not say in two minutes and, five to seven dollars an hour. at night is exsorbative, i have three or four bands and they are not going to be on transit and i have coming from the east bay and we might make $50 or $100 a night and have to spent $40 on parking and just it has gotten to be really difficult to figure out how to work around this and but it is just really hard and i know that other nightclub owners and managers have more concerns and so if you look at evening parking if there is a way, and the businesses like ours could get some sort of permits. you know, if i could have, probably it sounds like a lot, 6 permits a night to give out to the band and staff members that need to tlb and don't have

24 hours, we don't have enough transit options later in the evening. that come to work at 5 or 6 in the evening and there to 2 or 3 in the morning and don't want to fight with public transit in the middle of the night. that is our biggest concern right now. we also have inconsistentcy and the 30 minute commercial zones and the limits even after 6:00. to go out and put a quarter in and one side, and the stations are not much and in the inconsistent and the work done and thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> hi, i have had a bookstore in san francisco for 39 years. ... (inaudible) sorry, hills. on polk street, we serve

russian hill, and knob hill and pacific heights and that means that some people have to drive their car besides the venders and a lot of things. so for small business to prevail in san francisco and to be able to employ and to serve, this must be accessible to everybody. they may have a web presence but we are face-to-face brick and motorer businesses and services. in that the written support of 3700 customers to date, and enjoying the street owners agree that any plan for polk street that removes parking is definitely not good. and in san francisco, big businesses, offering goods and services, have private and public parking for their customers. small neighborhood businesses on the other hand, typically do not have private or public parking lots or garages for their customers therefore we depend on street parking for those who because of need or

desire drive to our streets and businesses. it is a current parking is removed, those people will take their business elsewhere. that potential loss of customer and business is significant to the viability and sustainability of small businesses on polk street. i would like you to use your prestige and wisdom to negotiate for us and help us convince sfmta to abstain parking on all commercial streets and this is the best plan. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> and following this speaker, barbara, patenson, peter, duments. dr. dale motorensen. >> i am with the san francisco district, 24th street and i think that i want something to

do is to look out at it from a balanced approach and i think that the plans that are being presented by the mta is to be cookie cutter and each corridor is definitely different from the other. and this is different shopping patterns and different cultural aspects to each corridor. and, also, the neighborhood is different, for 24th street, for example, we have 100, businesses and 79 are latino businesses. and a lot of folks coming to it on sundays and a lot of customers are coming from other parts of staoet or other parts of the bay area because they are not able to find certain products but they are able to find them on 24th street. so some of the busiest day on sunday and monday is the day that most are closed. so you can say that you could not have the meters working on

monday. each corridor is different and that is the point that i am trying to make is that the community needs to be engaged from the bottom up instead of the top down and to come up with a plan to create a plan with the community for each of those core doors and i think that it is a good idea to have a representative from the small community, on the board, to make sure that it is balanced, and also for the people of color also. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> thank you. for being here for us. my name is barbara fataken and i has been a resident for 24 years and i had a brick and mortar shop for 13. it is tough to add something new, because everything that was critical, to business, has been said and i will add to it

parking meters will inhibt individual from shopping on polk street and fewer customers reduces sales tax collected for the city and loss of buyers results in business closing and loss of jobs. and what is proposed does not acknowledge the importance or the respect of the retailers that provide the products and services that meet the needs of residents and enhance vitality of the neighborhood. it is important that we maintain those aspects of san francisco, and ask that those things can considered. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> dr. dale mortensen i have a practice on pold street and my building there are several

doctors in my business and we are quite concerned because we have a lot of disabled and elderly people that can't take public transportation and they do need parking and there has been parking that was been removed on polk and jackson street at that area because of two buildings that are going up patients will have to canle, their appointment and a lot of these cannot walk more than a block. we had a lot of patients call and say as soon as these parking spaces come back then we can come in. i have been in the office for 24 years and lived for 34 years and it is a commercial district and it is not a recreation area for bicycles and all of the

