priority two is actually travel. once you get into your business and start speculating the wits of your files. access to all of your services. [inaudible] rearranging furniture. that is something we would call readily achievable, if you move your table out of the way to allow a person with a wheelchair access to your space. restroom facilities only come into play after you have already made the entrance accessible and you have trouble accessible. restaurants only have to be accessible if they are available to your customers and clients. and actually does not cover employee access to the

restrooms. we have other priorities that come into play. [inaudible] you want that inspected to come out before you get a that letter. it is not only your obligation, but it is the right thing to do. you want to be disability accessible. you want more customers. the best way to do that is to start planning. when you are choosing, ideally, your inspector would have a background in inspection, design, and construction. that means we have some excellent general contractors out there that could be excellent task inspectors or building inspectors as well.

in order to get the legal benefits, the protections that are important, you want your inspection to be under that theory that is how you can get that 90-day [inaudible] as you start to interview your inspectors, i would ask them to a lot of questions. do not rely on just the resume. what you're really need to do is ask a series of probing questions. you want to know what their area of expertise is, how many times -- you want to ask them if they have any references, and if you follow through on those references, you should call the people and have a heart to heart

conversation. [inaudible] you also want to ask to see a copy of the tass report. some recommendations that i think are pretty basic. you want to make sure that the inspector is pulling a full building permits. it is being felt as how accessible it should have been in the past. it is the context. you also want to make sure [inaudible] because we all are very visual people. you are going to be working on problems. you want to be able to see it. they should also be following the party's in the ada -- the

priorities in the ada. your task report should also be giving you some constructive solutions. they should be tailoring it to your very specific circumstances. [inaudible] also, you want to make sure that your task inspector has a relationship with an attorney. it could be beneficial to have that legal expertise readily at hand. the task inspector may have

learned some useful information. it is also helpful if your task inspector knows the contractor because the contractor can provide you with a construction bid for what is going to take. so i want to leave you with some closing thoughts. one of them, as mentioned at the beginning -- be proactive. do not wait for the letter. get the inspection now. the second is keep really good records. [inaudible] they had actually been doing work over the years. they have been removing barriers. but because they were not keeping good files documenting the reasons why they widened a door or replace the hardware or remodel the bathroom, tracking exactly how much money they spend, they do not get a whole lot of credit for the work they

have done so far. but you also want to keep good records tissue products you will be taking on in the future. maybe you cannot remove that step this year or next year. maybe it will take you five years to get there. but you are providing yourself protection. >> good evening. we have a loan fund for small business owners facing ada compliance issues. opportunity fund is a non-profit organization sponsored by [inaudible] to help small businesses that could not obtain a loan from

their banks. we created a loan program for small businesses who are trying to become compliant. under this loan program, we can provide financing for small businesses up to $100,000. those are the small businesses who have been sued, and there are small businesses trying to preempt of a protect themselves against these issues. i will talk about the second rocket first. for the small businesses out there that have been hearing about compliance issues and what to protect themselves and make the improvement and have inspections done, we are willing to work with you and willing to look at the plans that you have any inspections you have to enable you to have tenant

improvement to become compliant. for those folks, we would recommend that you go and get a task report done and see whether the contractor can lay out the plan and complete the requirement and then come to us and show us your plan. [inaudible] and have had complaints against them because of compliance, we are also able to work with your peer the fundamental requirement for those is that we need you to finish the lawsuit or settle the lawsuit before we can work with you in terms of providing financing. the reason for that is the conversations and these issues

can go on for a long time, and we want to make sure that you fundamentally understand what you need to comply with and what are your obligations as part of the settlement of the lawsuit. obviously, it can cost a lot of money. we have provided financing before. it is a lot of money. so come and talk to the office of small business and make sure you have professionals and task inspectors and contractors lined up so that we can be part of that conversation in terms of helping you maintain your business and helping to stay in business despite the fact that a lot of businesses are being regulated by now. if you have questions, my information is in the packet.

we are more than happy to field any questions, but again, because there are different parts of this whole saga, we are all in different parts in terms of financing, but the loan program will be available. it will be available until the ada compliance issues are no longer there. >> thank you. any questions? [inaudible] we do have legal expertise and individuals with our mayor's office of disability. if you do have any questions at all about things that you might

have heard about or issues you are facing, it might be the opportunity to ask questions. any questions? >> thanks, supervisor. sorry for being late. i heard the gentleman say that the help for small business maximum is $100,000. someone else mentioned a repayment plan. a sort of interest rate and so on and so on. business people show up here.

a lot of restaurants and small businesses, and i am certain those members are very interested in this program. i myself have been faithful so long. that is why i am interested. hopefully i will be able to learn something and pass on to the people who need my assistance. if there's any way the supervisor would be able to generate a little more activity, maybe the location might not be perfect for the small orders to attend, and hopefully, we have another similar occasion to notify all those people to attend. but thanks so much for being here. thank you.

