Ways. Public comment will be available on each item in this agenda. Channels 26, 79, and sfgovtv are streaming this meeting live. Each item will have opportunities for public comment. Public comment may be made by calling the public Comment Line at 4156550001. Meeting i. D. Is 24930322236 then Press Pound and pound again. When your item of interest comes up, please Press Star, three to be added to the speaker line. Best practices are to call from a quiet location and turn down your volume on your computer or television. Madam chair . Supervisor melgar thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Hopefully that will be the longest stretch that you speak during this meeting. I can tell your voice is strained. Now, please call item 1. Clerk thank you, madam chair. Item 1 is an ordinance granting revokable permission to h. V. Community association, inc. To occupy and maintain the irrigation system, sidewalks, curbs, and ramps for a. D. A. Compliant passenger loading, and a portion of a retaining wall footing, with all such encroachments located generally along portions of Fairfax Ave. Acacia avenue, ironwood way, catalina street, and middle Point Road fronting Hunters View phase 1, 1101 Fairfax Ave. And making findings. Supervisor melgar thank you. We have mr. Wu here to make his presentation. Thank you, president melgar. [inaudible] by the city in these communities over many decades has resulted in aging obsolete infrastructure. To restore public benefits to hope s. F. Communities, new streets and sidewalks were created along with other Community Infrastructure benefits. We are coming before you today to ensure the continued priority of these s. F. Hope benefits. Good afternoon, Chair Melgar and Supervisors Preston and peskin. Cindy [inaudible], mohcd, project manager, working on Hunters View on all of the phases. This is the first development to begin construction and completed first phase of construction. The picture to the left is of the original Hunters View site. There were 51 public housing buildings on approximately 23 acres of land. The site was unconnected to City Street grids and services and did not have dedicated resident services. When the entire hope s. F. Revitalization is complete, there will be one for one replacement based on the impact existing Unit Type Configuration since 2005. This means if there were 63 threebedrooms onsite when the program began, there will be 63 three bedrooms onsite for the whole project. The project will include affordable Housing And Market rate housing, and on the map, the affordable housing is in the red, and the Market Rate Housing is in orange. To complete the revitalization, the development will and has occurred in three phases. Next slide, please. This ordinance before you today is specific to phase one, which was completed in 2013. The complete phase one included a new park named Promontory Park and included public services and utilities. It is a mix of 80 public housing units and 26 Tax Credit Unit and one Managers Unit and an office for a dedicated Service Provider [inaudible]. Next slide, please. Jason and i first came to this body in april 2021 for phase one, Street Acceptance and public service easement. The [inaudible] to an ordinance in order to allow for a waiver for the annual assessment fee. This extended the legislative timeline with a 30day hold, although the master major Encroachment Permit Ordinance was introduced in conjunction with the two pieces of phase two legislation. We are making this final request related to the phase one Street Acceptance through this master major Commitment Ordinance which assigns maintenance responsibility. To maintain phase one encroachment, including sidewalks, irrigation, one a. D. A. Ramp curb, and a retaining wall. As previously stated, the ordinance includes a waiver of the annual assessment fee. Because Hunters View phase one included a significant public benefit, this fee is normally waved for projected with development agreements, which Hunters View did not qualify as a primary hope s. F. Project. It is significant to know that Hunters View includes significant public benefit in all phases, not just phase one. This shows the areas affected by the ordinance, the street generally located, portions of fairfax avenue, acacia avenue, ironwood way, catalina street, and middle Point Road fronting Hunters View phase one. So this concludes my presentation, and colleagues and staff are here to answer questions. Thank you. Supervisor melgar thank you so much. Do any of you have any questions, colleagues . Okay. I just have one question, and that is how do we pick the names for these streets . The streets those street names were selected in the preplanning, before 2013 and 20 2004, and it basically a lot of the residents, the developer, and mohcd met with the residents, and a lot of names for people came up and various different things, but to keep it most democratic, those names were picked for trees. Supervisor melgar okay. Thank you. Okay. If theres no other questions or comments, colleagues, we can go ahead and have public comment on that. Clerk thank you. Arthurs checking to see how many callers we have in the queue. If you have not done so already, please Press Star, three to enter the queue, and if you have already done so, please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted, and arthur, if you can let me know what youre looking like for callers. Operator madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. Clerk thank you. Supervisor melgar may i go ahead, Madam Clerk . Seeing that theres no other public callers, public comment is now closed. Colleagues, do we have a motion to send this item out of committee with a positive recommendation . I see Supervisor Peskin. Please take roll. Clerk on the motion by Supervisor Peskin to recommend Item Number one [roll call] clerk the item passes unanimously. Supervisor melgar thank you. Please call item 2. Clerk item 2 is an ordinance amending the Planning Code to [inaudible]. Supervisor peskin let me start out by thanking you and members of the board for starting the Landmark Designation Process for what i thought was one of three Diego Rivera works in the city, but the Fact Sheet that i commend to all of you actually says there are four. I dont know what the fourth is, but theres this one at the Art Institute on russian hill at 800 Chestnut Street that Diego Rivera and his crew did in 1931, and then, of course, the pan american fresco that was in the gallery at City College and now is in sfmoma for all to review. That was originally out on Treasure Island and was meant to be movable, unlike this one that was done in situ and remains in its original spot, and then, there was the one at the pacific stock exchange, the City Club Building thats also under going renovation, and i know that Supervisor Melgar has been working on getting the pan american fresco designated, but i just wanted to start with some thanks both for this item and the next item, which hasnt been called that we will get to in a little bit, for the really truly outstanding work for the Planning Department Staff. And i believe pilar [inaudible] did both of these reports. My wife was, like, are you still reading that thing, like, an hour later . But both of these reports are just incredible documents. They are very painstakingly researched, and theres so much in here. I was when i first looked at it, i was, like, i think they made a mistake. The period of significance for of historic significance, you would think, would be 1931, when Diego Rivera and some other outstanding artists are spoken about in here did their work. But no, the period goes to 1974 because of the Latinxchicanox Movement in San Francisco and includes people like michael rios. So i called michael from the board of supervisors this morning to let him know that he is in an official city document, and i never knew that he actually went to the San Francisco Art Institute, and i thought that was a mistake, but no, he actually did go there and was actually already an accomplished artist. And the history of the Art Institute is also spoken to in this document, and depending on how you want to look at it, it is much older than the 90yearold Fresco showing the building of a city that rivera is. It was either 105 years old, or if you want the original incarnation, its now getting onto 130 years old and is a storied institution in itself. Its also an institution that has, not for the first time, bumped into some financial difficulties, which was what precipitated about a year ago our concerns that there was consideration of collateralizing the Diego Rivera mural by chopping it out of the building and selling it. Im pleased to say that the Art Commission thats under new leadership, theyre not contemplating that anymore, and we obviously all are deeply invested in having this storied institution survive, and hopefully once again thrive. The city actually landmarked the artwork in 1976. I believe its in pilars report, and it was number 85 from 1977, so i got my numbers totally wrong, but i believe that Landmark Designation, one way or another, totally protects the murals one way or another. Even though the murals are not specifically called out in the 1977 landmark, and they are referenced in the landmark case report, the reality is in order to move them out of there, you would have to rip that building out or tear its roof off and lift them out, which in and of itself would have required a certificate of appropriateness from the historic Preservation Commission. We are on the spree of landmarking every Rivera Work in San Francisco, so this will uphold that status and certainly that Master Artist known for his very lefty work. Its kind of interesting, some of his mentees had their works painted over in the 1940s. As a matter of fact, on friday, i got an email, last email from the Art Institution, saying that they uncovered works of a student that painted a woman named Susan Scherr with work that rivera did, that they just uncovered and restored. All of this is open to the public. Anybody can walkthrough the front entrance of 800 Chestnut Street and into the Diego Rivera gallery and see all of that. But the reason im speaking a bit to the Art Institutes current state of affairs is theres interest in the Art Institute not in blocking this proposal but in perhaps making some sensitive changes to the building that Diego Rivera is in and open it to the street. And my staff and i and the City Attorney are working on some language that would do that. Thats actually not a change to this Landmark Designation. It really would be a change to the 1977 Era Landmark Number 85 ordinance, but i do want to show the Art Institute that we are interested. So at the end of public comment and after we hear from miss la valle, i am going to respectfully ask for a Oneweek Continuance so that the City Attorney and the Staff Supervisor and i can work things out. So that is my long opening statement. If you have not read this case report, it talks about how rivera was wooed to San Francisco and how he got to come here. He was initially paid 1500 for the job, although it looks like he got another 1,000 along the way, and then, like now, the United States gave mr. Rivera a very hard time getting the visa to do the project. And if it were not for the intervention of a good friend, the u. S. Ambassador to mexico, he would not have been able to do that. So with that, i will shut up, but, madam chair, if you can tell us what the fourth Diego Rivera work is, i would love to know. Supervisor melgar i think miss la valle would know. So with that, miss lavalle, are you ready to make your presentation . I am. I do have a couple of slides to share or pull up, if thats possible. [inaudible] sorry. The fourth is not in San Francisco, but its in the bay area. Its Bay Hall in berkeley, and it was painted at the same time as the work at the Art Institute. Supervisor melgar thank you. Thank you very much. Pilar lavalle, Planning Department Staff. The making of a fresco showing the building of a city was painted onsite between may 1 and may 31, 1931, at the San Francisco Art Institute, then known as the California School of fine art. The fresco occupies the North Wall of the gallery now known as Diego Rivera gallery. As Supervisor Peskin mentioned, the 1926 building was designated a San Francisco Landmark Number 85 in 1977. Next slide, please. The the Boards Resolution initiating Landmark Designation was heard by the historic Preservation Commission on september 2, 2021. They made the finding that it is culturally and historically significant in a number of the following ways. First is the work of the preeminent mexican artist Diego Rivera. Also with its association with work at the San Francisco Art Institution and also for its association with San Franciscos Latinx And Chicanx community. Next slide, please. And that completes my presentation unless you have any questions. Thank you very much. Supervisor melgar thank you very much, miss lavalle. I look forward to reading the report. I only skimmed it, and now its going to be bedtime reading for me. Thank you, Supervisor Peskin. So if there are no further comments or questions, colleagues, i think we can take public comment on this item. Clerk thank you, madam chair. Arthur is checking to see if we have callers in the queue. If you have not already done so, Press Star, three to enter the queue, and if you have already done so, please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. Arthur, can you let us know how many folks we have . Operator yes, we have two callers in the queue. Clerk if you could unmute the first caller, please. Good afternoon, Chair Melgar and supervisors. This is [inaudible] on behalf of reuben, junius, and rose on behalf of the Art Institute. [inaudible] as a consequence, the university of california paid off San Francisco Art Institutes loan and has taken title to 800 chestnut campus. The [inaudible] fresco and specifically the endowment in place of the fresco is an important piece of the Art Institutes Recovery Plan and consistent with the goals of the landmark ordinance. San francisco would have ownership of the artwork in perpetuity. Included in your package is a letter from me with images showing the current condition of the gallerys street frontage. Its a largely blank and landscape covered wall. Currently, the only access is through the schools courtyard. Any Philanthropist Or Donor would like to have access from the street. We appreciate Supervisor Peskin and his staff for working collaboratively with us forming an amendment that would make possible a direct entry from Chestnut Street, subject to approval by the historic Preservation Commission. We look forward to hearing the item next week Supervisor Peskin i just want to make sure that mr. Fretons current Statement And Letter on behalf of the Art Institute that is part of our packet and dated september 8, 2021 supersedes and replaces his more threatening and caustic letter dated august 31, 2021. Is that the position of mr. Freton and his client . Supervisor melgar i dont know about that, Supervisor Peskin. Supervisor peskin i dont know, but if that is not the case, i would mark it as written at the h. P. C. Clerk arthur, would you unmute that first caller for me . Hello, mr. Freton . Hello. Sorry about that. Yes, the the letter that we sent in advance of this hearing does supersede the prior letter that we sent to the h. P. C. Supervisor peskin thank you. Supervisor melgar thank you. Im glad weve cleared that up. Do we have other public commenters on this item . Clerk yes, we have one more caller. If you could unmute the next caller, please. Can you hear me . Clerk yes. Supervisor melgar we can hear you. Great. Its david pillpel. Just want to recognize this important work. We are blessed to have such important landmarks in the city, and its a shame we havent been marking it until this point, but we are doing it now. I share the thoughts expressed by the previous caller about the Art Institute. Im sure their financial issues and access can be worked out over time, but i think the important thing for the public is that the mural be preserved and access be provided in an appropriate way in time, and i support this legislation, and thank you all very much. Clerk thank you, and that completes the queue, madam chair. Supervisor melgar thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Supervisor peskin, do you want to make a motion . Supervisor peskin i would like to make a motion to continue this item one week, at which time i hope to have resolved the issues that i previously discussed. Supervisor melgar okay. Madam clerk, can you please call the roll on that motion . Clerk on the motion to continue Item Number 2 to next Weeks Meeting [roll call] clerk you have three ayes. Supervisor melgar thank you so much, Madam Clerk, so we will revisit this next week. Will you please call Item Number 3 . Clerk yes. Item number 3 is an ordinance amending the Planning Code to design ate ingleside terraces Sundial And Sundial park, assessors parcel Block Number 6917b, Lot Number 001, situated with entrada court, as a landmark under article 10 of the Planning Code. Members of the public who wish to provide public comment, call 4156550001, enter meeting i. D. 24930322236, then pound, and pound again. Press star, three to enter the queue, and wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted before you begin to speak. Madam chair . Supervisor melgar thank you. I need to disclose that this project is within 500 feet of my familys home. Its actually significantly less than that, so i need to recuse myself from discussing or chairing this item, and i have asked Supervisor Peskin to recuse me. Supervisor peskin so moved. Clerk on the motion to remove Chair Melgar from this item [roll call] clerk you have two ayes. Supervisor preston thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes, and Supervisor Melgar, Chair Melgar, has now left the meeting for this item and is discussed from this item. Supervisor peskin, would you like to make any opening remarks before we hear from planning staff. Supervisor peskin i would. Supervisor preston the floor is yours. Supervisor peskin thank you, acting chair preston. So first, i just want to explain because its a little odd for the public to understand that we are presumed as a matter of State Law to have a conflict when there is a Land Use Matter within 500 feet of real property that we own. Whether it has a positive, neglect, or no financialing impact at all or no financial impact at all to any property we own. This was originally heard by Chair Melgars predecessor, Chair Yee and passed in december 2020, right before Supervisor Melgar became a supervisor, and worked its way through the historic Preservation Commission. I want to say as enthusiastically as i did with the last item, the Staff Report prepared by Planning Department Staff is really another excellent piece of work, and if you live in ingleside terraces or you dont live in ingleside terraces, there is some really interesting information given there about the original architect there and Supervisor Preston. This gentleman, leonard, actually designed the Society Building in your district, which has always been one of the most curious buildings in San Francisco and has, really, a lot of things, including something that was quite unique, in that it was built around a racetrack. It was one of the first if not the first subdivision that had covenants and deed restrictions that just were overtly racist on their face, excluding