BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 450 N Street, Room 121 Sacramento, California REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT June 9, 2009 ITEM P3c2 OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS ADMINISTRATION 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: Liz Houser 16 Deputy Director, Administration 17 18 Also Present: Steve Davis La Croix Davis 19 Robert Courtnier 20 Department of General Services 21 Bobbi Smith 22 SEIU Local 1000 23 24 ---oOo--- 25 26 27 28 2 1 Sacramento, California 2 June 9, 2009 3 ---oOO--- 4 MS. HOUSER: My next item is an update on the 5 headquarters facility. The Department of General 6 Services will begin their floor-by-floor remediation of 7 the building this week. DGS estimates that each floor 8 will be closed for 30 to 60 days. To protect the health 9 and safety of BOE employees DGS will conduct a thorough 10 investigation of the entire floor to ensure all visible 11 mold growth has been remediated. 12 The 22nd floor is the only floor currently 13 available as temporary swing space during this 14 remediation process. The first floor to be remediated 15 is the fourth floor and employees from that floor were 16 temporarily relocated to the 22nd floor last week. 17 We are working with DGS to iden -- to develop a 18 schedule of the remaining floors to be remediated. 19 Due to space limitations within the 450 N 20 Street facility just this week DGS has indicated they 21 would like to explore using swing space outside of the 22 building. DGS helps to locate external space that will 23 house three to four hundred employees, which would 24 temporarily clear an additional two to three floors for 25 remediation. 26 We are working with DGS to identify security 27 and IT requirements for the BOE swing space. 28 DGS began remediation work on the passenger 3 1 elevator shafts on June 5th. This work is scheduled 2 every weekend for the next four to five weeks. BOE 3 employees may work in the building during this time but 4 will have to use the freight elevators or stairs. 5 This work will take place on the weekends. HTI 6 will continue to monitor the work that DGS and its 7 consultants perform on the building. 8 I would be happy to answer any questions you 9 have on the building. 10 MS. YEE: Okay. Thank you very much. 11 I think we have a speaker on this item. 12 MS. HOUSER: Yes, we do. I was going to 13 introduce them. 14 MS. YEE: Okay. 15 MS. HOUSER: As I mentioned in our previous 16 meeting, DGS contracted with La Croix Davis to perform a 17 building assessment of the 450 N Street facility. 18 Steven Davis is here from La Croix Davis to 19 present a summary of their building assessment report. 20 They've been asked to speak to the scope of work that 21 was included in the February 25, 2009 report, the items 22 that still require attention or additional 23 investigation, and the steps that DGS and BOE should 24 take to address these items in a way that ensures the 25 building is properly repaired while maintaining the 26 health and safety of BOE employees. 27 I will now turn this over to Steven Davis from 28 La Croix Davis. 4 1 MS. YEE: Okay. Mr. Davis, can you hold on 2 just one second. 3 Is Bobbi Smith in the audience? Did you want 4 to speak before -- or after this, okay. 5 Thank you. 6 All right, please proceed. 7 MR. DAVIS: Well, thank you very much for this 8 opportunity to address the Board, Madam Chair and 9 Members of the Board. Thank you, Liz. 10 My name is Steve Davis. I'm the Davis in La 11 Croix Davis. In attendance in the group is James La 12 Croix, who's a building forensic individual -- a person 13 expert, if you will. And -- and Chris Corpus, who was 14 the Project Manager on this investigation for La Croix 15 Davis, and he's our Western Regional Manager. 16 What I'd like to do is just simply run through 17 fairly quickly -- I realize I have about ten minutes to 18 talk about a project that we began in July of 2008 and 19 basically completed our site investigations in -- in 20 January of 2009. 21 Our final report on the project was the latter 22 part of February. So that's -- that's the date range. 23 What did we do? Well, the first thing we did 24 is we went back and looked at historical documents. We 25 did a records review and reviewed about 3,000 pages 26 of -- of the documents. 27 We conducted interviews with a series of folks 28 that had been involved in the building from -- in the 5 1 past and building engineers from -- from the past as -- 2 as well as currently employed building engineers. 