>> actually i was going to bring up the long-term vacancies also, because i consider it one of the biggest blight problems in all of our neighborhoods and when we worked on this, there are a lot of them and many them have been closed for 25 years. so i am hoping that you guys start to think about a way to address that long-term blight. my other question is, so have all 25 neighborhoods been contacted by their community outreach person? >> well, when you say "how do you contact a neighborhood?" i think that is a great question. we do have staff, each of the liaisons, if there is a neighborhood association, or a merchants association, or a cbd, they have definitely made that contact. >> you might want to check on that, by the way okay. >> because i am the president of the north beach business

association and no contact. so just fyi, you know? maybe it's just us, but you think it's great to let all the merchant associations in on this. >> right. >> and get them involved. >> so we have been working with michelle thomas, who i know sometimes participates in those meetings, but i will make sure our liaison from north beach gets in touch. >> any other commissioner comments? i just want to say this is great. this is very great and i have been involved a little bit with the storefrontsf project and jordan, you have done a great job with that and the brokers have all over the community like it as well. what i like best about it, they have lists out there already, but they are all paid. you get a few for free and they tease you with five free, but this is a very, very good tool,

that i think will really help take care of a lot of vacancy problems in neighborhoods. we tried it in upper market, in castro about six, seven years ago. and we filled -- we almost go to 100 fill, because we had a couple of those, you know, legacy ones i will call them, vacancis that you will never change. and i do know you guys did do outreach to merchants of upper market and castro. and i like this program. i love the job squad. i love the fact that you are out there in the sup sunset and jorge is out there doing the outreach. if you are around city hall it's easy to get your permits, but if you have the job squad out in the excelsior

neighborhood and it has a huge impact on the business owner. so i think you are doing a marvelous job launching this and i have nothing, but praise for you on this program. thank you. >> thank you very much, commissioners. i wanted to say that chris has a handout that reiterates a lot of the stuff that i went over today. i would love any additional feedback you have how to reach out to stakeholders and business owners and i would be interested in coming back for a status report. >> commissioners included in your binder is the matrix of neighborhood and who the oewd staff contact is for each neighborhood. >> with that, do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on the invest in neighborhoods program, item no. 4? seeing none, public comment is closed. thank you very much, jordan. this was awesome and good job.

>> thank you >> thank you. >> next item. >> commissioners, i. 5,. >> jorge, good job, too. he is back you have to acknowledge jorge. >> item 5 presentation and discussion on the giant sweep program by the department of public works presentation by rachel gordon department of public works. >> thank you, commissioners. so i want to talk to you about the giant sweep campaign. i am rachel gordon with dpw and this is something that mayor lee with the san francisco giants launched, so people keep the city clean. we have actually had a lot of

success in the past few months in what we're doing. we're really trying to engage school-aged children from the elementary schools to high school to start thinking about how to keep san francisco clean and beautiful. so we do everything from school curriculum to doing hands-on activities with the kids and go out there and picking up garbage in a safe manner. we had a poster contest with more than 300 submissions from 22 schools and work with the department of environment, with the san francisco municipal transportation agency, with recreation and park department, with the public utilities commission. really all hands-on by city departments, really to just get people to start thinking about taking care of the city, not having it where we have kind of a valet garage pickup by dpw and this is a way that people and corporations can get involved. we have four main giant sweep

days in the city all tied to the san francisco giant's schedule. we just had our last one last weekend, where we had tabling at at&t park. hunter pence the right fielder for the giants has done an announcement saying that this is a city that we all have a stake in and one reason we teamed up with the giants on this, they had a really good message last year when they won the world series. that it wasn't one person who won the world series. it wasn't just one superstar, buster posey or sandoval that it was a team for the for everyone to pitch in. this is really a sponsor-funded campaign. we're looking at it for a three-year campaign. so far we have had success in getting partnership. we have our commercial corridor

workers doing outreach with the businesses and not just how to keep the storefronts clean, but also asking people to put the posters up. we have had more than 11,000 people sign the giant sweep of pledge and i hope each of you commissioners will considersiping it as well. it's very simple things like put the trash in the right-colored bin. if you are on a muni bus, leave your packaging on the bus. if you see someone vandalizing with graffiti or illegally dumping mattresses on the street, call 311 or 911. we just want people to start getting engaged in how we take care of our city. those are the basics of the campaign. i am happy to answer any questions, if you have them. >> any commissioner comments? commissioner dooley. >> great job. thank you very much. i think it's always great to team with the giants, because they are so popular and

everybody loves them. >> do you think they are more popular than city government? >> ? [ laughter ] >> i'm into not sure. >> thank you for listening to us. we want to get the word out and one reason we do the pledge, besides people signing up we have email blasts and programs for kids. we have a baseballs to give away, baseball tickets to give away, t-shirts and hats to make it fun for people to take care of the city. thank you for the opportunity. >> commissioner riley. >> i like the idea of having people to sign the pledge to not litter, because i always wonder, if people don't litter, we don't have to sweep. >> that is exactly right. we have a mindset that has happened with san francisco in public works, we pick up 30,000 gallons of trash and we'll continue to pick it up, but wasn't to get it to the point