years that i have practiced there we have an internal courtyard that you can bring your bikes into, i would say out of one year we see less bicycles coming into our facility. >> thank you. >> next speaker in >> sorry. hi, my name is john, wall ani am an architect and i have a small business at 17th and cal. i have 17 employees and so many of my employees take it and also take and have to drive and we have been dealing with the mta for six years and the ways of planning. i think that what reskin and the leaving cities will address, i wish that any of those processes that happened when they tried to propose to

enstall the meters through the north east mission, we have been in talks and the last committee meeting, and have the latino population had no idea that this plan is taking place and so the average is there is a lot of this has been poor. and i don't see how they can actually be honest about their out reach. they don't even bother to know to emergency addresses or identify individual businesses or surveys of the local businesses and we get in the conversation with them in regards to what our needs are and what are actually like the business permit system and they are only proposal is that only the permits can happen in the permits which are residential. and we can only consider meters as a solution. this is the only solution that they have proposed at this point and you are not being opened to the situation. there is hope that there is a

dialogue happening and i am trying to say that this agency that does not know one hand from the other and a lot of talk to help the small businesses but don't ask us, they are trying to implement a program that no one wants especially in the north east mission. so i would like to say that i would... i am a progressive person. i would like to see, the planes, six years ago, they proposed 225 parking spaces along 17th. to make that happen without any consultation. thank you. >> the next speaker, please? following is this speaker, steven cornel. dave sagan and jenna coleman? >> welcome. >> thank you. >> my name is peter goodman and i am a native san franciscoan and i have been in the picture framing business on polk street to 40 years, the strength of

the merchant district of polk street is that it is made up a lot of little businesses, independent businesses, and unlike fillmore street or union street or chest nut street, reducing parking would be the death of many of my friends and neighbors. my picture framing business would deteriorate, you can't carry a oil painting or a valuable piece of artwork on a bike or in the backpack. it is critical that the parking remains the way that it is. now as a property owner i never received a notice from the mta of this change, none of us have. aren't we part of what is going on? this is going to effect property values. and it is going to effect rents. and we have not been notified. they are friends of the small business associations. and the merchants, they hold

the critical planning meeting in december and i worked 12 hours a day, six days a week to stay alive and that is when they hold the critical meeting and say that they reach out? the speakers said it all, i don't have to repeat it, i will stop there. >> but we can't lose parking. >> or the people from other parts of san francisco are born and raise herd. once this comes on the polk street is reduced parking bicycle and they are not going to come to polk street. they will spend thousands of dollars to attract people from other parts of town and it is all going to be destroyed >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> welcome. >> thank you >> good evening, commissioners. thanks for having us. and taking up this issue. my name is dave sahagan and i am a resident here in san francisco and a business owner and a customer of many of the people here.

and i agree with a lot of what the speakers have said and especially the person that i said need balance and we do not have balance. we do not have representation from small businesses and a lot of different departments here especially mta. these proposals are going to hurt small business, i shopped on polk street and go to the hardware stores there and load up for my businesses. and you know, we got by for a cup of coffee and we are talking about removing parking meters there and yet all around here, city hall, you have, and no meters, and the people are parking for free, the city employees and this block and that block, two west now, that is hip pock cracy, we are being squeezed with tax and mandates and yet our revenue sources continue to get squeezed by

policies like this. there is no balance for those of us who raised families where you have kids and sometimes you have two jobs and your wife has a job and you are going to pick them up from school and you got to take them to basketball and baseball and go to the doctor and shopping as much as i would like to take them by bike it is hard for a trike to go from one end of the city to the other. so we need balance. and we need to stop discriminating against small businesses, family and customers that use our streets. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> welcome. thank you. >> steven, cornell i want to focus on two things, a couple of things, one is the out reach. and it is easy to say that the out reach is done and there was a lot of out reach on polk street in the north east, mission merchants association. but there is a lot of other

businesses out there, that have never been out reached and it is hard to get to at times. and on polk street there is a lot of second floor businesses and never heard about anything. and all of the businesses if you are one foot off of polk street you are never notified about anything. out reach is difficult for the merchant associations to do and it is difficult for the government associations to do. and it is something that has to be worked on. merchants don't know about these meetings and they don't even think about it until it is right on top of them. the second thing is it does not seem to be any coordination between the different things that go on in the mta. and polk street we have the vaness plan which is presented to us by the cta, the county transportation authority. the polk street plan is the nta, it seems like what is going to happen on aness has no impact on what is going on the polk street plan and we are