3 We also -- thanks to the help of Robert San 4 Juan we were able to do an assessment of all the 5 water-related work orders that had been reported in the 6 database he provided. So that was sort of our 7 historical trying to get a grasp on the building. 8 Then we moved in -- because it was set up as a 9 priority investigation, we moved into the elevator shaft 10 investigations. And basically what that amounted to was 11 riding the tops of the elevators and recording for every 12 section of gypsum board whether we saw -- whether it was 13 clear, whether we saw visible mold growth or water 14 stains. And we did that over -- obviously done at night 15 over a period of time. And we were able to report out 16 on that issue. 17 And I think -- and in fact that issue has led 18 to the -- the remediation of the elevator shafts that 19 was just mentioned. 20 Then focusing on the core of the building which 21 is that area around the elevator, itself, we have a 22 series of sort of utility areas plus the restrooms. And 23 we then focused going down through the building looking 24 at every janitor's closet, every telephone closet and -- 25 and the litany would go on vertically in -- in the core. 26 In addition to that work we were able to access 27 four floors where we actually did what we call 28 destructive testing, where we opened walls under 6 1 containments and did investigations into these -- some 2 of these inaccessible areas in the building core. 3 Again, of course, this is all reported out in 4 this rather massive document that should provide a guide 5 to the response actions. 6 So, that -- that takes care of the core. Then 7 for the -- the remainder of the building we did what we 8 call the water damage potential survey. And this meant 9 walking every floor, every occupied floor, up into the 10 maintenance areas and penthouse. But within an occupied 11 floor we looked above ceilings. We opened -- we gridded 12 the building, identified historic areas of water 13 intrusion. We went above ceiling in those locations 14 and -- and went in over 630 ceiling tiles that we lifted 15 and looked in -- in there. Looked on the floors, et 16 cetera. 17 Again, this is all reported out and 18 spreadsheeted in the -- in the final report. 19 So, once we'd gotten this investigation done, 20 we -- we stepped back and said, okay, what does this 21 mean? We were not asked to deconstruct the building. 22 Okay. What is -- what do I mean by that? 23 We did limited destructive testing of the 24 building. So, there's inaccessible areas. So what we 25 did is we looked at the issue and said let's look at 26 exposure potential. And we divided the building into 27 those areas that are normally occupied, which would be 28 the floors where -- where we have DGS folks, this -- 7 1 this -- these chambers, themselves, the cafeteria, that 2 sort of thing. So these are normally occupied areas. 3 Then occasionally accessed would be like a 4 storage room or telephone room that -- that sort of -- 5 that sort of classification. 6 And then we moved -- the next thing is 7 maintenance areas only, where typically they're locked 8 and only the maintenance folks can get in. So we're 9 again looking at that. So we got a different level of 10 training and experience with those folks. 11 And then finally the fourth area so that we can 12 encompass the entire building, those areas that we 13 identified as inaccessible. And those as a -- as a 14 reminder, those will be part of the areas in the core. 15 And the -- the columns and the perimeter walls. 16 And of course as they go through floor by floor 17 the -- the process will be to address and expand on that 18 investigation and do any remediation that's necessary. 19 So, next part, systematic approach to building 20 management. Basically, that's what needs to happen. I 21 think it has happened. It just needs to go forward 22 smoothly. 23 The existing operations and maintenance program 24 for flood responses and mold needs to be strengthened. 25 And I won't go into detail what that means, but it needs 26 to be strengthened, people trained. 27 The -- the areas that are identified as we do 28 these swing floors and unoccupied floors, obviously they 8 1 need to be remediated as -- as they are identified and 2 you just continue to manage -- it's a dynamic building, 3 you continue to manage it in -- in a manner that 4 provides a safe environment to the occupants. 