that people don't toss it down in the first place. the bottom line is working with kids. we have had phenomenal response from the 6,7, 8 and 9 years old going from 2nd grade up, 1st grade up really with this campaign. we have our own mascot, not lucile, but sweepy as well. sfgiants.org in people are interested, and we're really getting rolling on this. thank you for your time. >> any other commissioner comments? >> i would like to say thank you very much for coming. i am actually the one that requested that you come today. and i did sign the pledge. and i also took the graffiti watch classes and i'm actually almost out of all of my cleaning stuff. >> we'll make sure that you get some, commissioner. >> i am on the list, which i

do like, but i want to thank you for this. this is so important especially this time of year and with america's cup coming up. it's one of the things that i used to push when i was with the castro merchants was get out there and sweep in front of your store. because we have people coming from all over the world to this city and we're known for being a very clean city, but it takes an effort to do that. i really appreciate that and people will watch this on tv and i will encourage everyone watching this on tv to go and sign up for the giant sweep and actually sweep. and don't sweep it in the street. one thing i learned in the training, people think into the streets thinking that the street cleaners pick it up and that is not cool. sweep it into a dust pan and put it in a receptacle. >> the department of public

works is there to help, if you need brooms or pickers or you want to do a special event with a merchant corridor, we're happy to help you with that. we have got the tools to help san franciscans whether it's businesses or residents, community groups neighborhood associations, we want to make this work as a partnership with people. >> yes, and they will do that. and i want to give a shout-out to peachy mathis and jim, who have both been doing the graffiti-watch trainings and going to the giant sweep events. i know there was a big one last week and you have promotions. i was at the game on friday night and they had you up on the screen. so i wanted to give those two individual shout outs, because this is important to the city. you can call 311 and they will put you on the list. it's so important for merchant corridors, just to go out there

and keep them clean, because this summer the world is going to be coming to san francisco and we want to put our best food forward. so thank you very much. and thank you for presenting today. i really appreciate it. >> thank you, commissioner, i really appreciate your time. >> any members of the public who wish to make a comment on the giants sweep program? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> commissioners, before we go on to the next item, i can work with jane to do a reminder about the giant sweep program coming up in the newsletter and link to the pledge and other information and also encourage the merchant associations as well to participate. >> thank you. >> our final presentation of the day, item 6, presentation and discussion on the healthy workplace coalition by julia parish. >> welcome. >> hi. thank you so much for having us. >> one moment while we get the

powerpoint. &i'm going to go ahead and start without the powerpoint, but you have a paper copy of the powerpoint in your folders on the left, if you want to pull it out. i may have forgotten to save it to my flash drive.

i apologize. i am the director of the heavy mother's workplace coalition and a little bit of information about who we are, is we're a collaborative of a variety of different groups in san francisco, government agencies, non-profits and employers that are committed to improving workplace polices for women and particularly for women with families and child-care obligations to promote both health outcome and generate equity in the workplace. some of our partners -- oh, you found it, so good. so we were formed basically to address health disparities and the outcomes with women with children and gender equity. our partners include the san francisco breast-feeding promotion coalition, the department of health, the sbc,

san francisco wic, et cetera. the reason is the employer polices around lactation or project pregnancy accommodation and leave really do have an affect on both the work life balance of the employees and outcomes in terms of critical health outcomes. so we are aiming to highlight employers who are providing these polices and supporting their employments, and also start a conversation about how we can work to make the polices that are in place even more effective and work for everyone involved. the way in which we're doing this, we worked with all of our coalition and we did surveys and a lot of researches about a variety of polices and created

an assessment. it's a really easy assessment. it's one-page. it's not going to be too burdensome to fill out. basically the policies are in three categories. there is lactation accommodation, parental leave and then workplace flexibility and work-life balance polices and employers can fill out the assessment in order to get an award. and we work together really hard to find an assessment that was appropriate for a wide variety of different kinds of places of businesses. we wanted it to work for small and business and places of employment that had primarily women employees and not. and so there are three levels of the award in its current form and basically the bronze level award mostly mirrors the legal requirements that are in place. so this is really about making sure that people know

the obligations that they have already to provide for their employments employees and help the employees know about that as well and also highlight ideas for ways that some employers may go above and beyond and move a higher level and get a higher award and distinct and create longer term movements in the sense for working with employees to get higher employee morale and better health, which saves health care costs and less turnover, which reduces costs and supporting working women and families in the workplace in san francisco. on the slide is a picture of the assessment, which you also have in your folders. as you can see it's one-page. it really shouldn't be too onerous. and the idea is that everyone should be able to fill it out and email it back to us.

