consideration i will go out of business, neither i or the seasonal workers can approve 3 to 6 percent of our wages for parking. we cannot travel to multiple sites every day plus pick up kids sometimes from two or three different schools on muni. much is made in san francisco. over the last two decades i is watched in 16th and harrison area, you have gone from three dozen to a handful of businesses. we have worked so hard and planted hundreds of trees and constantly take the graffiti and sweep the streets and now we are are being pushed out. i am not unusual that i travel every month up and down hills to and from my home to a physicians to manage a illness to various day jobs.

picking up kids at several schools and incidental food and shopping and that does not count, the art exists or the exhibit involved loading huge paintings in order to have customers come to my small space, they want to be able to park. and please, please, please allow us to remain the small businesses, by either issuing us parking permits. or making some provision for us, our customers support us as local hand made in san francisco, businesses and we really hope that you share that commitment and that vision. and will allow us to stay, without parking and without it we will be out of business. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> good evening, commissioners, i'm pat christensen and i am here today consumer.

a customer. and i have been watching mta for a lng time as you probably many of you know, and i would like to ask them, to please pay attention to us who are the customers who need the parking so that we can go into these small business and conduct our consumer goods. it is my personal policy, and it has been ever since i lived in san francisco, to do all of my shopping in small businesss in san francisco. in the neighborhood commercial zones. it is getting more and more difficult to do so. and i cannot use public transportation personally. and so i drive a car and i need parking and i need to be able to have consideration from mta where they put the bicycle zones as planned. because it is difficult to get in and out of the car and have

the bicycles comes along very rapidly. and on valencia street where the business has that office i can park there usually, but i can have to be very, very weary of opening my car door and watching for bicycles coming along and they come very, very quickly. in 1970s, i am not opposed to bicycles because in 1955, my husband and i bought our first ten speed bicycles and we toured all over california with those bikes. so i love them. but we need to be very, very careful not to force these customers in our cities to go to the malls where they can find parking and convenience. so, just a heads up please, thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker please? >> welcome. >> thank you. >> a great time and i will be very brief.

my name is chris, and i am actually representative south beach mission bay business association and a small business and a residents and i love the city. i used to work for a large corporation as well back in the day when i was much younger and one of the key things that i want to remember is and i hope that everyone here remembers that we think about all of our citizens in the community and all of the neighbors and the businesses and the people that don't have a voice. i do want to give and i know that it is a difficult job for the mta and the collision for the sport but we need to be thinking and viceling and giving each person an opportunity and so i appreciate that as well. the one thing that i wanted to mention is on the last person who spoke is i am in incredible health right now and fortunate and young my grandfather is 93 years old and comes to the city and any time that he comes here he has a place to park and a place to visit local, small businesses. one of the things is that also i am a bicyclist myself and so i do want to make sure that

they have rights. but i also want to make sure that they are following the laws and so i do appreciate, the bicycle coalition, and training people to make sure that they are following laws and rules. and then, of course, i want to make sure that for what is going on polk street and the small businesses in the area are having their voices heard because we stand with people in neighborhoods and the small business owners who are struggling and having a difficult time and it is a very tough time when you look at certain someone mentioned earlier looking specifically at each neighbor because i know that each neighborhood is in struggle. i do appreciate your time and thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> welcome. >> thank you. thanks for hearing, my name is cat carter. and we swapped spaces because he had to get going. so i am the general manager of

the hotel saloon. i guess that i am one of paoement that fell through the cracks i had no idea that they were coming until a couple of weeks that they did. and i got a notice and now it has gotten very clear and a lot of other things that i could 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 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 and i 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 ento 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, 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? s that conclude

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 anthen 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