going to lose a lot of parking on vaness and all of the left tiners and that means a lot more traffic is going to be coming down i don't think that any of that is being coordinated with what is going on polk street. these things have to be coordinated and i would echo the thing about having a small business in the neighborhood person on the mta board and also would like to add that there is something called a bike advisory committee of the mta. why isn't there the neighborhood business committee of the mta. the businesses are very much a big part of this whole thing, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> that concludes the public comment if anybody else would like to speak you could line up on the side. we have one more, my apologies. >> hi commissioners, i am the president of (inaudible) dog patch merchant's association and i may have to wear a helmet as a say this, but our

association has looked at the decision over the last couple of years and there are many aspects of the power program that we would like and applaud and that we see great development coming into our neighborhood and we recognize the need for a management, or a managed parking plane. however the wholesale application that has been adopted in in areas by the mta does not seem to work. for instance, taking all of the parking away on polk street or introducing the meters in the north east mission that will allow the commuters to feed the meters for eight hours is not going to do anything. for the businesses in the mission or the employees. i would urge the mta to continue and increase that out reach to the businesses and residents who seem to be opposed to any type of parking management in the dog patch neighborhood. but further out reach is needed.

i actually it seems to me that i get e-mails about meetings and then i heard from our members that don't know nothing about it and no i heard of out reach when the meters and parking was taken away on the mission street from some of the merchants there. and so obviously there was a failure there in the out reach and i know that it is difficult but i would urge mta to increase their efforts in this area and make an sf park program that can work for all of us. >> thank you. >> any other speakers? >> welcome. >> thank you. my name is jenna heart man and i actually manufacture apparel here in san francisco. proud member of sf main, and i also have a brick and mortar store just off of polk and it is a dream come true, having a store and manufacturing my own line and we have big plans for a very young growing business.

and i feel like a lot of my customers number one are grandmothers and also mothers that generally have 1.5 percent, and that are running around and could not ride your bicycles with a gallon of milk which i need to buy every year and so i am definitely for getting the measure a for the polk street and i want the street to be safe and i feel like we could do a lot of work just for public service announcements and for everybody to just pay attention. i feel like we are all very distracted in our mode of safety of polk and it is a huge concern for me and i have lived there for 13 years and i shop there and the business is there and i walk everywhere and i love my neighborhood and i want to continue to grow my business. so thank you so much for your consideration. >> could i ask you a quick question, are you supporting the removal of the parking? or are you saying that leave the parking? >> i am supporting keeping our

parking, for all of our customers. >> thank you. >> yes. >> welcome, my name is elizabeth shifert and i own a business on polk street and i also the first one that there were probably 20 people who showed up, the second one, maybe there were three? for a lot of the time i was the only person there so i got a very, i just spoken to by the members of the mta directly. all of the plans were explained to me and the four options and i never once realized that they were trying to take out all of the parking. it is not only that the out reach was not there. but it is also that it was not

clear, what the situation was and, what they were trying to accomplish which they would have accomplished if there were not some flags raised after the meetings. thank you. >> any other member of the public that would like to make a comment in come on up. >> i am a biker and i eat, and

because there is so much, on polk street going on. and between the selection and the people walking across the street and it is a massive hub of where the shopping happened and there are so many pedestrians and with the cars and it is not the proper place it is not just one area, >> thank you. any other comments on item number 6? >> see none, public comment is closed. commissioner comments? >> commissioner dooley? >> i think that is seems pretty clear that there is a big ask out there to have representation at mta. for small businesses, be it

business out reach employee, i think that it would solve a lot of the problems that we are hearing and help to solve some headaches for mta and for small businesses. the out reach has not been adequate for many different reasons and not all of them mta's fault and but it is still out there that it is not just adequate. to help out and serve the small businesses who are really busy people, and you know they need someone as an advocate and looking after their interest and communicating with them on a regular basis. >> thank you. >> commissioner ortiz? >> thank you for all of the small business owners that came out here today. with the small business providing about 50 percent of the jobs in san francisco, bike lanes to eliminate those jobs and have no need for bike lanes any more with no people in the city. but, i think that this is a intoed time, this is just shows that we are progressive city