people of african, chinese, japanese, descent from leasing or owning property in that subdivision. But the sundial, which has always been a cool feature, which was a stone feature, even though the developers sold it as the largest sundial in the world, even though its not and im honored to be the sponsor of it along with former president of the board of supervisors and district 7 supervisor norman yee. So with that, ill turn it over to francis melon, Planning Department Staff. Thank you. The h. P. C. Unanimously recommended Landmark Designation on april 7, 2021. Next slide, please. The ingleside terraces Sundial And Sundial park are located within the Entrada Park [inaudible] during the period. As detailed in this study of the citys resident park neighborhoods, his torn yeah [inaudible] notes these neighborhoods were called residence parks to [inaudible] their resident studies [inaudible] landscaping guidelines, prohibition of commercial buildings and excluding Ownership Or Occupancy by minority races and ethnicities. Next slide, please. The ingleside terraces Sundial And Sundial park are also significant and distinctive. Finally, the Sundial And Sundial park are located within the neighborhood and have become a symbol of the communitys identity. It has been the site of community gatherings, celebrations, and active as an unsanctioned Playground Structure for children for decades. This concludes my presentation, and im happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Supervisor preston thank you. Any further comments or questions, Supervisor Peskin, before we go to public comment . Supervisor peskin no, nothing additional, other than, once again, to Planning Department did a great job on these reports. I know were throwing a lot of initiations at them, and theyre not quick, but theyre working their way through. Supervisor preston thank you. Lets go to public comment. Clerk thank you. Operations is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. If you have not already done so, please Press Star, three to enter the queue, and if you have already done so, please wait until the system has been unmuted. We have six callers and one caller in the queue. Operations, can you put the caller through. I assume you can hear me. This is david pillpel. I appreciate the staff work, the research, and noting the good, the bad, the otherwise, the development of the sundial and the racetrack. Its very important San Francisco, and its good to recognize that in this case through a Landmark Designation. I was also interested in how Chair Melgars address would be handled, because i believe she may be living in the home that was formerly occupied by Betty And Bob landis, great activists in the city. I believe at least one of them has passed away, maybe both, but they were both great people and just wanted to mention them while i had the opportunity, and just want to support the proposal for designation. Thank you so much. Clerk thank you. That was the last caller in the queue. Thats fine. Supervisor preston thank you, Madam Clerk. And seeing no other callers, public comment on this item is now closed, and unless there are additional comments, i would just like to echo Supervisor Peskins thanks to the Planning Department for work on this and the prior item and also thank Supervisor Peskin for his on going leadership in bringing these ordinances before that. So with that, do i have a motion, Supervisor Peskin, to send this out of committee with a positive recommendation . Supervisor peskin so moved. Clerk on the motion [roll call] clerk you have two ayes. Supervisor preston thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes, and we will now bring Chair Melgar back into the meeting. Madam clerk, if you would advise her so that she can chair the remainder of our agenda. Clerk yes, i just texted Supervisor Melgar, and she will be joining us shortly. Thank you for your patience. There we go. Madam chair . Supervisor preston with you welcome back, madam chair. If we were in chambers, i would hand the gavel over to you. Supervisor peskin we almost landmarked your house when you were gone, but then, we thought better. Supervisor melgar thank you so much. Madam clerk, can you please call the next item . Clerk yes. Item 4 is an ordinance amending the Planning Code to eliminate the requirement of conditional Use Authorization for residential care facilities for seven or more people in residential house districts, require conditional Use Authorization for a change of Use Or Demolition of a residential Care Facility and consideration of certain factors in determining whether to grant conditional Use Authorization and making the appropriate findings. Members of the public who would like to make public comment, dial 4156550001 and enter meeting i. D. 24930322236, then Press Pound and pound again. Madam chair . Supervisor melgar thank you. I know that Supervisor Mandelman wanted to be here to make some comments, but he was unable to be here. However, i know that Supervisor Ronen is here, as well. Supervisors, the item before you today is an ordinance that would establish permanent controls on the conversion of residential care facilities. These are commonly known as assisted living facilities or Board And Cares sometimes, and these are facilities that provide both stable housing and essential care for elderly san franciscans and those living with disabilities and chronic illness, including mental illness and addiction. They are something the supervisor feels are essential to the citys broader efforts to prevent and end homelessness for disabled and senior citizens, but unfortunately, we are losing them at a rapid rate at a time that we need more to serve these populations. This is something that we heard in a 2019 report that documented the alarming rate at which were losing these residential care facilities, and that report as of 2018, San Francisco had lost 43 facilities, compared to 2012, which was a loss of 243 beds over a sixYear Period. We asked for an update, and sadly, another 11 facilities for a total of another 226 beds. In response to those trends, in 2019, Supervisor Mandelman proposed and the supervisors enacted controls to [inaudible] back in april of this year and will continue now through october, which is the maximum 24 months allowed for interim controls, and those are set to expire on october 11. Supervisors, i think its well recognized that preserving and expanding the residential supplies will take more than Zoning And Land use changes. However, we have seen that the traditional Oversight And Transparency provided to the interim controls has added to the odds of preserving these facilities. Earlier this year, there was a 33bed facility on broderick street that was actually at risk of closer when the Property Owner actually indicated their intention not to renew their lease with d. P. H. , which was expiring. The national union of Health Care workers reached out and they were actually successful in negotiating an agreement to extend that lease for another three years, and they reported that having this conditional Use Requirement on the books was a really useful tool in their efforts to achieve that result, and were glad that the facility is still online. The conditional use that was in place in the interim control is due to be heard at the Planning Commission. We believe its been very helpful in that case. So the Ordinance Today before you will codify that additional Use Requirement, so the first i just want to go through these changes quickly because we did learn from our experience to make some adjustments how the conditional use is implemented. They would reach out to staff or a number of organizations that are listed in the ordinance. We included the golden gate regional support which provides support for people with disabilitied, including h. S. A. , d. P. H. , the longterm care coordinating counsel. The second finding on the impact that a facility has on the neighborhood, that was removed. Theres a third finding from the interim controls which remains as the second finding now in the ordinance that does, you know, reference the analysis from these relevant agencies, including the golden gate regional center as to whether there is a sufficient number of beds available in the facility, and it had been a regular question to the commission. Additionally, weve added a consideration as to whether its practically feasible, putting in that term, practically feasible to the commission, when asking if the facility will be replaced or relocated in the neighborhood. And finally, theres another consideration for the Planning Commission that would be included here in the ordinance which was not in the interim controls which asked whether the continued operation of the facility is feasible and specifically whether any other likely operators or organizations were contacted who might be interested in operating the site. Supervisors, these changes are made to promote changes. Again, its our hope that this gives Planning Commission and staff more clear direction on the issues that they should be considering when there is a Demolition Or Conversion proposed, especially for applicants to make it clear that they are expected to do the legwork of seeing if Theres Anyone else out there to operate the facility before proposing to convert it to something else. Supervisors, that is all with respect to the residential care facilities. We would also like to make it easier to create them or expand them, so in this case, this is eliminating a conditional use thats on the books now, expanding a residential area thats more than seven beds, and thats in Rh1 And Rh2 zoning districts. This builds on an ordinance that Supervisor Mandelman introduced and was passed in 2019 that got rid of the requirement, and that ordinance did help significantly advance a project, as it happens, also on shotwell street at a different location. That was a 29bed location that was closed in 2016 but is now being renovated and expanded to a 48bed facility. Because of our 2018 change, it was able to proceed as principally permitted. So in closing, supervisors, and thank you for your time and indulgence, while we still have a lot of work cut out for us to ensure that were meeting the needs of every san franciscan with respect to residential care, including beyond the realm of Land Use, this ordinance is intended to make it harder to remove and easier to open and expand residential care facilities in the city, and we respectfully ask for your support in this exclusion. H. S. H. Staff is here, and im also here to answer any questions. Supervisor melgar thank you for your presentation and for your information on this issue. Im pleased that were making progress on one part of this issue that we know so much about. We now have Audrey Malone here from the Planning Department, followed by Susie Smith from the human services agency, and they are going to make brief presentations, so miss malone first. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Melgar. Good afternoon, supervisors. Audrey malone, Planning Department Staff. The commissions proposed modifications were as follows one, to [inaudible] the conditional Use Requirement for a proposed change of use from or demolition of a residential Care Facility after three years. Two, to encourage the sponsor and other city agencies to continue to seek and support nonLand Use solutions to alleviate the financial burdens cased by current residential care facilities. Three, to only require a conditional Use Authorization if the facility established locally, and allow other parties that may be relevant to a case to be resulted. Thats all for the Planning Department Staff, and if you have any questions, im here to answer them. Thank you so much. Supervisor melgar thank you very much for that, miss malone. And now, we have Susie Smith from the human services agency. Miss smith . Good afternoon, supervisors. I do have a presentation to share with some of the findings from the report that [inaudible] had referenced earlier. Im not sure if i can i should do that or if thats coming from oh, there you go. Thank you, john. Okay. Okay. So briefly, just going to the next slide, wanted to share a little bit of background in terms of the context that were seeing on the assisted living facilities in San Francisco and then update you on the data that we collected since that initial report was released. So on the next slide, the context is that as was mentioned, the study was done by the longterm care coordinating counsel which advises the mayor and the board and the city on policy, planning, and Service Delivery issues for older adults and people with disabilities, and we were really it was prompted by concern that people in need of assisted living are just unable to procure it for a variety of reasons, and its particularly difficult for lower income citizens of our city. So we published the report in january 2019 with a few key findings and recommendations and on the next few slides, we go through what those findings were. And the report documents what our systems and staff have known for a long time, which is were seeing a steady decline in the assisted living summary, and we know that this has happened in residential care facilities for the elderly and adult residential facilities. Since 2012, the city has seen a 9 decline in assisted living beds. Weve seen a 5 decline in rcfe beds but a 22 decline in the a. R. F. S or adult residential facilities. This decline has been in facilities that have been traditionally more affordable to San Francisco residents. [please stand by] and these tend to be small facilities in 2018. 27 were board in smaller care homes and we briefly updated this and jacob just mentioned the data since the report was completed you can see the summaries there. We have about 2700 beds and 430 adults for under the age of 60. Thats our current capacity and when we look at the residential Care Facility for the elderly, weve seen some losses and some gains for facilities. Facilities loss, we have five fewer of these smaller facilities compared to 2018. Most of these closures predate this zoning policy. Four closures occurred prior to october 2019. Two in the mission. Two in the sunset. And one in gulfside. The Bed Growth that weve seen is driven by new licensure and thats mostly by the opening of the new frank residents memory Care Facility at campus for jewish living and then the launch of portola gardens at the former university home. So on the next slide, you look at the updated data for adult residential facilities. We had a net loss of 40 beds since 2018. This loss is driven by the closure of four Board And Care homes all of which were operated by one company and this is closure of the residential care homes and a series of four buildings in the University Mound Excelsior area. These losses were significantly offset by one Boarding Care at Home Opening we also saw the closure of the 24bed facility which closed in august of 2018. So that is my report. As jacob had indicated, i mean, of course, theres a larger context in the challenges that these business operators have in running these facilities. Its just a really hard market to be successful in given the high housing in the city and were also trying to balance the needs of these owners that, you know, some feel the businesses arent working anymore and its hard to sustain in this environment so i think thats kind of the larger context. We dont want an owner to stay in business because of this need if it doesnt work for them financially. We have to look at a broader set of policy options maintain this kind of housing in the city. Happy to answer any questions and sorry to go through the data weeds with you all, but just wanted to provide that updated data and provide more context to the trends weve seen over the last several years. Supervisor melgar thank you so much, ms. Smith for the thorough presentation. Do we have any comments or questions for the staff . Okay. Thank you so much. I do have yes . Sorry. As a cosponsor of the legislation, i just wanted to chime in since im here. I want to thank jacob and Supervisor Mandelman for this legislation. Im excited about the addition of removing the c. U. For new Boarding Care that want to open. I know jacob mentioned two of its properties, but i believe this legislation was helpful in helping us require a 29unit or a 29bed board of Care Facility in district nine and we were also able to use the 10 million that we had put aside last not this last budget year, but the one before particularly and so the two work together to really put a dent, a small dent, but a dent in this crisis were experiencing, but even more so, we were able to preserve what had previously been a Board And Care and was going to go away if we didnt have the law to help us preserve this type of housing available. Im so proud to be a cosponsor and i really appreciate all the work of Supervisor Mandelmans office and Supervisor Mandelman in bringing this forward. Thank you. Supervisor melgar thank you so much, Supervisor Ronen. Supervisor preston. Supervisor preston thank you, Chair Melgar. I just want to thank Supervisor Mandelman for all the work on this and also Supervisor Ronen for her Cosponsorship And N. H. W. Folks and to be added as a cosponsor. Thank you. Chairman Supervisor Peskin. Supervisor Peskin Cosponsor please. Thank you Supervisor Ronen and Supervisor Mandelman and Planning And N. U. H. W. Yay. Chairman thank you so much and if you could also add me as a cosponsor, i would very much appreciate it. Thank you, jacob, as i said for all your hard work. You know, we in district seven have a number of large homes that no longer have folks living in them, large families and whose kids have moved away. As we also have a very large population its really like to say. When i was on the Planning Commission i was this line going down and were not making any progress and the market is driving so much of this. Thank you so much, jacob, for all your work and please Madam Clerk. Thank you, madam chair. I was just checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. If you have not done so already, please Press Star three to be added to the queue. It looks like we have seven callers and two in queue. Arthur, if you can unmute the first caller, please hello, this is christina. Clerk go ahead, maam. I operated the facility since 2005 and we provide Boarding Care behavioral Health And Nursing services to people who are who service on mental illness and many of them have current and historical issues with Substance Use and many of them have medical complications and we take care of them and many of them see this as their home. Im a little bit worried about the reviewing every three years because many of our residents considered that as the home and, you know, every three years, we have to move not have been bad that would be very anxiety provoking and like i said if without this kind of facility, many of our residents would have been homeless, hospitalized, or dead. So having this residential facility for people who have mental health challenges, its going to help to end homelessness at least part of the solution to help homelessness. So, yes, please approve the ordinance. Clerk thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Yes. This is michael nulty, im a native san franciscan. And also for reference, i grew up in district seven and im aware of the large houses in district seven. Anyway, im for this resolution, changes to the Planning Code because its important to keep people in residential care facilities in