Im supervisor hillary ronen, chair of the committee. With me is vice chair supervisor Catherine Stefani and mr. Kirk. Mr. Clerk, do you have announcements . Clerk due to covid19, and to protect Board MembersCity Employees any public the board room is closed for the meeting, however, members will be par cities remot palting remotely on the authority conferred by i im logged into rules and cant hear anything, period. Im not sure i should hold up the meeting because i dont knol that they have amendments that t require my input, is there a wai to let people know . We just heard you, ann. L um. Continuing with my statement. This is taken on authority conferred by governor newsom, stay at home order and all a proceeding local state, and federal orders, declarations ans districtives. Committee members will be attending through Video Conference and participating to the same extent as if present. Public comment will be available on channel 26 and sfgov. V. Org are streaming. 26 numbers up on the screen. Each member will be allowed twow minutes to speak. Comments to speak during publicm comment are available by a via telephone call, by calling 8882045984. 8882045984. Had prompted by at and tt what language to join, dial 1, 0. To be added to the cue. The auto prompt will indicate youre entering question and answer time but this is the Public Comment period. Note this is how you virtually line up and put yourself in the cue for Public Comment. Best practices are that you call in from a quiet location, and you speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in following ways, email to myself, the rules Committee Clerks at victor. Young sfgov. Org. If you submit sublick comment by email, it will be ordered to supervisors and included as part of an official file. Finally, items acted upon today will appear on the supervisor agenda of april 7th unless otherwise stated. That completes my announcements. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Clerk, can you read item number one . Item one is an orderance to establish the American Indian cultural district in and around the northwest drawed rant of the Mission District to require the Mayors Office to submit written reports and recommendations to the board of supervisors and the mayor describing the cultural attributes and proposing strat yis to preserve the cultural legacy of the district. Thank you. This is my legislation. So im really appreciative that were here today during the emergency to establish the first ever American Indian cultural district in the city and county of San Francisco. Cultural districts are one of the most important tools we, as a city have to strengthen the cultural identities of neighborhoods and communities that face pressures of gentrification and displacement. There are few communities that experienced displacement as pro foundly as American Indian community. For many years, American Indian culture in the San Francisco bay area has been jeopardized, not only by the trauma and racism but also by the increased cost of living, and lack of Community Spaces and lack of Community Spaces for cultural events. The American Indian district will recognize a home base for the American Indian community of San Francisco to ensure history and contributions are not forgotten or over ridden. The cultural district will be situated within the mission si district in the mission dolorest neighborhood for missions 8 and 9 for sanchez to newsom. T im going to put up the boundaries for you all to see. Now, why is it gone . Sorry. Guys, i practiced this before we started. Ed let me try again. Okay. Lets see. There we go. That is, those are the boundaries, of the American Indian cultural district of San Francisco. An this region holds unique conten sen trags of historical events, Cultural Resources and native americanbased programming, services and gathering spaces that are significant presence and historical importance to the American Indian community in this San Francisco bay area. And just to give you a sense off some of the incredible historical sites and programs ia the district this, is not an n exclusive list. But this will give you a sense,e is the native American Health t center at 160 cat street, at Friendship House association of American Indians at 56 julian sa street, Indian Education programs at sanchez elementary s school, International IndianTreaty Council at 2940, 16th street and mission colores where california native americans are buried onsite. T that is a snap shot of the currently existing programming in those boundaries that are j just showed you. The region holds unique ion concentration of historical unu events and native american baset programming, services and gathering space that are of significant present and spa historical importance to the nt American Indian community and e the San Francisco bay area in, c light of the ongoing public o Health Emergency facing our ac city, establishing the americana Indian Cultural district will l provide critical funding to t support coordination efforts tof help ensure that the American Indian community of san s francisco is connected to the resources and nchgs necessary to navigate this crisis. C that is why during this crisis, i am calling the item forward, because the community is waiting to access critical funds that have been available to the acc cultural district but that we cant distribute until the cultural district is officially formed. And in a few months, if things d return to normal, i plan to introduce an amendment to expand boundaries of the cultural district beyond what is encompassed in this version of the