permit, and forced by the local building requirements. it says all new buildings have to be totally accessible. it also says that new buildings when you do an alteration course have to be accessible when you do a project. there's a big difference between a big project and a little project. a big project is going to be not as accessible as a new building, but a smaller project actually has a smaller level of access required in the california building code. you might think that because you got a building permit that that means that everything is good and you are complying with the ada, but it is actually the difference in the building code because its is even if you have an existing building and have not done any improvements to that building, that you still

have a continuing obligation to be going through your business and building and taking constructive steps to remove the barriers. the ada gives us some guidance on that. readily achievable says it can be done quickly and easily without a whole lot of steps. feasible means that it may require a lot more money, a lot more alteration to get that done. under the ada, you need to be surveying your property and putting together both a short- term plan and a long-term plan. the short term plan is going to be the readily achievable solution. the long-term plan could take 20 years. i do not know. your business might not be making huge profits.

you may need to be saving money for the long term. but it is your obligation to plan for the long term as well as the short term. the ada has a set of priorities that guide you on how you will be serving your property. the ada says a certain party of getting in the front door, but you are logical, you want your customers to access your services. be that steps, be that ramps, if the door is not wide enough, if the landing is not level enough. 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]

>> it has been amazing. the people have been so gracious and so supportive of what we're doing. the energy here is fantastic with so many couples getting married. it's just been an absolutely fantastic experience, so wonderful. >> by the power vested in me, i declare you spouses for life.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> to actually be able to get married and be a part of this time in history and time in our history is amazing. >> this is a momentous occasion for us to be able to actually have this opportunity to have equal rights. >> we have been together for 14 years. everyone is so welcoming. it's been all set up and people have guided us from step to step. it's been easy. there was live music. people are so friendly and excited. so excited for us. >> it's really great. >> yeah. >> and salvador is party a here to known as party a. >> on the out it looks pretty simple. you come in, you made your appointment. you pay. you go here for your license. you got there to get married. you go there if you want to

purchase a certified copy. behind the scenes, there was just this monumental just mountain of work, the details into everything that we had to do and we quickly realized that we were not ready to issue the numbers of licenses that people are anticipating that we would need to issue. we definitely did not want people waiting in long lines. this is somebody's wedding. you want to be able to plan and invite your family and friends. know what time you are able to get your marriage license, know what time you're going to have your ceremony. >> thanks for volunteering. >> we got city volunteers, we got members of the public volunteering. we had our regular volunteers volunteering. we had such an overwhelming response from city employees, from the members of the general

public that we had way more volunteers than we could ever have hoped for. we had to come up with a training program. i mean, there are different functions of this whole operation. you were either, you know a check-in person. you were a greeter. you were part of the license issuing unit. you were deputy marriage commissioner, or you were on the recording side. each one of those functions required a different set of skills, a different oath of office if they needed to be sworn in as a deputy county clerk to issue marriage licenses or as a deputy county recorder if they were going to register the marriage licenses or the deputy marriage commissioner if they were going to be performing ceremonies. >> donna, place the ring on her ring finger. >> the marriage commissioner training was only about a half hour. it was very simple. very well run, very smooth and then we were all sworn in. >> they said we would get our scheduled sunday night and so

7:00, 8:00, 10:00, you know, i got it at 11:00. this person who was orchestrating all of the shifts and the volunteers and who does what, you know, said from her office sunday night at 11:00. they are just really helping each other. it's a wonderful atmosphere in that way. >> have you filled out an application? >> not yet. you want to do that. >> take this right over there. >> all right. >> take it tout counter when you're done. >> very good. >> congratulations, you guys. >> for those volunteers, what a gift for them as well as us that they would take up their time and contribute that time, but also that they would in return receive so much more back because they're part of the narrative of someone else's love and expression of love in life. >> this isn't anything that we had budgeted for, so it was basically we asked our i.t. director to do the best you

can, you know, belling, borrow, steal if you have to and get us what you need to do this. and he knew what the mission was. he knew what our goal was. and, you know, with our i.t. grids and our software vender, they really came together and pulled it together for us. it made it possible for us to be able to serve as many couples as we have been. >> so once you're ready, you and your husband to be or wife need to be need to check in here and check in again, ok. are you also going to get married today? >> yeah. >> let's process you one by one. do your license in, exit and re-enter again check in at that desk. >> our wedding is at 3:00. >> as long as we get you in today. >> we're getting married at 2:30. >> don't worry about the time line. we're greeting people at the doorway and either directing them to the services they need on this side which is licensing or the services on this side which is actually getting the

ceremony performed. >> this is an opportunity to choose to be a part of history. many times history happens to us, but in this case, you can choose to be a part of it. this is a very historic day and so i'm very, very proud to be here. >> i have been volunteering. last monday i performed 12 different marriage smones. the least amount of time that any of the couples that i married have been together is two years. most of the couples have been together eight, nine, 10, i'd say 70% have been together at least that long if not longer. >> there is a lot of misconception about who gay and lesbian people are. it's important that people see that we love our husbands and wives to be and love our children and have the right to have families just like everyone else.

>> it's important that we have experienced our own families, our own friends, and the excitement of the volunteers when we get here has made us feel wonderful and accepted and celebrated. >> there is a lot of city agencies, city departments, divisions that offer up their employees to help us out since overwhelming response, it's unbelievable at how city government works. this is the time that san francisco city employees have really outshined san francisco's clerk's office didn't need to hear from the mayor to say what's your plan. they offered a plan and said here is our strategy. here is what we can do. we can add all of these computers here and there. we can connect our databases, we can expand our capacity by x. we can open up early and stay late and stay open on the weekends. it's unbelievable. we can coordinate all of the