incredibly strong in furniture design in the mid 90's and early 90's, and had a lot of -- you know, the annual new york design shows, san francisco was well represented by small manufacturers, none of whom exist any more. there was very little kind of effort that followed through with that early development. it would have been great if the city had something like that. of course that was then and this is now, and hopefully you will be able to help implement some new changes. >> i appreciate that feedback. i can say that the eowd, when i came on, they did immediately give me that report, and they are very conscious of the recommendations therein, even though it may not show.

it is not something that went on a shelf and got ignored. people are still thinking about and talking about p.d.r. there is real potential for a great economic impact even for just one small business that can create 20 jobs. a lot of those jobs can go to people without a college degree, and they -- and that can have a great economic impact for san francisco. i appreciate the feedback. i am going to hand out my card. i would love to hear additional feedback in the future particularly around the issue of filling vacancies as that is something i am going to be spending a fair amount of time in the future. >> what professor at cal did you work primarily with when you wrote wrote your dissertation? >> i worked primarily with karen chapel. >> thank you. please let us know if there is anything we can do to help with

the recommendations you have. and you come back and give us an update on some of your progress. >> i will. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. public comment? seeing none, it is closed. next item, please. >> commissioners, item number 15, director's report. >> commissioners, i need to make a correction to last month's report on the numbers for the small business assistance center. i had reported that our july numbers -- we were down from last year, but what that happened as we went back and took a closer look at it was

that we had interns last summer, and they back filled some of the case reports that we had when we first opened the small business assistance center, and we were not using sales force. so they were data entering it. somehow those got in under the july numbers. that is why it was higher. but we did go back and took a look at the full year from 2010 to 2009 and we are actually up 18% in the number of business counseling cases that we are seeing. that is a pretty significance increase. jobs now, the mayor's effort to continue to keep this on the forefront, held a press conference week before lost and has been working with other mayors throughout the country who have implemented this

program to kind of keep it alive and keep the attention going. today in the department head meeting the person that we work with in washington, d.c. has said that the likelihood is because of what is happening with the elections and both the house and senate coming back, there is going to be a short legislative session. so the best we can possibly hope for is -- there could be a possibility of a continuing resolution and then having them come back and revisit it after the sledge liaison recess -- legislative recess. but that is still an unknown. so if it does make it into a continuing resolution, then that may mean the funding is there, but it is still a real

unknown. if that doesn't happen, then the senate is not going to hear this before they go into recess . what she has reported is they are likely to go into recess in late october because of the election season. so, we are still at the same place. and as i said, the mayor is doing everything that he possibly can in addition to rallying with other mayors around the country to keep this attention alive. in your packet as part of our programs we have now completed the english version of our starting a small business. we do have this on p.d.f. on the website, and we are just about done with the translation into spanish and chines. and hopefully -- by the next commission meeting, i will have those book let's for you.

we are about to launch the shoppach s.f. get more campaign. this is the campaign around the holiday season, of which we promote outside the city to the nine bay area counsel and everyone to come to san francisco to do their holiday shopping, and for people from san francisco to stay in the city to do holiday shopping. there is a lot of businesses -- i am going to say entertainment, but attractions i should say, like going to alcatraz, or the aquarium by the bay. there are going to be opportunities for individuals in the city who have family members visiting to engage in these at a discount. you will be receiving an

announcement. just so you are aware of what we are sending out to the merchants to encourage them to participate in the shoppach s.f. get more campaign, we are looking at a launch or kick-off date of december 1, but i will keep you apriced of that as more of those details are confirmed. the legislation -- you have received legislation regarding push carts and some reforms that are going to be happening around that. there is still some additional work that need to take place on this, which is why it is not officially coming before the commission. we will get a briefing at the policy committee meeting, although there is still some more work that is happening. i'm not sure if we are going to have the work done in time for it to come before the full

commission in october, but hopefully november it will be pretty well ready to go. but that is very exciting. and then as some commissioners are aware, we are now starting to see an increase in what we have termed the a.b.a. lawsuits. so we are working with some of the businesses in the mission. there may be a potential to find some legal assistance either at a fairly low cost. so we will be working on that as well. i do have some possible considerations that i'm going to be bringing forward to the outreach committee of stronger

preemtiff -- preemptive measures we can legislate to help the businesses, but i will be discussing that with the outreach committee this month. then also the mayor launched -- this last month he launched the truancy program working with the merchants. they are targeting the merchant corridors that have the highest truancy rate. the mayor did a merchant walk along the lower 24th street, encouraging businesses to put signs in their windows just to encourage kids to stay in school. this one is done in spanish. and to pass out stickers to either put at the registers or for them to be able to have so