5 Final thing, that question and -- and that is 6 the question I think sometimes that presses folks, that 7 is the -- the air quality in the building and -- and 8 what does -- what does it mean. 9 We were not tasked to do this. However, the 10 other consultants have taken literally hundreds of air 11 samples throughout the past years. And some very 12 sophisticated samples for microbial volatile organic 13 compounds, which is a mouthful. And every one of those 14 based on both HTI's and Biomax's assessment have come 15 back as unremarkable and in the -- that's kind of the 16 language of the technician, but what it means is that 17 there -- there doesn't seem to be any health risk 18 imposed by the air quality in the building. 19 And that's basically the report that we have. 20 MS. YEE: Okay. Thank you very much, 21 Mr. Davis. 22 Questions, Members? 23 Comments? Mr. Leonard. 24 MR. LEONARD: Mr. Davis, thank you very much. 25 I went through the reports, very comprehensive. What 26 I -- I never know for sure is what didn't you look at? 27 What was left out or -- 28 MR. DAVIS: Yeah. 9 1 MR. LEONARD: I know you mentioned some access 2 issues. 3 MR. DAVIS: Yes, we -- again, as you -- as you 4 go through a process like this in an occupied building 5 there -- there are areas that you can't get access to. 6 There was -- there were quite a number of rooms and 7 we've got those identified, that we simply couldn't -- 8 even though we tried multiple times getting keys to 9 them, we were not able to go into those rooms. That's 10 an example. 11 Those -- you know, that needs to be followed up 12 on. But at some point you say, okay, we've got them 13 identified. Somebody needs to go back and look at 14 those. 15 The -- the core areas and the perimeter walls, 16 unless we were to do destructive testing, were not 17 accessed. And that would be a limitation. But that 18 limitation will be addressed as -- as the -- the floors 19 become unoccupied, and then one can go into them. 20 The other limitation is -- 21 MR. LEONARD: Are we planning on that level of 22 testing? 23 MR. DAVIS: I'm sorry? 24 MR. LEONARD: Are we planning on that level of 25 testing when the floors go unoccupied? 26 MS. HOUSER: I would ask Bob Courtnier from 27 DGS, the Project Manager, to step forward and respond to 28 that. 10 1 Because, you know, once we turn the floor over 2 to DGS we ask that they examine all those areas but then 3 BOE is not allowed back onto the floor once we turn the 4 floor over. 5 MR. LEONARD: I understand the risks of 6 destructive testing and I understand we ought to be 7 careful about doing it, but there are some suspect areas 8 that your report identified, at least regions that it 9 seemed like it would be reasonable. 10 MR. COURTNIER: Bob Courtnier, Department of 11 General Services. Good afternoon. 12 It's our intention to investigate any of those 13 areas that have been identified that are suspect. We 14 had conversations with BOE staff regarding that issue. 15 And as soon as the floors are turned over to us. We -- 16 we know there are some areas that may be suspect that 17 we're going to go in and take a hard look at, as we go. 18 The 11th floor was one of them. That's why the schedule 19 went from 30 days to 60 days. 20 MR. LEONARD: And you're using the La Croix 21 Davis report as -- as your map for that plus your own 22 group -- 23 MR. COURTNIER: Plus -- 24 MR. LEONARD: How are you building the list? 25 MR. COURTNIER: Well, it's -- it's a -- it's 26 quite the process. We're -- to start with we're using 27 La Croix Davis to start our initial planning. When the 28 floors are turned over to us we have asked BOE to 11 1 provide us with -- and they have asked us to communicate 2 directly with employees to find out if there's any 3 historical knowledge of those floors of any incidents 4 that work orders may not have shown in the past. Our 5 work orders only go back to 1998, because that's when 6 DGS took over the maintenance of the building. 7 So, anything that occurred prior to that we 8 have no record of, so we're looking to the employees who 9 were in the building to give us any anecdotal 10 information that we can come up with. 11 And -- and we will take it from there. LCD has 12 -- they have committed to us resources to follow through 13 on that. 14 MR. LEONARD: And it sounds like employees that 15 were here before '98, we're asking them to tell us if 16 they remember something in the early '90s. 17 MS. HOUSER: We have extensive records in our 18 Admin. Services Division on several of -- on most of the 19 water events on each floor. So, I think we do have some 20 additional information to add to the La Croix Davis 21 report. 