kinds of changes. among the things that are supposed to be the advantages of brt is how quickly they can implement it. their schedule said it would have revenue service by [no audio] it is 2012 now. they have to do design and construction. what are looking at, 2016, 2017 before we have a system implemented before we see any real benefit from it. the cost will be higher than the two and $58 million limit for small starters. that is the source of funds family. if they go beyond that $250 million, they do not qualify for the $100 million they might get from the federal transit administration. there are a lot of the questions that remain even though we are

several years into this project. we would rather see an easily implemented things done before this. president adams: thank you. next speaker? >> i am a member of the geary merchants prayed with all due respect and appreciation for the hard work these great people made, i want to say it is a slow economy now and i hear from the business people from comment, -- clement, geary, and richmond. maybe we should look at other options that will not have this type of destruction. thank you. president adams: thank you. neck speaker.

-- next speaker. >> thank you for bringing this up. i am the president of geary boulevard merchants association. this not the first time i have been in front of the small business commission in reference. there were good questions that were asked and i can answer. i was on the cac and we did propose a lane dedicated -- at one time we called it a diamond lane. every challenge they have put us through in claviers, we have passed a bill. it can have a bus lane here. police officers can now gives to goods. we put cameras in the front and back in inside the bus. synchronizing and lighting said

the driver when he comes in if there was a red light, he can press the button. it is activated today. they're not using it. is going to work. -- it is going to work. we're trying to compromise and trying to talk to them. it would not talk to us. they have went in front of people and told us, do not shut this -- shove this down our throats and they tried to work but it would not listen to the community. so much money is being spent for these ideas they have. there was one that can be implemented tomorrow. it can work with it will not do that. it is about jobs. you were right. if they came up with one proposal, whichever one there

was, and i can speak to us about that, we can work with him but when they come up with these different proposals and there is no answer to the parking, for the construction. we have experience would have been their last year. we are concerned. we heard about -- when i spoke about parking, they said maybe you should move to a shopping mall. this is something that i had -- i was told i should move to a dish of all -- shopping mall. i would love to work with them and i went to his office and he took a lot of notes. nothing. we went there to talk.

nothing was done. that is why we're here. they do not care that put us out of business and is the truth. president adams: thank you. any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> i have a question for staff. that is have there been the survey studies and analysis in terms of -- we hear from the businesses about the need for parking. one of the things this sounds like to me, the residents and people who go to the richmond to shop tend to go by car. if that is the case, is this being looked at as a design for getting workers downtown back

and forth? what kind of surveys, studies, in terms of the people who live there, how they shop so home, e car, and go shopping, or do they stop along the way? >> we have done surveys of sappers citywide. i would have to go back and look at the geary corridor to see what the percentages were. it seems like in many neighborhoods, the majority of people come by walking and on fit. i transit and walking. 30% to the 40% come by car. there is a common misperception that everyone comes by car.

maybe because they, or their employees might come. they may or may not realize how many of their patrons come by walking dead by transit. if we need to update them, we will fill in gaps and report to you. that would be an interesting datapoint. a lot of people travel by transit. we have 50,000 riders on geary proper. >> also the richmond has more families. and so to accommodate shopping and things with a family is different. individuamay need their cars to do that. that is why i am curious in terms of how the people live there and how they would -- how they see themselves going about accomplishing their shopping and

getting to and from work. >> will come back to you. commissioner dooley: i want to say this is the first time we have seen a major transportation proposal put in front and i just would like to urge a lot more sensitivity and outreach to the business community. i have found another project to have that extremely lacking. and the merchants, a central subway. no one in north beach new that they would dig up the streets before 10 days before the proposed the project. i urge you to look at the least disruptive way of accomplishing our goals. and really think about the impact on the neighborhood. small businesses are so fragile.

they cannot handle business disruption which may seem minor to the construction people but it is really major to the businesses. i cannot emphasize it too much and to say please do that outreach and. >> we will come back to you and come to the district merchants and to the geary merchants if there will have us. we would like to have direct communications with the merchants and we're doing so in the van ness corridor. let's see how that goes. it is a fair model. we will work closely with the small merchants all the way of to the cpm sc's. all of us need these projects to be successful and be sensitive to the needs of stakeholders. we will try to model a program

for the city through the bemis project. -- van ness project. they would like us to look at -- many of the features they describe are things that are in the project. things like relocating bus stops to the far side. things like low for buses which will come with the new set of buses. that is not the exact same thing as level boarding. it takes the creation of a station that comes to the level of the floor. it means you do not have to step up. they have described single priority. a lot of those features are in the basement but they're not without cost so they will have the cost. will we will not have is the dedicated lanes and a built-in