and we are growing as a city and i really feel that mta does not sit down and say how can we take part? and this is a learning process for both the business community and the mta and i think like everybody here said, it has to be targeted to the specific communities and i think that we can get through this and it is a learning process for both sides and i am excited and like my commissioner co-commissioner julie said there has to be some representation on this mta side. small business. >> thank you. >> commissioner white? >> yes, obviously, i want to take all of the small businesses for coming out i am actually also a small business owner and there is also out reach issues for things that happened in our community. since we know that it is a big

vital part and we are hearing all of the concerns of the small business with the loading issues supporting their workers. >> to come to work for them. to, you know, be able to conveniently and not taking the business elsewhere. my question is hear those things and not knowing the other side from the bikers that actually are you know, that this lane is for, what plan has been in place, or where are we now with hearing these concerns? and addressing them? >> for polk street. >> so i understand your question, are you asking what the status of the project? >> yes. i mean with these concerns that have come forward. >> right. >> because it seemed that they got involved so late. so >> they did. >> so, yes, so when i outlined

those four meetings that we have with the safeco, coalition, and the residents on polk street that were disturbed by the idea that all of the alternatives included some level of parking removal and went to the city manager and mta with those concerns and put the process on hold and put the workshops with them to work with them to have them develop an option similar to your question commissioner adams about what happens when a commission says we don't want any parking removal and so we worked with them to sort of draw up what that would look like, and so now four of our six alternative dos include a minimum amount of parking removal and two alternatives came from that group and the work with that group and the meetings and so those are on the table for consideration, we have 600 people coming through

to hear from all sides, and as you can imagine, the people will jump to the positions really quickly. and but i think that we can, the status is now that we take all of that input and have the survey up and we are continuing to get the input and the staff will make a recommendation and we will have another public meeting where we show here is our recommendation for the corridor and what we think that the design will look like and then the next step is to that inenvironmental review and we have been testing all of these ideas against what happens when the msbrt and the 1601 larkin, when they are in place what does it look like? will any of these things work? >> so we will go into a formal environmental review process to disclose all of those impacts and do that detailed analysis and then design and legislation and approval by the mta board is schedule for probably late fall. and then, it would go into full

design and construction some time in 2015. before the sbrt is constructed when polk street is repaved and so that is where we are in the process, does that answer your question? >> yes, some what. >> so we are still in the decision making mode is the right way to characterize the project and you know meetings like this one and with say polk and any future conversations would inform the recommendation ta we may make. and that will make the continual out reach going further. >> that is a place that mta and a lot of work and the streets in the planning and they are in the environmental review or design. >> and and we will establish a regular newsletter for the project and a regular website for the project and public

meetings and the public hearing on the project that comes before the legislation which is another place to do evaluation and we will gather survey and do all of that work. and maybe come back to the community when we have a final design and as an open house to walk the people through that and look for ways to stay in touch so that property ject does not go da, and show up on your doorstep five or two years from now, having not said anything in the interim. we are hoping that those kinds of communication opportunities will be available. >> thank you. >> commissioner rilely? >> yes, now that we have heard it loud and clear, parking is a real issue, so, i'm looking forward to hearing your next plan. how to take that into consideration, to not take a lot of parking spaces away as well as accomplish what you need to accomplish and i personally go to polk street and bush for meeting all of the

time and now i find that the garage, the parking garage on polk is always full, so i have a real problem finding a parking space to go to my meeting. so, i guess that we need to take a look at how to keep the existing parking space. as well as how do we maybe, allow, if mta is not going to build any more garage and maybe allow the private sector to build the garages to meet the needs of the neighborhood, thank you. >> commissioner o'brien. >> so, a couple of comments, one seems to be a real exclusive interest here between business and the bicycle advocates which is going to be difficult to reconcile, for at least to be recognize that up front and we can do something about it. kind of getting back to that summer set area, i don't think that it