today, i'm here representing three chambers of commerce, hispanic chambers of commerce. the latin american and caribbean business chamber of commerce, the nicaraguan american chamber of congress, and the salvadorean american chamber of commerce, of which i had been the vice- president, and i'm still a member. i'm speaking on behalf of the three of them in support of mario west. one of the reasons why we decided to support mario -- and i have four copies here of a letter of support from the three chambers. one of the reasons is because we really like not only his ethics and commitment to the community, but also, the fact that he understands small businesses. as a chamber of commerce, representing hispanics, i think hispanics are naturally born business people. if we could sell rocks, they would sell rocks. they are very, very good. everybody is always selling

something. if you walk by the mission, you try those hot dogs in the corner, they are really, really good. those are really the small businesses. i think you have a challenge here. you need to understand that, first of all, to be a good communicator, if you want a good commissioner, you have to listen, and we in the hispanic community have some of the different challenges, including what supervisor campos mentioned, immigration, which is a big thing for us, because many of them are struggling with their documents. i really hope you choose mario west, and i know you have a difficult task because everybody i've heard of this really qualified, but i think mario would do a very good job representing the wonderful small business community. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you for being here. >> thank you for the opportunity to be here as well. i'm a former police officer in

san francisco. i'm here to support mario west. i'm also a former business owner in san francisco. i had businesses in the city for about 15 or 20 years. i can only -- i cannot -- victor, i think, said it all. mario west is a killer in the community. what 1 "los angeles times said earlier, he connects people together, connect ideas here talking about pro bono, he has given out hundreds of hours of this time helping people in the community. i cannot say enough about the men. i have known him 15 or 20 years, and i like him as a friend. i am currently a realtor with better homes and gardens real estate, and it is a pleasure to do business and work with him and to get reacquainted with mario. i seem to be working with him

more and more now, and he is a great guy to be with. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you for being here. is there any other public comment at this time? seeing none, public comment is closed. i want to thank everyone for their patients. i know it has been a long meeting and many people did have to leave and did not get to speak on behalf of their applicant. discussion from colleagues? supervisor olague: i wanted to be brief, but i just across the way, so i did not want to miss the opportunity to speak on behalf of a couple of candidates today. there are so many amazing candidates for these two seats. one of the conversations i had with janet before she left was -- i asked her why she was leaving. part of why she decided to give up her seat on the small business commission was because she felt that there was a lack of diversity -- racial diversity and representation of people of

color on that commission, so that said, i have spent hours at a green apple. i know mr. henry karnilowicz very well, but a bill in deference to the fact that i do believe we need more representation. i would like to put in a couple of words for monetta white, who has an incredible reputation for how she runs her business and her involvement in the community. i wanted to encourage folks to consider her seriously, and again, her contribution is not just as a business woman but as a community advocate and activists. and mr. william ortiz -- again, mr. ventura and others i have worked with, but he has quite a story, and it is we're for me to be up here advocating for someone who deals with parking. i have known him for some time,

and i just wanted to but in a couple of big words for him as well. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak as well. supervisor kim: thank you for being here. supervisor campos: thank you very much, madame chair. i would like to begin by thanking all of the amazing applicants who have come forward. the challenge we face -- we have more applicants than we have seats available. clearly, we will have to make choices that leave out people that are more than qualified to sit on a commission. in this case, i can honestly say that each and every one of the applicants who has come forward -- i think any of you would do an amazing job on that commission.

it is very difficult to decide in light of that. the one thing that i would say, having sat on this committee before, is that openings to come up, so for those of you who, for whatever reason are not appointed, i would hope and ask that you continue to be involved. there may be other openings in the future, not only in terms of appointments by the board of supervisors, but also the mayor, so to the extent that those openings come up, i would hope that the mayor's office would also consider some of the amazing applicants that are here, and there will also be other openings on a different commission that may also benefit from the talent that is here. from my perspective, and not to take anything away from any of the applicants, i do believe that it is important for us to have a small business commission that is truly representative of the diversity