information. some of the features like that that many folks do want to see. they do want to see that level of investment and protection. we currently have diamond lanes or eight of the lanes -- hov lanes. that would be a challenge to propose that as a way to meet the needs of the project. when the voters asked them to look at b. r.t., some want rail and they consider brt a poor substitute. voters put in the measure and required that it would be real- ready. that would be an easy conversion if we have enough funds to do so. there is a wide range of opinion. we have a baselline option that

captures much of that. even the effectiveness project identifies geary to be brt. >> is there proposition here to try it as phase one and implement what they are recommending here as phase one? it could be. you do not like it. >> it would be difficult to add service to meet the frequency requirements of the demand in the corridor. if you do not give them the lane and give that travel time savings, the travel time savings from the full package is what we can use to recycle and give the buses more frequent service, at more frequent service on the corridor. >> i did not mean that you do not like it. that was the wrong way to phrase it. do you think it is not as simple as taking this and sank, let's

just say this, it is more complicated than that? >> you do not get the level of travel time savings. the 30% we see on van ness that allows you to offer more frequent service to deal with the man. vice-president o'brien: maybe a couple of people here are very emotional about it. people will feel very strongly and say very strongly worded statements and others will stay very mild. it seems awfully disconnected right now and lacks a lot of consensus. the businesses may not realize their customers may be coming in to rapid transit. i would caution that businesses know where their business comes from better than anyone else. just cognizant of that. i would like to see more unanimity or more harmony here. i am concerned with what i have

seen tonight. for what it is worth, that is what i think. >> will understand and we hear you. on van ness it seems that we did have more support. i am not sure why. a lot of those merchants recognize their customers to come by foot and transit. we understand there is a very experienced and in need to be sensitive to that diversity of experience and conditions. commissioner riley: thank you. mr. heller mentioned the fact that your team is not working with them and he is the president of the merchants association. can you make sure that your team works with the merchants association to exchange information? >> yes. we have tried and it is not easy to schedule a meeting with them. we tried to see your group.

it does not seem like there is meetings. i would like to so we will. commissioner riley: thank you. president adams: any other comments? we are not voting. reach out and talk to mr. heller. this goes for a buig chunk of this. i would recommend you talk to the merchants. thank you. next item. >> item 9. discussion on the average and business input on the proposal to implement a gross receipts business tax in the city of san francisco. discussion item. >> we have been engaged in the

business tax reform. since april. and tomorrow, a final proposal, proposals will be introduced at the board of supervisors to meet the deadlines for the november ballot. in your packet is some information as to what may possibly be. we're not going to have an official discussion on it tonight. to bring it to your attention and noted that the direction does seem to be going that this will no longer be a revenue- neutral proposal. that is where some of the competing entities lie in terms of what may be proposed tomorrow. whether it is one or two

proposals. that said, once we get -- once the final legislation is introduced, we will get a copy of it distributed to you and what we do need to do is make sure in our office -- we will schedule time to do outreach to businesses and make sure they're aware and are starting to provide feedback. we are starting hour second meeting schedule -- the second meeting schedule. june 25, we will have a dedicated meeting to discuss the business tax reform proposal or proposals. that meeting is scheduled from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the 25th. and there is a 30-day hold for this. if for any reason after our first meeting, there still is to be some work, we do have the opportunity to have one more

meeting a couple days before it is to be heard at the board of -- a couple days before the 30- day window. the 30-day window is open on july 12. we have a meeting on july 9. there is still one opportunity to have another hearing if we need it. the 25th will be critical for us to make sure that we do invite the small business community to come and provide information or to provide new information by e-mail as you're talking to them. and then to provide direction and comment to the mayor and board of supervisors on this. >> i want to thank the director for your efforts on this. many commissioners have been involved. commissioner dwight, you have been to several of the meetings

as have i.. i want to thank everyone for the feedback they have provided to the city on this. that is it. next item. item 10. >> just for the record, did you like to take public comment on that item? president adams: yes. do we have any public comment on item number nine, discussion on outreach and business input on the proposal to implement a gross receipts business tax in the city of san francisco? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item 10, directors report. update and report on the office of small business and the small business assistance center, update on department programs, legislative matters, and make announcements regarding small business activities. >> the mayor introduced his budget on may 31. that was h is -- his final

submission to the board of supervisors and from here on out we are having the official budget hearings by department. the schedule is through june. there will be the hearings with the objective to have whatever is the final budget to be voted on by the board of supervisors mid-july. >> it is a two-year budget. >> it is a two-year budget. a couple of highlights in the mayor's budget job-related is that he is increasing funding for work-force training initiatives around technology, healthcare, construction, hospitality, so that will be a new focus in terms of our workforce development. investments and in terms of supporting our local manufacturing and the growth of that .

