Transcripts For SFGTV Board Of Appeals 20240712

The board requests that you turnoff all phones or Electronic Devices so they wont disturb the proceedings. If you have questions about rerequesting a rehearing or questions for board staff, please email the board of appeal or call the board at 4155546455. To watch the hearing on t. V. , go to sfgovtv cable channel 78. Please note that it will be rebroadcast friday evenings on channel 26. Public comment can be provided in two ways. You can join the zoom meeting by computer. Go to sfgov. Org boardofappeals. Please note that there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast on live stream on the t. V. Or internet, so if you call in, please turn down or reduce the volume on your t. V. Or computer so that it doesnt affect when you testify. If you intend to testify at any of tonights proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and answer the following do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. [inaudible] clerk okay. That motion carries 40. The matter is continued to august 12. Okay. So now, we are moving onto item number 1, which is general Public Comment. This is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a matter within the boards jurisdiction but is not on tonights calendar. If you do want to speak in general Public Comment, please raise your hand. We do have a comment from zach karnazes. Alec will queue up the video. Im having to read this Public Comment from bed because im having some Health Problems right now. I want to thank Julie Rosenberg for her help in making sure that access is improved for board of appeals meetings. She has done more than almost any City Employee that i know of to help with the disabled accessing public meetings. I think theres still a ways to go for large volumes of people, like over 50 or over 20. Its still really hard, but for the smaller volume meetings, its been extremely helpful, and im very grateful to here. Im concerned at the deforestation thats happening in our city right now. Hayes and octavia, department of forestry has been cutting more of our trees down during the covid19 pandemic when people do not have the ability when theyre sheltering in place. Im concerned that the department of public works is exploiting this pandemic to further their agenda for cutting down trees, and in the longterm, promotes Construction Projects, which promotes gentrification of our city. I hope this board can appreciate the severity of whats happening right now, and really consider these appeals, especially when forestry is cutting down trees. That is the end of my comment. My name is zach karnazes. Clerk and we will hear from mr. Segobia. Can we spotlight mr. Segobia, please . Mr. Segobia . Yes. Clerk okay. Go ahead. Ive lived in the Mission District since 1953, and i realize that the trees on our street are making a lot of damage on our streets. My concern is somebody is going to get killed. Somebody some little kid, and somebody is going to get hurt. My wife happened to be walking down 24 street. She tripped on the tree thats coming up out of the ground and hurt herself. Im more concerned that these roots are going to go underneath the ground, hurt something, a gas line, so i dont like to see these things go. I love trees, but this is becoming a hazard on 24 street. I think three or four trees have already fell. Im afraid some young kid or somebodys going to get hurt. Its like an accident thats getting ready to happen. My wife is here, and she fell down because the sidewalks are coming up because the roots of these trees are really messing up and really messing up our sidewalk. Id like to see some kid or somebody really getting hurt on our streets. Or somebody is in a wheelchair, and they cant get on the sidewalk. Or they have a scooter, and the sidewalk, its cracked and sitting high because of the roots, and it tips them over. If we can provide a sidewalk thats safe for every pedestrian and disability people, that would be wonderful, and there would be no more hazard and no more falling on these crooked sidewalks. My wife did take a fall. Yeah, i did take a fall there, and i just dont think that trees should be in the city. They should be in the country. Theres nowhere to let the trees go. Were suffocating them. We need to let the trees grow in the country. And i think they really planted the wrong kind of trees on 24 street, not aware of what they were supposed to do. Clerk okay. Thank you. Youre welcome. Clerk okay. Any other Public Comment. If so, please raise your hand. Okay. Im not seeing any, so were going to move onto commissioner comments and questions. I have one comment to make. I want to commend miss rosenberg and her staff and members of the public tuning in and commenting. Shes made this as easy as possible. I know weve had some growing pains, and julie, you have ma this as easy as possible. Second. Yeah, i second that. Thank you. Amazing work. Julie, youre muted. Mics off, julie. Your mic is off. Its on your end, julie. I think its your computer. You might want to check that. We cant hear you, julie. Even though it looks like your mics on. Clerk one moment. You got it now. Okay. See . Technical problems, just when youre giving me a compliment. Well, i dont see any Public Comment on this item, which well move onto the adoption of the minutes. Before you are the adoption of the july 20, 2020 meeting. Commissioners, any additions, deletions, corrections to the minutes . Motion to adopt the minutes. Clerk okay. We have a motion from commissioner swig to adopt the minutes. Any Public Comment . I had someone i thought, but i dont think theyre here. Anyone, raise your hand. Okay. So i dont see anyone. So on that motion [roll call] clerk okay. So that motion carries, 40, and the minutes are adopted. So we are now moving onto item number 5. This is the hearing request for appeal 20034, subject property at 1501 quint street. Zach karnazes is requesting a rehearing in appeal 20034. At that time, the board voted 40, commissioner santacana absent, to grant the appeal and issue the order on the condition that it be revised to require that the project manager not close out the project until the additional tree is planted. These seven trees are in addition to the replacement trees specified in the order, on the basis that this will enhance the health and beauty of the neighborhood. This is zach karnazes, appellant. I am asking for a continuance for this item. I was denied the at the wacont when i cant be there because of Health Problems. Mohamed nuru, director of t, d arrested by the f. B. I. , and by granting this permit, the board of appeals is encouraging the department of public works to do more illegal tree removals, and they already have been happening on octavia and a bunch of other parts of the city. I raised a bunch of disability issues and had a bunch of accessible issues on the january 7, 2020 meeting. I was not given a powerpoint presentation, even though i was told months before that i would need to appear by phone. The presentation used by the department of public works was not provided to me, and i had to request the call in information multiple times to get a chance to call in. I asked if i could communicate with people that were present at the meeting, if they would mind sharing information with me, and sthey refused to do this. I did not get these denials and these explanations for these denials until 2. 5 hours before the appeals hearing on this item even though i had asked these questions months, months and months prior. Christopher buck waited until the very last moment to give me any information on that. Made my appeal very difficult. Thank you for considering this request for a rehearing, and i really hope the board of appeals will recognize that illegal behavior has happened, and i hope the board of appeal will consider the actions of this company in other matters. Clerk okay. Thank you, mr. Karnazes. We will now hear from the department of public works. Thank you. Sorry. Can you hear me . Clerk yes, we can. Great. Thank you. Public works, weve listened to the appellant and the commissioners, and as a result, weve g weve begun implementing changes in our tree removals. Weve acknowledged our premature removal of the tree on quint street, and weve offered restitution in the form of Additional Replacement trees beyond those that are already considered in exchange, and weve attended and responded to several rounds of appeal, including tonights rehearing. Weve reviewed the information, as well as the request for rehearing today, and we dont believe theres any basis to issue the appeal in this case. The appellant has not articulated any specific terms of an outcome that he thinks would be reasonable, so we do not know how, at this point, we can contribute further to the case. While the decision to move forward with this project continues to be held in limbo, stakeholders and residents continue to suffer potential delays to completing the project, so we respectfully ask that the board uphold the previous decision, and were happy to answer any questions the commissioners may have. Thank you. Clerk we do have a question from Vice President honda. So, sir, had the if the permit was revoked, at what cost to the city i dont expect you to know the preside cost, but do you have any idea of what that cost or would cost the city . I dont have a way to put a dollar on it. It would have cost more for the safety. One of the intents was to improve the safety. Stopping the project and restarting it would reintroduce some of those health and safety issues, not to mention whatever costs were spent so far to do the construction to date that has to be undone, we would not recoup that. We would be spending more to put it back the way it was. Are we talking about hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands . Regarding since were in a tough time financially for the city, what would we be looking at to remove the improvements and then restore and then time frame . Without being able to dig into the contract, id say youre in the 100,000 or more range, depending on the extent whatever restoration is expected to be done. We cant put the same trees back where they were taken out, so wed be talking about redo doing concrete, curbs, and trying to put back trees where they were. It would be very costly. Okay. Thank you very much. Clerk okay. Thank you. So we will now hear from bureau of urban forestry, mr. Buck. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners, chris buck. Urban forestry, department of public works, department of urban forestry. I went overall the demands in the appeal. We communicated a lot with mr. Karnezes in december, when he said he would not be able to, more than likely, attend in person. We provided all of those materials at that time, and i think it was after, he realized hey, we had a presentation that we could have provided to him. We dont ever have the presentation that we give ready the day of or the day before. I talked to my supervisor saying hey, ive never provided our powerpoint to someone before. Moving forward, what can we do . She said yeah, we can provide it the day before or the day of the hearing, but that wasnt something we specifically do. We provided the information we had at the time that we had it, and there was no subsequent request for the actual powerpoint presentation. I mean, thats the whole point of our presentation, is to provide it at the hearing. But moving forward, if requested specifically, we will absolutely provide that maybe the day before or the day of the hearing, thats something we can provide. But we have a lot of communication back and forth with the appellant in december and january to make sure that zach had full access to that public hearing. And then, our hearing officer tried to make time for as much Public Comment as necessary provided by the appellant. Regarding item 4, his advice to pass on information he got from the hearing, we did pass on his request to our a. D. A. Consultant, but ultimately, what he stated was if thats not something evewere doing f other does, thats something were going to have to, as a decision, make. Are we going to be serving at Disability Advocates . For us, thats a slippery slope, and we did not pass along that information. What wed recommend, in the future, for Public Comment, if folks would like to try to comment here, if folks could put out the Public Information that way. This was all discussed at the previous hearing. I dont believe theres any new information thats been brought up in the request for rehearing. Thank you. Clerk thank you, mr. Buck. We are now moving onto Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment on this item . I see the phone number ending in 8570. Can you speak, please . You have two minutes. Thank you, miss rosenberg. This is casey asbury with the demonstration garden. Also, i want to etccho the commissioners thanks to you and your staff for your week. I am calling to comment on this item because i feel that the [inaudible] id urge the board to take another look at the penalty for this and bring it into alignment with article 16, which indicates that its 10,000 per tree as a penalty, instead of charging someone what would have been the in lieu fee if they had gotten permission to remove it. So in general, im commenting so that we can Work Together to improve the process. Im always grateful to the department of urban forestry, their willingness to improve on this. So thank you. Clerk thank you. We will now hear from mr. Klipp, general Public Comment. Im going to go without the video. Im actually sitting in a camper van. Clerk okay. You can make it entertaining for us. I just want to reflect caseys comment with the penalty here. Essentially, this is the equivalent of an in lieu fee, which is what you assess when a tree cannot be believed. The code goes into detail about what happens when a tree is illegally removed, and its not an in lieu fee. There are administrative penalties, even criminal penalties for that. I think you need to layout what was the fine for doing work without a permit. Im not sure why were talking about, you know, 2,000 in lieu fees for a contractor that illegally removed two trees. I understand that there was a discussion at the last hearing regarding ultimately who ends up paying for the work, and it absolutely should be the contractor who performs the work without the permit. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Is there any other comment public on this item . If so, press starnine if you called in. Starnine if you want to provide Public Comment on this item. Okay. I dont see any other Public Comment, so commissioners, this matter is submitted. Commissioners . May i start . As you know, in the initial hearing, i was extremely upset about how this whole thing involved. I thought the d. P. W. Manager in charge of the process was negligent or irresponsible or Something Else didnt do her job. I think i stated that last time to mr. Roytman during the period. At the same time, i feel some empathy or i feel some sympathy, sorry, for the for the ultimate for the person who cut down the trees. [please stand by] we have a case where the constituency of hayes valley is very upset because we on this board made a recommendation or a finding and that finding was not adhered to by ddw and this third case where trees were cut down without a permit and simply wasnt right. And so, were going whimp out and say, ok, well give you the benefit of the doubt, again, dpw, or do what the right thing is and penalize somebody for doing this wrong thing. I dont think we cant i am not in favor of doing the whole reconstruction and i dont think the trees can be replanted because of the spaces there. But i think the statement has to be made and i think the easiest statement is finding the vendor who did not adhere to the permit requirements to the city of San Francisco and cut down these trees and if dpw doesnt like it because were treating one of their vendors improperly, then maybe you should manage the vendors better. Ill jump in before Vice President honda does. This is not about the penalty but a showing request on the item and so, i think we need to stick to that matter and to determine whether theres sufficient grounds according to the standards for granting a hearing. And so, commissioner, may i ask a question. This is not an argument by a straightforward question. I think that this hearing was resolved when we said that when we did what we did. Probably the unresolved piece is that we werent clear on, obviously, the penalty phase of our finding. I think i said this in some of the prior hearings, but the board doesnt have authority to issue penalties under the public works code for the removal of the trees without a permit and so, it really is not an issue germane to the hearing request. Thank you. And then if that is the case, then i cant support a rehearing because i think we resolved the issue, but i still have a big chip on my shoulder related to this case and two other situations aforementioned. Thank you. I hope to clarify some of the issues that the department is having, but in this particular case, again, i believe that the grounds for rehearing are very strict and theres no merits that have been presented today that were not presented at the prior hearing. We have a motion from president lazarus on the basis theres no new evidence and on that motion role call . That motion carries and the reques40 andthe request is den. Item number 6, 20041, the department of building inspection and subject property is 2443 valego street, appearing on june 9, 2020 to Dwayne Carlson of a plumbing permit and work category 2pa to install a water closet and one shower at the existing locations and expired permit 200 8081470 and pp2081117511, remove and replace one water heater or permit 2016 and 0920657, remove and replace unexposed sewer main at the building exterior and expired permit numbers 20080813 and 0829980829982 and the permit e plumbing permit, 0609028. And we will hear from the appellant first. Im here tonight with a protest appeal. This