no problem, based on commissioner walkers proposal im just trying to think im trying to keep everybody kind of even play, you know. But to your point, your position is you would like to see the abatement upheld here today . We would, because as far as were concerned, the only testimony that you have that directly goes to it is the citys own experts, who have been out there and say the work has to be done, and it can be done with the tenant in place. Okay. And we have hearsay evidence from the owner saying his contractor wont do it, but the contractor is not here, so we dont know what that contractor would say. Okay. So i think mr. Patterson thinks the right thing to do is to not uphold it, and i think the right thing is to follow the citys process and uphold the citys laws and get the owner to start working on fixing serious violations that have been outstanding for over a year. Thank you. But i do want to ensure the board, were go
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