BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 450 N Street, Room 121 Sacramento, California REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT APRIL 15, 2009 ITEM P1.1 OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT FACILITIES UPDATE Reported by: Beverly D. Toms No. CSR 1662 1 1 2 P R E S E N T 3 4 For the Board Betty Yee of Equalization: Chair 5 Judy Chu 6 Vice-Chair 7 Bill Leonard Member 8 Michelle Steel 9 Member 10 Marcy Jo Mandel Appearing for John 11 Chiang, State Controller (per Government Code 12 Section 7.9) 13 Diane Olson Chief, Board 14 Proceedings Division 15 Board of Equalization Staff: Ramon Hirsig 16 Executive Director 17 Liz Houser Deputy Director, 18 Administration 19 Also Present: William Semmes Department of General 20 Services 21 Doug Button Department of General 22 Services 23 Robert Courtnier Department of General 24 Services 25 Michael Polkabla Biomax Environmental 26 27 ---oOo--- 28 2 1 2 INDEX OF SPEAKERS 3 Page 4 BOBBIE SMITH 14 5 DEANNA PAYNE 17 6 ---oOo--- 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 3 1 Sacramento, California 2 April 15, 2009 3 ---oOO--- 4 MS. YEE: Let's go back to P1. 5 MS. OLSON: Okay. 6 MS. YEE: Good afternoon. 7 MR. HIRSIG: Good afternoon, Madam Chair, 8 Members. The Executive Director Report, P1.1, 9 Facilities Update is really broken into -- into three 10 segments here for clarification. 11 On the first part, the status of ongoing 12 projects, I'll ask Liz to give a brief update on where 13 we are within the building. 14 MS. YEE: Great. 15 MR. HIRSIG: That will be followed by a report 16 by Mr. Doug Button, Deputy Director from DGS on the La 17 Croix Davis report which was just released. 18 And that will be followed up finally with a 19 background on the site search for staff that our Deputy 20 Director of Admin. has been conducting. So -- 21 MS. YEE: Very well. Thank you very much. 22 Good afternoon, Ms. Houser. 23 MS. HOUSER: Thank you, Madam Chair. 24 Liz Houser, Deputy Director for Administration. 25 For the headquarters facility, we continue to work with 26 the Department of General Services to address ongoing 27 issues in the building. 28 The latest water event occurred on March 22nd 4 1 while the DGS was making repairs to the perimeter heater 2 unit on the 9th floor of the 450 N Street building. 3 A ball valve failed, sending 5,000 to 8,000 4 gallons of water from the 9th to the 1st floor, mostly 5 through the northwest stairwell. 6 The 8th and 9th floors took most of the water, 7 causing these floors and the northwest stairwell to be 8 temporarily closed for approximately two weeks. 9 Initially all employees on the 8th and 9th 10 floors were assigned administrative time off. Where 11 possible, employees occupied alternate work stations 12 within the building or tele-worked. 13 As of Monday, April 6th, the 8th floor was 14 reopened and employees returned to their work stations. 15 The next day, Tuesday, March 7th, the 9th floor 16 and the northwest stairwell were reopened. 17 The first, second, third, sixth and seventh 18 floors sustained damage that address -- that must be 19 addressed in the future since mold was discovered in the 20 area -- in small areas on these five floors. 21 These areas have been sealed with fire 22 retardant plastic. Containments with pop-outs may need 23 to be used in order to make these repairs. We are 24 awaiting protocols and a schedule from DGS on these 25 remaining repairs. 26 I'll be happy to answer any questions you have 27 on that event. 28 MS. YEE: Okay. Questions or comments, 5 1 Members. 2 MS. YEE: Okay, thank you. Next item. 3 MR. HIRSIG: Mr. Button, I believe, and Will 4 Semmes, who is also from DGS. 5 MR. SEMMES: Thanks, if you don't mind, Madam 6 Chair and Board Members. My name is Will Semmes. I'm 7 Chief Deputy Director for Real Estate and Asset 8 Management at DGS. 9 And I have with me Doug Button, who's Deputy 10 Director in charge of real estate. Also Mike Polkabla 11 from Biomax Environmental, who's the Certified 12 Industrial Hygienist who's been helping us develop the 13 protocols for this. 14 And I also wanted to introduce Bob Courtnier. 15 Bob has been brought on board to coordinate all the 16 remediation efforts for this building and to make sure 17 you're satisfied. 18 MS. YEE: Okay. Thank you. 19 MR. SEMMES: So I'll let Doug here introduce 20 the La Croix Davis report. 21 MR. BUTTON: Doug Button, the Department of 22 General Services. 