is a sense of what im living with, a neighbor, Dwayne Carlsons unit, a recent photograph didn and you can see house is boarded up and external electric equipment from zone to zone. Tso starting with my request, im asking the barred to den the bor request this. This closes out multiple of the dbfi complaints and violations and i want to understand if preferential treatment was involved in the issuance to. I want the carlson to clean up the hazardous zone since 2006 and i want it done in a safe and efficient manner to follow city rules and regulations. Theres been ongoing construction in the carls sonss unit and there was a multi week delay where inspectors wouldnt given access to the unit. Drilling down into my specific issues, i think incremental to the points in my brief, the permit disruption does not match the rebuttal description of work and really, its just obvious to me, basically in the permit description where they have a small permit for fixtures only, bathroom remodel and lists five expired permits that havent been inspected or properly dealt with. So the permit description is not clear or accurate. And the permit expires also a year from issuance, which i believe is too long for a permit of this size. And other issues are the permit has been used to close out my valid sfdbi complaints without any penalty to the carlsons. This is super concerning and evidence of preferential treatment. David letta determined an nov should be issued and in the span of a couple of hours, he said a call was made to the chief and my complaints were closed out and gone. I had this one in my brief and its back to 2006, all of the plumbing permits and i have to go back to 2006, because of the carlsons admit in their rebuttal brief they had an ongoing construction project since then and they note theres been a bathroom remodel that has been totally demolished since 2008, when they had their last roughin inspection and it still hasnt been finalled 12 years later. And so you can see on the top half of this page, they havent responded to multiple of my initial complaints on plumbing issues that werent inspected and then drilling down bubble a here, there was no there was a correction notice issued on all of this sewer work and they have to plan to fix it, but this current permit does final that sewage work didnt b and b, thie bathroom remodel from 2008 that was recently just roughinned in 2020 and it just doesnt pass the sniff test. Basically, they want you to believe that ocean park mechanical is able to come in after 12 years and everything was done to their spec to install it today. And finally, on number c, this is the current permit were talking about and i just wanted to note that mr. Rudd provided a 46page brief and apparently decided that no photographs or plans clearly showing their work would be relevant to the board and thats pretty unbelievable to me. Moving on to the factual background and context, mr. Carlson and rudd make the claim that all of a sudden, im super litigious. I purchased this unit in august of 2019 and thats not the case. For the next eight months, i have tolerated an incredible list of issues, including mr. Carlson sending me forged Plumbing Construction receipts and requesting reimbursement for them and mr. Carlson refusing my request for hoa documents and mr. Carlson sending me dozens of letters, including some that say he called folks within the dbi and have messages to deliver to me from them. And then the last straw was a couple of months ago with mr. Carlson physically and verbblverbally harassing my pret wife and resulted in court orders against him. I provided evidence of why theres preferential treatment. He says his company hasnt done a project since 2010 and i think thats not correct. Hes the president of construction and one of 13 partners in Carmel Partners and prior to that when mr. Carlson oversaw apartment buildingings owned by avalon bay and cp owns the highrise and actively upgrades them. In fact, ocean park pulled a permit and in 2018 and importantly, cp has received 75 million in sfvrs investment contracts over the past couple of years and as recently as 2019 and i expect a much higher standard there and they recently bid over 100 million for the sf property. We will hear from the permit holder, is mr. Anthony rudd here . Yes. I had a question first. I apologize. Vice president honda, go ahead. You purchased this property in 2019 as the tenants of common . Yes. How did the property look . If construction has been done, ongoing since 2006, when you viewed the property and viewed the disclosures that were supplied to you, what did they say . The disclosure said that a construction project had just started in march and the house didnt seem like it was under complete construction. It was weird that all of the windows were boarded up but i didnt think much of it at the time. Do you recall when it says any work done prior, during or in the process, was there anything filled out under those particular areas . I dont recall, but it didnt go into much detail on what was going on in the unit below me at all. Last question. All properties in San Francisco, do they require a 3r report thats a residential report of records and did you review that and did you see any and normalitieandabnormalities with. This indicates if the department has it, when it was built and all subsequent permits that are active, nonactive, completed and not completed. Was there anything that said inactive permits on there . I dont recall. There was a note that the prior owner had complained about the downstairs unit being totally demolished and i thought that it had been resolved by the dbi and, apparently, it wasnt. Ok, thank you. Mr. Rudd, thank you. Can we please spotlight mr. Rudd. And you will have seven minutes, mr. Rudd, once we get you. Just let me know when. Im. Antoni rudd representing ocean park mechanical. There have been open permits with a new permit ending 9028 and consists of three segments. Below illustrates interference issues from finishing the remodel and maintenance issues. The first consists of expired permits 46700 and water closet, one shower and we work existing rough plumbing to replace fixtures. indiscernible . Removal, rough plumbing has been reworked and been inspected and signed off in exhibit b. Work to be completed per 9028, exhibit a, permit ending 028, exhibit a, fixtures to be installed, final inspection to be recorded. Second segment, 0657, exhibit c, coach of work, remove and replace existing water heater like for like. Water heater was removed under expired permits by others. Under permit ending 9028, exhibit a, inspection has been improved. Right maining work to be completed, call for final inspection. Expose sewer line and work was completed unde under expired pes by others. Thank you. Im mr. Carlson and this is my wife carolyn. Im sorry, you still have time and mr. Carlson wants to use the time in. Yes. Can we please spotlight mr. Carlson and please go ahead. I Dwayne Carlson and this is my wife carolyn, and we have all these permits and the sewer pipe was repaired in kind and put back to code. The appellant filed a complaint about our expired permit which resulted in a notice of violation. Yet, he has an expired permit under a different permit number for the same sewer pipe. And the ability to move forward and complete our permit. We request the board of appeals to lift the suspension and allow us to complete our permit and remodel. There were a number of false accusations, one being what the back of the house looks like and we have shades and curtains up in the back of the house at all windows and hes made numerous false statements to all of the inspectors, to a number of inspectors and we have had a plumbing inspector out, two electrical inspectors out, a building inspector out, all due to complaints t and everything s addressed and all permits in hand shortly where were ready to continue and finish our remodel if he will get out of the way and stop making a mess for everybody. And theres been no plumbing work done in our house for the last five or six years, no roughin. That was done awhile back and so hes fabricating his statement there. As far as plumbing receipts, i have no idea what hes talking about. Its taken us awhile to advance and get the remodel finish. Weve had Health Issues over the year and carol lin an carolyn ar parents just repeatly and issues had taken the ability away from time with the work. With that, im finished. Just to give you an indication of i dont know if you can see this. This is may 29th. Thats the appellant. Those are curtains in our windows. And its still curtains. The other thing, a threehour report does provide evidence of all permits and information. As far as hoa documents, there are no hoa documents. You could receive that from the seller and theres just no the buyers the two Property Owners would get together and resolve whatever issues and thats the way it worked for 26 years until andrew showed up. So in part of the seller disclosure statement, of which the seller was so generous and giving us a copy of, a twounit condo. Weve lived there since 1994 and in that disclosure statement to him, of which we received a copy, it says that we now have any minutes, there are no meeting, no Bank Accounts and there nos financial records and he knows this and knew it prior to his purchase. The sewer pipe, which he is now the owner of. And both owners just split the cost. Weve had many, many, many permits over the years and weve replaced the chimney in front of the house. Its a fivestory chimney and we took it down to the ground and put it back and it has a frame underneath and that was a pretty big project. 30 seconds. Pardon me. 30 seconds. We used the same brick and replaced windows in the house, windows in the back, windows and the siding and so much work on this house, its unreal. So our neighbor keeps trying to interfere with all our projects and approvals that were done much prior on prior dates and we dont understand where hes going with this. Thats time. Thank you. We do have a question from commissioner tanner first and then we will hear from Vice President honda. Thank you, my question is for the appellants. Thank you for being here. I was reading through your brief and trying to put together a little bit of the history and i want to receive what i gathered to see if i got it right and maybe you cap fill in some of the gaps. It seemed like, as you said, youve lived here since 1994 and theres lots of ongoing projects and is there a reason why some the permits have expired and you didnt complete the work and had the final closeout . Is it that life got in the way . I can understand living in a house over time and lots of projects to fix various things at different stages when its needed. And youre not the only homeowners to have permits expire. So thats not a crime in and of itself. But can you understand why so many have expired . Did the work get completed . What exactly is happening . Well, on the plumbing side, those permits expired and just got renewed, like the water heater and the sewer pipe, we closed out. We have a roughin that we just need to go in and get the drywall and the cabinets in and the physician tour fixtures ande closed out. We are leapin hoping to start wa environmental contractor angene. We have to be done by march to finish the remodel and we want to get started. Hopefully, that answers your question. As you said, expired permits, sometimes you just forget that you did work and a contractor doesnt close it out. We didnt check. We should have checked to see what we didnt get closed our finals on and were trying to clean all that stuff of now. That makes sense, thank you. Vice president honda has a question. Mine was similar to commissioner tanners. Understanding that life happens as a realtor for 23 years, its often that i see that wer permt closed out, the roof is done and no one calls the department of building inspection to inspect and my question is more on the lines of you said that you had been there since 1994. And when you purchased it, you know, evidently, there was the lower unit and has it always been an informal homeowners association, hoa. Before we lived there, too. So we didnt inherit anything and it seemed to work until this new person purchased almost a year now and then, to be quite honest, its been hell. In fact, false accusations everyday. Hes got four attorneys working against us. [ laughter ] and our electrician was there, mentioned that an he filed which we had approved by the other owner in 2006 to install lights. So the electrician was working and while he was working, the owner the other owner came up to his car or truck and said, you dont have permission from the homeowners association. This work was approved in 2006. He filed a complaint against the contractors state license board and, basically, intimidated him and the Electrical Contractor had he does public schoolwork and he didnt want a complaint on his record. When he contracted the contractors state license board, they told the Electrical Contractor, listen, this guy doesnt have any business with you. You dont even know him. Thank you, next question would be, when he purchased it, its very common that at that time, the minutes, the budget, as well as any anticipated increases, he presented. And since you are running an informal hoa, which, to be honest, is not that uncommon, what questions are asked when he purchased it . I mean, was there a demand to get the hoa back in health or was it, this is ok and im going to go forward . He wanted to get the hoa back in health and so did we. It wasnt a problem getting the hoa back in health whatsoever. Our issue is that trying to go forward and hes digging up things from the past. Its fine to go forward. Its just really frustrating when things are there and you cant even go out in your backyard. Like, the first couple of weeks they were there, they put a camera on the back of the house and we were, like, oh, my gosh, theres a Security Camera on the back of the house facing the garden and theres only two other people in the garden. Not cut you off, thank you very much and ill ask the appellant a question, as well. Thank you. Thank you. So mr. Sanchez, this permit did not have planning permit review. But did you want to weigh in. Well pass. Well move on to the department of building inspection, joe duffy. Tonight we have an appeal on a plumbing permit which is a little bit unusual. We usually get it on the Building Permits. The plumbing permit was a permit to renew older work that was done, which is pretty common when you have expired permits. Its got a description on it, i think read out earlier and it looks like the permit got issued correctly exit looks like it will be cleaned off as you heard from the appellant. Thanking the appellant letting them know there was expired permits. I would like to thank the Property Owners for renewing the permits and hopefully they can work to getting the work completed now. And we had a series of complaints over the last year, just, like, actually since jun june 3 until july 8th, theres been 11 complaints to electrical plumbing and we had six closed and five are still open. And so, obviously, the appellant is fighting the complainants and the Property Owner, i think they stated they would take care of them. The building, hes got deadlines now on the permits. Theyre only all permits are good for a minimum of a year so he has time to fix these permi permits. We did issue a notice of violation on july of 2020 from building inspection. There was work described on permit applications from 2006 and 2012 and currently updated under a renewable permit and the completion of the work. There has been work that has been exceeded and new interior with framing and lbl, fireplace insert, wood frame added. So what they do to correct that was to file a new permit that will document the additional work and with plans and then, they will have the required plumbing in title 24 Energy Compliance and they helped the permit already to comply and that tells me theyre moving in the right direction, as well. I think from b what i see, it looks like the Property Owner has responded and regarding the chiefs, the appellant is willing to contact them and that would go to the directors office. With that, im open to any questions. President lazarus. Inspector duffy, thank you. Im confused you referenced 11 complaints within a months time and a number had been closed and some had not and were there any penalties or any nobs associated with that set of complaints or these novs that have been issues other than in this last six weeks . Is my question clear . Yes. Can you hear me . Yes. From was a penalty on the dbi. The permits, if you exceed the scope of a Building Permit, there are penalties and im not sure if there are penalties on the plumbing and electrical notice of violation. The complaints are open and im not sure with working in the building, not sure if theres any penalties. If you do Electrical Work or plumbing work, there would be a penalty on that and the electoral complaint i looked at didnt state a notice of violation had been issued. The electrical inspector did state that there would be Electrical Work Electrical Work would require an electrical permit, but i didnt see a notice of violation. Im sure if there are any penalties relevant for a building code, theyll be assessed. President lazarus, we cant hear you. Thank you. So of all of the complaints that have been filed on this project, can you state how many have resulted in actual novs . The building one did but on the electrical ones and plumbing ones, i didnt see any notice of violates. But they are still open complaints and they may result in an nov, but if someone draws our attention to the fact those were expired permits, you would tell the people to renew the permits and get a final inspection. Theres not really a penalty for that. I mean, youre basically telling someone to clean up their permits and you wont hit them with a penalty for that. An expired permit doesnt mean theres a penalty and the only time