Who's going to work for the DBI, now?

Turns out Amy Lee has created (and a oversight panel has approved) a set of ethics guidelines for employees of the department of building inspection.

Problem is, if you have folks who like what they do because they like owning property and like fixing up property, her new rules may leave the department with a bunch of folks who don't know about the business or care about their jobs.

Is there an easy answer here? No way. One or two bad eggs have apparently spoiled it for everyone, but an already struggling city department is likely to suffer some employee losses at a time when it can least afford to.

From today's Chronicle,

San Francisco's Ethics Commission voted Monday to push forward conduct codes meant to stop city building inspectors from moonlighting as real estate developers.

In a 5-0 vote, the commission gave initial approval to rules submitted last week by Amy Lee, acting director of the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection. The guidelines allow building inspection employees to buy real estate in San Francisco, but prohibit them from directly or indirectly engaging in construction or remodeling work unless the employee or a family member owns and lives at the property.

The ethics standards also stop employees from buying property in San Francisco if it is under department review or has been within the previous 12 months, or if the employee has provided direct services for that property within the past year.

The new regulations, required of all city departments under a 2003 measure approved by voters, will now be presented to unions and eventually return to the Ethics Commission for a final vote.

Lee estimates that about a third of her 298 employees have an ownership interest in property other than their residence. [more...]

That's like telling a computer geek he can only have one computer and if he considers buying others, he's not allowed to add any additional software or make them work to his liking. Or a car fanatic who can purchase a car with a bad engine, but he's not allowed to make it run. And as you might imagine, a new car is not something a car collector would be interested in, anyway.

It's true that some of these employees could (or could have) taken unfair advantage of their positions, but this may be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

Those of us who own property and who have fixed up properties in the past know that there's no way to own a property without fixing it up. It's just not humanly possible. So in essence, the city will now be creating a group of deadbeat landlords, who will not be able to (no matter how badly they want to) create better living conditions for their tenants.

I'm sorry to hear that rather than just getting rid of the people that have done wrong, that they're punishing everyone, and in the process screwing the whole department out of ever being able to hire competent, passionate inspectors.

Ethics panel OKs rules for building inspectors [SFGate]
Panel OKs DBI ethics rules [Examiner]
More problems at DBI [SFHomeBlog]
DBI turns up heat on scofflaw landlords [SFHomeBlog]