but i think, especially seeing all the face here, just putting faces on this issue makes it so there aren't two sides to this people, that there are two grooms of people opposed to each other. somewhere down the line, all of us came here at some point, except the native americans. but yeah, i think like my mom said, just getting our voice out there, really are part of the same society, and i think our society has faced a real moral crisis where we have family values that are opposed to what our policies and laws say, and we are splitting up families. i have friends who were born here and don't speak a word of spanish and could be deported and couldn't communicate with anyone. i think putting these faces out there and showing people that

immigrants are a vibrant part of civic life, that that is a really important thing for the cause. thanks. >> thank you for your comments. they are duly noted. commissioners, we are coming to close here. are there commissioners who would like to make any comments? ok. commissioner? >> first of all, i want to thank everyone who is here tonight. i want to thank the centers. but i especially want to take time to thank the people from the immigrant rights movement who are here tonight and who are not here tonight for other reasons. i think that san francisco -- anybody who has been here in san francisco for the past six months or year, we have seen a huge battle to really defend what we have won in the past 20 years around sanctuary city.

i was glad to hear testimonies from were tonight, and i think that this commission has played a very important role in passing the change around the indictlement. this commission held a hearing with hundreds of people who came to give testimony. nothing that happens in the city, nothing that happens in the country happens because somebody wakes up one day and makes it happen. it happens because every day people organize and push for it to happen. this commission exists because of organizing of people. and like they have said, it is important for us as commissions, and i myself commit to going out in the community and really talking about it. a symposium doesn't happen in a room like this. real change happens when we go out and talk to people.

a lot of people can speak with their own voice around their own issue. i am committed to them, and as a commission i hope we can work to make that happen. this is a beginning, and i have gotten a lot of good information. to have representatives from congressional offices here is important. i want to say thank you to every one of you, and i want to recognize the san francisco immigrant rights movement for their work. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioners. i want to rhyme my commissioners -- want to remind my commissioners that we are restricted on time. >> my comments are usually short. i have a question for bill, who has scared me to death. after we hear all this, and he sounds like the problems are worse in washington. but are there any things positive you found in washington that have happened? >> there's a new president.

[laughter] >> there are -- the enforcement priorities have changed somewhat. there are the voices of progressive immigrant rights folks are being heard. what you heard me articulate earlier is my best judgment of who is getting the better of that arm wrestling, unfortunately. but yeah, i mean there are good proposals floating out there in terms of backlog production, in terms of restraining ice, in terms of potentially different types of visas that are more fluid. i wish i could say i was confident in that. i fear the worst because of

what we are witnessing on health care reform. >> thank you. >> welcome to the commission. thank you for joining us this evening. this is his first commission hearing. >> i actually also had a question. we have heard a lot about sort of economics and family reunification. but i think there is the long-standing tra transition of framing immigration law. i think that has been absent from this conversation, and i was wondering if there is anything you can offer about current political ideologies affecting immigration reform. >> you can go first. >> all right. i think that 9/11 was a watershed in immigration

generallyly because we were at a moment where it seemed like there was some real consensus in moving forward on immigration reform. after that congress really went in the opposite direction, focusing on really keeping people out of the country. dan said this at the beginning of the evening that we have seen in the last eight years a mindset that is -- somehow or other that immigration is a negative and that our country is better off when we are tightly restricting who comes in. i think that there is movement away from that. i think there has been a lot more work in energy, and a growing group of new citizens, naturalized and voting, who are changing that dynamic. but we're fighting the remnants

of that every day. and i think the fact that. gration has been used as sort of a substitute for a -- immigration has been used as a sort of substitute for things that people are upset about, and it becomes easier to kick the immigrant. we see that with the restrictionists and the hate movement. those are the kind of things we are fighting against. some of that sells politically. the challenge is, as cindy was saying, in other parts of the country, really getting people to see that being against immigration is being against america, and that we have to reframe the analysis that way so that people can't hide behind it and use that as their

