Where does that money go . I think it goes into the general fund. It should go to disabled people. It should go to disabled services and programs. Dont just collect money and cite people who are harming the disabled population and use the money for somebody else. Thats a problem i see. Also i want to know what sfmta is doing about private bus drivers blocking bus zones. In my last two hearings with sfmta, which were horrible, the level of discrimination from sfmta against me for my disabilities has been unreal and is well documented with all my email communication with mod. My last two ada hearings, both of which were because a driver would not pick me up, a muni driver would not pick me up in a bus zone, this is a bus zone, not a flag stop. The appointed officer in both hearings used obstruction of the loading zone by private companies as an excuse for not picking me up in wheelchair. I dont feel i should be punished not getting on a bus because someone is blocking a bus zone. My last hearing was friday last week, specifically, they said that there was construction and that explained why the bus driver didnt have to pull up to the curb. I couldnt even get into the bus off the sidewalk. So if youre going to have construction in a bus loading zone, build a temporary ramp. If youre going to tell people that [bell ringing] there is construction thats why the bus driver want stop there, build a temporary ramp so we can get off the sidewalk. They did it on van ness. They have a great temporary ramp just a few blocks from here. Theyre doing better, but i would love to see more efforts in that vain. Again, i think blue zones are great. I want to say im very much of the limitation, the time limits for green zones. Its been helpful for loading and unloading and [bell ringing] i dont think eliminating disabled peoples access. Ms. Senhaux chair number 9. Public comment. Items not on todays agenda. Any speaker cards . Okay. Staff . Zack . Hi, i just i want to express concerns that i have for the way these meetings are held, but also i think the meetings are a good thing and its why i have these concerns. I want to make that clear. The reason i fight for better access, i want people to know about them, theyre good meetings. This time crunch we get in is a problem. There is only been like two or three Public Comments today. And i feel like the council could do a better job of allocating more time for Public Comment. And not making us just like crunch in. I think that there could be better outreach for the meetings. At the peak of the meeting i think there were 10 people in the audience. And someone spoke today they wished theyd known about the meetings a long time ago. I have been here before speaking about how to do outreach through hospitals, organizations that disabled people commonly go to. I didnt hear about these meetings for an extremely long time. Many, many years. I would have loved to have known about them sooner. I spoke just a minute ago about my hearing with sfmta on friday. It was appalling. I was bullied for twoandahalf hours for a hearing that is supposed to be half an hour. They refused to record it. They refused to allow me to record it. Even just myself. And so there is no documentation of what was happening in that meeting. The hearing officer, socalled neutral officer had leading questions, informing the driver how to give their testimony. Refused to let me ask the driver questions directly or the muni representative directly. I still dont have working evidence, public video footage that i requested multiple times. Theyve not given me a functioning evidence. A slew of unbelievable they cancelled my original hearing and tried to do all sorts of slimy stuff around that. And just an incredible degree of ableism ive not experienced with any other organization in San Francisco. And ive sent a lot of documentation to mod about that incident and would love it if mod would take a stance and do something about the corrupt ada hearing processes that are not at all neutral, not unbiased. Theyre extremely biased. And they [bell ringing] literally help the driver come up with excuses why they dont pick us up in the middle of the hearing. When i try to talk, they yell over me. Its terrible. I want to reiterate the point, of making the notices on trees accessible for disabled people when dpw want to cut down trees. Those trees are gone forever. I ask that this body ask dpw to suspend that [bell ringing] for disabled people until they can make the notices accessible for disabled people. Thank you. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. One more Public Comment. Flo . Thank you for waiting, flo. This is my first time here commenting. My name is flo and im a San Francisco resident, a native, born and raised here. Now im an adult and i have children and as a parent, i come here to talk about, there is issues, times ive been very frustrated in my communication with city agencies. Theyve asked me to lip read, or i feel stress and i asked them, can you provide an interpreter . They say we dont have anyone. You provide other languages, why not provide asl . And then, well there is a Service Called video relay interpreting, or video phone interpreting. In the event theyre unable to find a live interpreter, you can go to the app, this Software Service and there is asl interpreter and i can have access to the services. Here when city hall surprised they have a video interpreter before for that exact service in city hall, but then was moved to another department i believe the Mayors Office on disability, but i believe that service should be available not only in city hall, but other city agencies. Id like to see every city agency be helpful and Work Together to provide access for asl users as opposed to being separated. I feel ive been discriminated than other people who have Language Access issues. Im requesting that the barriers be removed. Im not the only one. I have friends who are deaf who are afraid to approach the city for help because of this issue. Im recommending we take action. And i thank you for your time and attention to this issue. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you, flo. Any more Public Comment . Were going to close Public Comment and go on information item number 10, which is correspondence. Nicole there is no correspondence today. Ms. Senhaux chair were going to move on the information item quick comment. I have a quick comment. I want to thank you for your patience. Flo was struggling, she was asking me who should i talk to and was very frustrated. So i think the problem really is that there is a system out there, Video Relay Interpreting Service out there, but its not being taken advantage of. And i feel that in many agencies have this attitude of looking at people who are deaf and expecting them to lip read. Which is very offensive. And really, i think they should be saying how can we communicate best for you . Its Language Access. I needed to put that in there. Thank you. Ms. Senhaux chair information item number 11. Any Council Member comments . Yes. Two things, there is an event i would like to mention. One of my colleagues, city college, informed me about. And it is called coming of age stories by people with disabilities. Its friday, september 27 at 6 00. At a temple and the address is 290 delores street. Its a book of best voices of disabled writers. And it should be very interesting. I plan on going. I just wanted to mention that and get that on the record. Nicole if you could send that to us, well make sure it gets out to the distribution as well. Great, ill do that. And then the second thing is as a new member, i also have a question. Is there some way we could hear back when people make Public Comment and you are responding to them on behalf of the council, or behalf of the staff, is there some way we can be in the loop of how that communication went . Nicole yes. So youll learn at your First Executive planning meeting on tuesday that we have a process by which we delegate how the council is going to respond and what the response is. Great, thank you. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you very much. Im going to proceed to adjourn. I thank everyone for their time and patience for the meeting going over. And have a nice weekend. Ready. Good morning, today is wednesday , september 18th, 2019. This is a regular meeting of the abatement appeals board. I would like to remind everyone to turn of all electronic devices. The first item on the agenda is roll call. [roll call] we have a quorum. The next item is item be. The oath where are part all parties giving testimony please raise your right hand and stand. Do you swear the testimony were about to give is a truth to the best of your knowledge . Thank you, you maybe seated. For information his, we want to state the department will present its case first then the appellant. Each individual has seven minutes to present their case. Next there will be Public Comment. The members have three minutes each. Lastly there is rebuttal time of three minutes. The next item is item see, approval of minutes great discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for the meeting held on august 21st, 2019. Move to approve. We have a motion and a second is there any Public Comment on the minutes . Seeing none, are all commissioners in favor . Aye. Any opposed . The minutes are approved. Our next item is item d. , new appeal order of abatement. Case number 6864, 232 talbert street. Action request by the appellant for more time to complete the work. Please come forward. Good morning, commissioners. I am the chief Housing Inspector for the last ten or so years, our cases have been presented by myself or rosemary, the former chief Housing Inspector, but we do have inspector larry who has done an excellent job managing our district in the excelsior. He has recently been promoted to senior Housing Inspector. Good morning, im jim lowery. Im acting senior Housing Inspector. The subject property today is located at 232 talbert street. The notice of violation was issued on october 25th, 2018. The subject of the notice of violation was an unsafe interior staircase going from the second floor to the garage, it is secondary to the main staircase which is at the front of the house. It is a bungalow style home with a winding exterior staircase on the front. I have some pictures. The staircase is a bad angle. The tread depth is not correct. The picture is in your packets. I am referring to the picture that is labelled noncompliant staircase showing angle and existing railings, it is dated october 25th, 2018. The second picture i have, which is also in your packet, is a picture of the staircase with a tape measure showing the tread depth, which is certainly less than ten and a half inches. If you look at it from the top, you will see theres just slightly more than 2 inches for someone to land their foot on that step. Finally, on september 5th, 2019 at a subsequent inspection, the staircase was removed completely so it is no longer there. There were two permits pulled. The first was to repair stairs inside from the upper unit to the garage to correct the notice of violation, that permit was issued on march 8th, 2019. Then there was a second permit to remove connecting stairs from upper units to garage to comply with the n. O. V. There were some other items that were on the permit that was filed june 19th, 2019. Our pictures are showing that we had some technical difficulties. Sorry. Okay, so this is the staircase. That is the bottom. You can see theres no rail on the outside of that staircase, but a rail on the wall that is not compliant with any code. This was rebuilt at some point, as you can see. This is the staircase removed at the subsequent inspection. And then here is the picture of the stair with the tape measure so you can see that the tread depth is not correct, and as i said, theres barely over 2 inches to land a foot as you come down. Excuse me, we have a question hi, you said a minute ago there was a second permit pulled for removal of the stair. It was filed, it was not issued. Okay. Thank you. Is the home tenant occupied . Yes. What is the original staircase . The original staircase was in the front of the home on the outside to get to the front door , and this