to think the director for very quick reply to about and for not taking the time to slap me on the wrist for the typos, so thank you. a new president, a new beginning for the small business commission. san francisco faces a challenging times in the years ahead, and your work on the commission is always so important but even more so now. selecting the next president is a big responsibility, and i want to share my thoughts with you about commissioner o'brien. i know knew from his business days, and i'd always been impressed with his integrity and for his concern for all the stakeholders.

there is going to be a lot of that facing us in the future. the economic burden of doing business here will put a lot on your plates on the commission. from this business experience, he is customer focused and service oriented. he has a demonstrated record of on time and under cost projected delivery and knows how to meet that payroll. he speaks out with no hidden agendas. good luck with your deliberations, commissioners. president yee riley: thank you. next speaker. >> good evening, commissioners. i am tom, a lawyer in private

practice in san francisco with my own office. i was in the richmond district for about 30 years. now, i am downtown. i think i met luke through the coalition for responsible growth. i think we were assigned. we did not volunteer to come down and see what the commission was doing. and he took that very seriously, and i think he is a great supporter of this commission. and protecting small business and dealing with small-business issues before the city. i think you will be very proud of him as the president of your commission, and i hope he is elected. president yee riley: thank you. next speaker.

>> madam president, commissioners, my name is mr. murphy. i and the co-founder of the group. i want to welcome the new commissioners. i do not know, but i do know stephen, and i have known it commissioner o'conner since he was about seven years old. i am trying to make this light. i think you all make a good president. i have been president of my group for the last two years,

and i welcome at some point maybe as having a joint meeting. i am not appear because of me. i am up here because of my friend luke will has to be the second hardest worker i know. i am the hardest working man i know. he is one of the most honest guys i have ever met in my life. he lives in san francisco. he is raising his kids in san francisco. he is sending his kids to school in san francisco. he is all about san francisco, and he is all about small business. he is all about building relationships. he happens to be one of my lead people over at v.b.i.. when they need a technical

question as far as the online tracking system, none of us know anything about that. i am from the stone age. we all go to luke, and he has been an incredible help for us over there. that is it. as i said, i hope you're all around long enough to be president. thank you. president yee riley: thank you. anymore public comments? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. clerk: commissioners, at this time, we will take a roll-call vote. we will go in order of those nominated. we will go in order, and if you make, please respond a -- yay or nay.

we'll begin with conditional -- commissioner clyde. [reading roll] >> commissioners, we have three ayes and four nays. next, we will do commissioner o'brien. [reading roll] commissioners, commissioner clye receive a3 ayes, and commission

o'brien received four ayes, and commissioner o'brien will be the president's starting the next meeting. president yee riley: thank you. next item, please. ckerk: this is for the election of vice president, and just to recap, a first call for nominations. nominees may accept your nomination and provide a statement. next will be an opportunity for commissioner comments, followed by a public comment, and then we will take a roll-call vote in the number of those nominated. madam president, i do not have access to the role. if you would like to begin. president yee riley: commissioner o'conner? commissioner o'conner: i would like to nominate any mayoral

candidate, because i do not think the people from the board of supervisors picks deserve to be in a leadership position on this commission, so i would love to support stephen adams. president yee riley: ok, so we have steve adams nominated. any more nominations? seeing none. thank you. do you want to provide a statement? commissioner adams: i have been involved for seven years.

i really appreciate what commissioner o'conner said earlier about the different neighborhoods, because i see the same thing, and it does concern me, and that is something that i would like to work with him on, and also, the attacks that are being made on the entertainment industry in this town really concern me, so those are the things i would like to really work on. thank you. president yee riley: thank you. ok, commissioner comments. commissioner o'brien? commissioner o'brien: yeah, i was actually going to nominate commissioner adams, as well, so thank you, commissioner o'conner, for doing that. and couple of thoughts of come to mind that i think are relevant to commissioner atoms it assuming this role of vice president.