23 Madam Chair, Members of the Board, you may 24 recall that -- oh, approximately, I believe it was 25 October -- November 2007 when we first started dealing 26 with the remediation of mold in this building. We put 27 together a business plan, if you will, working together 28 with the BOE and that was a four-step business plan. 6 1 It had four phases. Phase three of that 2 business plan was to complete a comprehensive inspection 3 of the building to ensure that we looked very closely at 4 areas that have had water incidences in the past. 5 We -- we brought on La Croix Davis, an 6 industrially hygienist from the private sector. We 7 contracted with them to, first of all, review all of the 8 historic documents that we had on the building. They 9 looked at over 3,000 documents. 10 They also conducted interviews with key 11 personnel involved in the management of the building as 12 well as those individuals that were assessing the 13 building on behalf of both the BOE and the Department of 14 General Services. 15 After having completed these interviews and -- 16 and reading of all of these different documents and 17 looking at the historical water events that occurred in 18 the building, they charted a course for looking at those 19 obvious areas that we felt we should look at to 20 determine whether or not there was any more work needed 21 in those particular areas. 22 With that they conducted visual inspections of 23 the fire sprinkler rooms. The riser cabinets. Storage 24 rooms. Mail rooms. Electric and telephone equipment 25 rooms. Fire equipment rooms. Elevator lobbies. And 26 elevator shafts. 27 They recently completed their report. I 28 believe you have a copy of it at this time. In their 7 1 report they listed both their findings and the 2 recommendations. 3 Within their findings what we noted was that 4 there are some additional areas where we have limited 5 visual signs of moth -- growth -- excuse me, mold 6 growth. It is our intent to go in as we've remediated 7 other areas of the building and remediate those. 8 I think it's important to say that for the most 9 part those areas are in -- within areas that are 10 inaccessible to the staff. They're -- many of the 11 rooms are locked. Many of the rooms are behind closed 12 doors that aren't accessed by staff. Or in some cases 13 they're above what we call hard pan ceilings. So 14 they're somewhat sealed. 15 Once again, we have met with BOE and we have -- 16 actually I believe met with BOE today and reviewed a 17 preliminary schedule for completing that work. 18 We have asked our private sector consultant, 19 Mike Polkabla, to address any protocol that might be 20 necessary to complete that work. 21 MR. SEMMES: Should we have Mike -- Mike, you 22 want to -- if it's okay with the Board. 23 MS. YEE: Please. 24 MR. SEMMES: Mike, I think -- 25 MR. LEONARD: I'm sorry, you released a 26 schedule and you stopped. 27 MR. BUTTON: No, I said that we have met with 28 the BOE to review a schedule to complete that work. 8 1 MR. LEONARD: Is it available to us? 2 MR. BUTTON: We are waiting for input from the 3 BOE. 4 MR. LEONARD: Oh, I see. 5 MR. SEMMES: We've given some -- we've just 6 given some -- a couple of options. We have one where we 7 have what we feel is a fairly aggressive schedule to 8 complete remediation. And then one that's a more lax 9 schedule that just is potentially slightly less 10 disruptive to your work productivity but something that 11 just we wanted to put on the table for the Board to 12 consider. 13 MS. YEE: Okay. And, Ms. Houser, has -- have 14 all the Board Members received that schedule? 15 MS. HOUSER: No. If -- if I may just follow up 16 on the meeting to date. The -- I think the Board 17 Members have received this very draft schedule. It 18 simply has a -- a list of the items that DGS would like 19 to work on. 20 In our meeting today we've kind of outlined 21 what our expectation would be as far as a procedure. 22 And once that DGS and Mike Polkabla, their consultant, 23 have prepared protocols for the areas that they would 24 like to address, which are the areas on this list, those 25 will be forwarded to Hygiene Tech. for their review and 26 Hygiene Tech. will work with Mr. Polkabla to address any 27 questions or concerns they have regarding our employees' 28 health and safety. Because for BOE Hygiene Tech. 9 1 provides our advice in consultation regarding our 2 employees' health and safety. 3 We -- the only protocol we've received so far 4 is the protocol for remediating the mold in the elevator 5 shaft. There's an extensive list of other areas, 6 including most of the bathrooms and several other areas 7 within the building that will need to be addressed. 