Our system is ugly. As times, it has been d. B. I. Staff and management, and at other times, its been the developers, contractors, and consultants who are seeking permit approvals. In 2001, a d. B. I. Survey called for a culture of preferential treatment and called for an overhaul of the department. In 2004, Marcus Armstrong and a d. B. I. Investigator plead guilty for taking bribes. In 2010, permit expediter jimmy jen was jailed on 232 felony fraud counts brought by District Attorney and Vice President elect kamala harris. In may 2020, Rodrigo Santos, a former Building Inspections commissioner was arrested by the f. B. I. And charged with bank fraud. The City Attorney already had a pending civil complaint against santos from several years ago for endangering the city and the public by skirting requirements on several properties. A Mission Local article this september told the story of a district nine constituent whose neighbor was doing structural or demolition work that was causing serious flooding onto his own property. He was visited by sontose who was representing the neighbor, but not until he googled Santos Santos who was representing the neighbor, but not until he googled santos did he realize he was involved in these matters. It for over a year, my office has been working with neighborhoods, city department, and the City Attorney on a project in the portola where the Developers Got a permit for building ten units and built 30, this, causing a mass scramble to protect the tenants who are in these unpermitted units, creating life safety situations so dire, that the owners were forced to install a temporary fire escape which complicated the process to permit this project. In just over a year ago, in 2019, one man paid the city 1. 2 million to settle a civil lawsuit for unpermitted work on several properties, four of them in bernal heights. For months, ive been hearing from neighbors about damage to their home on work that he was doing adjacent to those properties not within the scope of the permit. They are truly the tip of a deep iceberg, and while they show flagrant disregard for laws, we need to understand where the city could have been more active. Were there members of project teams with priority history of misdoings . Were there red flags in the permit applications . Frankly, this has been going on so long that it seems to me that d. B. I. Has taken an ineffective laws on what is an attack on our laws, our regulations, and our code. The stories go back years, and i know that d. B. I. Leadership is putting an end to this, so i am looking ifforward to hearin from them today and working together to craft legislation to make sure that these most egregious violations dont happen again. And with that, chair mar, im looking forward to hearing from d. B. I. , but im sure that some of my colleagues also have opening comments. Chair mar thank you so much, supervisor ronen. Supervisor haney . Supervisor haney yes, thank you, chair mar, and thank you, supervisor ronen, for calling this hearing. You know, i think this really strikes at good, comp tent, Effective Governance and the trust that we must have with our residents. This episode of corruption that our city has experienced over the last now about eight months actually, the acts before that has unearthed in our city the individual corruption but also the inadequate laws and oversight that prevent corrupt behavior. I want to appreciate the role that this committee has plays with supervisor peskin and has played with supervisor peskin and chair mar. This is a critical piece of the puzzle and a role of d. B. I. Specifically was a concern we actually had a conversation about this with the City Attorney a number of weeks ago as it was connected to another matter, and im really hopeful that we can come out of this with some clear next steps to provide stronger and more effective regulation, which is really about protecting orresidents and protecting our people who do business here, and people who may have everything that they own at stake, and they trust our City Government, when we give out a permit, when we put our stamp on something, thats our City Government giving our approval on all of our behalf, and we should do that with the utmost sensitivity and intensality around in sensitivity around what we do and who we do that for. So thank you, supervisor ronen and also the other folks who called the hearing, supervisor peskin, and supervisor mar, and im looking forward to what we can get out of this to improve things for for our city. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney. Supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar, and yeah, let me join in appreciating supervisor ronen for bringing this hearing. This has been a perennial issue, and we take one step forward and two steps back and one step forward and two steps back. This has been going on forever, and it leads to a denigration in the trust of the city at large, and frankly the tacit approval of illegal construction methods. So once again, the board has to step in, and its pretty outlandish. We know the names. Supervisor ronen just said the names, and theres more names on that list. The department knows the names. The public knows the names, inasmuch as theyve been reported on by the media in a manner which frankly is an outright embarrassment to the city. D. B. I. Is aware, and were all aware, and the employees are all aware that Rodrigo Santos continues to be a contractor permit inspector in the city despite all of these allegations. I understand that we are constrained