amendments are put in the legislation, there is no guarantee, and we've seen that it's very, very difficult to amend legislation going backwards. so i, you know, i would like to support a resolution or something they can't, you know -- to the board for tomorrow's meeting and supporting the recommendations. because, you know, our -- there's still so much pressure in the economy. this economy is not ramping up overnight. there is so much pressure and i don't, i agree with the punitive, you know, using punitive liquidated damages against small businesses is not a good way to go. president yee riley: so, director, do you -- is there any chance we can reiterate our concerns to the board of supervisors? >> yes. we can draft a memo first thing in the morning and distribute to to the board of supervisors.

up -- you have an option of tonight, you know, making a regular kind of recommendation as if you prefer so that it is on record or you can say we're not making an official recommendation but working -- i mean -- excuse me, not making an official recommendation in terms of normally how you would proceed with a recommendation for legislation that's still yet to come before the board of supervisors but just -- but that you're making a statement in records to supporting h.r.c. so you have an option of trying to do an official weigh-in on the legislation or a statement, since the legislation has, i mean, i don't think we're going to see really much of a change between now and tomorrow. president yee riley: what would get more attention? >> i'm sorry?

again, i didn't understand that last -- president yee riley: we have an option. so which option would get us more results, more attention? >> actually, i'll be honest with you, i don't think it's going to make ever too much the difference either way. yeah, thank you, alaric. vice-president clyde: but it's what you as a commission want to have on record in relation to the small businesses, having it on record in terms of, you know, we can make a statement of disappointment that that legislation went through the process with the board of supervisors without having its full vetting with both commissions, that our -- that are, you know, have governance and oversight to smll businesses. it's more a matting of -- matter of on record and then of course really making a strong

statement to -- in regards to the office of economic and workforce development really working closely to monitor the effects of the legislation as it affects be l.b.e.'s and making quick adjustments as needed. >> right. i would tend to agree with that. i think, you know, we're trying to make sure that going forward that once conversations are happening regarding this legislation or even similar legislation that impacts small businesses or l.b.e.'s more specifically, that we're as invited to those conversations ease -- as we caning and we can help shape those legislation or amendments as opposed to having to react to it offer the fact. >> but commissioners, before you make an official motion we do need to open you it up for public comment. president yee riley: thank you

very much. commissioner o'brien? commissioner o'brien: that's fine. thanks. i'm just trying to understand the -- where we're disagreeing between the ordinance, this new ordinance and the existing l.b.e. initiative. i guess what i'm hearing is one of the issues is we don't like sort of where they contradict each other, the punitive damages or liquidated damages. is that one of the areas where we have a concern? >> it's not that we have a concern. i think -- and before we start assessing possible liquidated damages against l.b.e.'s for are noncompliance i would like to have time to assess or understand what impact the legislation would have on l.b.e.'s because i think it's not -- i think it's -- if the legislation as written, if it

doesn't -- if recognized that a small business having to comply with the ordinance is -- adds a lot more burden than a large business because a large business has the infrastructure and possibly has the resources to pull individuals and employees from one project and use those resources and/or to get credit for those employees working on a noncovered project. so basically if you're, as local bays, you have one option. you have to meet the local hiring, period. there aren't any options. i think if you're a large business the ordinance provides for these options which on paper i think they're saying they're as available to the small business, but in reality i don't think they are simply because of the fact that if you're a small business you probably don't have all this plethora of contracts where it can be drawn from to meet your local hiring goals.

commissioner o'brien: well, thanks. i apologize if i was making anybody regurgitate what they might have already understood, but i was just trying to be clear on it. to try and understand the history of this, i know it was a proposal from supervisor avalos and it sounds like it wasn't presented before this commission for consideration. how long has the ordinance or when was the ordinance first proposed? >> i think the ordinance was first inth october time frame was when it was -- the time when it was first introduced. supervisor avalos along with the office of economic and worgfors -- workforce development with -- had a task force, i'll call it, that began looking at this in earnest over the course of the summer. there was a group made um of

the office -- city departments, the office of economic and workforce development and contractors, look at this as well. and in october when the legislation was first introduced at the estimate >> i have here on the list, october 25 or 26 it was introduced which would have meant that was maybe a week and a half before our november commission meeting, which is not enough time for staff -- generally it takes a week for items to be at minimum to get redirected to our office after it's introduced at the board of supervisors. so the november commission meeting would have been too soon for staff to have digested, i mean, because right now generally we have the legislation and policy committee do a first run with it. so the first run was done with the legislation and policy committee add -- at their