8 We're supposed to get some of those protocols 9 today. So, once we have all those we'll give them to 10 Hygiene Tech. and then we've asked DGS to meet with our 11 union representatives to explain what's going to happen 12 and how the health and safety of the employees will be 13 protected. 14 And once we have that settled, that information 15 resolved, then we'll be bringing the proposed schedule 16 to the Board. 17 Right now we're working to make sure that DGS 18 and their consultants are aware of all of our rush 19 periods. A lot of the floors where this work would take 20 place is where our return processing takes place, and 21 where our deposits need to be able to get into the bank. 22 And also to be aware of the Board meeting schedule as 23 some of the work would need to occur in the public 24 restrooms here on the first floor, and that would 25 present a challenge for us if those were closed during 26 the Board meeting. 27 MS. YEE: Very well. Thank you. 28 Did you want to elaborate more on the -- 10 1 MR. SEMMES: If it's all right with you. 2 MS. YEE: Yes. 3 MR. SEMMES: Mike. 4 MR. POLKABLA: Yes. Good afternoon. My name 5 is Michael Polkabla. I'm a Principal with Biomax 6 Environmental. 7 I was asked to become a part of this team back 8 in October of 2007. And quite simply my -- my role as 9 the Certified Industrial Hygienist and expert on 10 microbial contamination is to assure and manage the 11 project in that the areas that we deal with, the areas 12 that have been identified, whether they're through 13 direct observations as they have in the past from 2007 14 or through supplemental work relative to the La Croix 15 Davis report are done appropriately and in accordance 16 with applicable guidelines and standards that are 17 current. 18 And -- and I assure you that that is absolutely 19 what we are doing throughout this project. And that is 20 my task. That is my role in this procedure. 21 MS. YEE: Thank you. 22 MR. SEMMES: And, Bob, do you mind just 23 introducing yourself and letting them know about your 24 experience a little bit. 25 A very long experience, right, Bob? 26 MR. COURTNIER: Yeah. Bob Courtnier. I'm with 27 the Department of General Services. In -- in this type 28 of an arena my first experience was with the State 11 1 Capitol when that truck went into that end of the 2 building. I was the Project Manager and mold was a very 3 big concern for us. Some of you may even have been in 4 office at that time. 5 And we closed down the Senate side, as you're 6 well aware, and did all the studies from top to bottom 7 and the cleanup. 8 So that was my first experience and I've had 9 several after that. 10 MS. YEE: Thank you. Questions or comments, 11 Members? 12 I believe we have a number -- a couple speakers 13 from the public on this item. Let me call them up. 14 Bobbie Smith, Deanna Payne and Edward Threlkeld. 15 MS. YEE: Good afternoon. 16 MS. SMITH: Good afternoon, Madam Chair. 17 MS. YEE: Please introduce yourself for the 18 record. You have two minutes each. 19 MS. SMITH: My name is Bobbie Smith. I am the 20 DLC President for SEIU Local 1000 representing the Board 21 of Equalization. 22 MS. PAYNE: My name is Deanna Payne. I'm an 23 Information Systems Analyst in the Technology Services 24 Division. 25 MR. THRELKELD: And I'm Edward Threlkeld and 26 I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be here addressing this 27 particular subject. 28 MR. SMITH: No. 12 1 MS. YEE: All right. 2 MS. SMITH: He's going to talk later about the 3 IT project. 4 MS. YEE: Thank you. Okay. 5 MS. SMITH: I hope I can get through this in 6 two minutes. 7 ---oOo--- 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 13 1 MS. SMITH: The La Croix Davis report states 2 that their inspections for mold are not complete, that 3 some areas are inaccessible. This report presents more 4 questions than answers. . 5 In the past week I've heard three separate 6 plans DGS has to deal with the mold in this building. 7 All of them have issues. 8 The approach DGS is taking for the many 9 problems at 450 N Street is not working due to human 10 error, incompetence or ineptness. The piecemeal 11 approach is not working well. While specific areas 12 throughout the building are going through the inspection 13 remediation process, it has yet to be determined the 14 causation of the mold. Are there leaks in the roof 15 allowing rain to run down between the walls? 16 Is the mold spreading from floor to floor? 17 The La Croix Davis report suggests that there 18 are latent construction defects within this building. 