San Francisco. Its going to be a growing population in San Francisco. Im a senior and people are only going to be getting older in San Francisco and we have to look out for the seniors as a living place in San Francisco. We want to keep our population here and we want to have the services to be able to provide to them when they are getting older and so this is important legislation that needs to be moved out of committee on to the full board. Clerk thank you, mr. Nulty. That was the final speaker, madam chair. Chairman thank you so much, Madam Clerk. With that, colleagues, can we have a motion to send this out of committee with a positive recommendation . Supervisor preston so moved. Chairman thank you, Supervisor Preston. Will you please call roll, Madam Clerk. Clerk on the motion to recommend the item. I believe this was a committee report. Madam chair . Chairman yes. It is a committee report. Clerk as a committee report, [roll call] you have three ayes. For the record ive added peskin, preston, and melgar as cosponsors. Chairman thank you. This has passed to the full board as a committee report. Can you please call Item Number five. Clerk yes. Item number five is a hearing on the history and current status on multiple major violations of the municipal codes at 28612899 San Bruno avenue including the construction of 30 units in a project approved for ten units requesting the departments report on the Citys Role and responsibility in plan review. Action finalized to impose appropriate penalties and conform and mitigate harm. Members who would like to call in on this item should call the number on the screen. That number is 415 6550001. And the meeting i. D. Is 24930322236. Press Pound And Pound again. Press three to enter the queue to speak. Chairman thank you so much, Madam Clerk. We have department of staff here today. This project is in Supervisor Ronens district. This is district nine and Supervisor Ronen is here to conduct the hearing. Thank you, Supervisor Ronen for joining us. And the floor is yours Supervisor Ronen thank you so much, Chair Melgar. Supervisor peskin, did you want to say something before i start in. Supervisor peskin i do have one thing. Thank you, supervisor, for calling this hearing and i look forward to calling this hearing and i look forward to it vigorously and im totally bummed up by the ongoing revelations and corruption in this department and as we discussed in Rules Committee at public works and other places after doing this job on and off for 20 years, it just makes me sick to my stomach. This is the first time ive seen what our Zoning Administrator looks like. Ive talked to him on the phone a couple of times over the year and i have seen his written determinations most of which i disagreed with. Ive never tried to influence the guy. Generally, if you dont like his decisions, you can appeal him at the board of appeals and try to seek justice there. But the reason im raising that is because as we worry about independent and checks and balances and stuff like this not happening and how the hell this happened is i cant wait to hear. I am deeply concerned and i will be raising it tomorrow at the board of supervisors the fact that i believe the independence of the Zoning Administrator is being undermined by a reorganization within the Planning Department. I have never discussed this with mr. T. And he can listen with everybody else as i bring this up tomorrow. I believe that organization can lead to the exact same kind of corruption were seeing at the building department. And i wanted to get that off my chest. I look forward to talking more about this more extensively at the board of supervisors. Supervisor ronen thank you, Supervisor Peskin, and i will say when mr. T. Turned on his camera, i said oh, thats what he looks like. Its nice to see your face, mr. T. And i want to start off by saying thank you to Chair Melgar but also Supervisor Peskin and Supervisor Preston for allowing me to hold a Hearing Today. I have never held a hearing until today. I want to echo Supervisor Peskin and say this case is not only unusual outrageous, unusually dangerous, unusually just mind boggling. Implications that i do not believe we have discussed enough in public. There has not been enough transparency to discuss how this corruption manifests and impacts the lives and safety of our constituents in San Francisco and this project in particular i think is quite an interesting illustration of that and so thats why i brought a discussion about this particular project to this committee in a way that i never have before nor have i often seen maybe with the exception of the millennium tower. Soy just wanted to appreciate you all for allowing me to hold this hearing. The project were going to discuss today is at 28612899 San Bruno avenue. A new mixed Use Building that conceded in 2017. The developers proposed project was approved by the Planning Commission in 2012 and permitted by d. B. I. For ten units. The project began construction based on those approvals and permits were completed and approved for occupancy in 2017. In 2019, my office was informed by Plannings Code Enforcement people that 30, 30 units were constructed illegally at the site. The notice of violation issued by d. B. I. And San Francisco Fire Department and planning in 2019 ran the gamut from ignoring the affordable Housing Requirement, changing the exterior design, altering the exterior staircase, corridors, and fire converting garages into other uses and converting other required space into parking. But most significant and immediately urgent, there were 30 unit that is did not meet fire and other Life Safety codes and 30 households were now living in these illegal units and needed to be protected. These were multiple egregious code violations. My office has been working with neighbors, and city departments to resolve this mind boggling disaster. Our first focus was on safety and make sure there were no displacement of renters who truly were the victims in this scheme. There were immediate steps taken by fire to have on Site Life Fire watchers. Thats how serious the danger was to the tenants. They required 24hour fire watches to watch the property and make sure that a fire didnt ignite and then to construct an exterior temporary Fire Escape which temporary now means three years because its still not put there today. Since then, the pace of city departments to action against compliance to create permanently safe conditions for the residents has been frustratingly slow. Today, we have representatives from the Planning Department, city of Building Inspections and the Mayors Office of Housing And Community development are here to answer questions. I was originally going to have a presentation from Planning And D. B. I. Realizing that we have an enormous amount of questions about this property and that this is only the beginning of your long agenda today, im going to ask that anyone who wants to make a presentation, they can do so extremely briefly, two Minutes Max because the heart of this matters going to come up in dialog in questions and answers and often times presentations alone take up so much time that it leaves very little time that we so desperately need to have in this city. When i initially heard about this violation in 2019, one of my first questions was how could a developer think they could get away with such a brazen flouting of our laws and i was assured back then that these units were inserted after the final signoff from d. B. I. Of the Occupancy Permission and that perhaps d. B. I. Permission should have but didnt additional that happened during construction and an application for wet bars after. But in june, and i believe that, i listened to that and i believed that. But then in june, we learned that d. B. I. Senior Building Inspector Bernard kern who was recently indicted for fraud recently signed off. That was when i decided to take an even closer look at this project because what a coincidence that a Senior Building inspector that was indicted by the f. B. I. Was the one to sign the final Inspection Notice on this project and, it was only then that i realized i couldnt just trust City Staff to say that all of this happened after the city departments were involved and realized that was actually not the case and well discuss that more in a second. This situation points firstly to the action of unscrupulous developers and contractors that in order to pull this off, there had to be compliciting on the part of City Staff. What is particularly frustrating is at the same time we are looking at making it easier and quicker and cheaper ways to build, we see a project that needed more and a lot more scrutiny, not less. Every honest developer in town should be horrified by the potential repercussions for the timing and costs for future approvals and the construction process. I want to hear from the departments on the Citys Role and Responsibility And Plan review, permitting, inspection, and compliance on the current status of Building Safety and its occupants on any Gas And Oversight that allowed this to happen on current actions to investigate allegations of unethical behavior. My Goal Today is to find out what happened . What signal if any did the city fail to follow up on or that were missed completely allowing this project to go off the rails . And what the city can and should do when something like this occurs to ensure we are holding developers commitments to be made and those harmful and mitigating laws developers are inflicting and what collusion, if any, our City Staff have. It is becoming increasingly clear that this situation is not unique. We seem to be on a City Path that is now uncovering more corruption, more unethical behavior. In fact, later this week, the controller will release its findings and recommendations on the grossly inefficiently profits. We have quite a lot of work to do in the city to restore trust in this department and this hearing and a full look on this and the transparency on what occurred in this project is a central part of regaining trust. First, we need to understand really whats been going on in this department for all these years, then, we need to identify processes that didnt make sense, root out corrupt employees and hold them responsible and contractors and then change those systems and then make sure that any property that was inspected insufficiently and perhaps was a product of corruption must be reinspected to make sure people are living under safe conditions. We have a long way to go in this city to restore faith in this department. We have a lot of work to do in the process and i hope that this Hearing Today can be helpful in putting us on that track. I want to end by saying that i recently passed legislation to provide additional scrutiny to bad actors through the d. B. I. Permitting process. Ive also introduced code regulations to tighten up to make sure developers meet their affordable Housing Obligations. Like Supervisor Peskin said and im right there with him, these are two parts of a lot of change that needs to happen at this city and im looking forward to continuing to work with my colleagues and the department to make that change. So, with that, i wanted to give a brief opportunity for mr. Rearden or mr. Teag to make some opening comments or remarks and then vi a i have a litany of questions as im sure my colleagues do as well. Thank you. Its good to see you all. Cory teags Zoning Administrator for the Planning Department. I was prepared to give a longer presentation. The only thing i would say at this point and, of course, were open to questions is, as you mentioned, this was a project that was originally approved, went through that Approval Process through the Planning Commission, went through the Building Permit process, everything through that stage seemed to be legitimate. We kind of were out of the process at that point. We got back into the process when the Property Owner came in to actually request a conditional Use Authorization to not do the on site affordable units and convert that to paying the fee instead which would have then required them to go back to the Planning Department and change their approval and is essentially in that process and the Site Visit that one of our planners realized that something was very off and then that started to ramp up. That resulted in a Code Enforcement case for the lack of provision of the on Site Unit because we do have a provision for paying interest if you havent met your obligation when you should have. But, again, that ramped up into additional Site Visits that ultimately included a joint Task Force of planning, building, fire, City Attorney, and that really kind of kicked off the enforcement process. And, i know that weve been in direct engagement with your office i think from the beginning and i know that the time it has taken has been challenging and there are a number of legitimate although frustrating reasons why thats been the case. Im happy to get into those as well. But i just wanted to briefly call out those points in the process. As you know right now, the project, Weve Kind of gotten through the process of finalizing something that could be approved and go before the Planning Commission and before the Zoning Administrator for a required variance for that proposed scope of work and so Thats Something thats hopefully going to be happening very soon, but otherwise im available for any specific questions you may have regarding the Planning Departments Review And Role in this case. Supervisor ronen thank you. And, i do appreciate that. Im not sure this would have ever come to light had planning not brought this to our attention. So i do want to recognize that and thank the Planning Department for that. Mr. Orearden did you want to make any opening comments and remarks. Sure. Good afternoon supervisors and Chair Melgar and thank you for allowing me to answer some of your questions today. As you are, Supervisor Ronen, im outraged by what happened here. This is unacceptable and we at d. B. I. Have a long ways to go to earn the publics trust. Were in the business of ensuring the safety of the citizens and county of San Francisco and we have to we have put reforms in place. We have a Reforms Package we put in place in may. We have a lot of work to do. This is going to take time. It entails Auditing Everything from the past where we have any suspicions of any wrong doing and were already doing that. We have started auditing projects. We started in july of last year, as a matter of fact. We started our initial audit of the 67 million project in hayes valley. That was the subject of media attention. So were auditing on that. Just waiting for a complete response from the design professionals. And, all these other things that are coming to us by way of whats notable in criminal complaints. Were looking at that first before we look at anything else, but we will look at everything. This came to me and i was horrified when i found out about this in january of 2019 based on a complaint that we received from the Planning Department and we immediately dispatched a team of inspectors along with the Fire Department attended along with the City Attorney. We issued 15 notices of violation. We take this very seriously. We want to make sure that the residents of that building are safe at least on a temporary basis. Our acting Deputy Director was out there on August 13th and he can id like him to speak a little bit because he was there recently with our plumbing and electrical inspectors and he can explain to you and the other supervisors what the condition of the building is as of right now. Would you like me to ask joe to describe to you what he saw when he went out there, supervisor . Supervisor ronen we can talk about the present soon, but i want to talk about the past first, if thats okay. Sure. Supervisor ronen if you dont mind if we can get into questions. You know, i will look to my colleagues. I have questions for d. B. I. , the Attorneys Office and a couple questions for planning. We can either go by department or we can go by individuals. Just let me know if anyone has a burning question they want to chime in at any time and just wave your hand or put yourself on stack and ill start myself. I do want this to be a dialog. So, first of all, you know, i appreciate mr. Orearden that i did meet with you and your team prior to this hearing and i do think that what i learned in that discussion, i want to have that conversation again here in the public because, again, a full public accounting of the truth of what happened is very important to restoring trust in the department. So first of all, i want you to explain in a project like this, you know, presumably you would expect it was a 10unit new construction. How many inspections should have taken place by d. B. I. During a project like that . A project like that, supervisor, and thank you for the question would typically consist of about seven inspections and that would be per building. Now, if the buildings were being built all at the same time, its possible that the inspections may have been done for multiple buildings at one Site Visit. Supervisor ronen and how many inspections actually took place at these buildings . Im not trying to hedge, supervisor, but we honestly dont know right now. What we do know, what is documented in our Permit Tracking System is that a final Permit Inspection took place at each of the five buildings. 