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. Welcome to the april 13, 2020 meeting. I am joined by Video Conference with vice chair supervisor stephanie and supervisor gordon mar and id like to thank sf gov tv for staffing this meeting. Any announcements . To protect members, City Employees and the public, the legislative chamber and k Committee Rooms are closed. However, members will be participating remotely at the same extent as if they were present. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda, both the channel 26 and sfgov. Org are streaming across the screen. Call 888 2045504. When you are connected, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the key. You will be lined up in the system that you dial 1 and 0. While youre waiting, the system will be silent and notify you when youre in line and waiting. All will remain online. Everyone must account for the time delay between live coverage and streaming. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways, email me at victor young. If you submit Public Comment via email, it will be included as part of the matter. Written comments may be sent to city hall 1, doctor carlton b. Goodlet place, San Francisco, california, 94102. That completes my announcements. Thank you so much, and can you please read item number one . An emergency ordinance to temporarily require private employers with 500 or more employees to provide emergency leave during the Public Health emergency related to covid19. Thank you. Any opening comments . Thank you, chair ronen. Colleagues, as you may recall, this item is to move forward one amendment that was made to the Public HealthEmergency League ordinance at last weeks Roll Committee meeting. The amendments that were considering to the Public Health emergency leave ordinance applies to section 5 and it pertains to allowable uses of emergency leads and only applies to employees who are Healthcare Providers and this amendment was crafted to balance the need for Healthcare Providers and similarly are healthcare workers to be able to take time off when theyre sick or need to quarantine and balance that need with the urgent need of maintaining our healthcare wor workforce. To thithis provides leave whose employers can opt out of the leave expansion. And it goes without saying that Healthcare Providers should gott go to work when sick or quarantined. This ordinance will give them expanded pay leave to use if theyre sick or quarantined. We know that pfizer sent a letter asking for an exemption but we disagree that Healthcare Providers should be exempt. Theres been discussion with the Hospital Council and northeast medical services, a major nonprofit Healthcare Clinic that has a significant place in my district. If healthcare employers are offering paid leave, it will count towards the additional 80 hours and to ensure we dont short staff this ordinance. Its uses are incredibly narrow and only apply in cases where its in the interest of Public Health for Healthcare Providers not to go to work. And it does not allow uses of Public Health emergency leaves by Healthcare Providers for a border range of uses that are allowed for workers at businesses with more than 500 employees that are covered by the Public Health emergency leave ordinance. So colleagues, i thank you for your support in the Public Health emergency leave ordinance last week and also that the full board last week and without your support, im moving this further amendment that would provide additional leave for Healthcare Providers in a more similar range of uses. Thank you, supervisor mar. Supervisor stephanie, my comments . No, i dont, thank you. Why dont we open this item up for Public Comment. Mr. Clerk, is there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item . Members of the public who wish to provide Public Comment should call the number and present 1 and 0 to line up to speak. Please allow me to check the cue. No problem. No callers wishing to speak. With that, Public Comment is closed. Im happy to make a motion to put this to the full board to the committee with full recommendation. Can we take a role call on that motion. On that motion, supervisor stephanie. Aye. Supervisor mar. Aye. Chair ronen. Aye. The motion passes and in matter will be recommended as the Committee Reports to april 14th board meeting. Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. Is there any other items . That completes the agenda for today. Fantastic. Fastest meeting of all time. The meeting is adjourned. Have a good day everyone. Clerk, i would like to call to order todays meeting of the San FranciscoPublic Utilities commission. Todays date is april 14, 2020. Madam secretary, roll call, please. [roll call]