that they could secretly -- discreetly call the tarp, which is the truancy assessment and research center. it is important for our economy to have well educated kids, the tarc center is new in the last couple of years to combine working with the police, the schoolistic and to provide a more holistic approach to working with kids who are truant to get them back into school, and looking at what their individual issues are to help keep them in school. it is taylored towards the individual student in terms of what their needs are going to be. so, in the past it has been --

you know, if you called the police, the police didn't have a place to take them. there hadn't been a unified effort in terms of dealing with kids who are truant. the last sort of piece to the pie is working with the merchants and kind of taking -- it takes a village to raise the kids, and having the merchants kind of be part of the eyes and ears to support the kids. then i'm not sure if all of you are aware, but last week the board of supervisors was to hold a meeting due to an error in posting -- due to an error in posting, that meeting could not take place. what was scheduled for that meeting was the outcall recovery fee. that was not heard. so that will be heard tomorrow.

supervisor avalos will be submitting some amendments around fee collection for larger entities who may have their distribution outside. so in the distributor or the wholesaler sends -- deals with a distribution site outside of the city, then the entity picks it up themselves and brings it into the city. well, the wholesaler doesn't really know how much of what they are distributing to that site is going to be going into san francisco or elsewhere around the bay area. this would put the onerous on the retailer to pay the fee. yes? >> for clarification, supervisor avalos is submitting

an amendment that will require the retailer to pay the fee. >> in the special circumstances where you have a large entity and their distribution center is outside the city, and so the wholesaler or the distributor does not come into the city and deliver to each of those sites. take a large grocery store offense. their distributions center is out in tracy. the wholesaler distributor drops off the order in tracy. they don't know how much of that is going to be going into san francisco, or to oakland or what have you. so to be able to collect the fee from them -- it is going to

be more difficult, right? then this large entity has their own trucks ship in the product into the city. that retailer is the only one that knows how much of that product is coming from the distribution site into the city. so the tax and treasurer's office in those situations will be collecting the fee from the retailer. >> ok, is it possible to receive before the hearing tomorrow an example of how that works? because it was my understanding that all alcoholic beverages are tied to licenses, specific licenses to specific addresses, and that wholesalers and distributors have to keep those on record, where they are shipping what to.

>> i hear what you are saying, and this was the explanation that i was given -- >> i watched that hearing from the last budget committee, and there was a definite confusion in that meeting. so i'm not surprised there is a bit of commution here. supervisor avalos indicated that that particular problem of tracking where the goods came in. they used the exact if somebody delivered from fremont. commissioner avalos is that should have been addressed. but a speaker testifying at that hearing said that issue is still unresolved. so there is confusion, and i am not surprised there is confusion with what we are trying to explain tonight. i was not clear on the concern

and what the solution would be. i guess we will find out tomorrow. >> and it could very well be that this is being added to ensure that any sort of -- that all avenues are accounted for as a means for the city to be able to collect a fee as well. and then the other two amendments are making some modifications that in case prop 26 does pass, that it is the c.p.i. index increase and removing the five-year nexus study. if prop 26 does pass, we can't do another nexus study in five years. so they are making those changes to ensure they have an

implemented means of doing regular increases from here on out should prop 26 pass. >> just for clarification for the public, it is the opinion of the city attorney that these are not substantive amendments? >> i have been informed, yes, these are not substantive amendments and so can be introduced and voted on by the board tomorrow. >> and because they are not substantive -- sorry, i don't pronounce that very often -- because they are not, will public comment be allowed or not? on the amendments? >> i will have to clarify that for you. >> thank you.

>> at this point that concludes my report. >> thank you. next item, please. >> commissioners, item number 16, legislative and policy committee report. >> we have covered most of what we covered in our committee meeting, but i did want to make a brief comment that we had a presentation by someone from the community justice court kind of letting us know how that operated, also in the context if it doesn't pass, we go through supervisor chiu's recommendations. wented to get more information on how that would work. i thought it was very informative. it sound like a great program. i am a little unclear as to how it would apply in a sense to

the problems that we are addressing, which is that most of those are ordinances that are being violated and therefore don't come under the purview of the community justice court system. i am still unclear as to what type of new system would be in place if we are to address those infractions that will be continuing to occur if it does not pass. it was very informative. once again, i thought it was a great program, but i'm not quite sure how it will address those problems in the commercial districts. that is the end of my report. >> thank you. next item, please. >> commissioners, item number 17, permitting committee report. >> yes, commissioners.