>> yes, so, the typical loan for small businesses, these compliance issues, the term depends on the loan amounts. the most we can do -- in terms of other qualifications, again, this is a loan program, loan fund. these are not grants. they are credits. we will look at the capacity to avoid loan payments and also the totality of the situation, taking into consideration whether there are legal fees or remediation fees that need to be paid. but i will say that we want to be an alternative for folks that cannot obtain financing from a bank. this may be a combination of that. maybe they need to go to a bank and get something and we can fill the rest or if they get

decline by a bank, we can come in and assist with financing. >> [inaudible] you can only do so much to get people here. that is why we are asking for help from not only our media partners, but those of you in the room. people do not often come to ask for assistance until they are hit with a lawsuit. until they receive a complaint letter or a threat of being sued, they do not take the issue very seriously. by that time, a lot of your investments are gone. you will be exposed to lawyer's fees, exposed to having to make copier repairs immediately. these are all things that are very hard for small businesses to weather. what we are trying to promote today is the fact that you can protect yourself as a small business if you are private about it. it is a hard mentality to get

people to think about, but that is what we're hoping people will accomplish. we know if you get inspections and that you really put together a plan, that over time, we might not be able to do it today, we might not be able to do it in one year, but if we can make changes over five years or 10 years, that really helps to improve accessibility issues. that is something that is really helpful going forward pierre the other issue that was mentioned is the fact that if you are a business that has received [inaudible] from a certified individual, you received a 90-day stint. the things that would not be counted for peer you can help to remedy the problem and get help, so that your liability at the end of the day is a very small one, hopefully. we know we will be heard from from our experts on a legal side. a lot of them can really add up

here this gentleman again had heard about a situation where someone had already racked up $40,000 with of legal fees. became an issue. we are not talking about what it costs to fix up which in itself would be excess of, but also the legal component. your word of mouth and the people you know will really help. and, of course, to our media folks, people will read your articles and understand that they can really do a lot to protect their businesses early on. >> i just want to add one comment about getting our association involved. we put together a really great training. we have a panel available to you. it is only going to cost you $35 for a 30-minute conversation,

and that might be the best $35 you have already spent to avoid something that will be happening in the future. that is just part of the collaborative process with supervisor chu's office, and i am very grateful to her. there is a panel of lawyers that have all attended training and know-how to represent businesses and give you some expert advice. >> when we were first looking at the issue and working with different systems, we realize that there was an issue with how you get loans to be able to make those improvements, how you get expertise to help walk you through what you're supposed to respond to. one of the components we saw that was missing was that legal component. how do we find lawyers -- where can i find quick information -- it is not very typical that someone already automatically knows a lawyer who can help

them, so they might not know who to reach out to. they really put together a huge effort to train their lawyers that they become experts in this topic. that is something that i think is really important. as julie manchin, there is a $35 consultation that is available -- as julie mentioned. >> any other questions? there are multiple languages available. vietnamese, tagalog, chinese. just to let you can receive assistance from some very qualified individuals. >> any other questions? if not, thank you very much for coming. [applause]

>> thank you for all joining us tonight. i am the good government policy

director here at spur but it is my distinct pleasure to welcome such an amazing panel tonight, as well as the mayor of our fine city. this is the innovation mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. can everybody hear me? welcome. welcome to spur. i always enjoy being here. because every time i come here, some part of my brain gets woken up pet. earlier i had a wonderful opportunity to exchange with our panel members about what they're doing and how they're doing it. there is one great theme. i think these panel members are here as part of their own entrepreneurial spirit. they own companies, but they love the city as well. they know the spirit of the city. it is one of innovation. one that invites people and their views enmeshes it up with

old tradition to see if we can make an even better san francisco. my fellow collaborator, president david chiu, is here tonight. scott wiener. we have two other supervisors who may be coming later. supervisor jane kim and supervisor mar farrell, who might join us later. we're all part of the initial group of policy makers at city hall who want to hear ideas and views of this new economy, this collaborative consumption economy, a shared economy, one that we are very interested in because it has assets that have already peaked our interest. about our -- piqued our interest. about our environment, about how to do less with more, how to make an expensive city more affordable to more people. how to utilize the strength of the city as a great tourist city that maybe not that affordable to too many people and how we can get more folks to come and experience the wonder of the