legislation. While there is Broad Community s support for expanding boundaries of the cultural district, the legislative practice will delayd our ability to disperse city funding if we change boundaries at this time. So were bringing forward tuhenf originally proposed boundaries r in order to provide American Indian cultural district with uu resources as quickly as s as possible. S its been an honor to partner with so many incredible leaders from the American Indian i community to bring this important and historical cultural district to fruition. Extra special thanks to sharia souza, april mcgillin from fru American Indian cultural center, andrew jolevett, from American Cultural Center and julie saboro from Mayors Office of housing and Community Development and thanks to paul monhay from my au office, who i believe this mighy have been the if first piece ofi legislation that he worked on, a and has just poured his heart a and soul into. Hl we need to thank him and get a special thank you to my foeshler colleague, dolly brown who partnered with us to get the legislation to this, this space. So, with that, i believe unless either of my colleagues have any comments we can open up for Public Comment. Hillary . Yes. Supervisor ronen, i would like to be added as a cosponsor. No problem, great. Thank you. And i did want to thank all of my cosponsors on this legislation which i dont have the list in front of me. Oh, i do. And i want to thank supervisors mandolin, peskin, yee and stefani for being cosponsor was had legislation, thank you so much. With that, well open up this item for Public Comment. Um. Do i have to do anything in order to do that . Sorry. Were just getting used to this program. Victor . Do you know . Victor . Were checking to see if anyone is waiting for pub tomor. Can we take a roll call . On the call, calling kol. [ roll call r. [ roll calo. [ roll call. [ roll call. [ roll call ]. Motion passes. This matter will be referred as a Committee Report as recommended to the board meeting. Thank you so much. And there clerk are there any other items . . Clerk that completes the agenda for today. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Sfgovtv. Were ready to begin. President mccarthy today is wednesday, march 18, 2020. This is the regular meeting of the building inspection committee. I remind everyone to turn off Electronic Devices and the first item on the agenda is roll call. President mccarthy . President mccarthy here. Clerk commissioner moss . Commissioner clinch. Commissioner jacobo. Commissioner tam. Commissioner alexandertut. We have a quorum and our item is item 2. President s announcements. President mccarthy good morning, everybody. Just moving everything is moving parts here. I just wanted to have a few words to read into the comments and to my president s announcements. Im confident and dedicated i am confident that the dedicated and hardworking staff throughout the department of building inspection are aware of the response to the people of San Francisco and will continue to do their duty and uphold the public trust which theyve been doing in the last week. As you know were dealing with, you know, a public Health Emergency in our city. And our state and country, that we have never, never had to encounter before. On behalf of the commission, i urge all d. B. I. Staff and customers to follow the instructions under Public Health officials and to do their part to prevent the spread of covid19. I applaud the department for taking steps to limit the virus spread such as increase social distancing between the customers and d. B. I. Staff, and the more frequent cleaning of commonly shared public services. Continue to Pay Attention to all of the Public Health instructions and take all of the possible precautions for your own health and your loved ones. Be proactive and help to keep each other safe. And that concludes, madam secretary, my comments. Clerk is there any Public Comment on the president s announcement . Seeing none, our next item, item 3, general Public Comment. Matters within the commission that are not part of this agen agenda. Good morning, my name is jerry grantler. The resignation of tom huey in the march 12th stories about the citys expanding probe of former president and instructial engineer rodrigo santaz are clear indicators that an outside investigation of the department is long overdue. My interest in d. B. I. Began in 2012 when i served on the civil grand jury that wrote a very unfavorable report on the department. I have attended b. I. C. Meetings for the last seven years. Its difficult to monitor projects like the rodrigo santaz prctses mentioned in the citys lawsuit. This lack of transparency is by design. An outside investigation needs to focus on the departments lack of internal controls and weak Building Code enforcement process. Current Code Enforcement penalties are not a deterrent. 98 of the penalties issued are below 1,000. 1,000 is the cost of doing business. D. B. I. s weak internal controls are present by design, not by accident or lack of funding. D. B. I. Has sabotaged the installation of new Computer Systems that would have made the departments practice of favoring a few individuals more difficult and visible. D. B. I. Failed to implement a system that would have eliminated the current process where contractors, expeditors and instructional engineers get to select the d. B. I. Engineer to review and issue their Building Permit. If you had the choice, would you pick your buddy . Humadic is similar to the process by the california d. M. V. To randomly assign customers to counter employees. D. B. I. Also sabotaged the implementation of asela. When you drill down into mr. Santos projects you find that it was the same small group of d. B. I. Employees who should not have approved his Building Permit ove overthecounter and field inspectors who should not have approved the final inspections. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. So president mccarthy, i believe that there needs to be president mccarthy so because of the nature of this meeting today, were going to remove some items from the calendar, if thats acceptable to all commissioners, please speak up if you have any concerns. Do we do just a point of order do we still have to do the commissioners issues and matters, do we still do that, or just items on the calendar. Looking for clarification . You asked whether its required that we do. President mccarthy that we remove that. You can move to remove it for todays meeting. President mccarthy commissioners, do you want that to remain on the calendar to weigh in indiscernible okay. Number five, i have a request to leave number five on and i wondered what you might have thought about that as a quick discussion and move that forward because of the calendar thats on. And then we can if im correct we could do Public Comment on this again if we needed to though we have moved it out of our commission, is that correct . City attorney rob capla. If you feel that you have enough time to move it forward, the board of supervisors, where there would be more process, you could do that. And you can also schedule a time to take Public Comment on it in the future but you wouldnt be able to rescind the recommendation to move the item forward. President mccarthy okay. So, obviously, 6 well take off the calendar and move to the next available hearing. And then, obviously, we would keep the closed session which we would do last. And then pretty much remove all of the business off the calendar, if the commissioners today have any comments . Clerk do we have a second . Second . So theres a motion and a second to remove all of the items or president mccarthy except for 5, we will leave 5 in which we discussed now and number where am i 5 and 9. Thank you, commissioner. Clerk so theres a motion and a second to remove except for items 5 and 9. Do a roll call vote. President mccarthy. Vice president moss. Commissioner alexandertut. Commissioner clinch. Commissioner jacobo. Commissioner tam. That motion carries unanimously. Im going to read item 5 just for the record. I initially thought that the item would be continued. But all of you have received all of the correspondence and there was additional Public Comment that you have received as well. Okay, so item 5, discussion and possible action regarding a proposed ordinance, repealing ordinance numbers 3817 and 10219, and reenacting certain provisions by amending the administrative code to update the Hotel Conversion ordinance including adding a redefining of definitions of lowincome household and procedures to convert units and harmonizing the fees in addition to other requirements. This is continued from the meeting. President mccarthy do we need to discuss. I want to thank the commission for tabling it until today or continuing it to today. I talked to the Community Group whose appreciated having time to review this and theyre all in agreement with moving forward. Thank you. President mccarthy if i see no more comment on it, City Attorney rob capla. Theres a request to be read into the record. President mccarthy is that the letter from mr. Zach friedman . Yeah, okay. This letter is from Zach Friedman and patterson, a Public Comment, dear president mccarthy and honorable members of the Building Inspection Commission, our office represents the s. R. O. Hotel coalition, hotels, and other individual owners of s. R. O. S who will be affected by this proposed ordinance. In light of yesterdays shelter in place order and the serious Public Health risk of covid19 we reject to this hearing taking place without Public Participation as required by the ralph m. Brown act. Neither my clients nor attorneys or other concerned members of the public can violate the order and risk their health to attend this hearing. This hearing must be pro postponed. And including reacting the record in realtime and the statements by city staff and other members of the public. This is not an imminent matter. And this could be accomplished without the proposed new amendments contained within this ordinance. These amendments are not urgent and do not affect any government function as defined by the order. We respectfully request that this hearing be postponed until the shelter in place order is lifted and we reserve the right to have additional arguments and materials in advance of the final hearing on this matter. Thank you, for your krrs, very truly yours. So that was the Public Comment. And is there any additional Public Comment here . Seeing none. Is there a motion on this item . President mccarthy we do need to make a motion to approve. I move to approve. Clerk a second . Second. Clerk there is a motion and a second. Ill do a roll call vote. President mccarthy. Yes. Vice president moss. Yes. Commissioner alexandertut. Yes. Commissioner clinch. Yes. Commissioner jacobo. Yes. Commissioner tam. Yes. The motion carries unanimously. Our next item is item 9, Public Employee appointment. Director of building inspection. Discussion and possible action to appoint director of building inspection. 