theres a penalty if you exceeded the scope of the perm permit. The permit being appealed, as far as you know, theres no issues with that permit . Thats a plumbing permit, as i said to clean up older permits. Theyre going to have to make sure that all of the work was done to code. The plumbing inspector will go back. I believe thats part of the appellants complaints and there is no way for us to inspect it. On some of the later complaints, our plumbing inspector has noted it has been resolved. Ill defer to commissioner honda, thank you. Vice president honda. My question is, the permit holder had indicated that there is an expired permit on the other property, as well. Is there only one expired permit on the appellants property. So i havent checked that . I havent checked that, mr. Honda. Sorry to interrupt. If he wants to file a complaint, well look into that, similar to what the appellant did. Is there a possibility during rebuttal, you have the ability to see if there are any open permits on the other property as well . What is the other property address . I only have one block and so if theres a property address given to me, i would look that up. I had 2443. I believe its 2331 valego. I can try to find that. A lot of Building Permits in sanfrancisco and properties that expire and sometimes in highrise buildings, singlefamily homes or two unit buildings and youll find a few units that expire. A lot of times we dont spend out reminders which i think something going forward, i wish we could probably do and ive said that if you take out a library book, youll get a note to leave it back but you can pull a Building Permit and we dont let you know. The people get the work done and the contractor leaves and the Building Permits expire and you know, its not until the property sold or someone moves in next door that they find out when the property sold, theres usually a rush to renew the expire permits. In toward resolve these issues and get the work done and inspected and to investigate the other complaints, we would need to move forward with this permit so they can resolve their violation and get everything cleaned up. Is that correct . Yes. That would be correct. I think the appellant is concerned of the ongoing inspections that would be needed in order to close out this permit. As we stated earlier, if work was covered up previously withii think that and yes, we want this permit going so that they can proceed to get to the finish line and thats what theyre stating that they want to do. As i said, they are under time limits now because of the notice of violates and violation and d to a cleaner permit history for this property. Thank you. President lazarus. Thank you, i retrieved my thoughts earlier. I believe you said that when issues have been brought to the attention of the permit holders, that theyve been generally responsive and have followed up to do whats needed with the permits . It would seem that way to me, yes. It looks like theyve been pretty you know, like, for example, on the complaint for the plumbing permit, they got an ocean park mechanical done and then on the other building inspection, it may have taken awhile to get us in, we issued the notice on the 8th of july and so it looks like they are responsive, yes, i would say that. And so, they are in th the enforcement process and its 30 days on the building notice and that could be extended, but they are that notice will not go away until all permits are completed and when you have that other train going at a different speed than the permits, about that, ultimately would be a problem if they said say we move ahead tonight, the permit is upheld, theres still a in the of violation on the property because of the work that they exceeded. Vice president honda. One more question to inspector duffy. Do you have the ability to pull the 3r, by chance . Not tonight, no, sorry. Anyone here to provide Public Comment, please raise your hand. I dont see anyone here for Public Comment and we will move on to rebuttal. Mr. Alspa, you have three minutes. Thank you, miss rosenburg. The opposition wants you to think this is an hoa issue only, but if you look at the july 2nd nov by the Building Department, its a pretty big deal and so the building inspector, after over a month of trying to get in, walked into their unit and found that there was new walls put up in place, and much of the house was ripped down to the studs. And noticed structural changes were made. Thats what lvl beams are. Its pretty serious structural changes i would not installed when im living upstairs. It shows a tiny scope which shows fixtures and this is turning in the showerhead and toilet and then it lists, basically, just five permit numbers without describing what work will be done or what work was done on those permits. It makes me really nervous and i think an inadequate permit. Permit. I think president lazarus asked if there would be other complaints and i want to clarify for everyone that the Building Department did make the nov, it was a major violation and the Electrical Department made in their notes that there will be a correction issued and the Plumbing Department has made in their notes that there would be an nov issued and so this isnt, like, somebody about a bunch of work and didnt final it and now the work needs to be finalled. This has been an ongoing saga and if you look at the last owner of my unit, she complained in 2020 and said the downstairs unit was totally demolished and she wasnt able to get the momentum to get this done. So i dont know whats going on down there, but calling this a simple common sf hoa dispute is not what it is. And if you look at the july 2nd nov, you can clearly see that. So in summary, i think on this particular permit, the description of the permit is totally inadequate and should be clearly spelled out what work will be done. And then the evidence of preferential treatment is clear and mr. Duffy, you said that mr. Letta made a comment in the notes that the plumbing would be closed out with the new permit and for the record, he didnt make that entry in the computer and i will be following up and figuring out who did make that entry, because he was actively investigating this project and i called him and said what happened and he said, i dont know, it was closed out but not by me. We will now hear from the permit holder, mr. Carlson, will you be speaking or mr. Rudd . Mr. Carlson. Hi, im carolyn and so this is actually, you cant see it, but it was an amended violates and so it does not list any structural work and, actually, in the brief or the response, we have a letter from our Structural Engineer and says we visited the property and performed visual walkthrough of the current work being performed and the modifications include furring of existing wall, infill openings and relocations, replacement of nonbearing walls and all of these do not need hoa approval. Based on the visual observations and review of the documents, the workinprogress does not compromise this structural integrity. And he addressed the lvl. They were just to strengthen the floors, which this is an old house, 1906, and its been there a long time and they dont make them there. And we had new electrical permits. All we had to do was get a new electrical permit because he chased off the previous one and theres to issue there. If you look at exhibit l, we have a list of the appellants outbreak permits and hes got a band room remodel that these are things that concern us, a bathroom remodel and theres a bedroom and this is a picture of what we had we had a waterproofing consultant in the appellants inspection report. This was put in by another other than and doesnt conform and this window is all cracked and its still leaking, but the owner has had this window for over a year. And cammed the permit. Canceled the permit that the other owner installed and theres a lot of outstanding permits he has and electrical, expired permits and the same sewer pipe we mentioned and three windows on the extirier or were never finalized and fixtures in the bathroom were expired, too. This was for the chimney and the previous owners bathroom remodel so he knows. Thats time. Thank you. We will now hear from the Department Building inspection, mr. Duffy. I dont have anything to add unless someone has questions. You didnt find any permit history. These people got a permit and theres a permit back i in 2007 and Everything Else looks completed. There was canceled permits and so i dont see any current permits. It looks like the current permits, there were three canceled permits and three completed permits since 2008 and i can go back further, but no, no, thats fine. Theres nothing obvious there. But, again, they can call the department in the morning and file a complaint. It looks like thats where theyre going and theyre welcome to do that. Thank you, commissioner lazarus and commissioner swigg. Just to clarify, in your mind, this particular permit is what it purports to be in the description of the work is accurate . As much as my experience, conscience i did more with Building Permits but it looks like a permit to close out what that was and never got a final inspection. It is the permit they needed and if our plumbing that would be a separate matter. A lot of these permits are taken out online, as well. Theres a way of obstructing other things that a developer or a project sponsor doesnt want the Building Department to see. Do you see any evidence of this or this is just a lot of work thats gotten done with permits that have gone unfulfilled or unclosed . Very good question. I think its a bit of both or little bit of everything and, obviously, there were permits taken out and never got closed out properly. And there was work that got exceeded, not a lot of work and, apparently, theres a notice of violation i havent seen but there was there is theres some cleanup to do, there definitely is is the appellant drew our attention to it and we responded and when you write people up and tell them, you have permits here and this project has been going on for years, you need to renew your permits and get the project finish. And get a final inspection. Thats what it looks like to me. Am i missing something . I dont think i am. And the action that they needed to take is what were dealing with tonight and thats the process they started, by renewing the plumbing permits and then theyre dealing with the notice of violates on obtaining Building Permits for that work. And as called to our attention by the appellant, the july 3rd permit, where sorry, july 3rd nov actions on the aforementioned permits and with those identities that were created not by a citizen complaint but rather than by internal dvi personnel, does that give you any concern with regard to the permit in question tonight . That happens all the time where people double up and its not really the chief has a lot of power to do things and when you cant override if if its the right thing to do. Hes welcome to bring that up, but i do not see a difference in the notice of violation. I think thats what youre asking. What is our concern with regard to his question related to the plumbing permit which was being handled by one inspector and who was going to finalize it or deal with it and upon further review, determines that it had been closed out by somebody not actively involved in the permit . I just mentioned that and hell have to bring that up with the Plumbing Division and the chief plumbing inspector or Deputy Director or directors office. I dont have any outside of what this permit is about and if you ask me, its an accusation and, obviously, i would say they email on a daily basis questioning actions by people at dvi and people i supervise and not unusual to be challenged on something we have done. Its ok to question that. With regard to this permit tonight, i dont have a comment on what thats about. In the aggregate and president lazarus advice always in my mind, that is stay to the task at hand, much of the activity were discussing tonight has nothing to do with the permit under discussion and we should stay focused on the permit and with regard to all of the questions i just asked you and they have nothing to do with tonights permit . Yes. Theres a different form tor that. Hes welcomed to bring it up tonight, but i think its something he should direct towards management at this point in regards to it. If he thinks an inspector would sign a complaint and someone came over his head and dont worry about it, the person that closed the complaint, that should be brought to that persons supervisor. Thats ok to do that and its not a problem. When i looked at the complaint earlier today and i did see it, it looked to me like mr. Letta had a plumbing inspector and hes a senior plumbing inspector and he is dealing with the current plumbing complaints that are still open on the property, we did receive 11 complaints in a little over a month and five are still opened and plumbing, actually let me see how many are open. And were still dealing with one plumbing complaint that is open. That was filed on 5 16 2020 and i think the appealant knows how to contact dbi. It would be the chief plumbing inspector. Mr. Alspa. Bear with us, we get the cases and read the briefs and then we hear oral comment and things change a little bit and so, first of all, do you have any active current withdrawal or expired permits on your particular property . Since ive been here, one has been canceled that carlson has mentioned and part of the reaso. But part of the reason is because he found the carlsons difficult to deal with and no, im not doing any active Construction Projects or have any active permits open. And then, the permit holders that mentioned that you have an expired permit for your property. Yeah. So the difference between my situation and theirs, think, is theyre pointing to a permit that was work that was done that wasnt final inspected two owners ago on different projects in my house and i cant speak much to that, but the thing that makes all their issues relevant are theyve been doing this construction project since 2006 and theyve been continually recommencing this permit and the house is largely deconstructed down there and so thats kind of the difference between as i see it between them pointing at some project. Not to interrupt you, but were all at shelterinplace and having construction done, daily, consistently since you owned it, its been kind of tough and just a side question, where are you at with getting your hoa squared away . We are i requested mediation in arbitration and that is scheduled for august and besides that, i have a civil lawsuit for damages and im pursuing this fraud incident where theres been forged receipts sent to the hoa that i have that changed receipt and i have the original receipt and it makes it pretty hard to deal with. So theres drama going on. Because without the youre in violation of your condo papers and the articles and corporation require that you have ccr budgets and meetings and so that was just a side question that doesnt pertain to that permit but thank you for anesthesiologistinansweringthat. Thank you, commissioners, this matter submitted. Commissioners, im happy to jump in again and just to offer that i have not heard anything that makes me think this permit should not have been issued and that it was issued properly and, also, understanding that until this is resolved, nothing else will move forward. So my inclination barring hearing anything else is to deny the appeal. I agree with president lazarus. I agree, absolutely and im going to give darryls speech before he gives it or maybe it was frank fungs speech before darryl started giving it. I would encourage you to make peace because you all live together and we are encouraging openmindednessmindedness, flexd warmth and human kindness. As we see as a lack of moving in that direction, what were experiencing tonight, it does give us pain to see two neighbors at war. I support the denial of the appeal, but i hope we dont see you back here again and i hope you can resolve your difficulties in an amicable fashion, thank you. Theres no other comments, then i will make that motion to deny the appeal on the basis that the permit was properly issued. Ok, we have a motion from president la disturzarus on thet it was properly issued and on that motion role call . So thatting motion carries 40 and the appeal is denied. If we may take a short break before moving to the next item, five minutes. So lets make it 6 45 to make it even. Thank you. The meeting of the San Francisco board of appeals and we are now resuming with item number 7, appeal 20042, richard versus San Francisco public works, 18wr0369 and we will hear from mr. Sego yorvia first. You have seven minutes, sir. I reside at 2880 25t 2880 25th street and ive been in this house almost 57 years, in the neighborhood my whole life and my concern is that this g4 has cancer, gives cancer to people, which i am a cancer survivor and right now, im going through a big white bloodcell spike in my body and i want to keep away from anything around me that transmits cancer. My neighbors are upset about the situation, like i am, and i dont want that in my neighborhood, especially across the street from my home. I work with a lot of children and i do a lot of teaching and mentor kids and i have my grandkids and Great Grandkids come to my house all the time. My concern is this cancer t4 across the house. My neighbor lives at 2900, 25th street and told me about this. Im against it all completely and i want to know, when will enough be enough in San Francisco, you know, for corporate gain . Our health and safety is more important than money can buy and for me to see this happen is unacceptable and my neighbors are upset, im upset and, like i said, i am a cancer survivor and i dont need to be around anything like tha that. Im 67 years old and that would be unacceptable to have in my neighborhood. Theres one on 25th and utah and im against putting this in my neighbor, especially when i live across the street that could give me cancer and bring it back into my life again. As far as im concerned, i dont want that in my neighborhood. Are you finished . Yes. Ok, well hear from the permit holder, michael montoya. You have seven minutes. Thank you, and good evening, madam president , Vice President and commissioners. I work in external Relations Department and im here to ask that the appealing denied. And i have two points to make here. The first point is that the department of Public Health correctly reviewed the reports on radio frequency and, specifically, found that this location will be performing at a 1. 