one, the play on a rite of passage, if you will, and then you assume seniority by right of passage or seniority by times surf. i will never ever subscribe to that philosophy. never did, do not today, never will. i will remind my fellow commissioners that if they are ever in a position where they have to appoint somebody to manage their business in their absence, they will never fail to make sure that whoever gets that position will take care of their business and take care of it well. perhaps, if they are afforded the luxury of multiple employees who assumed the job and to a

equitably, excellent, they made in favor to a more senior member, otherwise, there will be no contest. it will simply be the person that they will be able to go to sleep when they are away knowing that their business is being taken care of, so the data we get away from this philosophy that has been circling around san francisco for years, moderate, progressive, a democrat, republican, the sooner we get away from that, and the sooner that san francisco is served with a two-party system like the rest of the country, instead of a one-party system being maligned all of the time, and we get away from being a supervisor appointee or a mayoral appointee, the better, and the sooner that we stop discussing it in those terms,

the less hypocritical we will appeal when somebody watching the proceedings is saying that it is interesting that the candidates who are talking about polarizing being a bad influence are already lined up together on one side. it is very difficult to swallow that and witness that and be impressed of the sincerity with which to make the statement. but you certainly did it on the second nomination, and i applaud that, and i hope that steve, who is a fresh blood, an energetic guy, who i personally note, and was impressed that he nearly knew as much about the city as i do. in fact, he may even know more. i would not want to be in a contest with him. i think he will be an awesome influence on this commission,

and as vice president, i am looking forward to working with him. and lastly, i will say this is interesting that when president obama was running for the presidency, it was put to him that he might consider not running, that hillary clinton might have been around longer, and the was a great speech about first of all, he could be vice president. first of all, he could wait to, and that he could be vice president, and then supervisor chiu became president on his first day on the board of supervisors. there was no discussion. i think that may steve ready to be vice president of this commission, and i think it will be a unanimous vote anyway.

president yee riley: thank you? anymore comments? commissioner o'conner: i was told last time that our director would be fired. i would like that on the record. and when a commission is -- generally speaking, it is not progressive, moderate, i am not going to label myself one thing or another, and that is not what this is about, but when there are four picks, and is being used to achieve the vote, and number three, the supervisors, there is a mathematical issue here, and we now have had three mayoral appointee president's in

a row. i served as president for two years prior to that, and i know that is the only reason i got the second term, because the mayoral appointee broke from the other mayoral appointees, and he was criticized for it. i did a pretty good job as president. i made sure that we got the small business center opened downstairs. that was my baby. i put in a lot of work. whoever is president -- luke, congratulations. we need you to put in a lot of work, because small business owners are so low on the political totem pole in this building, it is pathetic. considering how hard we work and how many jobs we create and the streets that we revitalize, we need a president who's going to bust their but around here and make us matter and not make us simply walked over, but

mathematics to come into play. president yee riley: commissioner dooley? commissioner dooley: i certainly hope that commissioner o'brien does a big job, and i have knowledge about what happened when it came to the appointment of another may orioles late, and i personally experienced that, and i do not think that is a good thing. on the other hand, irene yee riley did a great job, but i feel it was a very heavy-handed and wrong thing to do that came down from above us, and i would like to not see that in the future, but i will absolutely back commissioner o'brien in

saying that that definitely happens. president yee riley: commissioner o'brien? commissioner o'brien: just to move on. commissioner o'conner, i respect your position, and i believe you can be both a dynamic force that brings a perspective that i appreciate, and i hope that you can be there to have an input in steering some of the vision like we're going to see for the next 12 months as we go forward, and i will certainly invite your consoles and your experience, as i will commissioner dooley and

clyde, who have been here longer than me. there is a lot that i have learned from listening to other people, and i am going to be needing that vision and that support and the next 12 months, and i am looking forward to working with you. again, we're still talking about the vice president, so we changed it into a bit of a conversation here, but i support steve adams for the position of vice president. president yee riley: any more comments? commissioner clyde, do you have a comment? >> -- vice president clyde: i want to say congratulations to commissioner o'brien. i will be supporting commissioner adams.