28672899 San Bruno avenue. Now, what were unclear about is if inspections were documented on the Job Card of the contractor. I was told that by Bernie Kern and i asked him to provide me evidence of that. He did not provide evidence. I asked him multiple times. I havent seen that evidence. We have asked the attorney representing the developer for those Job Cards and we still havent received any evidence of those Job Cards. So we will now work on the assumption that those inspections were not performed since we dont have evidence to the contrary. Supervisor ronen so each of those seven inspections for each of the buildings should have been noted in your Permit Tracking System . That is correct, supervisor. Yes. Supervisor ronen and, none were inputted into the Permit Track System or just the final inspection was . Just the final inspections. Supervisor ronen and did mr. Kern perform all of the final inspections . Yes. Supervisor ronen is that common that inspections arent recorded in your Permit Inspection system . Its uncommon. It does happen, but this is a severe instance of what youre describing and what im explaining to you. Supervisor ronen and, so there was no flags that went off or no way to determine that during a long period of time so those seven inspections, during what period of time should those seven inspections have taken place . Typically, for this type of a project, it probably would have been over the course of probably about 18 months to 2 years for construction of these five buildings. Supervisor ronen so when a projects taking place and, you know, its under construction for two years and theres no Inspection Input into the system, theres nothing to alert you . You were the senior inspector at the time, there had been nothing to alert you to the fact that inspections werent taking place . Unfortunately, supervisor, thats correct. There were no flags in the system that would have indicated that. I was the chief inspector at the time, bernie was the senior, and we didnt have oversight then like we do now over what senior inspectors did with our Reforms Package now, all of these senior inspectors are accountable for what they do. Unfortunately, that was not the case then. Supervisor ronen so what and Supervisor Melgar and Supervisor Peskin im going to finish this one questioning and then ill give it to you and then follow other lines of questioning. So what is different now . If a project you know over a two Year Period if their inspections werent being inputted into the system, how would you know . So whats different now is the senior inspectors are the oversight for the District Inspectors which is what was always the case, but along with that now, the chief inspector provides oversight for the work that is performed by the senior inspectors. That wasnt the case then. Unfortunately, the senior inspectors were the overseers and then we found we had, you know, this situation arose and we couldnt trust the oversight they were providing anymore. So we put another level of oversight, thats the chief Inspectors Overview of what these seniors do from daytoday. So the chief is looking now with what the senior does along with the senior looking at the deadline inspector. Supervisor ronen so now the chief will look to make sure that inspectors are recording their inspections in the database . Yes. The chief will verify that everything is complete prior to the project closure. Supervisor ronen was Bernard Kern, i know the answer to this but ill ask the question anyway. Was Bernard Kern the senior inspector of the area where this project took place . I believe he was at the time, yes. Supervisor ronen i thought he was going outside his area when he worked on these properties . I may be proven wrong, supervisor, but im remembering that he was the senior inspector for that area. Now, the question i think is more the District Inspector should have been doing the inspections, not the senior inspector. Supervisor ronen i see. Okay. So two days ago or whatever that was, four days ago, you had said, he was outside of his area. Youre saying youre not changing that. No on many other occasions he was outside of his area. I believe that that particular project happened to be one of the projects that was actually in his area, but in many other instances since then, we have discovered that he was doing inspections outside of his areas. Now, just as a frame of reference, we have 18 districts throughout the city and each senior, we have four seniors. Theyre each responsible for five or six of these districts. So mr. Kern at the time was responsible for the southern portion of the city along with a couple of districts one of them being Supervisor Peskins area of telegraph hill. So he had i think district 12 is where San Bruno, we call it district 12, Inspection District 12 and that was one of his districts at that time, i can clarify that and get back to you and if im wrong ill correct it but thats what my memory tells me. Supervisor ronen thats different from what we talked about a couple of days ago but thats either here nor there. But when you say it should have been the District Inspector instead of the senior inspector going out to that property during the inspection time. Mr. Kern was outside the scope of what would regularly be his duties and his job, is that correct . Correct. Yes. Supervisor ronen and, my understanding is he did that regularly. You had told me a regular senior inspector may do anywhere from 25 maybe on the high end 50 inspections a year whereas mr. Kern was doing upward of 300 inspections a year. Thats correct. We recently found that out through surveying our data. We actually got to higher data in the d. B. I. So now were very good at finding some of these data sets. So weve found that evidence of what he was doing i want to say like in the last six months. Supervisor ronen okay. So now were going to step forward to 2019 when the Planning Department discovered the violation and, you know, you brought mr. Kern into your office and you looked at the site and you said, how could this developer have gotten away with building 20 additional units . And why werent any of the inspections other than the final Inspection Input into our system . What did he tell you . He told me that he had made notes on the contractors Job Cards and he had done the inspections and he also told me that they must have created those additional units after his final inspection. Thats what he told me. Supervisor ronen and then, when you asked him, why were you doing these inspections in the first place thats not your job it should have been the District Inspector doing those inspections, what did he tell you . He told me that the Inspector Tom Huey who head asked out there to go do the inspections. Supervisor ronen okay. And as his supervisor at that point, and i understand that at that point, you didnt realize that he was doing many more inspections than a normal senior inspector would do, but at this point, theres some serious red flags going on. First of all, theres a project that has been grossly mishandled and a developer committing egregious violations. Theres a senior inspector who should have never done but was told to go outside his normal duties and inspect the project. There was nothing noted in the Permit Database where its very rare not to have inspections noted, but there was no info there. And, you know, you didnt have a Job Card in front of you at the time. Red flags going up all over the place. What did you do as his supervisor to look into what was going on in that . After he told me that, are obviously, i was outraged and i reported it immediately. Supervisor ronen who did you report it to . Supervisor, i can assure you that when i found irregularities in the San Bruno properties, i was communicating with the City Attorney. The City Attorney has advised me that disclosing any further specific details would jeopardize present communications. Supervisor ronen okay. Thats very interesting. Okay. Im going to transition over to Supervisor Peskin and then Supervisor Melgar and then come back to another series of questions. Go ahead, Supervisor Peskin. Supervisor peskin ill defer to Chair Melgar relative to this speaking order, but i just want to hop in on the last thing was that our privilege communications, i just want to understand and i know that deputy City Attorney keith is here. When were talking about privilege, i just want to and i completely respect that there are thing that is should not be said publicly relative to compromising an ongoing civil and potentially criminal not potentially but criminal investigation but i just want to understand and if you can articulate for the members of this panel and the public what that means so its not just we cant know now, we cant ever know. I just want to understand the nature of that privilege. Thanks, supervisor. For the members of the board, my names peter keith, im the head of the Code Enforcement team. My teams not the only team in the office thats been involved with this project and trying to deal with this aftermath and continuing aftermath, the public Integrity Team in my office has also been involved and im glad to answer any questions about Attorney Client Privilege. So the privilege here belongs to the city and it belongs to the department of Building Inspection insofar as employees were reporting misconduct to the City Attorney. The rule as to privilege, again, this is to protect as Supervisor Peskin this is to protect the integrity of our investigation and, you know, as much as we can disclose, i can disclose and i can say that we can disclose the generally, you know, by privilege law, we can disclose the general nature of the communications and the time frame, but if we disclose more than that, then that threatens to wave privilege as to the details of what the communications are which include very important information we use in our public Integrity Investigation and our privilege case. Its to protect our ability to keep using that. That said, i did brief Supervisor Ronen last week confidentially and we can conduct a confidential briefings or distribute Attorney Client Privilege memos to enlighten each of you more on these issues, but the problem is that if these statements are disclosed publicly, that would waive the privilege generally so thats why our office advised director orearden its okay to disclose that he contacted our office regarding his concerns, but as to the specific content, we want to avoid waiving that. Supervisor ronen mr. Keith, if i can follow up on that question. So when a project like this when its discovered and mr. Orearden informed your office that the director of the department ordered a senior inspector to go outside his normal job duties to inspect a property where there was egregious violations of our code, who do you notify that thats that this project reaches the very top of the department . Does the mayor get notified . Does the board of supervisors get notified . Does the Controllers Office get notified . What happens . So when our office receives a complaint of illegal or unethical conduct by a city employee, we take this very seriously. We investigate it solely. We go wherever the evidence takes us. Were constantly evaluating is there evidence that a law has been broken and is the evidence if we believe there is evidence, is the evidence strong enough to condense a Decision Maker whether that be a judge or an arbitrator or an elected official to remove that official from office. So its something that we take very seriously. We investigate and the decision about whether and when to disclose that outside of our office is one thats informed by a desire that if we do believe that this conduct has occurred, that that disclosure is going to be effective to get that corrupt official out of office. And so we wait to disclose until we believe we have enough evidence to go forward. Supervisor ronen was mr. Hueys actions related to this particular project ever was the mayor or any other elected official or the Controllers Office made aware of his involvement in this particular project . Well, let me step back. In terms of talking about director huey, i mean, he was removed from office or he did resign from office in march of 2020 as related to other corruption matters. As far as whether the specifics of this were disclosed from this office prior to then, i dont know. Supervisor ronen is that something you could find out while we continue this hearing . I could. And i could certainly brief you about that confidentially. Supervisor ronen so you cant tell us whether or not anybody else within the city was informed that the director was ordering Line Staff to do things outside of their regular per view for a project that was grossly mishandled . I can tell you that we investigate allegations like that and we investigate every allegation that comes to us. Whether that was shared outside this office, i simply dont know the answer. Supervisor ronen i know, you were going to ask about that and when you found out can you just give us a yes or no on that. Well, yes. I can do that privately. Supervisor ronen i dont understand why that cant be known publicly because i have concerns about the City Attorneys Office Role in this as well in this entire case and Thats Part of this hearing and i need to know what the City Attorneys office did to investigate. Well, the particular steps that we take in any investigation remain confidential until we publicize the investigation. Supervisor ronen so its your judgment that telling us whether or not anybody else out of the City Attorneys office that is an elected Official Or Anyone from the Controllers Office was notified has to be done privately and you cant say that publicly . Without knowing the context, i dont have enough information to be able to say whether i can say it publicly. Supervisor ronen okay. Ill move on. Please find out and let us know whether or not you can tell us that publicly. I will. Supervisor ronen Chair Melgar. Supervisor melgar thank you so much, Supervisor Ronen. So i as my colleagues know whats on the bick before i got on the Planning Commission and i want to say it was like 2015, maybe 2014 there was a grand Jury Investigation in one of the recommendations was that we should move toward an electronic system to keep track of all of this stuff. You know, so yesterday i was signing up my kid for an Enrichment Program and on the form, you know, you have to fill out your name, your first name, your last name before you could go on to step number three which is what enrichment do you choose. To me, it is just mind boggling that we could have a system where you could check off a final inspection without doing the seven inspections that are needed before that. So my question, mr. Orearden, is you know this. Like you stated in the future you have sort of realigned the supervision which i think is in one part of it. In my 50 plus years on this earth, i have found that human beings are complicated and that whenever someone gets away with something big and this is big its because, you know, they have done small things theyve gotten away with before and theres a culture that sort of permits that so theres like a system that permits you to do that because its paper, because its the Job Card that you check off rather than putting it into your own system that doesnt allow you to go to the last step without filling out the first seven steps. What it does to the culture when somebody gets away with this and somebody else gets away with this and you see this happening. So my question to you is what steps are we taking towards making that system waterproof, like Water Tight so that you cannot give somebody a certificate of occupancy when you havent done the inspection of the foundation . So when i was on the Planning Commission after having been on the bick, we constantly saw, you know, projects where some plans had been submitted to planning and then when they got to building, you know, there was all of a sudden a full demolition even though that wasnt in the plans or, you know, they did a whole vertical threestory addition. That was in the paper, that happened in my district. Also, that lack of seamless regime between Planning And D. B. I. Where a lot of stuff falls through, right because theres no way to track it. Again, second question to you is what are we doing both in the sort of system of the tools that you use and how those tools are used by the people in the accountability for using those systems consistently which is what you need for Culture Change . Thank you very much for that question, Chair Melgar. Its a very good question and i think it has a few parts to it. Part of our Reforms Package is it speaks exactly to the fact that, you know, these checks and balances need to be in place so that the required inspections should occur before we get all the ways down the road and are issuing a final certificate of completion. So one of the conversations weve had is that we at plan check, we identify which inspections are necessary and put stops in the system that will prohibit the final inspection from being signed off until those required inspections are are already in place for that specific project and i know i just described to Supervisor Ronen that seven inspections were approximately what would be required for the San Bruno type projects, but we have projects that would be 100 inspections. We have projects that would be two inspections, but the way i process it in my mind is that can be identified like sooner rather than later and put blocks in place in the system. We do it already for how we require engineers to validate the structural work that relates to a building. Somebody cannot get a sign off until those engineers letters are checked off in the system. We call that special inspection. So i kind of think about the regular inspections that we do could be treated in a similar way. Thats one thing. The other part of your question i think speaks to and you and i have had the conversations about technology and i agree with you, it needs to be far more seamless between all of these departments, not just planning, but all the other departments like the Fire Department and everybody else that we work with. Some good news on that front, we have now were now at a point where were accepting electronic Fan Review projects. So anyone that wants to submit a project now electronically now can do so. The point is we have a Permit Center Team here who are the oversight for i think its 13 city departments and we have working groups and steering committees and were all trying to work together to create a more seamless system thats better for all of our customers and, i mean, you as supervisors get to questions and you come to me and if the system is more seamless, that doesnt might not end up happening. So ill stop and hopefully ive answered some of your questions. Chairman so im so glad that you guys are making some progress, but can you tell me, so, you know, the your new online permitting system, how do you know that what is being submitted online is the same thing that has been submitted to planning . Well, it is reviewed and confirmed between all the departments. So everyone is looking at the same document. Chairman okay. Well, thats great progress. Thank you, supervisor. Supervisor peskin madam chair, unfortunately, apparently my camera is broken and John C. Is on his way. I dont know if you can see me or not, but i can see all of you. Chairman we can see you. Supervisor peskin oh, great. Excellent. I had a few questions that may seem Pedestrian But Id like to ask them whenever the time is right. Chairman go for it. Supervisor peskin so, you know, ive been around for a little bit of time, like a generation, 20 years, and ive seen departments come from low ebbs and completely reform themselves. Ive seen formally respected departments but one thing has never changed, d. B. I. Has been like this despite numerous reform efforts by numerous not mayors, mostly by numerous boards of supervisors. Mayors usually liked all the money that came with control of d. B. I. And generally kept their hands off of it or in the case of one mayor exacerbated the situation. But it was in the early 2000s that the board of supervisors insisted that d. B. I. Get into the dawn of the 21st century and have Computer Technology and i will say its a rather aggressive charge but its true and documentable. D. B. I. Worked actively for the better part of a dozen years to sabotage the system that the board of supervisors insisted that they get and its still not working 20 years later. I mean, weve had departments whove, you know, add computer systems that are no longer supportive at the same time the d. B. I. Is not able to get the first system online and the system they do have and correct me if im wrong, mr. Orearden, anybody at d. B. I. Can go and manipulate the data. So once Bernie Kern puts the information in, they can go in there and change it. Is that true or not true . No. Thats not correct, supervisor. Line staff, only the people who are assigned the privileges can make adjustments to the data and it usually is management from m. I. S. Function and it would at least be a managerial function. Supervisor peskin right. So the senior can go in there if the senior is corrupt and go undo what the supervisor did. Reporter the senior is not a manager. The senior doesnt typically have that access. Supervisor peskin typically. All right. I wont belabor that one, but let me start with some basic stuff. Can you provide us with an organizational chart of the department . Yes, sir. I can i dont have it on my computer right now, but i can forward it to you. Supervisor peskin or we can do it later in the