city. and then hopefully they make their stake here. these panel members of decided to make their stake here. they risk reputation, may be small amounts of money, because of the had a lot of money, they may not have had to start this. but they have also, i think, done it for the right reasons. they want to experience this city in a very different way, but one that i think is in the tradition of san francisco and is reflective of mind, welcoming more people here to share in this economy. and hopefully for the right reasons, we create more jobs, get more entrepreneurs involved in the success and richness of this city. i have often said this city can be the city for the 100%. that is, everybody can have a chance to fulfil their dreams and make sure they can have a stable economy for themselves and for their families. i think we're on the verge of discussing things that would invite other members of our city

family, our department heads of that work in the tax section or in planning or in land use, to be involved with a discussion, an ongoing discussion that would potentially invite an open up our economy and modernize it even further. i think we're at a task where, quite frankly, a year ago, for example, david chiu and i do not know the outcome might be except that we were in fear that a company called twitter might leave our city and that thousands of jobs will leave us behind. so we took a little risk and suggested that we might be able to revamp our tax code for the benefit of job creation. and little did we know a year later that that invitation has caused over 125 companies to locate themselves in our city, creating thousands of more jobs, creating an ad as mayor -- an atmosphere and environment that will welcome the new technology

and innovation. to reinforce what we have been saying, and i think it is real. we are the innovation capital of the world. with your help and with your involvement. we would like to have the rest of the city catch up and be part of it as well. and we think we can have that conversation at city hall, but we will need your help. we will need you to represent the new industries as these companies are here today to keep the dialogue and that collaboration at a high level. it is the ongoing dialogue, just like the one we are leading already about a new tax structure for this city that does not punish the inventiveness that we want to have in the city. so i would like to just open with that introduction. welcome all of you here. i think you are going to see and hear an exciting introduction of all these new companies in the discussions we have. but they are going to raise questions that we do not have the answers yet.

but i do believe we have the spirit in this city to welcome solutions with your involvement. we will have the ability to do this online as well as in these forums, and i will be part of this ongoing discussion. because i want to see all of you interact with the city and make sure to is reflective of what you believe the city to be. an open society, one that is inviting to new ideas, and one that our of policy-makers along with the mayor can engage with you. thank you for being here. and thank you to spur again. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. i think we're going to hear from supervisors scott wiener. >> thank you. this turnout, i think, shows a significant this is to the future of the city. we were with a smaller group right before this. one thing that i stress and i

will stress to you is that san francisco is a city that -- sort of, we haven't economy going on where we are in many ways to cut -- we have a dichotomy going on. in many ways, we are cutting edge technology and are really ahead of the curve. we attract a lot of people here, like you, in think our forward- thinking and want to try to do things in a different and more innovative way. we're also a really old school city. and change here is really challenging. for those of us at city hall, and david chiu and i talked about this a lot, when we're trying to do things differently, you can get a lot of reflexive push back, whether you're talking about putting cars sharing on the streets or whether you're talking about changing the zoning to be able to create new types of housing to make the city a little bit more affordable and inclusive. you have those kinds of

difficult conversations. so much of this is about really educating the city as a whole, from all generations, from all perspectives, that where we are going right now in san francisco, in a lot of ways in terms of our transportation system and housing policies, is not always very sustainable. and if we want is to be sustainable, if we want to remain a cutting edge and diverse city that draws all sorts of people here, we're going to have to change. we are going to have to consider new ways of doing things that maybe a year or two ago we were not even comfortable thinking about. so there is a big education process that has to occur, and i know we're all going to work together to make sure that that happens. i know we can move in the right direction. i look forward to that work. thank you. [applause] >> in rounding out our trifecta, which underscores the importance of what we are talking about, is

our very own board of supervisors president, david chiu. [applause] >> good evening. if you are like me, you did not come here tonight to hear from elected officials. i look forward to hearing from these innovators in a moment. i wanted to join my colleagues in ensuring all of you, our current generation of entrepreneurs, that we're looking forward to working with your hand-in-hand to figure out how we create san francisco not just as the capital of innovation that the capital of a sharing economy. i say this as someone who, for nine years before i joined the board of supervisors, i actually started what was a web 1.0 company. what makes our city special is everyone of you have ideas that will not only change our city but will truly change our world. our mayor is responsible for managing the 50 + executive- branch departments that will be interfacing with many of the substantive policy areas that you and i.

my colleague scott and i along with my nine other colleagues, we are responsible for legislating and figuring out how we, as a city, addax -- adapt to the new technologies are coming out with. changing the way we all live, as "time" magazine said recently. one thing we say is city hall, as those san francisco, often times so goes the rest of the country. and as goes the rest of the country, so goes the world. and i really believe we're starting sending very special today that is going to do that for our entire planet. thank you very much for being here. looking forward to working with you. [applause] ♪ his