there was an existing structure. i came from a small town in new york, with a different permit process, so it is my fault. we got permission to keep it with the understanding that we had to make a few changes. i bought the property in the september 1999, sold the property april 2010. >> these violations were on there? >> there were no violations. if you read through the time line, someone in 1975 had cut the property back. when i took care of that structure, -- the property used to be longer -- so it did not take up all the property. because of the way that they cut back the property in the 1970's, when we fixed it, the complaint from the neighbor stated that we filled up 100% of the lot but i was replacing the existing structure. >> you got a permit in 2006 but never finalized the inspection? >> yes, because of money costs. >> any other questions from commissioners before we hear public comment? >> i have a couple of questions in my head but i think they were perfectly into a -- partially answered. ok, i do have a question. why did you take so long to respond initially? you said you were in violation beginning in 2004. >> to be perfectly honest, this is the first building i have own, so it comes down to the ignorance. i thought i would have time. between 2006 and 2009, it came down to cost. it cost $22,000 to get it up to code. i did not have not sitting around at the time. >> have no more comments. -- no more questions. public comment? no public comment? staff and a bottle. >> members of the board, i would like you to focus on a couple of things. i want to applaud the honesty of the property owner, knowing that our property -- process can be confusing. on the issue of sending the directors notification, the property owner can make arrangements with the post office but we are obligated, regardless of what the arrangement is, to send the information to who is on file with the assessor, and we post it on the building. the matter what interracial and she may have made with them, we still would have sent it to that particular address. the amount of time that has accrued on this is not because of the hearing -- it is the time from 2002 to the present. it is not as if we loaded these fees from the last few months. since this is not the current owner, we have an issue. if she does not pay within a certain amount of time, and then we would have to send a notice to the new owner. we would not like to do that. if this is a decision from the board, we will have to take that position. we will need to be reimbursed for the amount of time the amount would be up to the pleasure of the deputy director or director. she would like us to look at that again. that is what we feel good faith the amount is accrued, and that is a conservative amount, given the time that has occurred. >> questions? >> appellants, you have three minutes. no? ok. commissioners, discussion? >> i think it is clear to me the department acted, as far as our policy and handling these things, it has been since 2002. i would personally like to recommend -- support staff's recommendation that we uphold this to get the fees and defer it for 15 days to accommodate -- whenever the record is from staff. maybe we could get some input from the other parties so that this is resolvable without filing. >> i appreciate that. the actual condition of the building has been fixed. is there a way where we can mention that we would like these to be recovered but overturn abatement? >> can you hear me? the board could move to say, if the appellant had ex-number of days, then the appellate board would not support this. if it was a failure to pay the fees -- >> or in this case, we would have to renotice the new owner. perfect. >> just for the record, i will make that payment today so that we do not drag this out. >> 15 days? >> that is what staff requested and this sound like a resolvable situation. that would be my motion. >> before we take a vote, does anyone want to say anything? inspector green? ok, sorry. >> that would be my motion to support staff recommendation that we pulled --upho uphold --y don't you read it to me. >> [inaudible] >> okay, great. that is the motion. >> second. do we need a roll-call vote? >> [roll call] the vote is unanimous. >> thank you. we can now move on to item d. this is public comment relating to the abatement appeals board. >> are there any public members that would like to say something to the abatement appeals board now? >> seeing none can i have a motion for adjournment? we are now adjourned. we will take a short recess and be back with the regular meeting of the building inspections commission. >> running. today is wednesday july 21. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please turn off electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. [roll call] commissioner clinch is excused. we have a quorum. the next item is president's announcements. commissioner murphy: we do not have any announcements. >> okay, the next item and is item 3, directors report. >> pam, do you want to give this report? >> good morning. pamela levin, deputy director of financial services. i'm pleased to announce that we are on track to end the year with a positive fund balance. at this point in time, we are still closing the year, departments are still charging us for work orders. we are still doing entry to move monies around in terms of transfers and -- so it is still kind of a preliminary, still have not calculated deferred credits, but as of now, we are projecting to take our fund balance from $553,000, where we ended last year, by $3.49 million, to the total of $4.3 million. staff will only fund 21.1 days of payroll, and i just wanted to add that i would to some training yesterday with controller's office of emergency management, and one of the things they said was departments need to maintain a positive sign balance in the event of an emergency because that is what we would need to draw