of san francisco, and right now , unfortunately, that diversity is not represented on this commission. i believe that we only have one person of color on the small business commission, and again, that is not to take anything away from non-minorities, but i do believe it is important to have that diversity represented. any one individual that we have " is a person of color is someone who comes from not a small business background but from wells fargo -- actually from bank of america. so it is the banking industry, and that is an important experience, but we are talking about the small business commission. as a supervisor for district 9, where i have many of my business is the are owned by people of color -- be it latino, the ideation, and by many immigrants, i think it is important to have that

representation on the small business commission. again, not to take anything away from any of the other applicants. it is for that reason that for me, the three ople who stand out in terms of what they bring to the table, even though i had a great deal of respect for respectmulvihill, for mr. ventura, for mr. gray, and for mr. henry karnilowicz, the people to stand out are mario west, william ortiz-cartagena, and monetta white. i think the three of them bring a perspective that is needed in terms of how we make the commission relevant, and it is not only the representation of people of color, more women, but also, with respect to mr. west and mr. ortiz- cartagena, the

ability to be relevant to language minorities in the city. my hope is that we can all come to a consensus around some of these candidates, but i wanted to share my thinking for the rest of the committee. those are the three that i'm leaning towards. again, i want to thank all the other candidates because they also bring something to the table. supervisor kim: thank you. i think we will probably have several rounds of conversation because i think there are multiple candidates, but all three of us would like to see [inaudible] on the commission. but if we could get up two applicants we could all have consensus on, i think that is the most important thing. supervisor farrell: this is truly horrible today. you know, two themes kept coming up -- both with a lot of native san franciscans, which are near and dear to my heart, and obviously, all small-business owners. i think that is pretty amazing. i just want to echo what

supervisor campos said. a matter who does not come out or comes out of committee, everyone came today has my full support to push with the mayor for his appointments or some other commission, if that is what you desire, or to come back when we have the next opening, without a doubt. it was great to meet mario for the first time today. and mr. gray, sorry to hear about your 15-month old with the fever. that is never fun. for me, i think of for your folks really stand out, and this is also a lot of support they have gotten from other people i know and respect. mr. henry karnilowicz, i have known you for a little while now. obviously, you have a ton of support it. you probably won the most speaker contest award that we get here sometimes at bowls committee, so congratulations on

that note, but i know you have a lot of broad-based support throughout the city. mr. ortiz, obviously not a lot of support -- you had a lot of support today, but also, i received some personal e-mails that spoke incredibly highly of you. and monetta white -- i'm sorry but just barely got to say hello earlier, but i had been to 1300. i love it. i know what a great job you do, so thank you for all of that, and mr. mulvihill. i have spent a lot of time in your store. live very close, even though i'm in district two, and i've heard great things from people who have interacted with you in the community, neighborhood merchants and otherwise. i will throw those names out there. this is not going to be fun. and again, not to take away from anyone that applied here.

and mr. ventura was not here, so i think he is probably the easiest one for us to say no to today, but i have dealt with him. supervisor kim: we rarely agree on every single one, but those were the four names i was going to put forward as well. i do want to recognize mr. ventura was not able to make it today, but he did serve on the small business commission for six years and the president speaks highly of him. i have personally worked very closely with three of our applicants today. first, i do want to mention monetta white. you probably have unanimous support today. we do only have one woman on the commission with janet stepping down. she has been strongly on your behalf as well, and i think it is important we support women business owners and african- american business owners, but more than that, i am truly impressed by the work you do to engage young people that often

do not have access to jobs in connection with small businesses and to employment. i think the work you were around that is incredibly important, and that is just impressed that you sit on boards of local community-based organizations. as someone who used to run the program, very appreciative of the additional effort you take on top of the in the small business owner in san francisco, which is hard enough to make those connections. i would love to see you bring that experience and expertise to the small business commission. we would love to create more of a clearing house so that our small business commissions could also higher amongst our youth community, in the way that large businesses often do. also have worked very closely with bob henry karnilowicz. he is someone who is very active in district 6, and i think he goes to more events than i do. i'm never at one that he is not at, and one thing i have often heard about the small business commission is how important it