9a, Public Comment on all matters pertaining to the closed session. Good morning, my name is dray grantler. If the commissioner is looking for an interim d. B. I. Director my suggestion is the former Deputy Director rosemary vosk who is an attorney. And who is thoughtful and has good leadership skills and knows the department. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. There was also additional Public Comments submitted via email by last name of mr. White, mrs. White and i have submitted that to all of the commissioners. So they have all received it as well. Our next item is item b, possible action to convene a closed session. Is there a motion to convene closed session . Id like to make a motion to convene closed session. Second. Clerk are all commissioners in favor . Any opposed . We are now in closed session. It is 10 24 we should be back. Hello, this is Building Inspection Commission meeting resuming. We are on item 9 d , reconvened in open session to vote on whether to disclose any or all discussions held in closed sessi sessi session. There is a motion to reconvene. I move to reconvene. Second. There is a motion and a second to reconvene in open session. We are now in open session. All in favour . Aye. Our next item, is there anything to disclose . Absolutely. Thanks for everybodys patience here. We had a really good discussion here and a lot of commissioners thoughts for the future were brought up and whats going to be needed, particularly for this department, which i concur for everything. Obviously, mr. Weir, we unanimously approved you to step in as acting director through this difficult period. As a commission, we thank you for stepping up and doing that. To be clear, weve acted to appoint mr. Riddin interim director. We had a debate about interim and acting. Interim director. So if you are acceptable, you can come to the mic. Officially you could accept the position for us and that would satisfy us, correct. Thank you. Good morning again, commissioners. Thank you for appointing me as interim director. While i am deeply grateful for your expressed confidence in my leadership of d. B. I. During what can only be called extraordinary times, i want to assure you that ours will continue to be a team effort and will continue to involve indeed depend upon the supportive dedication, commitment of building safety and professionalism we are proud to have in our d. B. I. Employees. We have terrific staff who work enthusiastically every day to ensure building and safety codes are observed in the letter of the laws behind them. Thanks to our engineer reviewers and all the Code Enforcement inspectors. We know that structures are built to constantly improving standards. And thus as these construction methods can deliver for everyone who lives, works, and recreates inside these buildings. I take this responsibility youre giving me and i will do everything i can to fulfill your expectations and to provide the department with the leadership needed during these times of Public Health challenges. We will continue to do everything we can as a department to meet the mayor and board of supervisors ongoing leadership efforts to build more housing that is safely constructed for all, especially for our citys most vulnerable populations. Thank you again for the honor to serve as departments interim director. I will certainly do my best to work with the commission, all city departments, the mayor and board of supervisors and City Employees and continue to provide energy, leadership, and professionalism in all areas of building safety in the city of San Francisco. Thank you. Good luck. [ laughter ]. Commissioner, please. Just a quick thing here. I just want to thank our c. F. O. For stepping up to the plate in our time of need at that time as acting director. Big second on that. I move to adjourn. Second. Go home, everyone. All in favour. Aye. Were now adjourned. Its 11 46 a. M. We have private and Public Gardens throughout the garden tour. All of the gardens are volunteers. The only requirement is youre willing to show your garden for a day. So we have gardens that vary from all stages of development and all gardens, family gardens, private gardens, some of them as small as postage stamps and others pretty expansive. Its a variety all of the world is represented in our gardens here in the portola. I have been coming to the portola garden tour for the past seven or eight years ever since i learned about it because it is the most important event of the neighborhood, and the reason it is so important is because it links this neighborhood back to its history. In the early 1800s the portola was farmland. The regions flowers were grown in this neighborhood. If you wanted flowers anywhere future bay area, you would come to this area to get them. In the past decade, the area has tried to reclaim its roots as the garden district. One of the ways it has done that is through the portola garden tour, where neighbors open their gardens open their gardens to people of San Francisco so they can share that history. When i started meeting with the neighbors and seeing their gardens, i came up with this idea that it would be a great idea to fundraise. We started doing this as a fundraiser. Since we established it, we awarded 23 scholarships and six work projects for the students. The Scholarship Programs that we have developed in association with the portola is just a winwinwin situation all around. The Scholarship Program is important because it helps people to be able to tin in their situation and afford to take classes. I was not sure how i would stay in San Francisco. It is so expensive here. I prayed so i would receive enough so i could stay in San Francisco and finish my school, which is fantastic, because