commissioner murphy: how much do we have in the fund? >> i believe the deputy director just said it was about $300,000. commissioner murphy: i have no problem on dropping the hammer down on property owners not taking care of their business. but as a department, we cannot get into the repair business. we cannot run out there every time a boiler goes out. first of all, we do not have the money. second, if there are contractors assigned to doing this kind of work, they will end of being sued because of favoritism, giving jobs to contractors. i do not think we should get involved in it. as far as commissioner walker asking, what do you do if a boiler goes out in the middle of the winter and old or sick people do not have heat? perhaps that is something for the rent board. moving into hotels or something. we just need to be careful how we tread on this. we cannot put this on the backs of our stakeholders, who are already supporting tremendous fees for permits and other stuff. if the city is going to do something, it should be done on a citywi

commissioner murphy: final comment? >> ken cochran. i did not intend to speak about this, but i heard about it when i came in. i had some experience in this area. i live in a building in the city where i ultimately became the property manager because we had a boiler situation like that. no heat or hot water over christmas. four days. i want to point out the difficulty in repairing or replacing a system like that, where there is a asbestos present in the building. even in the best circumstances, it is hard to find contractors who can work in those asbestos containment conditions. if you have to remove the asbestos, that is a huge project. it is going to take a lot longer and is going to be a lot more expensive because of the magnitude of cost. it goes up about three, four times because of the presence of asbestos. even in the best circumstances -- and that kind of asbestos that you find around boilers is one of the dangerous types. i just wanted to make that comment. any time you are dealing with asbestos, it is going to make the proces

commissioner murphy: 6000 units? >> approximately, [inaudible] commissioner murphy: don't they have in-house plumbers and electricians? >> it is my understanding that they do. i believe the deputy director can give you information about that. commissioner murphy: out of 6000 units, it seems like the complaints are very small. >> if you look at the percentages with the amount of units, there are not that many complaints coming into us. commissioner murphy: so i do not understand why we are diving into this? we have a small staff. do we have enough manpower to take on all this stuff? >> no, and that is why i was saying, all we're doing now is complaint-driven. we would be looking at an unfunded mandate essentially. not that we should not do it, but it is unfounded. commissioner murphy: -- unfunded. commissioner murphy: the buck stops with us, but we should not be out here in force and all of these things. >> that is correct. back in 2008, when we had this conversation, i had seven clerical staff and one supervisor. i h

commissioner murphy: commissioner walker. commissioner walker: i appreciate that this is on the agenda, this broad issue. it is situations like this -- not just that one project. i do have questions about this one project and then i have questions about the broader effort for fixing. by next year, we want to see something different. >> i gave her a deadline of, two weeks, come back to me with an action plan. if they cannot take care of it, afford it, at that point, we would go to a director's hearing, and then force the issue. >> if it keeps breaking down, as a serial occurrence, creating a problem for the building, everyone coming out, responding in the case of an emergency. >> to be fair, the only complaint that we have received is the one from the same tent. there are other people in the building and i have not heard anything from them. i am not saying that it is not happening. we are just not getting more people complaining. commissioner walker: on the concept of doing it an emergency resolution for a life issue, do we ha

murphy. murphy? si, si, murphy. very close to the way the irish pronounce murphy. i said, that's amazing. did you marry a serviceman from the -- military person who came to puerto rico. no, the family has been here since the 18th century. and i said, really? so we began tracing -- we still haven't found the actual person, but evidently it was an irish conscript in the irish navy that came to puerto rico. puerto rico was owned by britain, as they liked to do with their colonies, and efficient evidently the sailor came there and said palm trees, warm weather, and look at the girls. and he remained. that's the end of the second part. the third part is in response to the op ed piece that margaret mcpeek wrote in the chronicle and the letters, i don't know if you've read them -- you should pick up -- the letters that a couple of, you know, irish americans wrote in response accusing cousin mcpeek of not having a sense of humor. it has to do with these tee shirts that target has produced for the st. patrick's day parade in which mrs. mcpeek derided the fact that they were

commissioner murphy: yes, i do not know where to start. commissioner walker mentioned the capss program. i think that is moving along pretty nicely with the people that are running with that. i happen to be on the committee -- have not been to meeting place -- lately because of scheduling and stuff. i am happy that some of the commissioners are beginning to wake up to what is going around here. i have been talking about it for two years. nothing happening. there were many promises made to me, projects to be carried out. but when it came to ringing the bell, it did not come out. it did not happen. here we are, seven months into our current presidency, and the same old. nothing getting done. q-matic, i believe they got it going this morning or afternoon, just to satisfy me, because i made demands a couple of months ago about getting in going. -- it going. i see it as a waste of time. it is not going to work, especially with the people running it. i had a call a week ago from a stickler -- stakeholder. they are one of the people's writing the