3 out of 100 allowed by the sec. And so the 1 is very, very low and way under the standards. The second point i want to make is that the Planning Department reviewed this application and determined that the application meets all requirements and criteria for the approval. And specifically, the Planning Department found that this application proposed would not significantly detract from the character of the adjacent properties. And i do understand that theres a beautiful muelle mural on thee and that was taken into consideration when we were looking for suitable locates. Locations. I want to share my screen here and demonstrate to you what the facility looks like and ill share my screen here. We have hundreds of these locations throughout the city and this is not a new design or new proposal and the department of public works has approved these in the past. You can see in this photo simulation that the proposed equipment is no more intrusive than the exists utility infrastructure and you see here a utility box and its roughly the same size as the proposed location. And this is an overlay of the distance which is measured to bt away from the residence. And looking for a facility, we didnt loowelooked at six altere locations and for the coverage necessity, which is south on york and that means that the antenna is directed to the south, not the home and we found that location was most appropriate and determined that other locations were not buildable. The most common reason would be geo95 violations and that the Utility Company, we are required to abide by those standards. And these are just examples of that and you can see that these other poles are cluttered and theres no room for an antenna. As far as the concern regarding cancer, there is more evidence that thesno evidencethat these e transmitting cancer. The propagation is that 1 of the standard, so its very low. And ill start sharing my screen now. And im sorry just one brief summary. We, actually a closing statement. And given that the dph has reviewed the application, given that the Planning Department reviewed the application and both have recommended approval, we respectfully request that this will be denied and that the original permit be valid. Thank you, mr. Montoyo. We will now hear from the department, mr. Palasio from public works. Can you hear me . Yes, we can, thank you. Good afternoon, Vice President and members of the board. Im representing public works, bureau street mapping and we believe this was issued in compliance with the public works code article 25 for personal Wireless Service facilities and article 25 requires public works refer wireless applications to the department of Public Health and the Planning Department and both departments determine this application complies with article 25 and as a result, public works issued a final termination in approving the application after the andbl it d in. The Planning Department is in attendance and can speak more to the review process. The Health Department is not in attendance but can take comments through email. Thank you. And so, mr. Sanchez, would you like to weigh in . Sure thing. This is not a planning location. The planning protected locations are where you are street views or you have historic issues and in this case, its just because its in a Residential Zoning District and the zoning protected location compatibility standard means that an applicant or personal Wireless Service facility site permit, zoning protective location demonstrates the Wireless Service facility would not significantly detract from any of the defining characteristics of the residents. And thats the standard that is applied to given the design, it was compliant and there were no issues and we approved it based on the design and i appreciate this that the appellant raised Health Concerns and that is generally not for the board as long as theyre compliant with the fcc guidelines. You and leo seem to be in the same place with background. I think were on different sides of the bridge. We havent seen you in quite some time and you have the si p gsipthing going on. Mr. Search egovia, you cant provide Public Comment because youre a party but were moving on to rebuttal in just a moment so hold on just a moment. Is there anyone here who wants to provide Public Comment . We have miss boler. Please go ahead. I want to speak about the situation. I think that the appellant has good reason to be concerned and not want that across the street. I was party at one point in the valley where an appeal was made at putting one of those across near the hospital, the hospital wanted it for the better communication of the people inside. And the person across the street from it appealed and the man i think he was called brother somebody he conceded, then, that it would be neighborly of him to impose that on the neighborhood and he withdrew his application. During the course of that, i paid some attention to the permitting of such things in the neighborhood and im not patient with the technicalities that line up so that the personal needs of a citizen are overrun by an enterprise that is not healthy, which is a debatable point. I dont believe it is healthy and many people dont. And so thats what i just wanted to speak in favour of the appellants rights. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other Public Comment on the item . Please raise your hand. Ok, so we will move on to rebuttal and mr. Segovia, you have three minutes. Its very important for the safety of our neighborhood, being a native of San Francisco since 1953 that we need to stop didnt geand get our neighbors d stop letting these corporate neighborhoods to come in. I feel being born and raised in the Mission District, this has to stop and this is the first part of stopping this, is not letting these people come into our neighborhood and do Something Like that to its unhealthy, especially with me being in remission. I cant take a chance that nothing will happen and i dont want to see it happen to me and i dont want this to happen to any of my neighbors. We have a lot of seniors in my neighborhood that are totally against it and being in the Mission District, i own that latin rock house, thats the house i live in. People are walking by my house, asking, what will you do about it . A lot of these people couldnt afford the 300 and something dollars to do something about it. And so i beg of you, please think about what youre doing and think about peoples safety and the Mission District and not let these Corporate Companies come in and try to control our neighborhoods. Thats why im still here in the Mission District because i believe in our naked neighborhod i believe in district 9. Thank you. We will hear from the representative, the permit holder. You have three minutes. Thank you. It seems like the concerns are around Health Effects and so, ill just repeat what i said. This is within the standards of 1. 3 of ground level and anyways verthatsvery low and any others that mr. Segovi arc hasa has, id be happy. You cant speak now. Go ahead, mr. Montoya. And i do want to point out that the reports are conducted by a thirdparty consultant and so, they have to affiliation to us or the Service Provider and we are helping the community in that were providing a service thats needed, where a Utility Company will provide Cell Phone Service and its important even more so now that people have coverage and access to the different providers. Thank you. Mr. Palasias. We have a question. Yes. Can you show the graphic that showed the alternative locates that you investigated, please. Yes, ill pull it up. All locations are right in the same area . Yes, thats correct. There are other locations where we believe the location would be more intrusive to the neighborhood and would affect the esthetics and not fit in with the characteristics of the surrounding houses and existing infrastructure. And then, when you evaluate these, theres too much theres other items on the pole and you cant fit this in there. And is there any other where things cant fit and maybe theres no room. But what about Service Provision . How does the location of these poles vary in terms of Service Provision or would all poles provide the same service to customers . So, as i mentioned earlier, the Service Objective is south oon york and well be propagatig south, not towards the home and you can see that any of these locations if there was room in them, but any of these will not be will not give us the ability to reach that propagation target. Great. And youre correct that were limited to the field conditions, the pole nearby are very loaded with the existing Power Equipment and other communication equipment and so we have to abide to 95 standards because this is owned by pg e and so, we are limited in that respect. Is there any ability in order to provide the service that you want, to be more on a commercial street or not in the residential area . Is that a possibility for this service youre trying to provide . The purpose is to provide service to a smaller geographical location because near not very powerful and dont propagate very far and theyre designed to meet a coverage gap and that means that theres a lot of traffic and so, the Service Provider has determined that that location will serve that purpose. And so we are limited, also, to that effect. Ok, thank you. So we will now ahea hear from public works and we do have a question from commissioner swiggs and im sorry, we cant hear you. Yeah, for mr. Palazio. Why dont we let him do his rebuttal. I dont have any further comments. Its just to reiterate or to ensure the public that the department of Public Health did have a condition on this permit that the andbl there has to be r acts to ensure theyre compliant in their application. If any members have concerns concerning antennas in their dwelling, then it should have taken the ring to ensure it is below ftv guidelines. If for whatever reasons the permitee is not able to do this, they can call the department of health or public works and have a representative goin go to that location to make sure they match what they stated on the radio frequency sites. Thats it. Ok, so well hear from commissioner swigg and commissioner l absoluteazarus an commissioner tanner. Thank you. Having been through several of these types of hearings, this is the most kindest and gentlest hearing of this type on this subject that ive experienced. Normally, we have 20 people in Public Comment, but since they changed the jurisdiction, i guess, the focus is now on the puc. And mr. Palacios this is all under article 25 and, ultimately, you know, the end is probably going to be here, because of the article 25 and has farreaching tendr irils to reach the company. My question today and julie, if you would join him in that email, in june of 2019, i believe, and i dont know the specific date, but i think june 18, this board made a formal request to the department of health to update their 2010 findings on the impact of microwave and other related elements tornad associated withe installations for the benefit of the public and for the benefit of our commission. And we requested that again in august and we were told its coming and we requested it again, i believe, in november and they said its coming and in december. December came and went and there was no report. And, then, obviously, the last six months has been horrible with the covid pandemic and i know all their attentions are rightfully on the covid pandemic. But that still remains that for people like mr. Montoya, who is a cancer survivor, not to mention my fellow commissioner, honda, and others dreadfully scared their lives are risked by these installations, it is still a responsibility and i would assume a respectful requirement that the department of Health Please respond to this boards formal request for an update of their 2010 report on the impact of these installations and so would you please, on my behalf carry that message to them and ask them where that report is, please . Yes. Because now its 14 months later and we have nothing and i cant tell you how sympathetic i am to the appellant today and in the that im not sympathetic to mr. Montoya, the permit holder, but we have issues from the past, not you and i, but in general on this issue and we really need resolution for the public from the city of San Francisco and the city of San Franciscos Health Department has to get up to date on this item. Thank you very much. Thank you. President lazarus. Question for mr. Palacia. I believe the orders require that freeze be planted and do you have a sense of whether, in fact, this has happened to help camouflage the equipment on the poles an . And i believe that was a requirement for this permit, as well interest. Thats correct. For all personal wireless applications on utility poles, there is a requirement to plant a tree and the applicant can also choose to pay the inlieu tree fee to go to the tree fund and i believe for this application, that was elected. So instead of planting a tree, they just pay the inlieu tree fee which goes to the bureau of urban forestry and they would delegate which areas. Do you monitor that so you know if a tree has been planted or the inlieu fee has been paid . We move the application to the bureau of forestry and its on them because were not the experts. We give it to them and so they should have, im assuming some report on which applications have gone to planting a tree or just the status on those. But we do collect the fees and in the past, we do move applications to the bureau of forestry on their court to determine what the next steps will be. Well, perhaps i could direct that to mr. Buck. I believe hes on the call . Mr. Buck . He may have stepped away. Ill sit on it and ask it as an aside in the next item. So we have a question from commissioner tanner. Mr. Buck, if we could spotlight chris buck, please. President lazarus, please go ahead. I dont know if you heard my question. I was inquiring about the requirement that the tree be planted in conjunction with each of these installations and they were explaining that there is the option if not to plant the tree to pay the inlieu tree and i was curious if your department keeps track of each installation and whether the tree has been planted or the fee has been paid . Thank you, chris buck with public works, bureau of urban forestry. I wasnt listening to all of the the details of this particular case, to be honest. But that is correct. The tree is required to be planted if theres room and if theres not enough room, adjacent to that property, sometimes a pole straddles two properties and we look at both sites of that frontage and if theres no room for a tree to be planted, then the inlieu fee is required to be paid by the utility. And so that is something i can follow up on, just to check the status for this particular case and that is something that we do exactly as you explained, is to track it and follow up on it. Ok, and im not particularly concerned about this one, i just wanted to sort of ascertain that, in fact, each of these is accounted for, because certainly, there have been a number of these in installations. Yes, correct. It comes up a lot and just generally and were really familiar with the wireless process. Our superintendent needs to be working for the bureau of streets and mapping for a couple of years and theres a lot of communication about the Tree Planting requirement. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner tanner. Following up on that question, is there any effort made to plant the tree within the neighborhood. Looking at the images, its a neighborhood that could use more trees and i would hate to see this in a large fund and in another part of the city and not adjacent where were trying to make repair for this wireless facility people installed. The current code is directly adjacent to the property. However, the mechanism that allows us to address the Environmental Issues is really our urban forest plan and kind of identifies those communities the least amount of green and are in the greatest need. So the planting and implementation of the urban forest plan is to target those communities first. So to some degree, that those funds do fund the planting of trees in those neighborhoods that are most in need. And so, like, for 24th street, obviously, our current efforts with mission verde, will add green in the 24th street corridor. And so it works more that way. And we cant tie the planting, but it could be a code change that, like, ok, the next available planning site closest to the site, it could become a policy. Thank you. My other question, you did mention the need to take the reading and i wonder if you could if you know it, relay to the appellants, the time frame in which that should be taken and how and where it was filed and obtain that report. Yes, so once they do the installation, the applicant, within 30 days of installation needs to produce the post radio frequency study report and it gets sent to the department of Public Health and they knee it t for their records. Generally within the first 30 days. If the appellant would try to connect with you in dph, is that something they could do for you . Yes, we get a few requestions frorequeststhat has tried, theis to get the radio frequency report and in some cases, if the public really wants it, its more urgent and thats fine. Then they would call us and we would contact arthur from the department of Public Health. And generally, its done within a few days of the request. You know, he speaks to the representative and then, they schedule a time on when theyre going to be around in the vicinity and they would go and take the reading. They are able to do dwelling readings, but under the current covid i believe theyre not able to go inside the dwellings per the restrict restrict restr. If the facility were to fail, would it be . If it goes above the emissions, they would have to fix it or take it down. Generally, we have an inspectorreinspectorand they wot steps to take. They could take it down and it would be on the discretion of the inspectors. Thank you. Thank you. Ok, mr. Sanchez, do you have anything further . Nothing further, thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, this matter is submitted. I noticed that a matter of the public is raising their hand but Public Comment is over, so we wont be taking comments at this time. Commissioners . As i said earlier, i think this permit is protected under the watchful eye of article 25 and therefore, it was issued properly, i would move regrettably to deny the appeal. And for me, to the appellant, this board has heard many, many cases and we have fought hard and long battles and as my fellow commissioner said, last week was my ninth year survivor for being stage 4 cancer and my sons nine year is next month and i get it more than most people. And if you hadnt been in the hearing before, the federal government has an article 25 which really limits our ability regarding any Health Concerns, to be honest. And its sad and every member on this board has fought for that. And then further, the board of supervisors further lessened our ability to hear these cases, as well. And so, unfortunately, im very sympathetic, very, very, very sympathetic but i, in this particular case will vote along with commissioner swigb. I would like to ask one more question to mr. Palacios. You referenced situations somebody asked for a reading one the device is activated. Are you aware of any cases have exceeded the standards. No, they all match what the rf report application reflects and it all matches. Not only have they not exceed thexceeded standards but the amount projects . Under my watch, thats correct. Commissioner tanner. I just wanted to follow alo along, to the appell anant, even though were not denying the appeal, i really encourage you to follow up with mr. Palacios and julie rosenburg, and the director of the board of appeals. Please avail yourself of the right to get the reading report that will show what the rf emissions from that facility is after its installed. And as president lazarus referenced, if you feel comfortable scheduling an inhome meeting, they can read it from your home, what the read of the emissions so shake sure to take advantage of those things, because youve gone this far and while we cant do anything, you want to avail yourself of the rights you have in the city. But i agree, unfortunately, with commissioner swigg, that this in terms of what is needed to issue the permits. We have a motion from commissioner swigg to deny this. On that motion. role call . That motion carries 40 and the appeal is denied. And i do want to say, i will email you leo palosios Contact Information tomorrow. Thank you. And so now item number 8, a special item, discussion and possible action regarding a presentation by representatives from San Francisco public works on how Construction Projects are coordinated with the bureau of urban forestry and the process for tree removal. Additionally public works will address the tree removal which occurred in the hayes valley by the Public Commentators at the july 1, 2020 board of appeals and we will hear first from trent tiger who is a project manager with public workers. And so if we could spotlight him, please. Im trent tiger for the Streetscape Project and i was asked to come back, the bureau of urban forestries to talk about some issues that we encountered on our previous case that i presented at the board of appeals. It was brought up that our project had essentially proceeded with the construction surrounding the removal of the tree prior to receiving the permit and overall, it came up at the meeting, commissioner honda also had a couple of questions about it and, you know, from my perspective it was an oversight on our part, to not hold back on this work prior to receiving the permit and, unfortunately, we were trying our best to balance Construction Cost delays and, especially, working during covid, just kind of, we got ahead of ourselves on the work. Overall this has started a positive internal dialogue and ive taken away a lot and have shared it with my team and there are issues im more cognizant of and kind of on a larger scale, were tightening up a lot of procedures, working during the design and construction phases. please stand by . Have you told that to the contractor. We are writing into our punch list of, these are the things the project managers need to do to ensure that the tree will be protected during while its subject of appeal. Those are some of the things were doing. We have begun an internal process and we have presented it to you before at the continued 1501 points item. You know, in the meantime, trees do need to be protected and placed. That is. Theyre reserved for cases where its a repeat offender and someone is completely running a fowel of our ordinance again and again and again. We have involved the City Attorneys Office to pursue criminal cases and that item is outside tanting and i want to assure you that for 1501 quinte were not choosing the lesser of our fine option and we have actually joshua clip, we worked on some of some Code Amendment changes ar are and i know we haa another item. My preference is to tackle this one and move to octavia haze. But thats my initial statement about why weve will be before you. In many ways, we should have been more clear to our colleagues. Do not initiate work in that location for the culdesac. Dont touch that corner. Do the other stuff, you know, if you get denied, we need to make everyone understand that this is not approved. And weve always said someone will say well how long does it take to get approval and ill tell them, i cant guarantee awe approval. My gosse cant guarantee you approval. So, we hate the fact that it looks like weve made private citizens wait and then for City Projects we have, in these last couple of cases, it makes it look like well do whatever we want. The damage to the city in those cases is really far more than financial. So, again, weve been looking at code changes. We have persuade criminal penalties in the past and its pretty rare and were definitely not choosing the lesser fines for 1501quinte and were making sure our colleagues understand not to be initiating work in that area because its not going to meet any optics whatsoever. Thats my initial staple and and concerns for you all. I think since you have a presentation you should finish it with respect to the haze valley and well have Public Comment after so we can have Public Comment on both subject items. Understood, thats fair. What ill do for haze valley is share a quick powerpoint. If you can confirm you can see it on your screen. Yes. You need to. He he need to go to view. Put it into it will just right side itself. Control. There we go. Thank you, commissioner, for the technical advice. Regarding octavia hayes, it was unfortunate. Again, ive been to many board of appeals hearings and theres rarely general Public Comments. So to have board of appeals to be put on blast, by tree advocates on an item and is unprecedented and unfortunate and were here to talk about that and debrief about what happens. So in this particular case, i sent julia member and we decided that we might just hold on to this until we came before you this evening. I submitted this on july 13th. So following the most recent board of appeals hearing you received negative impact about removing trees that are permanent. So what i want to do is provide in writing the context of the comments that were presented and really provide you assurance that the Board Members that our bureau always has and will continue to take direction from the board very seriously as well as properly following the processes required by our ordinance. And this isnt too lengthy but i want to go through it. The merchants and restaurants of hayes valley for daytime closure to allow for social distancing and expanded reopening. To support these businesses that have suffered during the last several months, our bureau cruise dropped everythincrewsdrk would not happen in conflict with outdoor diners and shoppers. Our communication of the neighbourhood, regarding larger tree work, was already in motion. Door hang arrest were distributed through the key map areas affected, letters were sent to the printer in mail but the letters were not in time for this expedited portion of the work. We recognize better communication of the specific 2. 5 block area was significantly helped to let the neighbours know what was happening. I will emphasize that at end, thats a bit of an underestimate. Your board upheld the public works order and on a condition the removal not begin until a replacement tree is in place which includes the replacement trees on the basis that this is in line with the department intention provides transparency and we revised our species after the hearing. It remained open a feedback with a sense of meetings in the last several weeks including the review of result of a neighbourhood survey. These insights were incorporated into an updated map and spread sheet what will be planted and where. Some commenters indicated that the exact trees to be removed and or pruned was not known or available. Is the 28 trees that were planned to be removed and approved by the commission, were planned to be removed and this is included in the planting plan discussed at several meeting with Community Members. Theres no change to this plan since the boards determination. Six of the scheduled 28 removals were completed early. Only trees that were approved for removal and were located within the two and a half block area near the f. Of haze and ok tair radaia were removed and the remainer of trees were the area were pruned. They represent a small portion scheduled for two grid areas we wish to emphasize the intention and removing trees was support local Business Reopening and it was limited to six removal and pruning of only two and a half blocks. Our contractor will soon meet the removal in both key maps ex the staff will repair sidewalks, shift basins as necessary and plant trees within the mandated three month window concerns were raised that were not protecting nesting birds and our tree crew told me they saw abandoned nests and we make every effort to check for nests and avoid non emergency work and trees and nests. The nest in not a bird nest and none the rest, when it was brought tour attention and just to deescalate any concerns from the public. And one plan was we did not do a 30day posting for the removals and to clarify the trees were most note today provide an opportunity for protest. They were posted and appeared to board of appeals. The 30 day notice of street tree removal is in sole lar purposes of allowing and the public to request an add stray tive hearing under our code. Theres no requirement in the public works code that a notice is required for both purchasing and additionally to notify the public again that the tree will be removed. This is never been our practise and could lead to more confusion as there is no appeal right. Weve never we essentially had permission to remove the trees pending the finalized pee seize list and im about to wrap it up. Although not required by code, we have placed door hangers and sent letters to neighbours and advance of our crews or works in a neighbourhood since the street tsf programme began three years ago. We did so in this case but acknowledged the expediting of a small area to suppose and the Global Pandemic without additional neighbourhood notification to the two appellants. Made our outreach confusing and lead to the concerns that were raised at the july first hearing and ill quickly wrapup just showing this is the finalized list of species that we won approval on with the board and with the community and with the appellants and we also have the species mapped out and i wanted to show that to you. The different species where theyre planted and there are power lines so we have to plant smaller stature trees under power lines and larger trees no power lines and we divide this into two maps. When we received your result in decision back in the fall, in october, we initiated the meeting to finalize the species list. Weve been discussion the species actively with the community and the appellant since october. And so, we made a mistake to not reach out and say look, weve got this open street permit coming. We really need to move on two and a half blocks and we are close to female using this list. Are we going to move forward and what do we do is we allowed not allowed but we agreed to allow the appellant, susan, additional time to do her own survey. Community survey. So, we originally were hoping to do all the this work before the winter holidays and realised it wouldnt possible due to tree work more to be yum on a commercial corridors and we were heavily engage and i think we made a colossal error in not reaching out to the two appellants in this case and subpoena it waitwas the public e received. Thats the full accounting of what happened recently in octavia. With that, the tree work is a lot of the work is completed so far in the last several weeks we havent received any Service Request or emails or complaints about that and the our most recent public works, appeals hearings before you two weeks ago prior to the 24th street case we did not receive additional complaints or comments from those protestors, those members of the public who appealed and spoke during Public Comment on july 1th. You did not receive any negative additional feedback two weeks ago which underscores that we realised our mistake and were fast to pivot and get back in touch with those appellants and make sure were doing things right by them so i wanted to point that out it was a learning process but i can a sawyer you there were no trees removed without permit and we would never do that knowingly and that am ar eyeses the Public Comment that we received a couple weeks ago. We have a question from commissioner swig. Sure. Yeah, chris, are you the last presenter . I am. Good. Along with yourself so, first of all, chris, this is all your fault because six years ago, when i first started on this commission, you turned me into a tree lover. So congratulations. Thank you very much. I havent looked back, best drug i have ever had. Thank you, very much. I appreciate that and its become very aware and conscious of trees in San Francisco. It is a priority for me and i think mr. Tiger and i think mr. Tiger in the rest of your organization it is incumbent for dpw to use the word tree because im going to give you a cheap shot, chris, how many empty tree spaces are there in north beach today . Too many to count. 68 . Our inspector i have to tap in our inspector for north beach. A good large number. Across the city. We have thousands across the city. There are thousands of holes in the ground that used to house trees that dont house trees. Dpw in my view, and of course, again, mr. Buck is responsible for my view. Ill throw you under the bus, sorry chris. Its there are thousands of holes in the ground where there used to be trees and d. P. W. Really needs to make those thousand holes a priority first and for most and in your orientation, add d. P. W. And in this retraining i hope the word priority is utilized in conjunction with the word tree. And that is where it starts. Its a change in culture. If we were talking about the fact that were killing girls or squirrels or eagles, sitting in trees, my god, all hell would break loose. Trees are they give us a lot the fresh air we breathe so, really, i want to encourage you both to carry back to your leadership the real need for using the word priority in in all and also, when theres a d. P. W. Construction team or an outside contractor acting on behalf of the b. P. W. That contractor also have a priority aligned to a tree as their number one priority and at least equal with every other priority that they might have in that day. Thats the only way well stop this series of activities which seems to have snowballed on themselves but its not new behaviour. Really, i encourage you priority tree. In everything. Thats it. Thank you, we will hear from Vice President honda. So, you dont get credit for my treeloving, chris, mine started with karla short. Sorry. So in short, it was a nice presentation. What you are saying is that theres no violation all the trees were removed in accordance to the guidelines that and the species had been specifically identified and how that is going to happen. I will say, commission honda, we have back up species and we had discussions right off the bat back in november when we order trees we dont always have availability and so there were a lot of that we were discussing and reviewing and based on appellant feedback we continue to try to finalize that list. That list wasnt 100 final and when we initiated the removal of the six trees. They were technically approved for removal by the commission on the condition we finalize the species list. You know, i kind of felt, although your presentation was your a game, that you were dodging a bullet here and dodging the question that we specifically said the trees not to be removed until a list had been finalized and approved. And, then you say that they were done with permits but theyre not done with permits because, the permit was subject. When you build a house and its not a valid permit. You are saying that you did not complete what was done and to allow that permit to have validity. We did a lot of work. We did a lot of work and there is we have pressure to move here and what else do we