november meeting. normally what we do have is that the supervisors will go through the legislation -- will go through the steps in terms of having is -- it presented at the commission, getting a full hearing, hearing back from the commission, both at the legislation and policy expect and at the commission meeting, and then moove -- moving it through the board of supervisors. but in this particular case, whether it's there's some urgency to get it passed before the end of the calendar year i don't know, but in this case the legislative sponsor chose not to allow the time for this commission and the human rights commission to be able to officially weigh in on it. commissioner o'brien: so is it possible that tomorrow this could be voted on and passed in the hearing tomorrow? >> well, it -- yes. because last week it was voted on and passed at the full board

of supervisors. so with some minor amendments, but as a whole -- >> right. minor amendments were made or introduced last week but it passed 8-3 last week. >> so they were nonsubstantive amendments, correct? >> yes. >> so it passed on the first reading and generally the second reading is just a matter of formality. does that answer your question? commissioner o'brien: it does. it just makes it even harder to think of what's an appropriate communication to send back, if it's a done deal. sure. president yee riley: we can think about it. >> yeah. i recommend you think about it. i mean mip recommendation is that even though the board is

going to vote on it, i still think it's too -- to this commission's benefit and for the l.b.e.'s that the commission have an official response to the legislation. >> right. president yee riley: so let's open for public comment. thank you. >> at this time the commission is now taking public comment on item number 6, public comment limited to two minutes. please state your name clearly. >> steven cornell. i guess i'm really disappointed. the basic thing of this commission is to be out there for small business in san francisco. yet you have a piece of legislation, the supervisor did not bring it forward to your commifplgts the charter sace it has to be. i think the commission, the minute they heard that, should have gotten to their city attorney and demanded that this come forward to this

commission. this is important legislation for small business. this can screw up a lot of small businesses in san francisco. it should be heard whether it's good or bad. i listened to it at the board of supervisors. supervisor avalos spent 10 minutes talking about all the people who, the groups that were involved in this legislation. i didn't hear small business commission. i didn't hear chamber of commerce. i didn't hear anything about the normal business things. they brought up groups you never heard of in your life. so this has been around a long time. and i think this commission is falling down when you don't sit there and demand that they have to stop and if there's no emergency about this, the city isn't falling down, it's been around a long time, you're supposed to -- it's supposed to come to this commission and it's not up to the supervisor to say i don't want to send it to there. the charter says you're

supposed to hear it. you guys, you know, you should really be sending a letter tomorrow to the supervisors demanding that it be stopped, that they did not follow the law. i think it's pretty basic. it's disgusting. sorry. president yee riley: thank you. any more public comment? seeing none, public comment closed. commissioners? commissioner o'conner: i'm definitely in agreement well. words of mr. cornell and it's just a slap in the face that supervisor avalos' office chose to just not involve us, not include us, not include small business people on the, whatever ad hoc task force that went into creating this, and it

just speaks to several things, which i won't go into, but at this point in time we have to at least stand up and tell them that this was not the right procedure. president yee riley: ok. commissioner clyde? vice-president clyde: i second that. i'm absolutely in favor of the intent of the legislation. i understand the driver of the legislation. you know, the fact that people have the intention to hire locally is one thing, and i understand the driver to make it a mandate. we have a very high unemployment rate in san francisco with labor and trades, so i support the intent. absolutely. but i have to agree that we have to make some statement that this commission is useless unless we are allowed to vet legislation be as it's coming forward and being proposed. so i agree with commissioner

o'conner and i think we should draft a statement. it's just going by too fast. no one mentioned the $10 million limit, which is very small, and the tremendous competition that our l.b.e. amings are under for the contracts that now the larger companies are bidding for, and this is precisely the type of legislation that advantages the largest companies. so i think we should draft a letter. i agree. president yee riley: commissioner o'conner? commissioner o'conner: this is a perfect example of things i've brought up many times to this commission as to how unimportant small business is in this building. we've definitely improved our standing well. creation of the small business assistance center and small businesses are et getting a little bit of respect but by and large it's due to our complete lack of political organizing, the fact that there's no funds for us to organize yet there's funds for