. >> commissioner murphy, that item is coming up in the agenda. if we could limit our common to the things that the president raised. commissioner murphy: i believe if we have great people in the department that want to change, that want to help, that want to move the department to the next level, but they are afraid to step up. they have absolutely no support from our director. no support. when is all of this going to end? our director is going out on leave for a couple of months. i wish you well with that. but this e-mail that came out last week -- you have held this department hostage for two years. with this e-mail you are sending out, you say that the guy that is going to replace you for two months is handcuffed. he cannot do anything. i am just very disappointed in all of this. very disappointed. i am to the point where i am ready to just get out the door. i am sick of it. that is what i think i will do because there is nothing happening around here and it is very disheartening. that is it for me. >> i want to speak in this agreement. i unde

commissioner murphy: -- unfunded. commissioner murphy: the buck stops with us, but we should not be out here in force and all of these things. >> that is correct. back in 2008, when we had this conversation, i had seven clerical staff and one supervisor. i have gone down to one clerical staff and one supervisor. if we were to take on more, we would need more resources and staff to even begin to look at anything different than what we are doing now. commissioner murphy: i just do not want this to get into bed bug issue. that is what everyone was talking about up to the election. i have not heard about it recently. >> unfortunately, they are still out there -- commissioner walker: the point i'm trying to make is the stuff that comes into us is not all we are dealing with. i want to make sure that we are engaged, as we have committed to, no more, no less, and that we are aware of the issues. i have heard complaints through other programs as well. i just want to make sure that the partnership is in tact and that we are av

republican strategist mike murphy is here. columnist for "the washington post," eugene robinson, iowa republican governor terry branstad, senior political reporter for politico, jonathan martin, and nbc news political director chuck todd, here at our boardroom-like table at iowa state university. all right, well, let's get into it. first of all, here are the results from the straw poll. we'll put it up on the screen. all right, well, let's get into it. first of all, here are the results from the straw poll. we'll put it up on the screen. we've heard from michele bachmann, big day for her. she wins. didn't have a huge margin, though, over the second-place finisher, ron paul. that's a big story. the other big story, tim pawlenty a distant third, and on and on you go with romney at 567, perry as a write-in with 718. chuck todd, we have bachmann coming out in the straw poll, tim pawlenty this morning saying he is now out of the race, governor perry saying he's in. where are we on this big political weekend? >> well, it was a shake

but posting at the acquisition hall was removed, and when we were made aware of this i spoke to sean murphy. this was remedied within three or four days. i have also discussed this with the city attorney. we have complied. i guess that would extend this to the 15th. >> commissioner moore: if this is what they are describing, i would not see any reason to extend this period we are all leaving on the 11th, and any staff members after us, -- >> i do not understand. >> commissioners, if that is all, we can move to public comment. members of the public -- this is within the subject matter and the jurisdiction of the commission. and i have no speaker cards. >> i went through the files of next week's hearing, and i was not certain about the rules. i want to read the current rules. this is due to the commission two weeks in advance of the hearing. i keep bringing this up. we have 120 unit projects, and this is not a complicated case because this is what you should have considered on the triangle. if you look at these rules, you are allowed one week. on a d.r. and a c.u. this is not a c.u. this is a

compare that to what commissioner murphy wants as a list of repeat offenders. or if we see the cases, there are lots of cases over seven days or 10 days, we need to probe a little more. maybe this will help us understand the situation a little better. >> thank you. thank you for the direction. that is what i was asking of the last conviction so i know what statistics to provide you. >> i know we're coming into the cold season soon, and to be pro- active in the enforcement and also in the category of condensing and distilling where the major areas of true attention needs to happen is really timely for the department to really follow up. given we are at the tail end of this summer, it is going to be ramping up, because if we do not resolve some of these issues before, they will be on top of the other ones coming in. >> as we get into september, we will do ua heat sweap. we will make sure the property owner has the time clocks up properly and the proper permit. we do that in the residential hotels. we really create emphasis on that as we get into the fall. we will