is for the commissioners to be out in the community and to develop deep and meaningful relationships with business owners. i know that henry would be incredible in doing that work, connecting our small businesses to the commission, and also, very appreciative of all the community work he does as well. i know you also said on several boards in the south of market, and you really do know everyone in that community. the third -- william ortiz- cartagena. worked with you when i was on the school board. love the innovative ideas you brought in in terms of not only how we can create jobs but also support some of our public resources that do not have enough. that our public schools. with your creative ideas about how a partner with our ppa and school principals and creating revenue for our school districts to say teacher jobs and bring supplies to class revs with your parking business i think was

really truly incredible -- supplies to classrooms. i appreciate the incredible detail and follow-up and really being conned -- country does that kids will be playing on those lots where the cars were parked. just that level of appreciation that i have for that. but i did want to just say quickly i was really impressed by peter and your application. really thought that you were very thoughtful, and i'm thinking really hard about how we could get you in to do more policy work with us around doing local shopping and also local purchasing here. it has been a tremendous frustration of my that i get a big book from staples in which i can review my office orders. because of the process that we have, we do not have a lot of

options. i cannot just go down to the small business to buy the supplies that i need for my office with the tiny budget that our office gets, but i think that we really need to do a better job around that and figure out how we can get a better job around local purchasing. our city dollars should be going back to our small businesses. they are the ones that tried to engage in local hire. these are the values the -- that we support in our small businesses. supervisor campos: thank you. as you can see, this is not an easy thing for us. i think that any of the four names that were mentioned would be great, and i certainly respect a great deal greatkarnilowicz. -- mr. karnilowicz.

if we had half as energy, i think we would be lucky. i also think mr. mulvihill would be a great addition. i also personally think mario west would be an excellent choice and has made, i think, a very compelling case, but at the end of the day, i think it is important to us to at a consensus, and the names that each of you had mentioned and the three names i have mentioned, two individuals that i think we all have in common are monetta white and william ortiz-cartagena. not to take anything away from anyone else, but i think that is where we have consensus, so in the spirit of consensus and compromise, and make a motion that we forward those two individuals. supervisor kim: we have a motion on the floor.

those were the names that i think all three members of the rules committee product. i know this is really hard. i really wish we could forward more names to the commission. i will certainly work to be an advocate. i know that the mayor does have one more seat that opens this year. first of all, marks at it already, it is amazing to have four date of san franciscans apply to any commission body, and i really just wanted to say that. also, reflecting the diversity of our small business community, whether it is a co-op, restaurant, business services. really want to thank everyone the candidate. i think this is an incredibly hard decision before us, but i think supervisor campos made a good point in that we did have two applicants come out with all three of us supporting them.

supervisor farrell, any additional words? supervisor farrell: no, look, i do believe monetta and mr. ortiz will do a great job. i just want to say i do not like this, but for henry and pete especially, whatever you guys need to do for the next go round, the for commission, whatever, you have my full support. i will work with my office to make sure that happens. this is not fun, but i agree that there are two folks that all three of us mentioned, and i think that does make sense. supervisor campos: if i may, i agree that i do not think anyone likes this. i think mr. west is an excellent choice as well, and i'm not happy, but i think we kind of go with where the consensus is. supervisor kim: thank you so much to all the applicants for being here today.

i also pledged to work with all the applicants today along with supervisor farrell's office to see how we can get your voice included. occasionally it happens where this really was an incredibly difficult decision to make. again, super impressed by our applicants. glad to see so that it -- so many of our small business owners who want to be involved in the decisionmaking process. i know how little time you walk out with families and businesses. it is an incredible amount of work, so thank you for making san francisco what it is and hiring people and creating jobs. you have this motion, and we can do that without opposition. congratulations. unfortunately, our meeting has gone kind of long and we do have a schedule conflict. supervisor farrell does neatly. it is a cake, it we could move up items 6. madam clerk, can you please call item 6?