everybody else to organize and we are continued to expect or we are continued to have to raise fees, raise this, raise that, and with this legislation i'm fully behind this legislation. i think this legislation is a long time coming. i don't know all the details. but i was very happy to hear that supervisor avalos was creating this legislation. i'm pretty involved with stuff around here, and i only heard about this legislation a month ago and i know a couple years ago i served as a small business representative on the health care task force before so-called healthy san francisco was created, which has so many holes in it, it's unbelievable that this many smart people created something that holey. yet here we are, we still have it. nothing's been fixed about it. the problems remain. mandate they put on small

businesses wasn't even successful. doesn't even treat -- create the money that they wanted to create. and now this is just another example of how we're not even -- we don't even get a seat at the table. but granted, we don't deserve a seat at the table because we're not organized and we're not getting people elected and getting people unelement -- unelected and all the things that go with making people matter in this building and this is just an example of why we don't matter. president yee riley: commissioner o'brien in commissioner o'brien: yeah, just to -- just concerned that, i mean we all agree with the intent of the legislation or what it is trying to achieve. don't think there is any doubt about that. but also i caution that a big part of the unemployment, if you're going to talk about it in construction, is an economic one that no amount of legislation is going to fix it

until the economy gets better. you will not get any better local hiring no matter if you threaten to throw people in jail for not hiring locally, it doesn't really matter if there is no economy. i am worried about the direction of it. i wanted to just ask the director again, did anybody make any attempts to associate the staff or engage the staff at all? or were we just bamboozled? if that's the case? >> in regards to this particular legislation, staff was not approached in drafting the legislation or any preliminary meetings. now, with this piece of legislation, i think staff's sumption would be that h.r.c. and -- because they cover the l.b.e.'s, they have an l.b.e.

task force that they would be very much involved in drafting the legislation. and while some minor inputs i think were given at various phases, but they were not part of the -- my understanding is they were not part of the core team involved in drafting the legislation. commissioner o'brien: so we were proceeding thinking that h.r.c. was pretty involved in it and kind of driving what representation we might ought to have been there? >> well, i think here is the time line that transpired. we had no knowledge that this legislation was being drafted until it was introduced. and was forwarded to our commission. which then at that point in time we reached out to h.r.c. because it covers the l.b.e.'s, asked for their input, reached out to the office of economic and workforce development and

the legislative sponsor to petroleum briefings and to have them come and present -- to provide staff some preliminary information but to schedule them to present at the legislation and policy committee meeting. so it was after october 26 that we were informeded of the amount of time that had gone into creating and establishing the legislation and who the supervisor worked with in creating the legislation. president yee riley: november 22 was the first day i saw it. so -- at the legislation and policy meeting. >> correct. because it had already gone through i think one -- at the legislation and policy committee, chris from the office of economic and workforce development had presented some possible

amendments that were being considered and looked at. >> commissioners, h.r.c. was first ever notified that there was going to be this local hiring task force, if you will, looking at this issue towards the beginning and the middle of the suddenlier, h.r.c. was at some of the irreparably meetings, but it's my understandag that -- understanding that director sparks didn't get invited to the series of meetings that were held throughout the summer. so when h.r.c. was brought back into the fold, if you will, regarding the legislation, it was somewhat drafted already, and that's when we started working with our task force trying to get the l.b.e.'s to give us their comments on it and that's when we began definitely reaching out to any number of small business, trying to get their concerns. on the task force that the office of workforce or the

office of economic and workforce development was working with, there were two l.b.e.'s that were on that task force, but the -- in the comments that h.r.c.'s been giving back to supervisor avalos and some of the other supervisors working with that group were, well, that's two l.b.e.'s and two of the larger or more successful l.b.e.'s and that's not a good cross-section of the small business community. so i think the belief was that they were reaching out to the l.b.e.'s, but i'm of the opinion that it wasn't really a true cross-section. it's hard to say what's going -- good for one l.b.e. or 50 l.b.e.'s is good for all of them. and certainly not two. president yee riley: thank you. any more comments, discussion? no? ok. now i guess we'll instruct