basis for bad votes and sort of running away from the issue. >> thank you. once department, thank you, panelists. >> i will make my comments. when i heard bat, for me it was good because it was like a recharging of the batteries. i needed that because i had been drinking the kool aid of the bad stuff out there and believing maybe there was no hope. but like most of you, i do believe there will be. i remember bart's story, that when we did go back to washington, the irish group. and we walked right back out. it told me that democracy is alive and well. after the kennedy-mccain bill

failed, it disappointed me because i thought we were really close. we didn't just have an immigration problem, but we also had a public relations problem, and he talked about that this evening. you have touched on it so many times. that is our strongest ammunition here in our arsenal. we have to get our own lou dobbs on the air, and we have to get him educating the people on the pluses and how immigrants are the backbone of this country. i am going to close out the hearing. this concludes tonight's symposium. on behalf of my fellow commissioners, we thank you for coming here. i would like to thank our assemblyman, the staff, the san francisco board of supervisors, david chew, our speaker and our

panelists, our partners and collaborators, and most of all to the members of the audience and immigrant communities who are represented for which we exist, thank you for coming here this evening. we have learned a lot and are well educated for going forward. please look for a written report on these proceedings by the end of the meeting. also we look forward to a report on april 13, 2009 of the joint hearing with the human rights commission by the end of the year. thank you all for coming here this evening. [applause] >> the meeting is adjourned.

>> i came out to san francisco about seven years ago. i was trained as a carpenter. i got sick of the cold weather and the hot weather. i wanted to pursue art. i thought i really be here for about three years. here i am, 7 years later. ♪

i have problems sleepwalking at night. i wanted to create a show about sleep. a mostly due painting kind of story telling. these are isolated subject matters, smaller studies for the larger paintings. i fell in love with it and wanted to create more of them. it is all charcoal on mylar. it is plastic. i was experimenting and discovered the charcoal moves smoothly. it is like painting, building up layers of charcoal. it is very unforgiving. you have to be very precise with the mark-making. a mark dents the paper and

leaves the material embedded. you have to go slowly. the drawings are really fragile. one wipe and they are gone completely. it is kind of like they're locked inside. all of the animals i am showing are dead. i wanted them to be taking -- taken as though they are sleeping, eternal sleep. i like to exaggerate the features of the animals. it gives it more of a surreal element. it is a release subtle element. -- it is a really is subtle elements. the range of reactions people get is that normally they get

what i am trying to achieve, the sense of calmness, it's really gentle state of mind -- a really gentle state of mind, i guess. ♪ >> thank you for your patience. i m leader pelosi's district rector in san francisco. i've been with the for about nine years, and we are excited to put on this forum today to help people learn how they can access credit and capital for their small business. click background on some of what was accomplished in the last congress when later closing was speaker of the house. she had had 16 tax cuts signed into law to help small businesses grow and thrive. as we know, during the last 15

years, small businesses account for about 2/3 of the job growth in our country, but when the bush recession hits in 2009, 2010, small businesses were hit particularly hard. small businesses are the center of her agenda. congress under her leadership gave 27 million small businesses tax cuts. two main pieces of legislation -- the small businesses jobs act in the information you have, will create a total of 500,000 jobs and create eight tax cuts. they are all described in the packet you have. also, unleashing up to $300 billion in credit for small businesses to access. there are another eight tax cuts that were passed through a number of different laws. some of our panelists will address those. even though now we are in an

environment where there is a republican majority in the house and a slimmer majority in the senate, please note that the leader and democrats are going fight hard to keep their agenda and restart our economy, and there will be more work to be done. i would like to hand over the podium to nicole rivera, who put this together. she will introduce the panelists and go over some logistics. i want to point out quickly that we are being recorded by san francisco government tv. the camera in front is only aimed at the podium. it is not taking shots of the audience, only the podium for people who want to ask questions. so do not worry, you are not on tv if you do not want to be. >> thank you for your patience. i am a representative with leader pelosi, and i'm thrilled to have you today to learn more of our best practices for

