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 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