staff to send a statement to the board of supervisors. >> all right. so chris, can you repeat back the list of what we will include in the statement? >> commiffers -- commissioners, i think several you made reference to the legislative time line and the fact that our commission was not reached out to in the initial list of stakeholders. and along with about the h.r.c. not being involved, you know, i believe many of the statements that you've made today are very much in line with the response that the legislate d legislation and policy committee provided. in addition to that we have a number of comments regarding liquidated damages and the

ability of l.b.e.'s for the disadvantage that that provides l.b.e.'s. i believe that summarizes many of your comments although i did hear from many of you that the overall -- that overall the ordinance is supported, especially the intent of the ordinance, that there's just concern about the l.b.e. contractors. president yee riley: and the process. vice-president clyde: and i do think we need to combine a nolte that commissioner o'brien made, that a large portion of the issue around jobs right now in crag settle economy and i think combining that particular awareness in relationship to the pool of -- that particular awareness in terms of -- well, anyway, i'm just going to leave it at that. but i do think that we need to draw that important point, that one of the big issues with jobs

right now is also the economy. >> so, commissioners, would this be a response? or would this just be a statement? president yee riley: a statement. commissioner o'brien: a statement. president yee riley: and the fact that we weren't involved the commissioner o'brien: we don't have anything to respond to, so i would imagine it's defined as a statement. >> the commission did not have the opportunity to make an official response, so the commission is sard -- forwarding on a statement? >> yeah. >> ok. president yee riley: do we need a motion? >> yes. vice-president clyde: yes, i move that we adopt the statement and send it to the board to the clerk of the board tomorrow. president yee riley: ok. >> second. president yee riley: those in favor? aye. >> aye. >> aye.

president yee riley: ok, next item. >> commissioners, item seven. a presentation, discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the county transportation authority on the c.t.a.'s mobility access and pricing study, also known as congestion pricing. we are joinled by representatives of the c.t.a. and there are explanatory documents inside your packet, the san francisco mobility, access and pricing study draft final report and also the public comment that was seervinged as of 4:00 p.m. today by the commission. >> good evening, commissioners, zabe bent, project manager of the county transportation authority. thank you for welcoming me back again to seahawk -- talk built study. i'm going to try to go through

the presentation fairly quickly because i know some of you have seen the information before but feel free to stop me if i go a little bit too fast. so the first thing i just want to talk bb is the mobility. pricing and pricing study is it's a feasiblity study. it's not an implementation study. but it was launched two or three years ago to analyze whether congestion pricing might be a good way to contribute to san francisco's goals of sustainable transportation in the future. the goal was streets operating below 10 miles an hour for transit or cars in the peak hours, we wanted to what are the sort of contributors to congestion and its impacts on our streets as well as more broadly in our economy. when we look at the downtown growth that's planned, one of the things we wanted to

understand is how growth may impact the already congested areas in san francisco. what you're looking at now is a summary of all the different area plans that are included in the downtown areas and as you can see, these areas that are somewhat or severely son jested today, if we look forward to not only growth in these areas but background growth as a mole -- whole, significant new trims by car and transit in the future, that could lead to more congestion, a longer peak or a longer sort of rush hour conditions as well as greater delays, greater vehicle miles traveled, and also greenhouse gas and particulate matter and emissions. so when we look at this consideration, one of the things that we want to focus on are how all this fits into our goals for the future. obviously san francisco's goals or development goals, improving the downtown core, we saw --

see that as the same old way of focusing on our transit accessible areas. creating a more liveable city and infrastructure and in order to do that one of the things we note is we need to identify solutions that can manage demand as well as generate rev un -- roirve, rather than simply proposing one thing and looking at how we can make it sustainable over timente where does congestion pricing fit into that picture? the main focus of the study is to determine whether or not con jevertion pricing is feasible in -- congestion pricing is feasible in san francisco. what are the feasible scenarios along with the potential benefits and impacts what are the range of improvements to travelers to and from the charging zone and how might we

invest to deliver options for people who choose not to drive? one thing um not see is how do we implement congestion pricing, because it's a con seept -- conceptual feasibility study, so we're not looking at implementation right now. so when we started to evaluate congestion pricing we started with market research of about 600 drivers in the downtown area and tested all sorts of different options, beginning with fees of 50 cents automatic the way to about 3 or $5. we found that $3 seems to be the fee that works best for people. there's people who can still pay the fee and would actually see a benefit with the reduced travel times of a smoother, more reliable trip, but also people could still take advantage of other options