accessing credit. it is a priority for our office. we are very well aware of how small businesses are running up against the wall right now in terms of trying to get the credit and loans they are looking for, so i will try hard to bring the brightest minds in this room so you can effectively fix their range and learn more about what you can do better to fix your business plan and what it is they are looking for. first of all, i will introduce everyone. mark quinn is the san francisco district director of the u.s. small business administration. the small business administration covers not only san francisco proper but the bay area. the severed his third district is responsible for a business loan portfolio of 12,000 loans worth $4.2 billion. in 2009, the sba approved $500

million in lending. next, we have the executive director of the san francisco small business office. she was in san francisco in 1986 to open the buffalo exchange limited store, and in the 13 years she worked for buffalo exchange, tennis district manager, she held her open the company from four to 11 stores. in 2009, the mayor appointed her as executive director to the office of small businesses. next, we have the ceo of opportunity funds. he has combined his background as a community organizer with an education from stanford to develop an innovative, not-for- profit financial incision that uses market principles to affect systemic change. it operates one of the nation's largest individual development, programs, a leading provider of micro loans in california, and has a robust community real

estate finance unit. next, we have the ceo of ne community federal credit union. since 1988, she has been the ceo of northwest community federal credit union. under her watch, the credit union group to over 1600 members. it has become the national model for institutions seeking to provide financial education and banking services to the low- income communities. last but not least, we have our conditional lender represented here by wells fargo. mark cyrus is the senior fda banker for the region -- the senior sba banker. he held businesses choose the best loans for the growing business and focus on a comprehensive understanding of their goals for their business. mark is responsible for helping entrepreneurs with sba loans

every step of the way. i would like each of you to speak a little bit about what your organization does and, more importantly, address the audience here and let them know what your looking for when you are hoping to fund their loan. we will start with you, mark. >> absolutely. thank you. i want to thank speaker pelosi for putting this together. i want to thank all of the of for coming out on a smell it -- snowy san francisco date. [laughter] we've been told we should get us know when we go back outside. not sure what to expect. second, i thank speaker pelosi for all the work she did to support the jobs act and before that, the stimulus bill, the original american recovery act bill that allows sba to be able to besba landing more available to small businesses.

very important piece of our tools that we have in this really very difficult time for small businesses to get access to credit. finally, i want to find the rest of the folks here, my colleagues on the panel. it is the case that sba works with these organizations to try to help small businesses understand how to get credit and fine tools to be able to do that. sba programs cover a wide range, and i will talk about this range of lending and the kinds of things we do, but in many ways, we do not do it alone. we do it with partners, and that is the takeaway message, the sba lending activity, while would guarantee loans through a number of lenders, we do it with a lot of other partners as well. let me give a little bit of a sense of what the small business administration does and is.

we in san francisco covered the bay area and north coast counties, and we do a variety of things. i will come back to the credit card because i know that is what this session is about, but before i do that, there's two other roles we play that are important as well. one is about helping small businesses understand how to start businesses, getting good technical assistance, getting good advice about starting and managing your business. equally important is being prepared for credit. one of the things we tried to do is work with small businesses to understand how to be ready for credit. a lot of that is helping folks that are interested in starting a business understand how to develop a business plan, how to get good advice about starting and managing a business. we see a lot of small businesses interested in starting a business, and they have a talent or skill or craft, and they know what they want to do, but they really need to structure a rounded to do it. part of what they need, through

partners, through score, through our business centers that we have in san francisco, and through the small business development center we also have here, really help small businesses understand how to get started in business, how to develop business plans, how to be able to put yourself in a position of planning for your business as much as running your business. a big part of what we do is the technical assistance and counseling work we do for folks interested in starting a business or those in the early stages who really need advice about where to go when you run into the wall, about financing, marketing, managing your business. that is an important role we play as well. another role we play is helping small businesses understand how to do contract thing, particularly with the federal government, but in a more general way, with all the public sector players. one of the things that small businesses always need is customers. one of the big customers out there is the public sector, but