19 Can they explain what they are and what their 20 relationship is to the mold? 21 Have these defects been rectified? Were these 22 the cause of the mold? And if not, what caused the mold 23 in the first place? 24 There are areas in the building that have 25 been -- that have entombed mold. If these areas are not 26 to be remedied then what protocols will be taken to 27 ensure that the entombed mold does not spread to other 28 areas of the building? 14 1 The upper floors have been unoccupied for a 2 year and a half while DGS has worked to remedy the mold 3 issues on these floors. 4 BOE was told by DGS that the floors are ready 5 to be occupied. But our health consultant did not 6 recommend reoccupation until the mold and water 7 intrusion issues in the elevator shafts were remedied. 8 BOE is now being told that there's still mold 9 on these floors. The remediation we've seen throughout 10 the building consists of sealing off an area in plastic 11 when mold is found until the area is clean, repaired and 12 the air quality is deemed safe. 13 How does DGS plan on sealing the elevator 14 shafts to remove the mold? Do they know someone who 15 makes sheets of plastic that are 25 stories tall? 16 We are aware that flex hoses throughout the 17 building have been failing. The hoses on the 9th floor 18 was a scheduled replacement event. Until all the flex 19 hoses are replaced BOE employees whose work space is 20 within proximity of these hoses run the risk of being 21 scalded should a hose fail while the employees are in 22 their work stations. 23 In addition, the water event on the 22nd is 24 being blamed on a faulty valve. How many faulty valves 25 are they and what danger do they pose? 26 MS. OLSON: Time has expired. 27 MS. YEE: Ms. Smith, let me go to the next 28 speaker. If there's time left over we'll give that to 15 1 you. 2 MS. SMITH: Okay. I asked for some personal 3 experiences be shared with you from employees that 4 actually work in the Board. And Deanna is here to speak 5 to you on her issues. 6 MS. YEE: Okay. Please. 7 ---oOo--- 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 16 1 DEANNA PAYNE. 2 MS. PAYNE: Okay. My personal experience with 3 the mold start -- began in July 2007, when I was moved 4 from a wall desk to an interior wall. 5 And I was moved right underneath a vent. And I 6 began getting sick. And it was mainly a burning in the 7 throat and very hoarse voice. 8 And that -- that went on until May of 2008. 9 During that whole time I'd been seeing different 10 doctors, and they would tell me it's a cold. You know, 11 just take over-the-counter medication, which is what I 12 did. 13 And in May of 2000 -- over the period -- over 14 that period of time I began noticing that I was well on 15 the weekends and when I came back into the office I 16 started getting sick again. 17 So, in May of 2008 I -- I did explain that to 18 the doctor. And he -- he said, well maybe -- and I -- 19 at that point I realized that of course there was mold 20 in the building. 21 So, he went ahead and gave me a note that I was 22 not to be in the building full time. So I was -- I've 23 been put on an -- an adjusted work schedule where I'm in 24 the building on Mondays and Thursdays. And I work from 25 home on Tuesday and Wednesday. And so far that's worked 26 out for me very well. 27 And I have a HEPA filter that I use in the 28 office, which also helps. But the -- the symptoms are 17 1 just a burning throat, a hoarseness in the throat when 2 I'm in the building for an extended period of time. 3 Itchy, watery eyes. Clogged -- clogged ears. It's just 4 like a -- a head cold sort of thing going on. So it was 5 very hard to determine that it was actually the mold 6 that was causing the symptoms. 7 MR. LEONARD: Question. 8 MS. YEE: Mr. Leonard. 9 MR. LEONARD: What floor do -- did you work on? 10 MS. PAYNE: When the symptoms first started I 11 was on the 7th floor. 12 MR. LEONARD: 7th. 13 MS. PAYNE: Excuse me, I'm sorry, the 6th 14 floor. 15 MR. LEONARD: 6th. 16 MS. PAYNE: I've recently moved to the 7th 17 floor -- I think it was a couple months ago. And the 18 symptoms still persisted. If I'm in the building for an 19 extended period of time, they do come back. 20 MR. LEONARD: The 7th floor now are you 21 interior or outer wall? 22 MS. PAYNE: I'm near a window. 23 MR. LEONARD: You're near a window. Thank you. 24 MS. YEE: Other questions, Members? 25 Okay. Ms. Smith, did you have -- just some 26 wrap-up comments. 