>> item 6, ordinance amenities and francisco administrative code by adding chapter 79a to expand upon the minimum notice requirements prior to approval of a city project that are mandated by the citizens' right to know act of 1998. >> thank you, supervisor. in june of 1998, the voters passed the citizen's right to know act of 1998. it is codified s chapter 79 in our administrative code establishes some minimum public notice requirements for certain public projects that are being funded directly by the city or as mr. through use of state, federal, or local funding sources. what this legislation does is simply expanded minimum notice requirements for these projects. under the current notice provisions -- and i found this out last year during a project in district two, which was a long project that ended up with a great outcome, but something

we do not need to go through in the future -- a lot of neighborhood notice comes really too late in the process to enable public input and having meaningful input to city administrators. this legislation requires notice 30 days at a time instead of 15 days, and also requires each state officer, department, or commission to post on its official website and maintain an updated list of all proposed projects coming forward. we worked on this legislation with the mayor's office of housing. i want to thank them for working very hard on this. , especially due to the fact that this additional noticing legislation came out that the mayor's office of housing worked on in district two last year. and joan mcnamara is here to speak with us briefly about the legislation. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for this opportunity to speak before you. yes, we are in support of the revisions that you have

proposed. we have worked really well with you, and we welcome the opportunity to engage the community in our projects, so thank you. supervisor farrell: thanks very much. colleagues, and the questions? supervisor kim: i do not see any questions or discussion. >> with a quick, and also to clarify to our city attorney, is here, just want to be clear because we have had discussions and work, i know, that this legislation does not impose any additional burdens on the clerk's office. >> it does not. the legislation speaks to the kinds of information that should be made available to the board by the department and does not impose obligations on the clerk in terms of tracking. >> a cake, thank you for comment on that. colleagues, i have a clarifying amendment that i understand will not be substantive to hold it up, but it is again a clarifying language that the clerk of the board felt comfortable having to

make sure it does not affect their role in this legislation, so i will be proposing that amendment, but i guess we will take public comment first. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any public comment on this item? >> calvin mulch from san francisco information clearing house and the human services clearing network. no difficulty with the addition of the 15 days, nor of the electronic notification. serious difficulty with what we believe has been a dramatic increase in confusion about the project. currently, section 79.2 states that approval of a project shall mean and action. a decision to award a grant and

actions of a sponsoring officer. the new language being proposed, the amendment adds be dramatically and unbelievably vague language of "a project shall mean any decision to potentially fund." have no idea what that means and i'm very happy to have sat through the first part of this committee meeting to provide legal support for civic action. i think what we're doing here is creating a full employment program for attorneys. i have no idea what any decision to potentially fund directly means. does that mean accepting federal money? does that mean accepting federal money that the community -- that will mean the community development block grant? any decision to potentially fund

is a dramatic, it seems to me, expansion from the existing 79.2, and i would urge that language to be dropped. does not deal with the findings. i do not know what it is supposed to mean, but it is extraordinarily confusing and bay. thank you. >> good afternoon. san francisco human services network. i want to echo the remarks regarding the vague language in this proposed ordinance. when i hear that, i think of a phrase that my father used to use with very young people where he would say cassette and i knew you when you were just a gleam in your father's side -- "i knew when you were just a gleam in your fathers eye."

if someone did not get required notice, could they sue and it definitely hold up a project well into its approval process? i also need to mention, around the original legislation as well as this that we do see this as an attack on projects that benefit people are or arepoor -- who are poor and who are disabled. if we want to open a child care facility that is privately funded, but is only for child care facilities that our city budget, and that is true of many projects that are going to come under this ordinance, and we are deeply concerned that the city would be setting up a special process directed towards the projects that serve vulnerable people in sanford cisco, and we hope you will take that into consideration as well. thank you. >> good afternoon. i hear the other comments in

public comment. i'm not sure that the language is vague, but i suppose it is potentially vague, and that is important. i supported this original ballot measure that former supervisor yee had proposed and passed. i support in concept the legislation. i think it clarifies some of the requirements that now exist. i think that this needs some additional work to amend the language at a minimum. for example, on 79a.5, the website notice, line 17, shot at a proposed project at the earliest time when the following events may occur -- i think those are triggering events, but the language should say "shall within 48 hours

quarter may or three working days or something so that it is more clear what the requirement is. in 79a.7, the actual notice posted and the list of those persons that were interested in the project should be forwarded to the board of supervisors. when there is consideration of a project that you actually have an interested persons list generated out of this, and i think there are some other comments we just heard. i would encourage you to continue this. i would be happy to help with that. i think that there is some work to be done