by certain pieces of state law, but theres also a lot of things that we can do. And quite frankly as i have been able to determine, the department could have done earlier and are doing a little bit on already and i dont want to beat up on the department, but well get to the bottom of that in over the course of this hearing. Thank you. Chair mar thank you, supervisor peskin. You know, colleagues, i just wanted to add, that in addition to to, you know, the information and the very good points that youve all touched on regarding the sordid history of corruption and favortism in d. B. I. That expediters have plafed a played and continue to play this year, this is an important issue for us to address in terms of restoring trust in d. B. I. In our city. Theres also been growing frustration that ive heard from my constituents, that theres things that arent being scheduled and even Small Business owners, for small projects, and the extremely long delays in getting their permit considered, and its causing hardship, particularly for the Business Owners that need to make changes to their storefronts. I think when they read about and hear about the favortism that happens and continues to happen at d. B. I. , i think that just erodes confidence in our City Government, so thanks so much, supervisor ronen, for your calling for this hearing, and yeah, i would turn it back to you. Supervisor ronen thank you. Next in this hearing, were going to hear from d. B. I. , and i dont know who were going to hear from, but whoever is here, go ahead. Good morning, supervisors. My name is christine [inaudible] and i am the assistant director of the department of building inspector. Im here with our chief building inspector, joe duffy. Joe has been with d. B. I. For the past 21e years, and hell byebye able to answer all of your questions. So thank you for joining us today. I am going to share my screen and go through a presentation. Can you see that . Supervisor mar yes, we can see it. Great. Okay. So we put together some slides to help explain d. B. I. S role in building safety and the project consultants, which is the purpose of the permitting process, and tools that we have in place to ensure compliance with the code. D. B. I. Provides critical Building Services to ensure the safety and habitability of San Franciscos more than 200,000 commercial and residential buildings. We have nearly 300 employees, including plan reviewers, inspectors, and Code Enforcement and site inspectors. And we issue 70,000 permits annually. We perform plumbing, mechanical, and electrical inspections, we conduct housing inspections to ensure the Property Owners are maintaining habitable housing conditions. We conduct approximately 70,000, as i said, inspections every year, and then, we provide Code Enforcement services. Interim director oriordan was appointed in march of this year, and i can say that its really a new day here at d. B. I. Hes made it clear to staff what the values are, the transparency and accountability, and that theres really zero tolerance for looking the other way during inspections, or not performing an honest land review, just zero tolerance, and weve been currently working with our h. R. Department and the City Attorneys office on several investigations which, you know, i cant discuss in the open forum, but weve been reviewing records regarding specific projects of concern that were brought up earlier, and i can assure you that we are actively addressing this issue. So this slide includes hang from the San FranciscoEthics Commission defining what a permit consultant is and what their permit duties are. Its someone who works with a Property Owner to get their construction approved so that construction can begin. And according to the Ethics Commission and the roles that were codified in 2018, a permit consultant would be consulted with Property Values 250,000 or more. Just to be clear, an engineer or an architect or a contractor working on the project is not considered a permit consultant in these guidelines. We rely on licenses Design Professionals to certify that theres submitted applications and plans, and our staff reviews the materials to verify theyre code compliant, and as the work continues and is performed on the job, our inspectors go and verify that that work is being done according to approved plans and in accordance with code. And so the permit application process includes filing a permit application and, when required, submitting plans for review. And sometimes those plans are reviewed by several city departmenting, such as the Planning Department, the Fire Department, p. U. C. , Public Health, and depending on the complexity of the project, sometimes multiple plan reviewers in our own department are reviewing the plans, such as giving it a structural review or a plan review. And the consultant may note comments. Once the plans are approved, the permit can be issued. Once the permit is issued, contractors are scheduled throughout the project to ensure code compliance, and throughout the process, we might issue a certificate of final completion or just a final signoff. So for the Code Enforcement project, i want to say the vast majority of Property Owners and their agents abide by the permit process and perform work according to code, but we have those applicants that dont comply occasionally, and we have a process in place to force them to comply. This is usually triggered by an inspector going to a job site and finding a violation and writing up a notice of violation, or sometimes its triggered by a complaint made