on initially. so i think we have done well in controlling our revenues. one of the things is that we have done a really good job in bringing in additional revenue. in terms of the way the revenue is proposed, we would have a total of $3.95 million before you drop money into the fund balance. as of that, $3.41 million is in the apartment, until, and hotel license fee. we are still under recovering in housing, but those increases that we establish for the 2009- 2010 fiscal year has yielded additional revenue. we are still having some bumping around in terms of the revenue for apartment license fees. there are some entries that the controller's office is making, adjusting some errors that occurred. we're still looking at whether or not all the appeals have been injured, you know, have been submitted. that number could still bump of around before the real and of the fiscal year, which is the accounting and, which is usually in some timber -- could still bumper round before e d bend bu --mp around before the real end. we still charge revenue service. $1 million of that is for intergovernmental agreements. for instance, we are finding a larger agreement plan review project for us for the exploratory and, the chance they terminal, the chance of a joint authority --transbay terminal, a joint authority. the puc with their new office building, brought in revenue this last year for our planned review. what this means to me is that we did a good job and in terms of revenues of the ongoing height of service, and because $1 million of the increase -- the $1.3 million increase was for the intergovernmental. we also have had a roughly $679,000 of refunds. this is -- the concept of the refunds is basically, we are paying current year revenue for prior year -- some current year, but prior year plans. so people who have committed -- submitted a plan for inspections and paid s in the prior fiscal year, we're refunding them in the current fiscal year, so, hopefully, this will kind of ratchet down. the refunds are very time consuming for our staff. they, you know, are difficult in their own way, and we are really hoping that that will decrease when the economy starts to get better. when you exclude a mou's from the overall revenue, we're looking at 1.7% increase. that to me is a very modest increase between how we are originally prepared the budget and how we ended the budget. that is not to say that we were so great in preparing our budget, but at least this year, we did not have -- end up in a negative stance. the big news in expenditures is that we are projected to end up with a savings of 1.2% of the budget, and that is, again, shaving the bottom. it is containing costs, and one of the things this does not take into account, and we need to be cognizant of, is that we will have to be prepared for some of the contracts, the professional services, and we also have some payments that still have to be made for the year ending june 30. i think overall, it is good news, but i think that we need to continue to be, you know, cognizant that the economy has not made this huge recovery. we are still trying to maintain our own, and i also wanted to let you know that we are filling positions that have been vacated by people that have retired and are trying to get some temporary help. while we were having a previous meeting, i had a discussion with the mayor's office, and they are processing lead divisions will putting through, and we have a very compelling story of why we need these positions. to give you an idea, the general fund position, the general fund dept. on spending plans. they are really tied in terms of whether or not they can fill positions, but the bears office has stated that we can control our budget -- has faith that we can control our budget and not overextend next year. any questions? >> so we will be hiring back some of the staff laid off? is that the concept? >> we will have to hire back for the permit positions of the full list that exists. if there are no positions on the holdover list, we will have to recruit through the normal recruitment process, but in the meantime, we can fill them with temporary people, which we are trying to take up the whole list, also. great. maybe not our specific employees, but employees from the city that are on the list. great, thank you. >> the $553,000 that you have in the fund for revenue for payroll -- you said you went to the controller's office are we increasing that? >> what we have this we need to have, if you will, a cushion for unexpected events, including but not limited to what we call catastrophic events such as earthquakes and fires and whatever because of those. that needs to cover the payroll for us, and because, probably, we're not going to have during the recovery, the initial time, is buried levels when you get into emergency recovery, but in the initial period of time, we will not be having people coming in submitted projects to us. probably in the recovery time, we will, but in the initial, so we have to be able to cover the payroll for that initial time. in a catastrophic event of getting any -- getting the six- something magnitude -- what is it called? anyway, magnitude 6 earthquake or something to that effect, there is some sort of measure -- richter scale. great. if we were into that kind of situation, having, you know, the 553 we ended last year would fund five days. we would have to somehow or other obtain funding for our people from another source. so the controller's office looks to us to be able to cover our payroll to continue during that time, so when we end the year and add more, based on this plan, we would end at $4.3 million. that still is only 29.1 pace -- paid days. it is the payroll in little over a month and a half. that is not enough. that is the point i'm trying to make, that we need to be prepared for an unexpected type of event. >> our customers are not bringing it in right now. do you have