need to do. There was a little bit of lag with the coronavirus impacts but when we talk about the work that was done. I have to argue that a tremendous a lot of work was done and was it finalfinal, probably not. Was it close and weve built trust and we know what were talking about and we have back up species. We failed to communicate without a doubt and that was the real failure. You know, the thing is, close but no cigar. Basically, you did not have full permission to take the trees down. Is that what you are telling me . I mean,. If you read the order from the board of appeals on the appeal, its specifically indicates that certain are met prior to the issue for you for the department to be able to cut down the trees. And i understand that theres covid19 and trust me i understand. But u. You know, you know of all people, ive been accused of a bunch of stuff, right. And along with you, right. I predate this position prior to you getting your position and you know, i have always been a tree lover. I put 275 in my neighbourhood. I find it offensive that is the case. Here we are, and you got it done and we jumped the gun and the department and i understand that you have a Department Head change and it was a sudden Department Head change and theres, im not putting any blame on anyone but theres going to be some issues no matter what, when the boss changes and when things move around theres going to be changes. But in this particular case, it was pretty specific. We know what size the boxes will be and it says including species, in line with our intentions and provides transparency of the public, so, we were fully, weve over engage in the public realm to go through this process and thats where i would say, i dont feel like we violated or removed the trees without permission at this point. We have done so much work on the replacement tree plan going back to october and november, that i would have to fight that assertion but im willing, im totally admitting that a call to the appellant would have gone a long way to just say, if we begin six trees, are we running a and the whole idea when we left that hearing at board of appeals, the whole idea was, we heard from the public that they didnt feel like the final they didnt feel like they had enough say in the species process. And we literally slowed this thing down for thro for three qf the year to let the process out. We didnt remove the trees from the holidays. We did a lot of work. We had a replacement plan. It would have been a lot better if it was finalized because we wouldnt receive those complaints. We have the members of the public that felt that they were not included and theyre going to have ample time to give their Public Comment and you can have rebuttal. Thank you for who is coming. Commissioner tanner, you have a question. I know if people see my nodding my head both of the questions and their observations which i grow with in terms of prioritizing trees like just the maximum, i mean, its just, it cannot be under scored enough how Important Trees are for so many reasons and how few we have in San Francisco and it is just a great shame and it will be decades of starting now that we will see the lush foal yan age o have and our cities need. Its no wonder that we have such strong advocate community to make sure we have as many as we can remain. And i think as reflected, mr. Buck, you know, theres no way to over communicate with the community. Theres no time you have done anything so just that notice of hey, this is going to happen so that folks arent shocked, even if theres been discussions from us that things are happening, its, were a big city and a small town at the same time, right, and people, especially now, and you have nothing to do but walk around the neighborhood and observe what is happening right outside their front door and so, more prudence in that regard. A question for you and mr. Tiger, just really getting into the nitty gritty of the appeals process. I dont know how you work your calenders for your projects. Do the project managers have the appropriate timeframes that they can put it into m. S. Projector how you make your project calendars, so that folks know, ok, this is 30 days from this day if the day on which is the last appeals on the 31st day is the day i will check x website or resource so i can knew if i can move forward with this Critical Path item. O i dont know if thats for you i can jump in. I thought i can jump in real quick. Its just one of those things that were in constant communication with a project manager on is what is the appeal window and arent we good to go. Its constant emails back and fourth confirming the appeal window and what does that mean . Are we good to go . Were going to call board of appeals to see if were satisfied and we might weigh a couple of more days. Were doing a lot of that. One of the challenges that happened at quinte was public works issued a revised resulting decision where we were going to keep some of the trees and the row lay to the contractor, were excited to tell you about this compromise that will potentially us to move forward. Now, his thought a month or two later, she was optimistic and i think i can move forward but communication, a couple of like emails, hey, this is chris, can you confirm that everyone knows what theyre doing over there and theres no work to begin. So it is a procedural staff and trent can speak to it but its something that would be within their kind of confirming those steps but generally, its being followed but again weve had a couple of rough months and were here before you, you know, and. Did you want to speak to that question . So for my case, as i indicated earlier, it was a mid construction issue that we found. If wasnt specifically part of our like schedule. As chris said, you know, were in constant communication and i basically handed up following it and submitting the application and when the 30 days was up checking with him and what is the status and did we receive protests and getting everything scheduled out so it was a very open dialogue just confirming what step we were at and what had actually happened whether it was received any appeals or not. From that angle during construction its a little bit more playing out a little bit more ear because you are not sure which way it will go, during design. Its what weve been having as a discussion and as i mentioned earlier this is opened up a lot of dialogue for us and typically weve been talking about going and getting buck a lot more involved in submitting our application at the 95 design and the design is close to being finished and were right there. At this point, what were looking at for the board of appeals if this hits every step of the way without a covid situation you are looking at for our five months start to finish process so were looking at moving that process up in our schedules and getting it closer to what we consider the 65 designed just to make sure were on board and not rushed to move forward on this and you know, part of the issue was were in construction and were spending money everyday that were doing something or not doing something and it puts a little bit more pressure on you and the same thing, you know, the further along in the design you go, if you are right at the end and you are requesting this removal of trees and you are at 99 of the design and even if you go and go through the process if we actually get a rejection, of one of our trees we have to go back to the drawing board a little bit and do some redesign work so were looking at entering that a little earlier so that were, you know, fully available to not be rushed in that process. Its a very wise course of the action and will align better with the schedule demands and funds that they are spending on the project. We want to be prudent and make sure were not getting an imbalance so thank you for that. Thank you. Ok. Thank you. President lazarus. I guess i just wanted to observe and i may have made similar comments when these have been before us. With the admission that i dont fully appreciate the processes you go besides through the production and division of work but it us doesnt strike me that this is Rocket Science and that some sort of a checklist that everybody involved in a project and everybody checks off every step, would go a long way to we have friends who work at hospital and have been told about checklists they use in operating rooms and lessons and mistakes and lessons are serious consequences so its hardly up to me to tell you how to do your work. Again, just things like steps, questions, that everybody puts a check mark by would go a long way to eliminate future problems of this sort. Are there any questions from the commissioners at this point . Ok. We are now moving on to Public Comment. And i believe we have a number of commenters so im going to suggest two minutes each give the hour and given commissioner swigs fragile condition. For the speakers, we have our first speaker phone number ending in 85706789 8570. Go ahead. Thank you. Its casey with the demonstration gardens. I want to observe that were not talking about optics but results here. When department of public works was interested in a significant role of steward et a big comment our street trees, we expected that we would have more trees by now not less and what were seeing is action thats have resulted in fewer trees and in the distance to the haze valley, we have a series of errors and ms. Rosenberg, i sent you an email with my letter of records in between director short and myself dealing with those issues so id like to enter that into the Public Record. We are tracking the hospital projects e. I. R. Violation in addition to those who have been missing and remedies of offers of plenty more trees are troubling because we understand that there is that reliable to replace them and maintain them and we need to revalue our trees and i have a number of questions about what the cost of removal is over the last years that dpw has this stewardship. How many are going towards pavement versus towards trees and as the tough. We will now hear from ms. Bowler. You have two minutes. Go ahead. Yeah. I wanted to say that in response top what mr. Buck says the trees were not in the business area that were appealed they were in the residential area and i also want to comment that it is there were, throw everybody on the street did not file an appeal everybody on the street was effected and everybody indirectly in the city was affected because we need the trees that we have and they would be without leading the requirement removed is not acceptable. And in fact, as far as im concerned, with or without the requirement its not acceptable to be taking down those trees and especially without knowing the replacements because the maple trees need a lot of water and they drop their leafs but why would they be picked . Thats all i have to say right now. Thank you. Thank you. We are now moving on to natalie. Do you want your video shown. No, im fine. Thank you. Please go ahead. You have two minutes. The trees that came down in haze valley were removed in district contravention from the public and the conditions she might have scored and it destroyed public test. The have a bury the haze valley neighborhood and requested this removal be brought forward. We didnt have the right authority to do this. The mandate says the transparent into an agree basement trees and have to be in place before and Neighborhood Association wasnt even one of the appellants in the ameliorate that were ruled on by the board. The Neighborhood Association is not considered by many people who live here to represent the residents of haze valley but staff should have complied with the resulting order and worked with the appellant who are working hard from residents in open survey and outreach community. Replacement that had Community Input has been agreed on in the past few weeks but prior to that socalled october and november and 90 nearly there and an agreement was from a selection of meetings between Hayes Valley Association which is why we had input and the species list agreed upon by the haze valley Neighborhood Association is list from those agreed by the a tell ants in the past couple of weeks. This is different conversation and not a continuation of the same one and my second point has to do with the work that from hayes street and in that should have been left alone and i emailed the video of this incident for the Public Record and it was a mistake regardless of what they were it is still mating season and bat mating season until the end of august and the trees were left alone and assessed by a biologist and the work that should have been done and theyre not going to stop. Were now moving on and would you like your video shown. Yeah. I wanted to respond the plan was almost complete but not accurate at all. There was one meeting with myself and the haze valley and buff presented us with four species only and said you have to chose from among these and sort of selfappointed spokesperson for the entire neighborhood from the haze val see Neighborhood Association said yes we decided xy and z which was rather disturbing and after that meeting i was in email with folks and said i would like broader and buff was not going to take on that task and i volunteered to do it by designing the dur have a which i distributed by social media and email to all the people that came to the tree walks and the hearings so in january, late january, early february, we only had six response to that survey and i said can we wait time to get some more responses to the survey and then covid19 hit and everything was put on pause and the next thing we knew the trees were coming down so chris pucks and completely inaccurate and the implication that buck sent out a survey was wrong and we were still working ton when covid19 hit and then they started cutting down the trees. My goal was to get neighborhood input into the species so they could have a sense of ownership of what was coming next for a lot of the bad feelings go the trees we were lose sewing i was really working with buck to do that and boom, wake up to power saws and trees examining down. It didnt have to be that way. Thats time. Thank you. We are moving on to marianne a. Would you like to have your video. Well spotlight you. Thank you, welcome. Lets start her time over because someone else was talking. Please mute yourself. I just need to say two things real quick. Mr. Tanner, theres a question about how to get onto the speaking list. Vow a phone which is star 9 and my ind i am listening to the members of the public who are speak sewing i just want to let you know that. Thank you, commissioner tanner. Please go ahead. You have two minutes. Thank you. I just want to and im one of those neighbors impacted by this. Three of the trees were removed right in front of my building. I used to have one right here. A big Beautiful Tree that was outside of my building on my window that is lost and i had no input and i didnt know it was happening i woke up in a saturday morning with a chainsaw, and a leaf blower outside my building. This is the third week that is happening and it forced me to stop sheltering at place and its too disruptive and so i to shelter in place and go to my office because i cant work and with all these things happening outside my window so first of all, as a member of the public i felt zero input and two, this incredibly disruptive rit now. As many others, im working from home, all my neighbors are working from home and none of us are able to work with these disruptions going on outside. Thank you, very much. Well now hear from the caller whose phone number ends in 5250. Please go ahead. Its 5525250. Were coming back to you. We hear you now, please, go ahead. Can you hear me. Yes, this is john and i have been part of this whole process and i found out that trying to deal with the Tree Committee of hayes valley Neighborhood Association and they were not functional to the members of the hayes valley so i am not associated with them anymore so they listened to their membership. Next, moving on,. And i was told that in response to contact and other persons, by the name of kel freskellerfrom dpw. Last year there was also trees removed. I dont see the purpose of the presentation that was at the beginning about second street. It was not relevant to the issued on the agenda dealing with haze valley. So, im concerned and i had to spread the species thing on public media to over 10,000 people so they can get the appropriate response for the survey of the tree species earlier last month. So thats my Public Comment and im also thinking that the department of public works owes the community an apology and thank you mr. Nolte. We have had a request for me to announce the phone number to call in. If you want to call in for Public Comment, please dial tollfree 8884754499. And then you enter this i. D. Number. 86118859379 and this is on our screen. 