i dont know where else i would have gone to finish. The scholarships make the difference between students being able to stay here in the city and take classes and having to go somewhere else. [ ] [ ] you come into someones home and its theyre private and personal space. Its all about them and really their garden and in the city and urban environment, the garden is the extension of their indoor environment, their Outdoor Living room. Why are you here at this garden core . Its amazing and i volunteer here every year. This is fantastic. Its a beautiful day. You walk around and look at gardens. You meet people that love gardens. Its fantastic. The portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. Mark your calendars every year. You can see us on the website [ ] i am the supervisor of district one. I am sandra lee fewer. [ ] i moved to the Richmond District in 1950 mine. I was two years old. I moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here. [ ] when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. It seems so far away. For a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. The stress was storage of the birthplace of that. My father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. It just started to grow very organically. It is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the Richmond District. As russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. So parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the Russian Community and immigrant Russian Community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [ ] i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. They are beautiful barriers. The presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the Pacific Ocean. We also also have a National Park service. We boarded the Golden Gate NationalRecreation Area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. But really families enjoying the beach and the Pacific Ocean during the rest of the time of year. [ ] and Golden Gate Park where we have so many of our treasures here. We have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. Not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. This is why i say the richmond is a great place for families. The theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. It has been around for a very long time. Is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. I moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. We would always go here. I love these neighborhood theatres. It is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the Richmond District, but also in San Francisco. Small theatres showing one or two films. A unique they are unique also to the neighborhood and San Francisco. Where we are today is the heart of the Richmond District. With what is unique is that it is also Small Businesses. There is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. And providing for the neighborhood. This is what we love about the streets. The cora door starts on clement street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see Small Businesses even towards 32nd. At the core of it is right here between here and 20 tenth avenue. When we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the any other part of San Francisco. There is traditional irish music which you dont get hardly anywhere in San Francisco. Some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. And then also, we see grocery stores. And also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [ ] we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. That is a really great thing to see. I dont know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. I like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. The market is the place i like to come to once a year. Once i like about the market as it is very affordable. It has Fresh Produce and fresh meat. Also, seafood. But they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. A variety of rice that they have is tremendous. I dont thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. Hi. I am kevin wong. I am the manager. In 1989 we move from chinatown to Richmond District. We have opened for a bit, over 29 years. We carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. We try to keep Everything Fresh daily. So a customer can get the best out a bit. Normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. Because they have really just really fresh crab. This is something my family really likes for me to make. Also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. They cut it to the size they really want. I am probably here once a week. Im very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. We dont speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make. I do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. The staff here is very helpful. I speak very little chinese here myself. Thinks that im not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need . Is this what i should be making . And they actually really helped me. They will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. They are very knowledgeable. Very friendly. I think they are here to serve not only the Asian Community but to serve all communities in the Richmond District and in San Francisco. [ ] what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered. [ ] chairman heinicke all right. Good morning good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will call this meeting of the San Francisco m. T. A. To arrested. I will read some preliminary rules after the roll is called. Call the roll. [roll call]