by someone, such as a neighbor. [please stand by] it is chief code compliance, not punitive or to punish. It is to ensure the buildings are safe and this helps us do that. Sometimes the more serious cases we participate in the coordinated task force of potentially dangerous property conditions. Those are made up of the Fire Department or Public Health and even the Task Force Includes multiple people from d. B. I. Maybe it would include the plumbing inspector and electrical and building inspectors. They are coordinated by the City Attorney, and that is for properties where there are violations of multiple city codes. You brought up earlier repeat violators. We have put tools in place to address repeat violators. We have various methods to address repeat violators for noncompliance with Building Code requirements. One is to incruise scrutiny of increase scrutiny of the projects. We have lagged them in the database to practhe permit issue answer approval. Something that is flagged in the tracking system as repeat violators. That means that if a plan checker is looking at the plans submitted before that permit can be issued, a senior plan checker would have to do a Second Review to ensure that that review has been correct and thorough. We refer repeat violators to outside agencies including City Attorney and state licensing board in coordination with the City Attorney. We developed an administrative bulletin to outline that process for how we report to the state agencies. Now, in this hearing it was specifically called out consultants charged with criminal conduct. I want to address that specifically. It is our understanding as the department that serves the public we cannot refuse the services to the public. We can escort customers out of the building if disorderly. We cannot permanently ban a member of the public from the believe. It is our understanding we cannot deny service to a valid licensed professional if they are filing in their professional capacity. State law does not allow us to deny a professional from doing their work pursuant to their state issued license. What we can do is take steps to ensure the permit applications are accurate and put in extra level of scrutiny on those specific individuals. Recently what we call expanded Quality Control process. That is for repeat violators associated with at least three serious modes of violation in 18 months. These individuals are flagged and subject to increased scrutiny. The types of violations that would put somebody on the list misrepresenting existing conditions, structural work beyond the scope of permit or over demolition. The other violations that we deem egregious and we allow discretion in that list. This is a policy we added to the Building Inspection ServicesOffice Policy procedures manual. The actions we take when we flag individuals for the Quality Control are, one, require all applications submitted by or on behalf of the individual to be reviewed a second time by senior manual of plan review services staff. A line staff doing the plan review check. That would go to a senior person to do a second plan review. Two, we are going to require site inspections prior to permit issuance to confirm the existing conditions. Three, dedicated a Senior Inspector for the project site. We can refer them to the Regulatory Agency or City Attorney for further action as we have done in the past. Once these people get on the list for expanded Quality Control for two years. If that individual receives another serious violation during that period the clock would start over. The department is implements new procedures to identify violators early in the complaint process. That means supervisor ronen, you referred to a neighbor calling in a complaint and that wasnt responded to quickly enough. What we are going to do to make sure our line staff are answering the phone they know who these folks are so they can immediately escalate that to Senior Inspector or chief building inspector to address that quickly, as quickly as possible. We are continuing to review policies and look for our safeguards to implement. We look forward to working with you to address and implement any additional controls to ensure the agents are complying with the Building Code requirements. That concludes my presentation. We will take questions. Through the chair, thank you so much. I do want to appreciate the direction you are heading in as a department and the different changes and procedures in place. I have been working with the City Attorney to prepare legislation to strengthen d. B. I. s ability to turn around the culture of favoritism and fraud. I do think this is a good start, i think that it is critical that we further enhance this work through legislation with clear regulations to ensure implementation enforcement, periodic reporting and puckly accountability. I have a few questions and my colleagues do as well. I havent told that d. B. I. Has an informal list of bad actors. I know that supervisor peskin has already mentioned that he wanted to have this list of those folks that are publicly acceptable who have been caught defrauding the public or doing shoddy work. I am wondering, you know, a few things about this informal list. How long is the list . Does it include developers, engineers, consultants . Who determines who is on the list and the level of additional scrutiny, who informs staff . Who enforces the staff review of the applications . In short, how is it that what you are proposing now that is different from what d. B. I. Has been doing which failed to stop egregious