8884754499 and then enter 86118859379. Going back to our callers, i would like to hear from the caller whose number ends in 4906. Please go ahead and speak. You have two minutes. This is kindr a and im an appeal ant and last weekend i had the unfortunate experience of being in hayes valley and it was a very sad and stark reminder of how the landscape is completely altered when we remove our trees. And so that was a sobering moment to see what happened there. Thank you. Pay special attention to their request for proposal. They need to ensure the contractors are capable of doing the work theyre asking them to do and the one thing that came up in these negotiations in these talks, and i dont know if thats true or not and if thats the case, please, please, please, send your proposal requests to people who are capable of doing the work well. We will now hear from josh klipp. Can you hear me. Does commissioner swig have a question . You are on mute. Let me unmute you. I think id like to interrupt the process, please. That was a very important point. I need to ask a question to mr. Buck about pruning. Yes, we have heard redundantly that its a low cost bid process. Mr. Buck. And i never built a bridge before would i get award the bid, probably not. Its the same level of Due Diligence on contractors doing or pruning throughou throughout. This is chris buck. We absolutely have those requirements, they have a contract license and they possess a certified or borrist credential so we have not have anyone bid on contracts. They can bid on them but if we were not satisfied with their qualifications they would be disqualified. Is we have customers that have been maintaining their own trees for decades and we have to have contractors who can prune their tree and stand up and defend the work. From Pacific Heights to where i am. We aud i had and wit audit. Ficus trees that are going to remain but problematic, those trees will be pruned and weve been using the words experimentally. The other technical word is entrenchment were removing to reduce failure so ill have our inspector followup with the complaints to better understand the nature of that complaint so our chris fall campbell is a contractor and we have a lot of them so were aware of who we have working for us. We work closely with them and we would not allow them to touch the trees. Thank you, its very important. My a apologize for cutting you off. Sorry for that interruption, josh. You can please proceed. Is. According to the 2017 trees and there are a empty trees in district 3. I spent a year and a half writing articles with buck and would love if they would press those but i have been told it isnt going to happen any time soon. Regarding the criminal penalties that item was only referred to the District Attorney after i brought it and got them to do a resolution making that recommendation and i asked for in settlement and so i would encourage public works to listen to my constructive settlement ideas and avoid some of this board avenue peels ran cor regarding 1501 and the illegal action is the and you cant just tear down an old garage and get a slap on the wrist because the old one wasnt worth much anyway. I second my fellow commenters it was not an appeal enter and the Public Comment wasnt unfortunate and the board issued a decision and it wasnt followed and when we raised that we were told we were wrong so we came here and the survey i made that survey based on the species and we have the input and its only after the trees removed that that was finalized and theres a new issue and it was tractortrailer arborist and appeal and who said those trees were pruned incorrectly and they did tell him about that immediately and until then, well be back here and i would just appreciate more affirmative partnership and a greater sense of urgency in the changes that need to be made. Thank you mr. Klipp. Please raise your hand if theres Public Comment. I dont see any further Public Comment. Anymore questions . I believe this concludes the item. Unless you wanted to take some type of action. I would like to say thank you to mr. Tiger and well make sure that the d. P. W. And buff gets their act together and i very much support the statement made by president lazarus. This is not brain surgery. Its a checklist. Every business, whether its is taking care of trees, running stores, anything, everything. Everybody has their checklist. And its about organization, its about management, and its about priorities and my feeling is that d. P. W. Has not prioritized trees and has not gotten organize i had to prioritize trees and as a result he is calling that to our attention and i welcome mr. Clip coming back as many times as possible until dpw chose to prioritize trees and make this checklist and get organized in the making sure that the 100 trees empty in the city of San Francisco and theyre filled and that unfort accidents that have occurred as weve heard redundantly tonight will stop occurring. Theres no reason for it if you prioritize and organize it and make sure its done right. Well hear from Vice President honda. One question, chris. Is the six trees that were removed, where was the exact location those were removed at . Um, chris, with public works. So, they were on haze and octavia. So this is the intersection of hayes and octavia and i dont have the exact but they were at the corner within a block. There were businesses that are specific to where businesses are a employing for permits for street usage . Yes, so the only work that was performed was on that two and a half block that was heard last night. That was the work that was performed. Right in that immediate area. And then, you know, i want to echo my fellow commission swig in regards to, we have so were losing all our tree canopy and its a desert in a lot of places. Illing honest, my last trip to barcelona i was at awe with the trees. Of all things, theres all this beautiful stuff and the trees were what impressed me the most. And how the urban planning that they did to widen the streets, to get these large can pee trees and the foal age and thats just in specific areas, i mean everywhere i went, there were trees everywhere. And i understand that prop e it was for main training and did not like for new trees. At which point do we stop . Do we wait until we have no more trees . Its a problem. For the record, i do not think that the letter of the board of appeals said and made was followed. I i believe it was after after effect. After the trees had been cut down. It was like oh god, lets troy to fix this because wait, we missed up on this street and this street. Here we are, lets put this presentation together and come clean. Your department is the guidelines that were instructed was by this board avenue peels for the record. Thank you. President lazarus. We cant hear you. Ok. I hope we will not owe hold another hearing in this nature. I hope were on the way to getting our issues resolved. Thank you. Commissioner tanner. I agree with all of what my fellow commissioners have said and one question for you, chris, is regarding the legislation that has come up with a couple times, mr. Klipp said its not moving forward now, is it theres no board member that wants to take it forward . Whats the deal with it . Why is it stalled . Sure, chris with public works. You know, there is a covid health emergency. Public works is on the front line of that and my clerk and my inspectors was doing hotel monitoring. I dont like to play the violin i prefer the trumpet. Public works is the front line. A lot of resources from our team is devote today other aspects of this publichealth emergency. Its difficult for urban forestry to say hey board of supervisors k. We work on these . Can we tinker around with this right now . Is it belfour city staff to advocate on ordinance change so we need to get in touch with our advice attorney and figure out how to move that forward legally sew we hear that feedback and i think that would go a long way to build a little more trust so point well taken. And i understand that other items make it see seem so trite. Things that are happening that are severe and real and taking away from our focus on our normal work, right. And so definitely i want to say thank you for your service and the city and staff as well and to those calling in today, i want to jump implore you to keep up whether its that you are working on planning trees as volunteers, you are part of different boards or different organizations ar advocating for trees and we are the end of the line at board of appeals. We dont make policy. We consider whether or not they issue permits that the city has put in place have been properly followed. Thats really where we are and so working with your supervisors organizing quite frankly, to make this remain a priority, obviously theyre taxed to with the covid19 response so being respectful and tactical and strategic about what you are advocate forgeron that being said, the Climate Crisis continues and other things continue as covid19 might be in the forefront so keep organizing and keep working with the board of supervisors and put your treasure there for legislative change and fixes that can help. Folks like mr. Buck and others to have the tools and resources they need to implement the policy thats will hopefully protect our can may and grow our can pee in the long run. I hope we wont be back here again for the challenges and the Department Face and there are good things and it will help you develop a checklist that everyone has and new project manager get the checklist but they need to know what they remember to prevent things from happening again so thank you all for your time members of the public and also to the city staff. Thank you. Thank you. President lass russ, i dont see any other commissioner comments or questions so i believe this would conclude the hearing . Yes, i believe we are adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you, everyone. Good night. Have a good evening. Thank you. Good night. Im district te leadership of the department of Public Health flattened the curve in San Francisco. The steps we have taken together have saved lives. One of the reasons the city acted so quickly so early was to not overburden our Health Care Systems. As the state of california and bay area counties have begun to gradually reopen, we are seeing some troubling signs. We have a seven day average of ninety eight new cases per day. Our demand for acute care for covid positive patients has goan each week. Today dr. And i are announcing the establishment of our first low acuity medical site. Located a 163. It will open with twenty patients. Its not expected to treat covid positive patients. When i starred this i facility i was truly impressed at the first rate medical facility. The citys ability to confront covid 19 depends on our ability to care for those with all manner of conditions. Sprained angels to heart attacks. Other ailments are not stopping just because of the pandemic. Opening this facility will shore up our ability for the hospitals to treat covid 19. It is not a drop in acute care site testing location or shelter. Please do not visit this location if you are seeking any of those services sm as the district two supervisor i would be remiss to not note the response to local emergencies. Were an incredible resource and im grateful for the partnership with press i hapartnershipwith. A good mark morning. Im director of health. Thank you for your support during this unprecedented time. Today like if everyday, i check the number of patient patients h covid 19. Unfortunately that number is higher than ever before and continues to climb. That number dropped to just 26 patients six weeks ago. Today, its one hundred and seven. Of those one quarter are very sick and in intensive care. Across the city we have more than six thousand cases of covid 19. And look, it took us thirty eight days to go from two thousand to three thousand cases. Of half as long to go from three thousand to four thousand. In just ten days we went from five thousand to six thousand cases of covid 19. Let me be clear, we are in a major surge of covid 19. The virus is moving fast and more people are getting seriously ill. If things continue, we estimate well have more than 750 san franciscans in the hospital by october. Plausible worst Case Scenarios put us at twenty four hundred hospitalizations and eighteen hundred deaths. These scenarios unfortunately become more likely as each day goes by with the current trend. Today, fortunately all patients are getting world class treatment from the most caring professionals sm we wisals. We still have capacity to care for patients. It is good news that our Health Care System has not yet been overwhelmed as we saw in new york. Many are contributing to that by staying home, avoiding gathering, covering your faces when go ting out, washing your hands sm you are preventing more illness and spread and keep our Health Care System functioning. Our city must prepare for this surge. How many peoplethat puts us in the red zone of one of our key health indicators. Weve been there for over a month. Its extremely sobering that we reached this point. Its extremely concerning. Our reopening remains on pause. The main reason we joined the watch list was because of our rapidly growing rates. Our goal is to keep the increase to less than 10 . Since january the Health Department has been planning and preparing for covid 19. We built up the capacity of our Health Care System. We added testing sites a sites. Today supervisor stephanie announced, were creating a care site that we hope we will not need. Its located in the presidio but will serve all san franciscans. It will serve patients who no longer need acute care but are not ready to go home. They would have medical medical supervision and care from staff. I hope this day wont come. We hope our hospitals will never need to open the relief that this site represents. That depends on you. All of us. Please. Please wear a mask. Its really not that hard. I want to see San Francisco open schools instead of medical sites. We want to see houses of worship open their doors. Sit in their favorite barbers chair. Hug our grand children again. We can make that happen. We still have time to turn this around. If we want those things we cant take chances and hope this virus is not as infectious as the data and facts tell us it is. Everyone needs to behave as though each of us has covid 19. Think about that. We know half as many doap donte symptoms at some period. Be careful. Every time you wear a mask, socially distance. Wash your hands. Avoid gatherings. Youre moving closer to the day we can live more like we did before march. Everyday you take a risk you move us farther away from that day. We can prove testimon works aga. Covering our faces may be the most important. On friday San Francisco updated the orders. Everyone over the age of ten should wear a Face Covering. If youre alone in a space that people might use later, cover your face. If youre handling food for other face, cover your face. Basically, cover your face. If youre passing someone on the sidewalk, your face must be covered. Other things we must do. Washing our hand hands, stayingx feet apart. If you are meeting. Meet out side if you can. Of course, please you must stay home if you can. Short of the vaccine or cure of covid 19 these are the most effective interventions that we have available to us. They work if we take them up and practice these behaviors everyday. You can do this. Its up to us to flatten the curve again. Thank you. Thank you doctor and thank you supervisor stephanie for your time. Well begin the q and a portion of this meeting. We have a variety of questions for dr. Co lfax. The first question is from the associated press. We havent seen the devastation in the homeless communities. Why do you think that is . I think its a number of factors that so far have helped us avoid worse Case Scenarios with people experiencing homelessness, we took action early on with our partners and support of housing and with our Community Seven is agency part mere ins. Ensuring that best practices were rapidly a applied. People had the materials necessary to reduce the spread. Other key interventions that we did is make available hundreds of hotel rooms so people experiencing c homelessness were able to shelter in place. Over thirty five hundred people have been placed in those hotel rooms. Weve done a lot of out reach work on the street. Providing hygiene. We had an intense Clinical Team that provided health care for people before the pandemic. This team has been working around the clocke clock to ensue people get the best care. Its a variety of actions that weve taken to avoid some of the outcomes weve seen in other jurisdictions. Thank you, doctor. The next set of questions are from ab c seven. Face shields should be worn in addition to face masks. Do you for se for see this beina requirement. The most important thing is that we ensure in public that everyone is wearing a Face Covering if they are over ten years of age. Weve been very clear that protecting our Health Care Workers is key. How close is San Francisco to getting off the watch list . We continue to see increases above the 50 hospitalization rates. I cant speculate on how soon. We are in a major surge here and anticipating on average seven hundred fifty in the hospital by october. If were on and off the watch list what is key is we work to flatten the curve and recommit ourselves. We did it before and we can do it again. Its going to take the whole community to make this work. Are social gatherings the major reason for the surge. Its a major ko contributor. People should not be using testing to determine whether they should gather. If someone is infected, the virus is extremely contagious. They are contributing to this increase. If you go to a gathering and somebody has the virus and is going to transmit it. We have to understand that with more virus in the community you saw how quickly we went from four thousand to five thousand tcases. Please, please dont gather. We have a handful of questions about San Francisco issuing fines on people who dont wear masks in public. Weve been emphasizing the needs of these masks and the social distancing as we continue to emif i if emphasize. Were schorrin exploring how wey increase enforcement particularly in situations where requirements that are very clear are not being followed. This would be enforced following up with businesses an other situations where people gather. Were working with communities for voluntary compliance. Were looking at increasing enforcement. In regards to the press ci the. Who is paying for it and who will staff it . The city is funding the site. It will be staff by Health Departments and u c sf providers. Well take care of 93 patients. M what has it historically ben used for and is it prepared to accept patients. It will depend on the capacity of our hospitalization across the city. If theres a need to move people out of the hospital quickly and make room for covid 19 patients. I cant speculate on the past use of the site. Thank you for your time today that conclawed concludes the prs conference. For additional questions please for additional questions please coping with covid19. Todays special guest. I am chris manners, you are watching coping with covid19. My guest is the director of economic and Work Force Development here to talk about the programs the city has in place during this crisis to help Small Businesses and vulnerable and disconnected residents. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here, chris. Start by talking about gift to sf. It provides many of the resources we are talking about. Could you tell us a little bit about the focus of gift to us. Then we will talk about specific programs. I very much appreciate the question. For anyone who is watching right now, so much of the work that has been accomplished to serve most vulnerable is because of very generous donations to the give to sf covid19 response and recovery fund. Over 28 million has been fund raised to support areas as important as Housing Stabilization for vulnerable communities, Food Security programs which has been a big issue not only in San Francisco but up and down california and of course across the nation. Very much thinking about workers and family members who may not have been access to state and federal programs the same way that others who are impacted have and do. That was to make sure families and workers were supported with woulrelief. Small Business Community to make sure they have access to loan was and grants. We are excited how diverse we have been able to do this. We have been able to roll these out to ensure that our communities are supported by our city together with all of us with city funds and philanthropic dollars to help realize them on behalf of the communitys needs. That is great. Now, many of our Small Businesses dont have large payrolls. They are unable to qualify for the federal ppp loans. Does the city have active programs available for Small Businesses to help with ongoing expenses such as rent while they are still closed . Certainly. One of the programs we launched in partnership and because of the ability of the give to sf loan fund presented us with was for loans and grants to do that. We knew in the beginning that it was not easy for smaller businesses not connected or those who were to get an answer around relief provided through ppp. We have seen success of the program. We knew it was important at the time to also have the San Francisco hardship mcwas Emergency Loan Program be launched and designed to support businesses who needed resources the most. We have committed 15. 5 million in ongoing covid19 Small Business Financial Relief. We have awarded grants and loans to over 400 Small Businesses thus far. We wanted to make sure that we were equitable about that approach always guidings work through Racial Equity lens. One of the most important pieces is ensuring every district would be represented and also more equitable work and places where we were doing that work would be supported through these efforts. In the first phase 1 million to 128 Small Businesses and 29 different neighborhoods with up to 10,000 in funds to support those who were experiencing loss. We set aside a minimum of 2 million for low and moderate income owners to ensure they were supported with relief efforts. Neighborhood goes like lower filmore, bayview, castro and excelsior. Longterm businesses have given to the city and we want to give bamto them as well. Then because we were looking for additional funding sources, we took dollars that we had with existing partners already with our partners to do Small Business work and help convert to support Women Entrepreneurs around San Francisco and very specific neighborhoods for mini grants to serve immediate needs. Every little dollar helped. One of the programs that just become available. Right to recover. I am glad you are asking about right to recover. We know that it is extremely valuable right now as we look to incentivize Community Members disproportionately impacted by covid19 by economic hardship, spaces to work in because they need to provide for families, having access to the Economic Relief or wages that you count on to protect yourself, stabilize your families, support your families and children or parents or extended family. That is a huge disincentive if you believe you may not have access to quarantine to do what we want you to do. If you are sick to get tested. If you test positive to quarantine and stay home. So that you can get better and not infect anyone else. That comes at a cost. You are not going to work, not making wages. For so many low income workers that is not acceptable. This is to provide relief based on the individual to give minimum wage for that period of time. When they walked into the testing site they knew if i test positive is there a program to help me, we could say yes . That was important to mayor breed, extremely important to supervisor ronen and they worked together to make 2 million available to support these individuals. Together with the department of Public Health we have a holistic system to fill the gaps that may exist to encourage people to get tested to do the right thing. Wear a mask, social distancing, not going places when they are sick and doing our part to make sure they were incentivized. Not having sick pay with the virus would be really stressful. Iit is important for undocumented. We know the lat inx is more than 50 of the positive cases and may not have access to sick leave or Financial Hardship to do the right thing and to quarantine with financial reli relief. As we start another new releaf program. Africanamerican Small Business Revolving Loan fund. How will that fund work . Well, i am very, very proud. This fund. I do have to give a shout out to our invest in Neighborhoods Team who worked day and night with the africanamerican chamber of commerce and main street launch to support the zero percent interest loan up to 50 thousand dollars. We have been striving to be specific and target communities of color and africanamerican Small Business Entrepreneur Community. It is so much more difficult for this community to access resources and it was important to do something in this moment that is reflective of a movement we know has been emotion for such a long time. For us to do something real, provide Financial Relief for the community in this ka this way ar them specifically. We are very proud to get this up and running. We look forward to applications being live so people from the africanamerican and black business communities to get relief. Flexible terms. Forgiveness up to 50,000 for those loans which can make a huge difference fought only for relief when you think about rent for a Small Business but also in terms of longterm recovery and being smart about the moment. There are businesses with the ability to be open, even a little bit. It is a stress on them. There are others that dont have the ability to do this at all. Where is their relief . They wait for us to do our collective part to ensure we can reopen. These dollars, very specifically for the black Entrepreneur Community are important for longterm viability success. That is good for them, the diversity of the city we hold dear and we need to be proud of. Do we have active programs for disconnected or underserved communities . Absolutely. As i was mentioning just simply about the right to recover program. When people go to the mission hub at 701 alabama within the Mission District to serve the community, they are providing Food Security, access to resources. What they have done is extraordinary in terms of partnering with the city with relief efforts to help pay and maintain Food Distribution for families. Thing are important like the latin x to do so many dishes with one item masa. Access to rise, cereals, milk, butter, fresh foods and vegetables. That is across the city in the entirety in those areas of need. To ensure those programs are made available for our most vulnerable communities. Seniors or families who desperately need that help. Finally, is there a website specifically designed to provide access and information about these resources . One of the easiest things to do, people have a general question and to want dont have access to the internet call 311. Reach out. We have been working closely to ensure the members and staff have the information they need to get what you need. As you call in. Most specifically for workers, employers, nonprofits to go to our website oewd. Org and click on covid19 which is a large button on the site. You will find a full list of information specifically designed for you as employer, as worker and nonprofit so that you know where to go for resources. Also, our phone number 5546134 for the small acciden small bus. The incredible staff are administering those lines. If they dont answer they will get back to you so you can talk to a real person in multiple languages. Also email sfosbasfgov. Org. Again, visit the website oewd. Org and you can find that. In terms of workforce 415 7014817. Someone will get back to you if they dont pick up immediately to answer your questions if you are a worker. Then to donate. Give to sf. Org. All of that information is to find to the website if you need resources or you need an understanding how we are phasing reopening or updated information, please visit us. We will get back to you. We look forward to serving you and the community to get through this very, very challenging time. That is great information. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate the time you have given us today. It is a pleasure, chris. Thank you for helping get information out to our communities. People are aware your government is hard at work on your behalf to get you what you need during a dynamic and challenging time. That is it for this episode. We will be back with more information shortly. This is coping with covid19. I am chris manners, thanks for watching on sfgovtv. What were trying to approach is bringing more diversity to our food. Its not just the old european style food. We are seeing a lot of influences, and all of this is because of our students. All we ask is make it flavorful. [ ] we are the first twoyear Culinary Hospitality School in the united states. The first year was 1936, and it was started by two graduates from cornell. Im a graduate of this program, and very proud of that. So students can expect to learn under the three degrees. Culinary Arts Management degree, Food Service Management degree, and Hotel Management degree. Were not a cooking school. Even though were not teaching you how to cook, were teaching you how to manage, how to supervise employees, how to manage a hotel, and plus youre getting an associate of science degree. My name is vince, and im a faculty member of the hospitality arts and Culinary School here in San Francisco. This is my 11th year. The policemrogram is very, ver in what this industry demands. Cooking, health, safety, and sanitation issues are included in it. Its quite a complete program to prepare them for whats happening out in the real world. The first time i heard about this program, i was working in a restaurant, and the sous chef had graduated from this program. He was very young to be a sous chef, and i want to be like him, basically, in the future. This program, its awesome. Its another world when youre here. Its another world. You get to be who you are, a person get to be who they are. You get to explore different things, and then, you get to explore and they encourage you to bring your background to the kitchen, too. Ive been in the program for about a year. Twoyear program, and im about halfway through. Before, i was studying behavioral genetics and dance. I had few injuries, and i couldnt pursue the things that i needed to to dance, so i pursued my other passion, cooking. When i stopped dance, i was deprived of my creative outlet, and cooking has been that for me, specifically pastry. The good thing is we have students everywhere from places like the ritz to we have kids from every area. Facebook and google. Kids from everywhere. They are all over the bay area, and theyre thriving. My name is jeff, and im a coowner of nopa restaurant, nopalito restaurant in San Francisco. I attended city college of San Francisco, the culinary arts program, where it was called hotel and restaurant back then in the early 90s. Nopalito on broderick street, its based on no specific region in mexico. All our masa is hand made. We cook our own corn in house. Everything is pretty much hand made on a daily basis, so day and night, were making hand made tortillas, carnitas, salsas. A lot of love put into this. [ ] used to be very easy to define casual dining, fine dining, quick service. Now, its shades of gray, and were trying to define that experience through that spectrum of service. Fine dining calls into white table cloths. The cafeteria is Large Production kitchen, understanding vast production kitchens, the googles and the facebooks of the world that have those kitypes of kitchens. And the ideas that change every year, again, its the notion and the venue. One of the things i love about vince is one of our outlets is a concept restaurant, and he changes the concept every year to show students how to do a startup restaurant. Its been a pizzeria, a taco bar. Its been a mediterranean bar, its been a noodle bar. People choose ccsf over other hospitality programs because the industry recognizes that we instill the work ethic. We, again, serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other culinary hospitality programs may open two days a week for breakfast service. Were open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner five days a week. The menus always interesting. They change it every semester, maybe more. Theres always a good variety of foods. The preparation is always beautiful. The students are really sincere, and they work so hard here, and theyre so proud of their work. Ive had people coming in to town, and i, like, bring them here for a special treat, so its more, like, not so much every day, but as often as i can for a special treat. When i have my interns in their final semester of the program go out in the industry, 80 to 90 of the students get hired in the industry, well above the industry average in the culinary program. We do have internals continually coming into our restaurants from city college of San Francisco, and most of the time that people doing internships with us realize this is what they want to do for a living. We hired many interns into employees from our restaurants. My partner is also a graduate of city college. So my goal is actually to travel and try to do some pastry in maybe italy or france, along those lines. I actually have developed a few connections through this program in italy, which i am excited to support. Im thinking about going to go work on a cruise ship for about two, three year so i can save some money and then hopefully venture out on my own. Yeah, i want to go back to china. I want to bring something that i learned here, the french cooking, the western system, back to china. So we want them to have a full toolkit. Were trying to make them ready for the world out there. I personally love the mega jobs. I think theyre a lot of fun. I like being part of a build that is bigger than myself and outlast me and make a mark on a landscape or industry. We do a lot of the big sexy jobs, the stacked towers, Transit Center, a lot of the note worthy projects. Im Second Generation construction. My dad was in it and for me it just felt right. I was about 16 when i first started drafting home plans for people and working my way through college. In college i became a project engineer on the job, replacing others who were there previously and took over for them. The Transit Center project is about a million square feet. The entire floor is for commuter buses to come in and drop off, there will be five and a half acre city park accessible to everyone. It has an amputheater and water marsh that will filter it through to use it for landscaping. Bay area council is big here in the area, and they have a gender equity group. I love going to the workshops. Its where i met jessica. We hit it off, we were both in the same field and the only two women in the same. Through that friendship did we discover that our projects are interrelated. The projects provide the power from san jose to San Francisco and end in the trans bay terminal where amanda was in charge of construction. Without her project basically i have a fancy bus stop. She has headed up the Womens Network and i do, too. We have exchanged a lot of ideas on how to get groups to Work Together. Its been a Good Partnership for us. Women can play leadership role in this field. I tell him that the schedule is behind, his work is crappy. He starts dropping fbombs and i say if youre going to talk to me like that, the meeting is over. So these are the challenges that we face over and over again. The reality, okay, but it is Getting Better i think. It has been great to bond with other women in the field. We lack diversity and so we have to support each other and change the culture a bit so more women see it as a great field that they can succeed in. What drew me in, i could use more of my mind than my body to get the work done. Its important for women to network with each other, especially in construction. The percentage of women and men in construction is so different. Its hard to feel a part of something and you feel alone. Its fun to play a leadership role in an important project, this is important for the transportation of the entire peninsula. To have that person of women coming into construction, returning to construction from family leave and creating the network of women that can rely on each other. Women are the main source of income in your household. Show of hands. People are very charmed with the idea of the reverse role, that theres a dad at home instead of a mom. You wont have gender equity in the office until its at home. Whatever you do, be the best you can be. Dont say i cant do it, you can excel and do whatever you want. Just put your mind into it