22 MR. LEONARD: This is going back to day one. 23 MS. HOUSER: Ours goes back to day one, yes. 24 We have a lot of information. And then we have -- every 25 time we speak with employees we usually hear a new story 26 that we didn't have. So that's been very -- 27 MR. LEONARD: Let's make sure and ask them, 28 though. 12 1 MS. HOUSER: We will, we'll follow back up. 2 MR. LEONARD: Thank you. 3 MS. YEE: Thank you, Mr. Leonard. 4 Yes, Dr. Chu. 5 DR. CHU: So, are you saying that there are 6 rooms in this building that we've never been able to 7 open? 8 MR. DAVIS: Well, I'm saying there are rooms in 9 the building as we were going through our 10 floor-by-floor. We did all 24 floors plus the 11 penthouse -- that for -- for various reasons our keys 12 didn't work or there was security things, and -- and 13 it's a relatively small number of rooms. But we 14 identified those rooms and -- and one needs to go back 15 and -- and look at those. 16 DR. CHU: So you're saying somebody actually 17 has the keys? 18 MR. DAVIS: Oh, yeah, I'm sure there are -- 19 yes, somebody has the key. It's just that we didn't -- 20 we were not provided the key to get in to be able to do 21 that. And -- and we kept as -- very extensive records 22 so we know exactly where those are. We definitely want 23 to go back and look at those. 24 But in order to deliver the report in a timely 25 fashion that's -- that's the way we -- we dealt with 26 that. 27 MS. YEE: Thank you. Other questions, Members? 28 Ms. Mandel. 13 1 MS. MANDEL: I guess I should look and see 2 whether the room in which I sit where a lock was added 3 after I was taken away from 23 is one of the rooms he 4 lists. 5 MR. DAVIS: Do you have the key? 6 MS. MANDEL: I have the key. I have the key. 7 MR. DAVIS: Amah. 8 MS. MANDEL: I know it's a new lock -- 9 MR. DAVIS: It may well be. 10 MS. MANDEL: -- because there never was one 11 there before. 12 MR. DAVIS: It may well be. It's that kind of 13 thing where maybe there were very -- there were reasons 14 of confidentiality and whatever, that -- that happens 15 and that's fine. We just need to know which ones we 16 looked at and which ones we didn't. 17 MS. MANDEL: Okay. 18 MS. YEE: Very well. 19 MS. MANDEL: It also was under the second 20 flooding, so -- 21 MS. HOUSER: I believe that room was opened -- 22 MS. MANDEL: Opened after the second flooding. 23 MS. HOUSER: -- and examined after the 9th 24 floor event. So, yes. 25 MS. YEE: Okay. Very well. Thank you, 26 Mr. Davis. 27 MR. DAVIS: Thank you. 28 MS. YEE: Thank you, Mr. Courtnier. 14 1 MR. LEONARD: Thank you much. 2 MS. YEE: Okay. We have one public speaker. 3 Bobbi Smith, you want to come forward. 4 ---oOo--- 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 15 1 BOBBI SMITH. 2 MS. SMITH: Madam Chair, Board Members, all too 3 often dedication and hard work of those responsible for 4 the well-being of State employees are overlooked. The 5 employees of the Board of Equalization assigned to the 6 headquarters building would like to express our great 7 appreciation for the Board Members' efforts to provide a 8 safe and healthful environment. While we understand 9 this is not an effort that can be accomplished 10 overnight, your continuing endeavors on behalf of BOE 11 employees deserves recognition. 12 On behalf of the employees I'd like to present 13 you with this big thank you. 14 MS. YEE: Thank you very much, Ms. Smith. 15 MR. LEONARD: Thank you. 16 MS. YEE: I think -- 17 MR. LEONARD: I'm glad it's wallet-sized. 18 MS. YEE: We thank our employees definitely for 19 your patience and I think the other Members would join 20 me in saying it's -- it's what we do. 21 MS. SMITH: We really appreciate it. 22 MS. YEE: We value our employees. Thank you. 23 ---oOo--- 24 25 26 27 28 16 1 REPORTER'SCERTIFICATE 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 June 9, 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 16 13 pages constitute a complete and accurate transcription 14 of the shorthand writing. 15 16 Dated: June 24, 2009. 17 18 19 ____________________________ 20 BEVERLY D. TOMS 21 Hearing Reporter 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 17