hearing. Okay. Supervisor peskin next, relatively pedestrian correct question which is Performance Evaluations. Do you do them . How often . Did mr. Kern get one this year . Last year . The year before . How often do senior inspectors get a Performance Evaluation . And what does Performance Evaluations if done say . So we do Performance Evaluations annually and theyre for July 1st to June 30th Fiscal Year Period. We did not do one last year because of the upheaval with covid and we are doing them now this year and theyre being submitted as we speak. Supervisor peskin okay. And, what about mr. Kern . Did he get them . Not this year because hes no longer an employee of the department. Supervisor peskin i get that. What about precovid . Precovid, yes. Supervisor peskin and, is that public information . Can we see those . I can check into that, supervisor. Supervisor peskin i would like to see all his Performance Evaluations, who conducted them over what period of time. And then, what is the role of the d. B. I. Commission . Supervisor ronen wanted to know is the mayor informed . Is the board of supervisors informed . The board of supervisors is not informed i can say that for the record. Is the d. B. I. Commission informed of these ethical lapses real or alleged . So we presented to the bick last month on San Bruno and i believe they have been apprised of what happened there previously. I dont have that information for sure, but we did a presentation last month. Supervisor peskin and then, you know, we are under seat and its part of the file on this item as the Land Use committee of information that this is and i think you have said this before, mr. Orearden and i think you said it very honestly and candidly that we agree, this is not just about 2867 San Bruno avenue, this is about a culture and the Memo Random we have speaks to another equally egregious, i will with a grain of Salt Stick in the word alleged mall fooes m malfeasant. Then you wake up one day and you read the newspaper and you get sick to your stomach. Do you think this is more part of a pervasive culture, mr. Orearden . Thank you for the question, Supervisor Peskin. I believe the vast majority of our staff are good, hardworking, honest people who process permits and do inspections with the utmost integrity. So when things like this happen, its hard on them and it really pains me. I have said to them at the top, many people have left the department since i took over at high levels, mid levels and lower levels. If there are any bad apples still heres, we will find them and take action. Supervisor peskin thank you, mr. Orearden. And ive heard those words before but i know you are sincere in saying them and i would certainly think this board of supervisors is more than happen to make that statement come true which brings me to a statement that mr. Keith uttered which by the way i think was a correct statement and i think respectfully is part of the problem which is theres no fear out there. Theres no fear by people like mr. Kern. There no fear by people like Tom Huey because you want to know what happens when they get caught with their hand in the Cookie Jar . We do exactly what mr. Keith said, we get that corrupt official out of the city government. Most of the time, im deeply offended because they actually leave with their retirement. And so the actual message to people who are doing this stuff and who are that morally bankrupt saying hey, i can do this, are the worst thing is i can lose my job if i made enough money being a crook, it might be a risk worth taking. Most of them dont go to jail unless, you know, and who ever thought id be saying to the praises of the federal bureau of investigation, the united States Bureau is involved. Theres no culture, if you touch that plate, its going to burn you and your family. The culture is youre just going to get shown the door and youre going to leave in the middle of the night and nobodys really ever going to think about you again and that is a culture that is ripe with incentive to do what mohamed nuru, and Arelin Kenny and go down the list and the only way its going to work if they know the City Attorney, the district attorney, the mayor, the d. B. I. Commission, the now brand new soon yet to be the d. B. I. Commission is going to uphold those people accountable long after they leave the government. Thats the way you prevent this from happening. We all know that Rodrigo Santos is a socio pathic crook. And the same is true for John Pollard who is mentioned in this memo and the same is for these licensed engineers who have aided them and abetted them. But we still process their permits even though we know theyre crooks. I mean, we treat them better than somebody who got busted for a misdemeanor is treated by society and thats the only way this stuff comes to an end is that city employees, the vast majority of them dont do this but the fear of the consequences. Thank you for letting me say that after 20 years. Supervisor ronen here here Supervisor Peskin, and i have more questions for mr. Orearden, but i want to say on that point and ask about the Settlement Agreement with the contractors and developers behind this case. So first of all, why didnt this Settlement Agreement come to the board of supervisors for approval . Thanks, supervisors. Let me say Settlement Agreement. That helps the answer to your question. The Settlement Agreement is an agreement that developers will pay 1. 2 million in penalties and, going forward, they will follow all orders of city departments to bring the property into legal status according to the deadline set by the legal department. So the Settlement Agreement provides for a punitive component and for a remedial. The unfair Competition Law and thats the type of case where we bring claimses on to behalf of the people of the state of california as opposed to bringing them on to the City Sxount of San Francisco and that law provides both severe financial penalties with a four Year Statute of limitations. As well as injunctive relief thats fixing the problem and another of the statutes is the public Nuisance Law and that also has a public remedial of the violations, and that is also the case that we bring on behalf of the people of the state of california and so for these types of claims and other civil prosecutor claims, these are not the sorts of claims that go through the board of Supervisors Process because theyre not claims on behalf of the City And County of San Francisco. Supervisor ronen so is it a choice to send this to the board of supervisors or is it its just not mandated and so you chose not to . Sorry. In other words, could you send it to the board of supervisors for approval and you chose not to or is there something preventing you bringing it to the board of supervisors . I mean, generally speaking, whatever the apparent legal process is we follow and since the board of Supervisors Approval Isnt part of it, we wouldnt normally follow. Theres also in the sense that we bring claims on behalf of the people under the Citys Attorney granted under State Law. That said, i have to say that there are some Code Enforcement cases that involve components like zoning cases, or real estate transactions and those we would certainly bring to the board of supervisors. But this type of case, that would not be the type of case wed bring to the board of supervisors. Supervisor ronen well, thats a shame. Had this come before me, there have been no chance in hell it would have been approved. I dont know that every apartment of the 20 unit that is were illegally built, i dont know that those apartments arent renting for 3,000. I do know that someone from the chronicle intervieweded one of the tenants living in one of those twobedroom units and said hes a Hotel Maintenance Worker and hes paying 3,000 a month for that twobedroom apartment. Since the violations were noticed, if all of those apartments were renting at 3,000 a month, the developers would have earned 1. 8 million on those illegal units in rent. If theyve been earning 3,000 since 2017 when they were given the certificate of occupation illegally, they would have earned 3. 240 million. How is a 1. 2 million fine supposed to make it not worth the next developer to do everything in their power to go ahead and build 20 additional units that theyre going to profit on handsomely despite a 1. 2 million fine . So let me begin by agreeing with you. I dont think a fine is enough. I agree with you and Supervisor Peskin that criminal prosecution is necessary in these cases and everyone here knows that our office only has civil prosecuting power and we only have the Information And Evidence gathering tools of a civil entity. We cant serve secret warrants and stuff like that. Criminal authorities can. What we can do is bring to light what we can bring to light and what we can do is seek a civil settlement that is consistent with what we believe a court would award if we brought a case to court. And, you know, again, theres lots of details that go into analyzing Settlement Values of a case and im glad to brief you privately how this office arrived at the appropriate Settlement Value for this case. But fundamentally it compares favorably with what we have achieved in court. Supervisor ronen since you cant tell me what went into your thinking publicly and im happy to hear that privately. I think its outrageous that this City Attorneys office is settling for a third of the amount that the developer has already profited off their illegal activity and then allowing them to gain at least 500,000 a year in perpetuity for this illegal scheme. It is highly insufficient. It will do nothing to either renovate the behavior of the past, put a, you know, whip the hand of the person that got caught with their hand in the Cookie Jar or make it less likely for actors in the future to do exactly what this developer did. It is barely a slap on the wrist and doesnt do anything to stop this behavior in the future and i have absolutely no idea why we are settling for crumbs on such an egregious case. Thank god there wasnt a fire in that building or wed have dead bodies on our hands. The original Demand Letter was for 1. 8 million which was not even close to sufficient, but why are we going forward and settling for 1. 2 million on such an egregious complaint. Youre right. And i think i already answered your question which was the amount of this settlement is favorably to what we would have done in court and what our office has and the reality of what Courts Award in cases like this. Supervisor ronen why did you decide to settle and not go to court and see if the egregious nature of the case would order the judge to order a bigger penalty . I can brief you on the details privately on that. Supervisor ronen im just going to say, i am extremely angry. I wish this will go before me. I will look to see whether or not we can force 7,200 cases to come before us that impact the future Behavior And Life and safety of our constituents and i cant tell you how frustrated i am. Supervisor, one final step to take is to the past legislation that enhances our ability to get penalties. I mean, again, i can say that with the remedies we have and with the experience that we have and the awards we do get, this was a settlement that favorably. Supervisor peskin madam chair. I just want to make one suggestion, was why dont we have a closed session rather than there being one off conversation between Supervisor Ronen and the City Attorneys office. Maybe we can all join together Tomorrow And Call for a closed session. I think this rises to that level. Im sorry for interrupting, Supervisor Preston, but i just wanted to throw that out while it was on my mind. Supervisor preston thank you, Supervisor Peskin. I certainly would support that kind of effort if you choose to bring that up at our hearing tomorrow. I just wanted to a lot of thoughts on this, i wanted to speak more immediately to the line of questions that Supervisor Ronen was just pursuing and just clarify a bit on what i was not expecting to be discussing but im very concerned about which is this idea of what does and what does not come before the board of supervisors. I will say as chair of g. A. O. And the body that hears the settlements its news to me that we dont review settlements of 7,200 claims and probably because in many cases, we do review settlements of 7,200 claims that presumably involve other causes of action. And so i imagine that the difference and maybe, mr. Keith, you can clarify, but its certainly not the case that our g. A. O. Committee does not review 7,200 claims even if those claims are brought on behalf of the people of the state of california. If you can just clarify that is what makes it different that the City Attorneys office opted to only pursue 7,200 and the other claim that you mentioned that were State Law claims and did not also choose to pursue any claims that were local in nature and would have required you to come before g. A. O. . I mean, i think the type of claim that could be that would compare with the 7,200 claims would be, for example, a breach of contract claim, informing a City Contract and the city had a claim to get that money back and that claim predominated, that would be the reason why such a claim would come before g. A. O. , but this case did not involve any type of a contract claim. Supervisor preston i mean, this is really concerning. I am happy to talk off line and not in a public hearing about the thinking behind the decisions of which claims to bring but its very concerning to me that this claim would not come before g. A. O. And theres considerable discretion. Its inconceivable to me that were alleging such an Extension Corruption Complaint that there are not also violations of local law. I imagine there may be tactical reasons for choosing one cause of action or another, but i certainly hope one of those tactical considerations is not whether it triggers board of supervisors review. I doubt thats the situation and i dont know if youre free to comment on it, but theres just no way these are only like theyre certainly violations of local law wrapped up in the factual allegations here. Yeah. Thats true. There are allegations of Supervisor Preston i would just say as chair of g. A. O. , i am alarmed of this case of importance that the decision your office makes and whether alleging them on behalf of the people of San Francisco versus the state of california is going to dictate whether the board of supervisors ever sees this kind of settlement before its finalized short of someone calling for a hearing. So, please comment on that publicly. Yeah. I mean, so there are lots of different types of claims that can be brought by the City Attorneys office and whether theyre brought under local law or under State Law is not the only issue. Its also the type of claim thats brought and so i think the answer is longer than that. I can say that for the past 20 years and counting, Code Enforcement cases have not been brought before a board of Supervisor Approval unless they do involve some kind of Zoning Change or real estate transaction. I mean, thats just a matter of history. So this is nothing new and to the point of whether we when the office considered bringing it to the board or opted to, this, i mean, not having brought this case to the board is simply consistent with what the practice has been for 20 odd years. Again, as to the legal analysis, i think were now getting down into the weeds to a point where it needs to be done on a more confidential basis. Which, again we can provide that. Supervisor preston we have a lot of ground to cover here. So i dont want to belabor the point. I will say that i look forward to some further discussions with your office. Again, if it is and the City Attorneys office settles cases of this importance all the time including these corruption cases when they have a civil component that land in the g. A. O. Committee. Weve had robust discussion either in public or closed session as is appropriate. It is im really disturbed by the bakt that this one didnt land there and also have only been chair of g. A. O. Until this year. If theres history, Id Love to know it. Id like a little more information on just the past practice of these Code Enforcement or corruption cases and whether outside of this one are or are not coming through g. A. O. And my hope is that theres discretion whether it has to come before g. A. O. Or not that our committee would at least be briefed even a formal Board Approval is not required, but ill leave it at that and turn it back over to Supervisor Ronen. Supervisor, if i can just make a point to the corruption cases. Supervisor preston sure. Cases against corruption those come to g. A. O. Because of the nature of the case. Again, i want to be as clear as i can about what the practice has been and how the nature of the claim dictates whether board of Supervisors Approval is needed. Supervisor preston yeah. The final thing i want to say, virtually any violation is the evolution of business and Professions Code 1700, the unfair competition. City attorney can up to pursue virtually any case under that Law And Anyone who is familiar with that law knows how incredibly broad it is. So it is, i will just repeat that it is alarming that a case brought under that statute would not come before us and im looking forward to engaging with your office further going forward and history making sure were seeing those in our committee. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Melgar. Supervisor melgar thank you, Supervisor Ronen. I just wanted to go back into something in your line of questioning. So in mr. Teags presentation, you recounted how we found out about this in that your planner went out to inspect the inclusionary Housing Obligation of this developer and found that things were not as they should be. And so i remember because im, you know, old, when after the supervisor codified the inclusionary Housing Obligation, we spent time in coming up with this system where a certificate of occupancy could not be issued until that obligation was met. So im wondering what happened here, you know, like so and then i also want to know what was the outcome. So in this 1. 2 million settlement, are we also assessing . Because, you know, if they building 40 units instead of 10, thats more inclusionary housing if they wanted to cash out rather than include it. So are we charging them interest on those 4. 2 million that they should have paid into the affordable Housing Fee . Whats up with that . What happened to the inclusionary Housing Obligation . [please stand by]. Now, were doing it by square footage, and were capturing it by the square footage, and its going to capture the expansion to the sixth building. It didnt get tacked on, because the sponsors didnt include that. The original buildings were five on one lot, but part of the time it took to get to where we are is because things changed while we were doing it. The sixth building has been pulled into this overall Project And Abatement process and will be part of the approval thats in front of the Planning Commission and myself when it goes forward. Supervisor ronen so im sorry. Im confused now. So youre saying that the affordable Housing Fee is part of this because that cannot be. No, not the settlement. Okay. The affordable Housing Fee that we have to charge, we can only charge what the code says we can charge, and then, it calls out its not a punitive program, its just designed to bring about abatement, whereas the City Attorney has more authority. Supervisor melgar just for the Planning Code. So then, the 1. 