is the staircase which is typical of these homes. It goes from the second story down to the garage and interior staircase. Was there an original one that they replaced . This obviously has been replaced. It looks like new construction. I dont know when this construction was done or when that original staircase was removed. It does not look original. Commissioner walker . Yeah, it looks to me that there was a legalized unit on the ground floor added to this. It kind of looks like an afterthought, is what i am saying. The staircase in the back was added. You are saying that is normal for houses to have a staircase down . Yes. Is this because its a two unit and we inspect these on a routine basis . This was based on a complaint that came from the tenant. I see. That complaint was received by us. It seems like it would have to also be fire rated to separate the garage. I dont know, but typically these staircases, when originally built, were part of the original construction. Whatever code was in effect at that time was the code that we would enforce, however, obviously this one has been altered or rebuilt at some point so we are saying that they first got a repair permit, they didnt repair it, they filed for removal, but it wasnt issued, and they removed it anyway. Thats correct. And now that theyve removed it, they are subject to new standards, not repair. That is correct. And we asked them to file a permit with two sets of plans to rectify this. Okay, and the lower level unit, is that a legal unit . Our reports said two units. When the owner came in initially to discuss this case, he had a piece of paper that said it was a two unit building. It is not clear if there was ever a single change of occupancy from a singlefamily home. Okay, well, it probably is worth checking the records if it has ever been legalized and if it isnt, obviously we want as much housing as possible, but we want to make sure it is done safely and properly. Absolutely. This case is sort of indicating that there may be some question as to whether things are always done with permit and to correct standards. I would really appreciate you are looking into that. Okay. Thank you. So the department is recommending we have found that the condition of the existing staircase represents a life has it to the occupants of the building. A life hazard to the occupants of the building. The department is recommending the order be upheld and all costs incurred by the department be assessed. Thank you. Thank you. The public the appellant can come forward. Good morning. I just want to make a correction the owner of record i am the owner, along with my wife. I just wanted to find out the owner of record and appellant on this notice of meeting, the address is wrong. Thank you, we will note that. Thank you. I bought the building, my wife and i bought the building in 1997, and this structure, the existing structure was there, and according to the three r. Report, it was a two tenant unit we stayed there for three years with our children and then we moved out to another part of the city and rented it out for the last so many years. There were tenants living there, low income housing. The stairs the mr. Larry pointed out was already there. There was no original stairs that i know of, so i just wanted to present to you that i am here to comply with the law and i want to do the right thing to be able to fix it and legalize it. I just want the consideration of the board to reduce the charges because we just had my daughter s wedding, it was a pretty expensive affair. Im kind of low on my finances. If there is any consideration given to me to be able to deal with this, i will be able to work with the Housing Inspector and other departments to be able to comply and make it code compliant. My contractor his is going around looking for parking. He just texted me saying he still hasnt found parking yet. Any questions, commissioners . Server, it mentioned that you owned other properties. County properties do you own . Right now i live at may the property at my other property i have been living here for the past 26 years. I am a member and minister of third baptist church. The city has been good to me. I came as an immigrant, but the church, the community, we worked very hard to be able to get to where we are. Both of my children went to the public and private schools in the city, and now they are physicians. One is a psychiatrist and one is an anaesthesiologist resident in san diego. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none, is there a rebuttal by the department . The department would just simply ask that it be upheld and the cost assessed. This has gone on for almost a year now. There are some other issues in the building, as well. Whatever you folks decide i think would be we will have to live with. Thank you. I have a question. Commissioner clinch had a question first. Does the code require an interior set of stairs . There is some conjecture as to whether it is a two unit building or one unit building. The owner approached planning on the permit that he has filed to remove the staircase and there were some issues there. Planning asked him to go to Records Management and pull records to the property history to see if they could come up with a conclusion to that. As an engineer, i would thank you have an exterior set of stairs with the upper unit in the bottom unit has egress through the garage or through the side door. I wouldnt think an interior stair would be needed. That is possible with the occupancy. Only one exit from each unit is required. It seems like a very simple fix to simply get the permit and get the stair removal accepted. You are correct, yes. Commissioner walker . Im just checking our permit records, and it magically went from a one family dwelling to a two family dwelling in 1995 or 1997 without any permit. I dont see how that happened. So what do we do in a situation like this . I mean, im likely to uphold the order around the stairs, but i think that this is kind of a bigger challenge that we havent gotten into, it just automatically shifts from a one family to a two family without any building inspecti