last month i deferred to this month that i would do a report back to you, so i want to include some stuff from the last two meetings. the first of which was on july 16th. we kind of regrouped and sort of strategized on our goals and objectives going through for the rest of the year. we also created a mission statement that is posted on the website. if it is not already there, it will be. i would like to read it. the mission of the small business commission's permitting committee is to oversee the commission's streamlining projects and review permit related issues and concerns raised by the small business community. the economy provide staff direction on permitting issues and makes recommendations to the small business commission on policies related to permitting. annually the permitting committee will review the s.b.c.'s strategy plans and

identify items for implementation. that is our mission statement to give clarity to the purpose of that committee. in that meeting we talked about goals, objectives and other ideas that would come up. one of them is we have somewhat discussed or partly discussed this evening having a joint commission hearing with the planning commission. i am also hopeful of maybe including the building inspection commission and actually having a real brainstorming session involving those three commissions. i think there is a lot of overhappen, and i think it might be helpful to have -- even though there are logistical obstacles to overcome with a meeting of that size, it would be worth it for examining issues that all three of those commissions coffer.

in particular our permit committee, one of the issues is permit streamlining. i think the d.b.i. may be ahead on what they might implement in the future for a permitting process. it might be a centralized and online tracking system. it might be helpful to have them down. i am not sure exactly when it will be, but i am working on it. the other issues that we kind of talked about on that meeting was online filing and payments, and consolidated statements. toward that end, the director was working -- well, that along with the push cart and mobile food vendor permitting process, which the director discussed earlier in her report.

other items we will be talking is the cab soft story initiative. i intend to participate in a meeting, and i will report back to the commission on where they are at the next commission meeting. we talked about the impact of the impact fees, pardon the pun, on the eastern neighborhoods plan. we wondered about the possibility of spreading the fees out a bit instead of making them lump sum figures, which might make it easier on the people impacted by that. we are tracking to see if that is going to happen or not. i won't delve 0 into it, and we already touched on this subject this evening already, the small venue entertainment permitting, which i think now is going to be tracked by your subcommittee and ours. on august 20th we talked a little bit more about the streamlining report. and in particular, the

directive that comes from the city charter for the small business commission. they have asked that we do a very, very conferencive -- comprehensive report. it is not possible for us as a subcommittee to handle the requirements of that report. i think we have all gotten reports of -- copies of that report before. after we take on an employee, every four months afterwards we would have to re-evaluate a lot of measures and yard sticks that would keep taking in for each new additional head contour. it related to examining other departments, their permitting process and asking them to provide a lot of information.

there are a lot of issues involved with trying to meet that city charter. the executive director is going to try and propose a format of a report that is going to fulfill that requirement in a way which we can actually execute on. we will report back on that. the cab soft story, we will cover that next month. i don't know what is happening with the online filing of payments. jennifer, i know she has been promoted since we last spoke. do you want to help me on that one? >> we don't have an update for you at this particular point, and i want to apologize. i failed to, in my director's report -- i made mention that director michael cohen has decided that -- after nearly 15 years maybe with the city, that he wants to move on and try his

hand in the private sector. so we will be leaving late -- sometime late september or mid october time. i am not sure of the exact time line. but jennifer matts has been appointed to the derek tor -- director with michael being gone. i will be reporting to the committee where that is. >> ok. thanks. the last part of of our last meeting was interesting. we met with inspector david fal zone with the san francisco police department in talking about the granting of licenses. it was a very informative

discussion. i summarized some of the important points that i thought came out of that that i would think you think he would be interested in hearing about. you can weigh in if there is anything i have left out. there is something called the alu, the abc liaison unit. it consists of about five professionals that are usually well trained and familiar with the process of applying for licenses. the have been involved in the business of reviewing applications and they know the logistics and mechanisms involved in that. he also indicated that all applications for liquor licenses have to be responded to within 30 days by state law. i thought that was interesting. i didn't know that.

for some licenses that are granted, there is a condition -- i'm sorry, let's see. they kind of manipulate the licenses that they grant to oppose restrictions on the price of sales. for instance, i will have to try to be politically correct about this. if they are going to be selling cans of beer for 25 cents, that looks like with the applicant was going to be doing, they may put restrictions on it and say that they can't sell for less than $5 or some other sets feet that they will discourage the activity and that type of business activity. >> the inspector made it very

clear that he is a believer in conditioning licenses, and i asked him what happens when somebody violates the condition, and he said that we will move to pull the license. he was very clear that he believes very strongly in conditioning licenses in order to get the effect that they want, such as requiring minimum pricing or restricting hours. >> he let it be known that when a licence is issued, there is a hands-off period of 12 months where it they can do very little to the person that has been granting -- granted the license. after that, they can't really take away --