any suggestions on how we might get that fund up? >> just so you know, we are increasing our work order with the port to do more internal plan checking for the port until the customer base does increase some, so we'll be doingmou work with the port, so that will bring in additional revenue that can be completed by current staff but can be put forward into the operating fund at the end of this fiscal year, the one we are currently in now, so we are projecting in the budget that this both to the board of supervisors, that we will be adding to the fund balance each year from now on, not taking from the fund balance, so that is the plan going forward, that we will not prepared a budget and present the commission with a budget that will be pulling from the operating fund. we will be balancing the budget with current funds against current funds and adding to the operating fund balance each year. >> the other thing is that to the extent that we are seeing more projects come through, because they can defer their impact fee payment, if that concept works, we may get larger projects because some developers have been waiting for something to be, you know, and the test to be able to bring in stuff, and we are seeing that right now. what would be a comfortable balance in that fund? a couple of million dollars? -- >> what would be a comfortable balance in that fund? a couple of million dollars? they could say let's take it out and put it in the general fund, which they have done in the past. >> that is something i keep hammering home to the various entities that could make decisions on our budget, that we need to maintain a fund balance, and it should not be used for anything other than repairs, but you hear anything from having six months of payroll, which is in the $16 million range, which, as we know, when we were in the $14 million range, of the money was siphoned off and used for other projects. it is really kind of -- i think the best thing we can do is continue to keep in mind and remind others that we are good stewards of our money and that we need to make sure that we are prepared and that we are self- sufficient. >> we also now have the support of the mayor's office, and there is a recovery initiative out there and recovery program that also directs departments to start looking toward what their department would need in the event of a catastrophic emergency, and controller's office is recommending certain fund balances, even in the general fund for a rainy day fund, and that is, from what i understand, at least six months of payroll. commissioner hechanova:, have a couple of questions. this much is the accounting semantics with the projected increase in revenue of $3.9 million is due to -- there is a line there that says $134,000 shortfall in revenues in the interest and investment base. could you explain that to me? >> yes, what happened is that when we prepare the budget, depending upon what you are seeing your fund balance is going to be, you calculate, you know, a best estimate on the interest rate and then prepare the budget, and in this case, our budget was $332,000, and we are bringing in $198,000 in interest and investments, so essentially, what we are doing is next fiscal year, we have ratcheted down on that. one of the things we looked down -- we look to cont what theroller's -- we looked at is wha ttht the controller's offics doing. we're projecting we're not going to get much more next year than we did this year. >> that is what you are trying to match up to moving targets? >> lots of moving targets. >> second question, and this might be more in the category of the incoming, is there anticipation of a the projected revenues that would come in to thedbi as it is this the to sea --the dbi as it is associated with the -- it has a moving target for the next three to five years. >> we have been in talks on this because the america's cup is proposing to take several of the port buildings, and we have a meeting this afternoon with the port to discuss work orders with the port and how we would address emergency for expedited planchettes' for this. the work would have to be completed very quickly, and how we would manage that. we were talking this afternoon on it, so, yes, there would be another increase revenue because the port would -- they have asked to have a plan check, some of the plans that would develop. -- that were developed. >> thank you. he had done a great job. >> i would like to bring the commission of to what happened last night at the budget meeting in case you have not read the papers. they did finally passed the budget. there is four pages of at backs, and we have not been able to actually be viewed as yet. we will review them later today, and we will send the commission a copy of all the figures that we get, but from what we understand, our budget was passed. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment? seeing the and,3 itemb is update on proposed legislation -- seeing none, item 3b is of the on proposed legislation. >> after we lost our monitoring fee legislation last august, it has finally been passed and will become effective august 16 of this year, so that means we will be able to collect in for some of these -- enforcement fees at a reasonable time. we will be collecting the not five or six years after the fact, so that as part of this legislation that will become effective august 16. we also, per the suggestion of the mayor, i did send a memo to the mayor on july 9 explaining why we are requesting a june 2011 trotter amendment to change the name of the department to the apartment building safety, and i will send a copy to all the commissioners. one of the main reasons is we put in the same position in seven cities throughout the nation, chicago and new york, all have some kind of variation on the name apartment building safety -- department building and safety, etc. and so forth. that is the more modern name ratherha