27 MS. SMITH: I just want to have one more 28 comment here. 18 1 We'd asked a number of employees if they could 2 come and speak before the Board and we're having a 3 problem recruiting many of the employees because they're 4 afraid to speak out on these issues. They actually fear 5 retaliation. They don't seem to understand that the 6 Board Members and BOE management are not only 7 sympathetic to these issues but want to hear from these 8 individual experiences. 9 BOE employees have given food, which is 10 something you're addressing on the agenda today. They 11 give blood. Do we have to give up our health, too? 12 Can't we get out of this building before it's -- gets 13 much worse? 14 MS. YEE: Okay. Thank you very much. 15 MS. SMITH: Thank you. 16 MS. YEE: Additional comments? 17 MR. LEONARD: No. Thank you. 18 MS. YEE: Ms. Houser, if you'll just keep us 19 apprised. And I think for -- and thank you to the 20 representatives from General Services for being here. 21 As you can see, there are ongoing employee concerns and 22 we do expect that as protocols are developed and there 23 is a plan to continue remediation that we do continue to 24 have, obviously, good communication with our employees. 25 And we will help facilitate that. 26 MR. SEMMES: We're certainly at your service to 27 do that. 28 MR. LEONARD: Madam Chair. 19 1 MS. YEE: Yes, Mr. Leonard. 2 MR. LEONARD: I did have one question. I -- I 3 expected someone from La Croix Davis to be here. I was 4 led to believe that they would be presenting this -- 5 this report, which I brought. 6 MR. SEMMES: Sorry about that. I -- I 7 understood we were bringing our Industrial Hygienist 8 to speak because he's been the person on this job for 9 all this time to explain our -- 10 MR. LEONARD: Are the people that wrote this 11 report available to our staff to interview them and -- 12 MR. SEMMES: I believe so, yes, sir. 13 MR. BUTTON: Yes, they are. 14 MR. LEONARD: That would be great. Because 15 some parts of it we knew about and other parts are 16 shocking and -- and I just have questions. I'm not even 17 sure what the answers are. 18 Some of the investigations they started but 19 couldn't finish, it was -- I was sort of left hanging. 20 You didn't finish because you ran out of time or ran out 21 of money, or because you physically couldn't do it 22 because it was riskier than not -- I just couldn't tell. 23 So I -- rather than not know I'd -- I'd like to 24 follow up somehow. 25 MR. BUTTON: We will be happy to do the 26 followup -- 27 MR. LEONARD: Great. 28 MR. BUTTON: -- with your staff. 20 1 Thank you. 2 MS. YEE: Great. Ms. Houser. 3 MS. HOUSER: In -- in addition we have sent the 4 report to our hygienist, Hygiene Tech. and we're asking 5 them to make a presentation to the Board at next month's 6 meeting that describes what they're seeing, their 7 comfort level with the protocols and their 8 recommendations for how to proceed. 9 MS. YEE: Very well. 10 MS. HOUSER: Thank you. 11 MS. YEE: Thank you all very much. 12 Thank you. 13 Okay. Next item. 14 ---oOo--- 15 MS. HOUSER: My next item is an update on the 16 site search. 17 MS. YEE: Okay. 18 MS. HOUSER: BOE continues to work with DGS to 19 identify a suitable site for the Board-approved 20 relocation of 500 BOE employees funded in the '09-'10 21 budget. DGS and the Site Selection Committee have 22 identified three sites whose property owners have 23 satisfactorily responded to the comprehensive list -- 24 list of questions provided by BOE. 25 Last week as part of the site selection process 26 the Executive Team conducted business to these sites and 27 provided feedback. The Site Selection Committee is on 28 track to make a site recommendation to you in May or 21 1 June. 2 I'd be happy to answer any questions you have 3 on the building or on the site search. 4 MS. YEE: Okay. Questions, Members? 5 All right. 6 Thank you very much, Ms. Houser. 7 ---oOo--- 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 22 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. 2 3 State of California ) 4 ) ss 5 County of Sacramento ) 6 7 I, BEVERLY D. TOMS, Hearing Reporter for the 8 California State Board of Equalization certify that on 9 April 15, 2009 I recorded verbatim, in shorthand, to the 10 best of my ability, the proceedings in the 11 above-entitled hearing; that I transcribed the shorthand 12 writing into typewriting; and that the preceding 22 13 pages constitute a complete and accurate transcription 14 of the shorthand writing. 15 16 Dated: June 20, 2009. 17 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 BEVERLY D. TOMS 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 23