as a community banker, a community-banker, he will add a very important, necessary, and what has been a missing element in this commission, because banking is so critical to the success of small business, or it can also operate at its detriment, and we have had -- we have not gotten a lot of traction with the big banks and the very big businesses that sometimes the predatory in discriminatory practices, and i would like to just say the really welcome the boys, so i will be supporting. thank you. president yee riley: ok, we are talking about the vice president now, so i really do not think it is the time or place to talk about last year's election, but

since, commissioner o'conner, you brought it up, i wanted you to know that i voted for you when you first came on the board as president, and i was never criticized by the mayor's office or anybody, and last year, i was not contacted by anybody to say, "do you want to be present?" i wasn't running. commissioner dooley, you're saying the vice president needs to be president. i was vice president of the year before. but did i get your support? did i get your support? no, i did not, so there goes your theory. all right. any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. let's tv roll call. clerk: commissioners, the motion

to nominate commissioner adams, which was a motion at, let's see, a commissionerkasselman, commissioner adams, commissioner dooley, commissioner clyde, commissioner o'conner. that notion passes. congratulations to commissioner adams. madam president, would you like to move on to the next item? president yee riley: yes. clerk: and just a note, commissioner atoms, that will take effect with the next meeting. this is an updated report on it up as a small business and the small business assistance center, an update on the department's programs, an update on matters, and activities.

>> commissioners, well, first, i wanted to give a welcome to commissioner atoms for your first meeting, and now, congratulations to your election to the vice president, and i want to extend my great gratitude to commissioner yee riley for your services last year and your stewardship with the commission. we have accomplished a great deal under your leadership and also with your support with the vice president, commissioner clyde, and congratulations, commissioner o'brien, on your election to the president's position. i know it is getting late, so i am not going to quickly run through, but i am going to move through the director's report, so we ended this year, the small

business assistance center, servicing 2006 hundred 65 clients. this was up 13% over last year. -- 2665 cleint -- clients. during the holidays, we were closed to watkins for a certain time. i have included in the binders or of a summary of the recap for the small business assistance center, cases by month, and i just wanted to highlight one particular item, and that is in

july of 2009, these numbers are a little skewed, we did have some interest doing some entry, so even though it does look like we were down 36% that month, i just wanted to make a note that we cannot really a test to exactly what transpired at, but those numbers are a little off for that month of that year. also, we are starting our second month for a program, and one of the arrangements we made is groupon in their promotion and did an ad for the shop sf, get more ad, and moving on to policy matters, i want to update the programmatic materials and what has transpired with the ada, so,

commissioners, in october, you approved a resolution to the city attorney's office to draft an amicus brief on a case at the state supreme court. the city attorney's office, actually, under the leak of california cities but drafted by our city attorney's office, they submitted the amicus brief today to the state supreme court, so i will be forwarding on the version for you to read. and i just wanted to extend my appreciation to the city attorney for facilitating the end to a man who wrote -- wrote the brief. you will see that it is submitted under the league of california cities, which is good, because it does then

represent more than just san francisco. so we have made some significant progress in regard to the lawsuit. opportunity fund has created a fund for the ada. i think is $50,000 that can be used. several had been sued, so there was a meeting to kind of clarify again what is the law,

what is the federal, what is the state, where does the city fit into this, and really trying to explain why if you do get a permit, a stamp from ddi -- dbi that you may not be complied in regards to federal ada standards. two inspectors were there to talk about the inspection, which provided a great deal of information. now, the inspections and reports, we have had some time with it, seeing about the implications of it, and it is advisable thing to do, but also,

if a business does receive a letter, it is a step to help deal with the letter, letting the customer know that you are taking their concerns seriously and taking some steps. and we will be launching on our program soon within the next couple of weeks on our website, getting materials translated and things of that sort. i will be distributing some of the materials and would like your feedback, more from a marketing kind of perspective. today, the department of justice had a hearing. it was one of three held nationally here in san francisco. they are considering some new laws to add to the federal ada,

one around web accessibility and websites, movie theaters, furniture, a lot focused on exercise facilities, and so, i just went and made a brief statement, because i just found out about it last week, a brief statement about moving forward with regulations, especially around the web, after experiencing what we have seen with small businesses and ada and the complexity the businesses do not feel well- informed about the laws, what the requirements are, that they the requirements are, that they consider requiring supportive