together business sector. and then a commitment to roebling -- investing in the neighborhood and the job squad. how all that will end up, we will see in terms of what gets negotiated. in hopes of that -- those core elements will stay and retain for the budget and the final budget for the city. i want to thank all of you for your participation with small business week. we had an excellent small business week and i think it sounds like small sf week was a success. those two things back-to-back created a lot of excitement in the city for small businesses. this is for small business week,

this was our best year in terms of attendance. we had over 1200 attendees for the kickoff event from flavors. not hosting the awards ceremony as part of the flavors, i think the attendees, the restaurants, and you can speak to this, commissioner white, the sponsors and a resource tables really like this year much more so that they felt like the attendees were there. there were now working and talking to the sponsors and the restaurants in a way that was not just, can i have some of your food and leave. that was good to hear. for our conferences, we had over 1600 attendees for our conference which was a big increase. we also increased the number of

workshops we have provided. the one comment in closing, the tuesday night award reception was terrific and lovely. and i want to thank [unintelligible] for hosting that for us. the one disappointment it was scheduled tuesday evening so the board of supervisors could not attend because of what was being heard before them that evening. for next year, we want to keep the award ceremony separate from flavors but we need to find a better time because i know many of the board of supervisors were disappointed there were not able to attend the awards ceremony. i want to thank you, commissioners, because many of you were very involved and helped and participated. i want to thank you for helping make this a success and wanted to find out if there is any

comments that any other commissioners or the commission wants to say about small business week? >> i thought it was a huge improvement to have the business awards separate. i thought that was a much nicer way of recognizing people. the year before, it got too crazy of flavors and that was such a great idea. i want to thank you for doing that. >> i concur with commissioner dooley. i got quite a few people who gave a lot of kudos for the whole event. including the speech made to the board and the words and the event itself. just for my own personal behalf, i want to thank the director and everybody who worked very hard on it. i know the president, steve

adams here, was also instrumental and i want to recognize the efforts that were made to make it a very good event that was very successful. i did get a lot of positive feedback and i am looking forward to an even better when next year. >> thank you. >> as a restaurant that was there for flavors, it was a success for us and we got a lot of people who were able to sample our food who had not been to the restaurant and had a chance to get their cards and raffles and stop for dinner for two. it was really great. i enjoyed the whole weekend. i was busy. it was really awesome. to go to a distant -- different district from a different neighborhood. i had a good time. >> in closing, i want to thank for all his work with the board of supervisors' recognition and that we host, it is a lot of work.

but the businesses are extremely pleased and one thing we did this year is we purchased frames to give to the supervisors so the business can immediately put their certificate of recognition of in their business, framed. the board of supervisors appreciated that. for those rewachand corridors that did take advantage, -- those merchant corridors that did take advantage of the sidewalk sale, it was a very successful saturday for them. they expressed appreciation that we continue to do the fee waiver for them. >> we had in the upper market in castro, that was our best sidewalk sale. every business i talked to who participated said their sales were up and that is normally a slow week in the weekend before memorial day. the nice weather that day

certainly help as well. that was probably our best sidewalk sale as customers coming in and participation. it was not just retail. we have a lot of second story participation with massage therapists and a lot of different tax preparation people. it went really well. i was very, very pleased. >> good. i got really good feedback from the people who participated and also the people who went. the chinese restaurant i invited to participate. they bought 1200 pieces and it was gone in the first hour. there were able to get in touch with 1200 potential customers. >> and then in regard to the america's cup, we did have a

meeting at the end of the month to figure out a way to fulfill the commitments of the portion of the workforce plan that deals with business engagement and so we're working on a sort of joint proposal and hopefully within the next two or three weeks will be finalizing a weekend due -- what we can do so small businesses and local businesses can engage with america's cup and also with the teams and things of that sort. we're kind of working on what we as the commission, when we did the business engagement outreach with the authority and working to do what we can to make sure that that portion of the workforce plan is followed through with. >> the rfp's are open.

>> they have posted a couple of rfp's. on the business side. >> did you review any rfp's? >> no. >> they are not really small- business friendly. >> hopefully we will begin to engage with that kind of feedback and input. >> the catering and security rfp is due today. that is the deadline. i just sent it over the weekend. >> and then the business tax exclusion, the payroll tax exclusion that passed on its first reading. we will have a second reading tomorrow. just one minor adjustment just one minor adjustment amendment was made to that