2 million fees, those are assessed based on the building Code Enforcement or theyre punitive . Theyre punitive, yeah, as opposed to the affordable Housing Fees, which are just set by the Planning Code, and then, theres the provisions that mr. Gee mentioned for interest. And i said that im just covering mr. Teague mentioned for interest. And i just said that im covering for planning. I dont know if theres additional fees for violations through the Fire Department or d. B. I. Supervisor melgar i understand. Thank you for that, and i look forward to a closed session to get to know all of the details because it seems if somebody gets approved for ten and then all of a sudden builds 40, thats a de facto change. And then, my question was to director oriordan, if hes still around. Thank you, Supervisor Ronen, for making the law of the land, but i know one time we did have a different system. Did we do away with it or did it just get ignored in the system . What happened . Yeah. In this instance, Chair Melgar, yes, youre right. This was a check, and if it was a requirement, even mr. Kern wouldnt be able to issue a notice of violation because the system would shut it down. Either it wasnt in there, but the c. F. C. Could not be issued if that requirement was in the system, and then, i see it in the system all the time. I can get back to you on that. Chair melgar so what do you mean, it was in the system . Well, if it was in the system, it would have made it so the c. F. C. Could not be issued and it would show as complete in the system. Simply put, it wouldnt show from issued to complete with this guardrail in place. Chair melgar so does that mean that at planning it was missed or the Mayors Office of housing didnt do the checkoff . I dont know. I dont know at this point, Chair Melgar, but i can certainly look into it and get back to you on that. Chair melgar thank you. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Peskin . Supervisor peskin yeah, so a few disjointed thoughts and questions. Who is the Project Sponsor . This shows my profound ignorance. Who is 2867 . What is the name of the Project Sponsor . Who are the humans associated with probably what is an l. L. C. Or whatever . Supervisor Ronen Director riordan, do you want to answer that . Yeah, i am associated with the group, and i think the group included probably five or so individuals, and peter can probably correct me on this, but one gentleman was Alfred Lee. Supervisor peskin and is Alfred Lee known to you, mr. Riordan . Yes. Supervisor peskin and how is he known to you . The department has had to deal with some violations related to his work in the past, obviously, on a much smaller scale than San Bruno, but he would be known to me and people like Joe Duffy in the department who have had to deal with complaints related to his projects in the past . Supervisor ronen sorry, Supervisor Peskin. Let me give you all the names just in case. The one that is known to the department is mr. Lee, but theres also [inaudible], who goes by margaret tan, [inaudible] who goes by melton tong, young ling lee, who goes by Alfred Lee, who mr. Riordan was just talking about, and cindy jalzy. Supervisor peskin okay. Those names mean nothing to me, but i never forget a face. Is mr. Lee a contractor, a developer . What is mr. Lee in your experience, mr. Riordan . I remember him as both, actually, Supervisor Peskin. He would have been a developer on some projects, and i think he might have been a contractor in some other instances. Supervisor peskin and insofar as as this board of supervisors has expressed our on going concerns as a matter of fact, i just did a letter of inquiry last week as to why mr. Rodrigo santos names continues to show up on fliers im just looking here. I saw one in my stack of papers somewhere in this file and to that, you created a list or your department created a list of Project Sponsors, contractors, neerdowells for scrutiny. Did mr. Lee make it on your list of people that get extra scrutiny . Can i defer that question to mr. Duffy, supervisor, if you dont mind, because he is our expert in the arena of the audit . Supervisor peskin sure. So Supervisor Peskin, absolutely. Mr. Lee will be part of our audit. Were going to be reviewing projects that hes done in the past. My experience with him over a few years as a District Inspector, as a senior, and i have dealt with him over a few years, nothing rises to the level of this problem, but i did have some runins with him, but we will be looking at his projects as part of the audit control team. Hes not on the Compliance Control File yet on the ordinance that Supervisor Ronen has introduced. That was only since april 27, i believe, of this year, so he hasnt been on it yet, but we are going to be looking at his projects. Supervisor peskin got it. And i assume there is an architect of record . There may be an engineer of record, theres probably a contractor of record. Who are they . What are their names . Supervisor ronen mr. Riordan or sorry, supervisors. Joe duffy, d. B. I. Here. So the architect that i have is maimai lee, and i have a Jeremy Swab as an architect, as well. Supervisor peskin what about any Permit Expediters . I did see a Permit Expediter earlier on the permit that was submitted to legalize the work, and that was someone called by the name of p. M. T. Consulting. Not sure who that is. Supervisor peskin and who is the contractor . On the main permit, and that was richard richard lin. Supervisor peskin and i see, mr. Teague, you have your hand up. Is that in response to any of this . Theres actually a followup to Chair Melgars questions about the system for ensuring affordable housing, so im happy to respond to that when youre complete with this line of questioning. Supervisor peskin got it. Mr. Teague, do you have any information i assume its not just the Project Sponsor, but its a contractor with a valid contractors license, its an architect with the state of california, architectural license to practice in the state of california. Heres what happens. This goes back to my original thing, which is i expect that when crooks employ crooks, that we have an affirmative obligation to go to the Licensing Board of architects, to go to the Licensing Board of general contractors, and to have them disbarred and have their licensed revoked by the state of california. Have we done that . We have the ability to do that to the state Licensing Board. We have done it in some cases . In this case, we have not. Its not one of the issues here, is that it is unclear who did the illegal work beyond the developer, which, based on their record, we suspect that they did it. Supervisor peskin okay. So we are still factfinding, but if we find that the contractor did it, do we report the contractor to the state . Yes, and its with the state Licensing Board. Supervisor peskin do we know, mr. Supervisor ronen if i could chime in here, Supervisor Peskin, not only is it possible, we have a d. B. I. Administrative Bulletin Number 40 that we passed in 2002 that requires d. B. I. To report to the state Licensing Board, and so i dont i dont understand so i want to confirm with mr. Oriordan, have we done that, and if not, why not . So the process and thank you for the question, Supervisor Ronen. If you look at a. B. 40, i believe it states that we work with the City Attorney on a referral to the State Licensing authority, and this is an on going investigation, i believe, and we are all of those conversations are probably being had, peter, is that correct . Im sorry. I dont understand what your question is. So a. B. 40 requires the referral of these individuals to the State Licensing authorities to the City Attorneys office, so were still assembling the list of folks. We dont know who did the work. Thats one of the things who did the work to create the additional units, i think thats still under investigation. The architect and im not, you know, saying anything here about if we should refer the architect, but the architect may have been long gone when all of this happened. They may know nothing about it. Supervisor ronen im sorry, but the contractor is richard chuen, with a San Bruno address. He received permit to build ten units and then built 30, so why, you know, four years since we discovered this violation, have we not reported pursuant to d. B. I. Administrative bulletin 40, him to the state Licensing Board . We dont know if he did the licensing work. Were unclear on that. Supervisor peskin well, thats for the State Board to figure out, right . Supervisor ronen so im sorry. This is who is listed on the contractor on the project, so it would be this Persons Responsibility to clear that up and explain who did the work. That might be the best way of getting to the bottom of it, and its very [inaudible] my legislation requires now, by law, that you make that referral, but i i i im a little bit dumbfounded that it hasnt happened already, and i want to understand why that hasnt happened, mr. Keys. As i alluded to earlier, we dont know who did the work [inaudible] Supervisor Ronen you dont think its appropriate that the person listed on the project whos responsible the responsible contractor of record is referred to the state Licensing Board when so many egregious licensing violations have taken place . We dont know if this developer did the work or if subsequent developers did the work. Supervisor ronen and this information, its very important that we let the state Licensing Board know that . Again, with this [inaudible] if we dont know that if we dont have evidence that someone was involved, then it doesnt rise to the level of a referral. We simply dont [inaudible] Supervisor Ronen so it doesnt matter which contractor they put on the permit . We can say, put any contractor that you want, and until we can hold you responsible if you did the work. No, thats not what were saying. Well, youre saying we dont make referrals to the state Licensing Board when a Contractors Name is on a project where Theres Violation until we prove that its that contractor that did the work, so we really dont hold them responsible for the project . That doesnt really make any sense to me. We dont know the timing of when that work was done, so we dont know if the contractor that was on the original permit was responsible for that work. Supervisor ronen so you dont hold them responsible for the project. No, we do hold them responsible for the project, but we dont know if that work happened before or after this specific contractor Supervisor Ronen and how has this contractor, mr. Tulin, License Number 22844, been held accountable in this project . If more information comes to light that he did the work, then hell be held accountable. Supervisor ronen you just said you held him accountable and he has been held accountable. How have you held him accountable . No, im saying we dont know when they did the work Supervisor Ronen in reaching a Settlement Agreement, did you not require knowing who did the work before you reached that Settlement Agreement . Like, isnt that a basic fact to know before you reach settlement terms . We reached settlement terms based on the nature of the violations that were done, and he agreed to the violations. That was not a piece of information that, frankly, we would have found credible one way or the other had he provided it to us. Supervisor ronen mr. Keys, inspections done on this property were not inserted into the system that the city has. The chief inspector that was indicted by the f. B. I. And let go maybe a month before the indictment but, you know, tons of information showing that theres some problem with this individual did not lead to discipline as we know about it until the indictment from the f. B. I. , but said there was a Job Card, even though its been years since weve seen a Job Card. There is a contractor listed on all of the permit applications that you say you dont know if the work was done by them or not. How were these basic evidence and answers to these questions not obtained before a Settlement Agreement was reached . Theres no way to verify who did that work. Supervisor ronen mr. Keys, you can ask for anything in a Settlement Agreement. We certainly ask questions, and we certainly Supervisor Ronen may i finish . [inaudible] and until i know that all the tenants will be kept in this building. You can do that in a Settlement Agreement, no matter what the agreement is, no matter what the remedies are agreed to in court. You can demand all of these things before a Settlement Agreement. Why didnt we make any of these demands to get this vital information to help us not only in the investigation of corruption in this case but in protecting the tenants who live there and getting to the bottom of whose license needs to be suspended for doing this unpermitted outrageous work . Why didnt we use our power to get that basic information in this case . So we did request the Job Card. The developer claimed that the Job Card no longer existed. And with regard to the safety of the tenants, following the initial measures that were taken by the Fire Department and by department of Building Inspection and our services, demands that those measures be followed, the tenants were protected, and it was the judgment of the Fire Department and the Building Inspection department that the building could safely be occupied pending legalization, so those two things were dealt with and addressed. Supervisor ronen i will finish with this. Im an attorney. Ive settled a number of cases in my time. I have looked at the overall wellbeing of my clients in the public when negotiating those Settlement Agreements because you give up quite a bit when you decide not to go to trial. For example, a Penalty Amount that would, in any Way Shape or form, dissuade the behavior. Make sure theyre credited for back rent when they were living in a in unsafe building. I mean, we are not holding these contractors, these owners, these developers feet to the fire in any way, shape, or form in this Settlement Agreement. Were not even getting basic information, like who is the contractor that built these units in the first place. Im extremely disappointed, and you cannot tell me that we cant get those type of agreements in a Settlement Agreement because we can get whatever agreements we so choose to pursue. And it is, once again, my opinion, as an attorney that this Settlement Agreement is not protecting the tenants, its not protecting the city, its not setting any precedent where we are dissuading the type of behavior from this Contractor Or Future contractors, and its certainly not making sure that we get these guys to the state Licensing Board. Its a complete failure in my opinion, and i dont understand why were not taking this matter more seriously. As to protection of the tenants rights, the tenants have rights, as do their landlord, whether they want to seek protections. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Melgar . Supervisor melgar when i was on the Planning Commission, we would see developers who built outside of their permits, and then, they would blame it on their contractors. Contractors operate on a fairly thin profit margin, so if theyre not specifically getting paid to do something, theyre not going to do it because it costs them time, materials, all kinds of things, so im interested in holding the owner accountable because i do think thats where this came from. I dont believe the contractor would have done something without the owners, you know, permission or pressure, right . So i am wondering, mr. Keys, because i am wondering in the past probably not recently because our real estate values are so high. But in the past, the City Attorney has taken possession of the city when buildings were in immediate danger to the tenants through neglect. I know that buildings were put into receivership. I wonder if you guys thought about that. Not just exposing the tenants that are there now, but future tenants, so it seems to me that this owner has proven that they are not a responsible owner, landowner and developer, and its you know, im not an important, but it seems to me, knowing the enforcement of the Code Enforcement division, and i know that Code Enforcement has done this in the past, when Property Owners were irresponsible and neglectful and put their tenants lives at risk because, you know, a Code Enforcement issue, the city steps in and took possession of those buildings, so im wondering if that was considered at all . Yes. Well, in the beginning, when the issue came to light in terms of fire and just generally speaking, whether the electrical systems were what was required for a certain number of occupants. Had the had the Property Owners disobeyed the orders issued by the department of Building Inspection and the Fire Department, there would have been a basis to seek a receiver, but they followed those orders, and that meant there was not a basis to seek a receiver. A receiver, as you pointed out, theyre to make sure that the Property Isnt terribly unsafe, and so since they followed the orders from the department to make the property not terribly unsafe, not legalized, by a far cry, but that there was no basis at that point to seek receivership, we certainly would have, had they certainly disobeyed those orders. Supervisor melgar so its because they asked for forgiveness and took steps to come into compliance. So if they take steps to come into compliance, that sort of channels you into one step or another, and then, youre looking into since the danger to the residents of the building was dealt with, we did not have a path to a receiver. It wasnt so much giving them another chance, its just that the law says if you [inaudible] then you theres not a basis to get a receiver. Supervisor melgar but isnt it now so i i mean, i drove by its been a while, because it was before the break that i went by, but there was scaffolding still up instead of likes a proper egress. Isnt there safety i agree. There are degrees, and there has to be substantial endangerment. If there were further orders that they disobeyed, that would be further, but i defer to fire about the safety of the property as we speak. Supervisor melgar how long can the scaffolding be up on the it just still seems like theyre getting away with a bunch, to me. Supervisor, yeah, so the scaffolding, its considered temporary, and as the City Attorney and d. B. I. Worked through the settlement, coming them into order direction, so we are working with them to keep the building occupied and providing safety as much as possible, and providing a second egress. That was one of the conditions or problems, the occupant on the fourth floor not having a second way out, and they do since weve been notified. Supervisor melgar and how long can the scaffolding be considered a temporary egress. We live in a very foggy climate. Scaffolding is metal, and it rusts. So im the supervisor for district 7. I cannot imagine that something like that would happen in my District Or Region or in pacific heights. The neighbors would just, like, have our heads, so im just wondering how long can that be up there as that temporary measure . Well, we dont determine, or the temporary measure. I know they most likely rented scaffolding, so the company thats rented it has to take responsibility for the scaffolding. Supervisor melgar were letting them get away with it. Were letting them get away with that as using the secondary Fire Egress instead of using a proper and i would defer to the City Attorney and then d. B. I. Whos working out a way to get them to comply and make it a legal resident. In the meantime, to keep everybody housed, that is their this is the solution to keep people in their homes. Otherwise, by code, if they dont have that second egress, everybody on the fourth floor, those ten units, would have to move out tomorrow. Supervisor melgar sure, and theyre paying 3,000 a month. Supervisor ronen on that same note [inaudible] worst case scenario, none of them happened. How are we making sure not just the Fire Egress issues, but these units are safe, foundation is safe, the roof is safe, the walls are safe . What are you doing . Thats a good question, and thank you, Supervisor Ronen. So initially, we have conducted a Site Visit, and mr. Duffy was actually out there on august 13, and we determined, at least for that inspection, that the building was safe for occupancy. Once the permit is issued, we will have our opportunity to go out and verify everything in regards to the structural portion of that building. We will get our chance,. Supervisor ronen and mr. Teague, there is a hearing on september 29. What happened if the Planning Commission decides not to do so . What happens then . Well, the Planning Commission will discuss what was approved. It is clear that there was a proposal for ten units, and similarly, im going to be considering variances for the project. Im going to have discretion to approve or grant or deny conditions, so we will have the same level of approval of conditions that we typically have. The difference is were not starting from scratch, but with that in mind, the commission would have the typical level of discretion, and the Settlement Agreement calls that out. The Settlement Agreement states the violation. That has to be followed diligently and completed. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Peskin . Supervisor peskin yeah. Supervisor ronen, i really appreciate your line of questioning and completely share your frustration, so let me try this a little bit differently and see if i get any further. Im just going to change tactics just a little bit relative to Admin Bulletin 40 with respect to all of this, and that is, mr. Riordan, how many wrong doers have you referred to the state Licensing Boards over time . In total, honestly, supervisor, not very many. Rodrigo santos was one that we worked with the City Attorney for that referral, and it has been a long time since that referral was made, and i dont we know that i still maintains his license, and they havent to to my knowledge, they havent moved the ball on revoking or suspending his license. Hes one i remember somebody else from several years ago, but its not a common d. B. I. Enforces its codes, it is mostly on the Property Owner, the owner, but there are contractors and developers and architects and everything else, but i hear what youre saying. Supervisor peskin yeah. I mean, if you want to change the culture, you dont want to just youve got more than changing the culture within. You have to change the culture without that influences the culture within, and if you can have an entire change in the ethos of d. B. I. , where everybody actually realizes in addition to the fundamental duty of Life Safety and inspections, that their job is to root out corruption both inside and outside the department, it is this is corruption that gave Bernie Kern the alleged 180,000 loan. Theyre worse than bernie because its outandout corruption. This notion of having scaffolding doesnt rise to the level of a super serious violation, that is some janky Duct Tape and Bubble Gum Solution to a Life Safety issue. Its funny. You look at this project the wrong way, its oh, well, you know, theyve got permits for ten, and they built 30 units of housing. Thats more housing. But if theres a fire people go oh, we have to streamline this process, but thats why we dont have fires where 300 people burn to death like what we see in other countries. I dont want to be when people die or get seriously hurt, thats really, really bad, and the notion that this doesnt rise to the level of the City Attorneys office because this form of egress, which is literally from scaffolding its been in the newspaper. You can see it online that, to me, rises to the level of, like, serious. I dont know how that doesnt i mean, i dont know what the test is, but mr. Keeffe, you said what would help the City Attorney and i dont recall the City Attorney ever asking for this, but im happy to work and provide this with additional penalties. What additional penalties would you propose . Well, they can be key to the nature of the violation, they can be set, minimum types of violations for certain violations per units. Theres a certain number of ways to get at problems like this. I mean let me put it this way there are ways to enhance ways to get penalties, and if the board is interested in them, we would be happy to propose those ideas. Supervisor peskin absolutely. I would be happy to work with my colleagues on this panel, Supervisor Ronen, to get to this. The problem is every time something like this happens, the city does not use the tools that it has because of some extenuating circumstances. The extenuating circumstance in San Bruno is oh, my gosh, the 3,000 a month tenants, and we cant displace them; so we have to reward the law maker. You guys did something so far beyond the pale that you guys have to relocate and compensate these people. And often times, we have illegal demolition. Well, the code says if you do an illegal demolition, the department can, but almost never, can say that no Building Permit shall issue on that site for a period of ten years. I cannot remember the department invoking that tool in a month of sundays, and the reason they dont do that is because nobody wants to see that hole on their block, so that Law Isnt used to punish the Law Breakers because it punishes the neighborhood so d. B. I. Doesnt use that. So basically, the Law Breaker has every incentive to break the law until we get serious, which is especially forcing the lay, invoking the fiveyear penalty. You want additional penalties and fines . I think youll get i dont want to speak for my colleagues, but i think youll get an 110 vote. No disrespect to mr. Riordan, who i think in my heart is trying to do the right thing. By the way, when im looking at that organizational chart, can you tell me, mr. Riordan, what spot did mr. Sweeney occupy in that organizational structure in that chart that you provided us . He was a senior inspector in building services. Supervisor peskin and what happened to mr. Sweeney . I decided to retire in november time frame last year, i would say. Supervisor peskin okay. I wont spend anymore time on that, but after 20 years and maybe, colleagues, it is time to see what the charter provides us. I know mr. Riordan is trying hard. I know hes restructuring his Command Staff and leadership, and Supervisor Ronen, we bumped into each other over the weekend, and we both said its time for some big ideas, but as were thinking those big ideas that may require charter reform, they come in many different flavors that have been talked about but never done over the years which range from merging with planning to putting it under the City Administrator, i really wonder out loud, as somebody who used to work in receivership, and no disrespect to mr. Riordan, whether we can actually invoke emergency provisions of our charter, [inaudible] when all of this with commissioner richards happened, i think many of us rolled our eyes and said he was in some kind of a political vendetta. Well, not so much. And by the way, this implicates a number of people. This implicates a gentleman who was put on the board of appeals by a mayor and now was put on the board of appeals by the board of supervisors. This is pretty systemic, and i think in addition to having a closed session at the board of supervisors around the things that are privileged, i think we should explore whether or not we can invoke emergency powers to put temporarily at least d. B. I. Under the City Administrator. Thank you. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Peskin, real quick, before turning this hearing back over to Chair Melgar, mr. Riordan, was anyone referred to the City Attorney . Im not aware of that happening, Supervisor Ronen. Supervisor ronen mr. Keeffe . The individuals we refer for criminal prosecution, we keep as confidential. Supervisor ronen Chair Melgar . Supervisor melgar thank you, Supervisor Ronen. So just going back to something that Supervisor Peskin was talking about in terms of the potential for legislation to increase penalties, especially of Culture Change within and without the department, so i hope that we can work together to give you the tools that you will need to do this, even if its, like, major changes. Just like i think contractors dont go off and do stuff without being paid for it if the owners are not paying for it, theyre not going to do it. I also think that somebody like bernard curran, who was supposed to do 25 to 30 inspections a year and ended up doing 300, those extra 270 inspections were just for a reason. I dont think he went out there for the heck of it and didnt expect something because we dont do that as humans, right . So im just wondering what were going to do in terms of, you know, any, like, potential tools to help you, you know, make sure that folks who stray from what they were supposed to be doing, that theyre held accountable in the future so they wont do that. Chair melgar, i thank you, and i appreciate any assistance that the board can provide to this department, because like i said earlier, this is all about finding out where we were, and to a future where we you know, we can establish reestablish the public trust. So, really, it started with the tone at the top, and my leadership, ive made it clear to staff and especially managers that i value transparency, accountability, and efficiency, along with good Customer Service. Ive made it clear that i expect them to perform their jobs with integrity. Im fostering a culture in which im encouraging people to speak up and call out wrong behavior. We are making progress, and to what Supervisor Peskin said about a. B. 40, assigning some of these contractors and referring them to state agencies through the City Attorney, that is all a discussion were having in relation to our reforms and our audits of all of these projects that have, you know, gone before, you know, up to now, so were looking at that. Christine is looking at that. Shes working with the Controllers Office, shes working with the City Attorneys office on what our Reforms Package on what our reforms are because weve been looking at this and working on reforms for several months now. If you would like, i can have christine just give you a quick update on what were doing with our reforms and our audits. Christine, would you mind . Good afternoon, supervisors. Christine [inaudible], Assistant Director at d. B. I. Really, there are two parts to it. Back in may, we launched a reforms initiative. We worked with all the department managers, came up with a log with the reforms and started putting that into action later this year. It involves administrative reforms, Customer Service training, more Customer Service training, especially for our staff, and some of the controls that weve been talking about here with inspections, and with and with [inaudible], and then, regarding the control the work that were doing with the controller, the Controllers Office has been working with [inaudible] im sorry . Can you hear me . Supervisor ronen yes, we can hear you. So the Controllers Office has put together a report that i think is going to come out later this week. A lot of the suggestions that the Controllers Office made are things that weve already put in place, and weve put together an independent Review Process for that, and we are bringing in a new committee as well as bringing in a Compliance Unit in the department. Chair melgar okay. Thank you. Supervisor ronen i just wanted to note that the last question that Chair Melgar asked was the last question that i had. But i hope that when, you know, the different set of allegations and complaints against mr. Lee are settled, that [inaudible] because its because of his incompetence that d. B. I. Is having to do this work. Again, were not going to change the culture. Were not going to dissuade future similar behavior if there arent real repercussions for this Pattern And Practice of corruption at the department, so, you know, it shouldnt be a taxpayer that has to cover, you know, a reinspection of his failed work. It should be that the people that engaged in the corruption and criminal behavior in the first place that paid for that work. I know this hearing has gone on long, and people need to get going, so id like to let mr. Teague provide some closing comments, and then ill hand it over to Chair Melgar. Thank you, Supervisor Ronen. The original project had, you know, five individual buildings, and it was a new Construction Permit for each of those, and we talked about the contractor on file there. Each one of those buildings also had a Revision Permit issued while it was under construction, and at least for a couple of those permits, the listed contractor was also the Property Owner, so just to put that information out there in terms of whoofs actually listed on who was actually listed on which work. And then, responding to Chair Melgars comment about a system for affordable housing and ensuring that it was put in place. I was a little thrown off about thinking about it as a specific system for affordable housing and failed to think about it in the context, we have a number of housing units that come into existence we have it built into the Permit Tracking System, so things like impact fees or when street trees used to be a requirement in the Planning Code, or affordable housing the inkind requirement, so i was able to have staff look into that. And for this particular project, the affordable Housing Requirement was input into the system, but because there was never a fulfillment date, and the box was never checked in this case, but the system does require, like for any obligation thats permitted after the site permit, generally, those obligations have to be met before the t. C. O. Youre correct. I was just thinking about it differently from the way you were describing is, so i just wanted to clarify that. Supervisor melgar thank you, mr. Teague, but that still doesnt answer my question, that how they got the certificate of occupancy without the box being checked. Yeah, i dont have that answer. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Preston . Supervisor preston thank you, Supervisor Ronen and Chair Melgar. Its hard to know where to go on this. Colleagues talked a lot about the need for potentially stiffer consequences, and in the case that someone is criminally prosecuted, that theyre unlikely to [inaudible] i think i want to focus a little bit on the other on another aspect to that. Like, no matter how stiff your penalties are, no matter how good your system is, when you have this kind of misconduct, it really requires people to blow the whistle, right . It requires like, whistle blowers are an absolutely key part of any system, and so i just wanted to comment a bit but also to hear a bit from director riordan and perhaps others on this. I will say this as someone who only came into City Hall in the last 1. 5 years. Theres a lot of good things about the City Hall culture in San Francisco. One of the bad things is not just the thought of people profiting through their scheme. One of the things is in San Francisco city government, the willingness to compromise your values, to keep your Mouth Shut and just go along, is not just rewarded financially in a particular scheme and how much the unit sells for, but you see people sail through the ranks, and its really deeply offensive. And i want to say its such a disservice to all the people that are actually working their butts off, from folks at the lowest levels to those working on the frontlines. We cannot ignore the socalled culture of corruption, people coming forward and calling that out. People feeling like they risk their careers, their lives, and gain more by being quiet than they do by speaking up. And ive talked about this in g. A. O. And other context. We need to change about how we look at our whistleblower contexts. We need to benefit from coming forward, which incenti incenti private individuals significantly by coming forward. Let me just ask you a couple of questions around this issue as applied to like, director oriordan, to the extent that you can address this publicly, is it your understanding that other folks in the department beyond the people who have been named in criminal complaints were aware of this misconduct and did not go come forward . Youre muted. Sorry. Im not aware if that is the case, whether it is or is not the case, but i agree totally with your sentiment, Supervisor Preston. I couldnt agree more, and i think a lot of what this is is giving people a sense of empowerment. Supervisor preston you know this department well. Youve been there a while. It seems absolutely inconceivable, the not just alleged but admitted corruption occurring, it seems completely inconceivable that there were not many people who knew who was going on. Am i incorrect in making that assumption, from your and again, im not asking for you to talk about specific people or confidential, you know, whistle blower complaints or so forth, but am i looking at that wrong . Based on what you know of the department, is it possible that something like this occur and only people that know about it know about it within the department . No. What i know about that supervisor, and thank you for the question, is a lot of people have left since my appointment. We have a whole new executive team, and i keep going back to this. You know, its a Culture Shift at the top, and if people feel empowered to report wrongdoing, and they feel that those responsible will face accountability, thats how im approaching it. Now i wouldnt venture to guess who all these people were in the past and what they did. I simply dont know, and ive always been on a different track than to be, like, one of those people. Supervisor preston thank you for the comments and for you know, i agree on setting the tone at the top. I think Thats Part of it, certainly, and in this in that spirit, i guess, my next question is what are you doing to support whistle blowers coming forward, and what is your support of your knowledge of people who may have known what is going on . How are you going to support them if they speak up . Thank you, supervisor. We are letting them know if they know of any Wrongdoing And Part it is messaging. We send emails to staff and encourage them to anonymously make us aware of any wrongdoing in their Daytoday Work here at the department, and its an on going process. It doesnt happen overnight. Theres a lot of heavy lifting with this, because in the Culture Shift, you have to go from a place where they may not have been comfortable reporting these things to where, you know, theyre happy to do it because they feel that its going to make their world better, too, if they can report something, and their integrity is restored to a department by doing that. Supervisor melgar mr. Supervisor ronen mr. Oriordan, if i could just chime in, because we have a long way to know. In 2018, there were three whistleblower complaints, and in 20192020, there were 14, so were going in the right direction. I will say that, based