one of the challenges is the public sector on every level, federal, state, and local, are always difficult for small businesses to understand how to navigate the process of getting certified to do business, finding the right sources to be able to talk to and understand how to navigate getting into the contract thing rolls with public sectors, so we try to help small businesses understand that, and we partner with a lot of organizations -- the city, the state of california, and now federal agencies, to be able to take advantage of a huge buying opportunity for small businesses, but one that they find very intimidating. sometimes it takes too long. it is too complicated. for real red tape of process is something less certainly exists with small businesses try to get into public contracts the work. those are two roles we play, separate from the access to credit roll. on the financing side, sba plays

a role across a wide spectrum in terms of who we partner with and what kinds of loans sba is able to guarantee. we are not a direct lender or guarantee lender. we have a couple of program he says, just to give you a sense, and i will let eric talk about the microlending side, but we have a microloan program to deal with the early stage client looking for a small loan under $50,000, down to, really, $10,000. for those businesses that are not viable in any real way but have a great idea, have some abilities to show that they have a good plan and really need to be able to get some early stage financing. that is kind of a non- traditional source of capital that exists out there. the main sba programs are guaranteed loan programs, and we act essentially as a guarantor, insuring the bank that if you make a loan to a small business, the business is not able to pay the loan, the sba will pay the

bank a share of that long, typically 75% or 80%. a bank like wells fargo, for example, which is the largest sba lender in the country. when the lender makes the loan to you, they come to us and say that your business, for a variety of reasons, may not be strong enough to get a loan without a guarantee. it might be a business that is too young or is a type of business -- say, restaurants -- that are a little riskier than they want to deal with, or you do not have the kind of collateral a lender is looking for. "an sba lender will be able to make the loan with a guarantee that sba will be able to provide. we probably will about 225 sba loans this year. at any point in time, we have about 1500 loans in san francisco that are sba loans. a lot of them are restaurants because that is one of the areas

that is very typical because it is a riskier business. but a lot of people in san francisco see that as an opportunity for them as well. we also partner with the golden gate restaurant association to help people understand how to do financing for restaurants. a lot of what we do is helping small businesses get access to credit. the sba loan program covers a range of small loans down to $25,000 and large loans up to $5 million, so it is a very wide range. can be used for a variety of uses -- debt refinancing, building acquisition, working capital, so it can be used for a wide range of things from a small business point of view. as you heard, we do guarantees for about 90 or 100 banks in the country -- or in the bay area. about 3000 nationwide. there is a lot of lenders that do some sba lending.

first thing you want to do is deal with the bank. if they are not able to make the loan by themselves, then go to our website, which is www. sba.gov, and look for the local page to see the local san francisco financing sources. but before you do that, the takeaway message here is that before you go to a bank, make sure you are cleared to do that. you do not want to go to a bank looking for financing for your business and ask them a question that will immediately give them a sense that you are not ready. you go to a bank and say, "how much can i borrow?" they will tell you, "i do not know, but probably not from us." you need to know exactly what you're looking for, how you are going to use the money, and how you will be paid the bank.

part of the process is make sure you are prepared. the first thing you need to do is take a advantage of the resources that can help you develop your business plan and really be prepared to go to a lender. being able to answer the questions you know that they will be asking is part of what we do as well. i'm sure we will have lots of time for questions, but i will send it back to you. >> director of the office of small business with the city and county of san francisco. again, i also want to thank congresswoman pelosi for hosting this event, and with her staff, and her leadership around all the work she has done supporting small businesses. because she comes from san francisco, and, by our definition, is small business is a business with under 100 employees. that is almost 85% of all businesses in the city. because she is from here, she really