on the size of department, its only the Sheriffs Department and the Building Inspection department that have a high ratio of whistleblower complaints in ratio to their size in the entire city, so i think whatever you started doing is working, and we need to continue to do that even more. My question, though, related to yours, Supervisor Preston, is we dont know what happened to those 22 complaints over the last three years, and theres so little information that the public and even the supervisors get in terms of what the results are in terms of those investigations, and that is definitely you know, this report coming out from the Controllers Office later this week is something we have a lot of followup from this hearing, and one of those followups is about the results of whistle blowing complaints in the city and what gets released publicly, and theres more that should be released, in my opinion, and that definitely happens on the federal level. [inaudible] before this hearing. Curious about the same thing. Supervisor preston thanks, Supervisor Ronen, and the whistleblower reports, we have heard some of those in g. A. O. And discussed ways to try to connect the dots in those complaints. I did want to ask specifically about whistleblower complaints regarding specifically the mr. Curran and his conduct here. Are you aware, were there whistleblower complaints about mr. Curran and the subject matter of this hearing . Im not aware, Supervisor Preston, but i can definitely seek out that information and get back to you on that. Supervisor preston thank you. And i dont know if the City Attorney, mr. Keeffe, if you know . I think the rules around the Whistleblower Confidentiality allow me to disclose that publicly, but the rules are on disclosure on that, so im sorry, but i cant answer. Supervisor preston okay. Well i, think it would be good information for us to get or if it cant be disclosed, to discuss that. To discuss something like this topic and to not know again, im not talking about the identity of a whistleblower, but that theres a difference between that and whether someone was the subject of whistleblower complaints or not and looking historically at that. And it may be nothing. There may have been no whistleblower complaints, or nothing may have come of it. So whether its a key fact on this, whether its available publicly, hopefully, you can get an answer for us on this. Absolutely, Supervisor Preston. Thank you. Supervisor ronen Supervisor Peskin . Supervisor peskin yeah. Mr. Oriordan, were you around when Supervisor G was put on the ballot and passed . Supervisor peskin, im a youngster. No, i was not. Supervisor peskin mr. Teague, youre a youngster, so i know you werent. Is the Perception Or Reality of d. B. I. That it was less corrupt when it was under a different part of the governmental system . I mean, cause if you i was just looking at Prop G of 1994 that was supported by an interesting array of folks and in essence took it away from the City Administrator when it was at [inaudible] and created the Zoning Inspection Commission with the power to appoint the support and allowed the commission to reverse certain decisions and what have you. I was wondering maybe we have to call rudy nothenberger. But that brings up one last question. Mr. Oriordan, we do believe that you are trying to change that culture, and we want to help make that come true, and maybe i can leave office in 20 however many years and you could have made a few steps in the right direction. I think its very difficult for you to do that with the now i dont know how long its been with the title of interim. How does your and im did not and im not i dont want to interfere with the authority of the city. But who is it, the mayor or who makes you or somebody the permanent director . How does that work, mr. Oriordan . I believe the Building Inspection commission has that discretion, Supervisor Peskin . Supervisor peskin well, mr. Mccarthy, if youre listening, i hope you create some stability at the top of this department. Thank you, madam chair, for letting me get one last statement in. Supervisor ronen and thank you, madam chair, you can take over the rest of the hearing. Supervisor melgar i have to be excused because i have a meeting that i was going to go to in my district. I was going to ask Supervisor Preston to make the motion. Supervisor Preston Motion to excuse Chair Melgar for the remainder of the hearing. Madam clerk, please call the roll. Clerk on the motion to excuse Chair Melgar for the remainder of the meeting starting at 5 16 p. M. [roll call] clerk we have two ayes. Supervisor ronen thank you so much, Chair Melgar, for holding this hearing . Should we now turn this over to public comment . Ill turn it over to you, mr. Vice chair. Supervisor preston yes, i think well open it up for public comment. Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Operations is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. It looks like we have nine listeners and five in queue. Could you please unmute the first caller. My name is george [inaudible] with San Francisco Land Use coalition. There is no satisfactory oversight at the d. B. I. , only a for Sale Sign on the front lawn. I think people should remember Supervisor Peskin when he tried to create prop m, which gave independent oversight over oewd and mohcd. I strongly recommend the city retain a forensic structural Engineering Firm to perform a comprehensive independent review of the project at 2867 San Bruno avenue. D. B. I. S top directors have historically been involved in scandals and could not be trusted to police their own agency. Internal d. B. I. Oversight is inadequate. 2867 San Brunos 19 illegal units is just another example of d. B. I. Corruption and oversight failure. To correct these programs, d. B. I. Has said theyre going to improve staff training, put inspection details and notes online and the approval of a new senior inspector to supervise. I do not believe this will work. The only thing that will work is an independent forensic instructal engineer structural engineers should oversee audits done by d. B. I. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Next speaker . My name is jerry dratler. [inaudible] the District Inspector had to know. Former Mayor Bruce [inaudible] the Abatement Permit at 2525 17 avenue. How could this happen . Also, why has the city failed to report former structural engineer Rodrigo Santos to the California Licensing structural Engineering Board in the last ten years . The contractor is responsible for making sure the project is per the approved plans. Did that architect call out the unapproved instructions . If not, they should be called on the carpet, and lastly, why would the Planning Department recommend approval of a permit before the city determines the building is code[inaudible] and code compliant . There were no violations over the last three years. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Next speaker. Hey, thank you, guys, for allowing me to speak. I just want to say we talked a lot about how this happened, but you really need to go back to the commission hearings in 2013, january 17, 2013, and just listen to, like, five minutes of the Project Sponsors and developers in front of the Planning Commission, i mean, at their hearing, and the issue came up. The vish came up about the potential for illegal units. This happened because the building was designed in a way to [inaudible] and was talked about at the Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission asked them about it, and the developers and the architects addressed the issue about the Fire Escapes, so they were 110 aware of the situation going into this, and it was clear at the Planning Commission that they were not supposed to do this, so please go back to that hearing, watch the video, january 17, 2013. Its only about 15 minutes or five minutes. They knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing in the beginning, and the b. M. R. Issue, i found about it in vis valley when i lived there then, so its been known. This happened in the plain daylight, and who knew what and when did they know it . Thank you. Clerk thank you. We have nine listeners with three in queue. If you have not done so already, Press Star, three to lineup to speak. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisors. Ozzie reaume with San Francisco Land Use coalition. Id like to point out the fact that every year, were faced with some egregious act related to Building And Construction practices in our town. If its not an illela addition, its an illegal addition, its an illegal demolition, and its a culture of corruption. These Acts Couldnt have happened if the culture of corruption was not endemic in other parts of city government. [inaudible] astonishing. The fact is that the City Attorneys office routinely dismissing whistleblowers and the cases they bring to light. Beating up on d. B. I. For their misuse is par for the course, but lets not forget about other arms of the city government, such as the City Attorneys office, that has been awol on such shenanigans. Here we are on another development that will soon appear on a Planning Commission agenda to get legalized as mr. Teague advised us earlier. Once again, developer violates the permit, slap on the wrist, and asks for forgiveness. Lastly, id like to draw your attention to the casualties of this illegal construction, and that is the clerk thank you. Next speaker . Good afternoon. This is sue hester. I want to head off the next couple of projects that are coming your way. You should have a list thats available of who all the names are of all the developers and the agents are of these projects, and that list should be available to the Planning Department and to the public because other projects are heading their way to the Planning Commission right now, and any project that has one of these agents needs to be scrutinized by Planning Department Staff. Secondarily, theres a real problem with l. L. C. S, limited Liability Corporations, and those should be flushed out immediately, and when the project is going through the Planning Department, so there has to be transparency of who is acting through a limited Liability Corporation. We had a lot of them historically in the academy of Art Situation which went on for a lot of years because they were the academy of art, but they used the limited Liability Corporation as the address of the limited Liability Corporation. And i want to agree with what Supervisor Peskin raised at the beginning of the project, the [inaudible] project, the process. Theres no link between [inaudible], which is used by the Planning Department, and the d. B. I. System. There should be transparency between the departments so the plans and the ruling and the approvals are available to Planning Department Staff people, not just to the building Department Staff people. Theres been a lot of clerk thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Ah, yes. My name is michael nolte. Im the director of the alliance for a better district 6. Our organization was formed with the idea that accountability at all levels of the government, and it seems like, you know, we werent that there still needs to be a lot of accountability, and its a shame that it has to come to still, things have to be worked out, and in this case, i believe it needs to be worked out in a closed session in the full board of supervisors, and, you know, maybe the public will not be able to hear whats being discussed, but hopefully some recommendations will be made. There also are other bodies of government that exist to oversee these kinds of egregious kinds of issues that are happening right now in city government, and i hope some of them are also tapped to review and make recommendations so that these corruptions will stop happening in our government because, you know, we are the city and the county, and i think a lot of times people forget that we are the city and the county government, and the city could do one thing, but we also are a county, and were accountable to the state being a county, and we have obligations to be fulfilled. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you for your comments. Mr. Chair, that was the last speaker in queue. Supervisor preston thank you, Madam Clerk. Seeing no more callers, public comment on this item is now closed. Supervisor ronen or Supervisor Peskin, any additional comments or questions . Supervisor ronen i mean, first of all, i just want to thank everyone for taking a significant amount of time and having this really productive conversation. There is a lot of work to do, and after seeing the Attention And Willingness and interest of this board of supervisors and d. B. I. And planning, i think that we can do the necessary work before us, but its [inaudible] because what has been allowed to go on in this city and particularly in d. B. I. For a very long time is outrageous. Its, as Supervisor Peskin said, sickening, and the only way that it will change behavior in d. B. I. And all city departments is no small feat. I am glad because it looks like this is something that we are taking on collectively in different departments of the city, and were going to have to take head on, and think about what this can be, and not just limit ourselves to the way we used to do things or, you know, the, you know, the last letter of the law. We dont often have such power as we wish we had at the local level to get done what wed like to get done for our city. We have the power, and if its used right, we can make great change here thats lasting and that can be incredibly positive for the city. So i do want to thank everybody that participated in todays hearing. It was robust, it was long, and i want to thank my chief of staff, amy, who has been focused incredibly on not only this hearing but two other pieces of legislation that we have pending related to the subject of this hearing. Were just getting started, and were looking forward to working with you all to get this done. And especially, really want to give a special thanks to my colleagues. Your questions and engagement in this hearing for something that for this particular project that did not happen in your district was extraordinary, and i just really appreciate you all for spending the time and energy that i think this hearing deserved. Supervisor preston Supervisor Peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, Supervisor Preston, and thank you, colleagues, on the Land Use committee. So a few takehomes. Sounds like, Supervisor Ronen, ill give you a shoutout were not a quorum at this committee, so i can call you, that we might call for a closed session at the board relative to what mr. Keeffe cannot divulge publicly, that we will hear from mr. Keeffe as to policy suggestions around additional penalties for d. B. I. Violators or building code violators or, for that matter, Planning Code violators. I am confident that d. B. I. Has heard our admonition, that were going to have a tone from the top, as our controller reported last september, you have to have a stable top, and they can get that by having a permanent head at the department, and if necessary, our board of supervisors could urge that commission under our powers of the 1994 act to do such. And finally, the issue that is not related to San Bruno or other similarly situations projects or corruption at d. B. I. , but more pervasive Pattern And Practices of the City Attorneys office which is what comes before this body for settlement, i would like to have that conversation online and offline. And i think this is actually an appropriate time to have that conversation because its not aimed at any one City Attorney because as we know, mr. Herrera will be leaving imminently, so i think this is a good time to have that. Its not aimed at a particular City Attorney, and we can create the tone for the new City Attorney, so that should be a fun project, and i look forward to working with you on that and any other colleagues that are interested. Supervisor preston thank you, Supervisor Peskin, and i want to thank you, Supervisor Ronen, for bringing this forward. This has been a long hearing, but i think this is a worthwhile discussion. One project in my district, theres a certain amount of for those of us on this board with 11 districts, if we all did this on every project that came up in our district, the board would never be able to conduct business, so i think we dont do this lightly when we bring something like this forward. I wont speak for the chair whos been excused for the remainder of this hearing on her views, but i imagine since she scheduled it here, shed be happy to have that. I just think that the policy issues that arise from this one fight and issues that have been brought out into the open are absolutely essential for us to discuss at the board, and im very glad you did that and are able to participate in that. I do want to say that i am im just, through this Hearing Weve been having this conversation in and out of City Hall in this city for so long. Its just like you can break the law and people doing a Cost Benefit Analysis and getting away with it. Supervisor peskin, i think youll recall a lot of this the city apartment skyline, and i was a Tenant Attorney at that time, and they were going building to building, and tenant by tenant. This is a longstanding problem. I just want to say this is not one director or one persons issue, and i think we also need to be to be realistic that, like, only a tiny fraction of these cases come to light, and when they do, its always very unsatisfying, and we need to be looking at systemic changes. Its why i think some of the structural good governmenttype changes that have been brought up here are so important. Its also why, and its beyond the scope of this hearing, but its why ive been a champion of the tenant. We look at the City Attorneys office, the d. A. S office, they have constraints on them. The City Attorney is not at liberty to discuss their investigation on matters that are privileged. Anyone knows, the district attorney, the best in the country, is only going to prosecute a tiny, tiny fraction of the most extreme cases that come forward because of the burdens of proof in a criminal case, and i think we need to be open to the Discussion Weve had both with voters in the past and at the Board Ornd whether around whether, you know, the discussions that weve had at the board, the district attorney, ethics commission, are those sufficient to rat out the corruption that continues to plague the department, but thank you all for participating so candidly and openly in the hearing and for all your work, and i think, Madam Clerk, are there any further items before the committee . Oh, im sorry, before i do that, Supervisor Ronen, what is your pleasure in terms of continuing the hearing to the call of the chair or filing the matter . Supervisor ronen im fine filing this hearing. This is the next hearing or the next intervention that take place wont focus on this situation, so i think im fine with filing this hearing. Supervisor preston so moved. Clerk on the motion as stated by Supervisor Preston [roll call] Supervisor Peskin i can never figure out if youre saying Preston Or Peskin . Clerk we should enunciate more. Supervisor preston all right. The hearing is filed. Thank you, Supervisor Peskin. Madam clerk, is there any further business before the Committee Today . Clerk that concludes the business for today. Supervisor preston thank you, Madam Clerk. 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