if you have any questions, you can always email or come to the workshop that we're doing later. again, 60% of familis are relying on women for at least a quarter of their income and we want to make sure that women aren't placed in the position to choose between the ability to take care of their family and provide for their family in this particular need. so how do you apply? it's really easy as i mentioned it's a one-page assessment that you can download from our website healthymothersworkplace.org. once you complete it, you aoa mail email it back. we're having a workshop on july 25th, anyone can come and you can make any comments and we're

always happy to engage in discussion around any of these things. and there will be an awards ceremony at the federal building september 9th and all award winners will be honored at that ceremony. and if you have any questions, i am more than happy to answer them and i'm here with my colleague elizabeth, who directs the program with me. we are really excited about this and we really think it's a great opportunity for employers in san francisco to highlight their strengths and get publicity around these very important issues. when they are doing these great things for their employees, we want to recognize them and encourage that in any way that we can. >> great. commissioner dwight. >> it says here size, company must have over a thousand employees worldwide to participate. >> that is a separate initiative and there is

additional information in your folder. >> so what are your size categories? >> we have no size categories. if you see on the assessment, there is one category that has a line and above the line is fewer than 50 and below the line is great than 50. because that is the greatest divide in terms of legal requirements for what employers have to provide their employees. we hope that employers of every size will participate. >> any other commissioner comments? >> so i guess one could also use this as kind of the self-assessment to determine whether you have friendly polices or not. >> that is exactly the goal. we have talked to one employer

in san francisco, who thought this was going to be a great learning experience, to learn a lot about themselves. because some of these polices don't always come up, you know? companies sometimes don't have a lactation policy, because they haven't had a lactating employee, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't sit down and think about and have it ready. the other great thing i forget to point out, on our website, which i highly encourage you to visit and you can like us on facebook and twitter. we have a toolkit, which you also have printed out in your folders, that give sample polices. a lot of resources, for more information, we're continuing to develop the toolkit to include even more sample polices and we're trying to make it as easy and accessible as possible. you can find a lot of stuff right there on the website. >> i would also like to add to that, part of this has been informing and empowering workplaces and one of the companies that we have been working with actually was a bronze and saw a couple of

areas where they could improve their own polices and get silver. so they are actually working on that now and taking the next step, which is really the goal. >> commissioner riley? >> for each of the larger corporations they have the hr departments and are well-informed of the requirements, but for the smaller businesses, they may or may not have all of the knowledge. so what kind of outreach effort do you have to try to educate the smaller businesses? >> one of the things that we include on the website is links to a lot of these resources that explain both the polices and kind of the requirements of what is boiled down to be in this assessment. again we're trying to make the assessment as short and simple as possible. we're dealing with a lot of different laws and polices at the same time. so it's

slightly a generalization, but there are a lot of resources on the toolkit and the website that people can find and sample policies, so they don't even have to write them. >> we also recognize that a lot of people that will apply are small businesses and it can be very difficult when you don't have a hr representative who knows all the jargon. that is why we're holding our workshop in july, helping those with questions to improve their policies and we're hoping that that starts the conversation around what they can do. >> are you working with any of the merchant associations? >> we haven't directly been working with them yet, but we're hoping to reach out to them, especially through your newsletter, and other outreach. >> that's a good idea. >> thank you. >> any other commissioner comments? do we have any public comment on item no. 6?

seeing none, public comment is closed. thank you very much and chris, let's do something to get through the newsletter. >> we actually already exchanged some draft language as julia mentioned, we're part of the organization and our office has been working with them. so we have already got plans for the news letter and we'll do some outreach with merchant organizations. very excited because it's a voluntary assessment and educational opportunity for businesses on a whole host of areas related to maternity/paternity and other workplace requirements >> and proved provide a link to their website too? >> absolutely. >> thank you, commissioners. >> next item, please.

>> item 7, president's report, allows the president to report on recent small business activities and make announcements that are of interest to the small business community. >> i did speak at a all-day forum on heritage or legacy businesses in neighborhoods in san francisco and how to teach them to thrive and what works and doesn't work? as you all know lately in the news, you had the gold coast moving and other businesses closing. and so there are other businesses that have been in business in this town, you know, for as along as san francisco has been around. it was very, very informative and i actually spoke on the afternoon panel about family businesses, and there was a very good presentation by the

gelert foundation, that is based out of the university of san francisco, where they actually work with families on generation-passing from one generation to another. and if that doesn't work, selling to employees and other mechanisms. so i found it very fascinating. it was very interesting, because you would be amazed at how many legacy businesses there are in this city and how long they have been around, from hardware stores to paint stores to bakeris, victoria bakery in north beach. the jewelry stores. it really woke me up on how many small businesses that are family-owned that have been around for 100 years in the town. >> that shaped the neighborhoods. >> and are still in the neighborhoods.

i thought it was awesome and that is my report. >> commissioners, item 8, vice president's report, allows the individuals to report on recent small business activities and make announcements that are of interest to the small business community. >> i have nothing to report. >> item 9, commission reports. >> do we have any commissioner reports? seeing none, next item. >> item 10, general public comment. >> do we have any members of the public who would like to make any comments on any future meetings concerning this commission? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item 11, new business. >> does anybody have any new business? seeing none, next item, please. >> item 12 is adjournment, is there a motion to adjourn? >> i move. >> i second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> meeting adjourned.

>> commissioners, the final is 3:24 p.m. >> thank you commissioners.

. >> we are running a womens' volleyball program here at richmond rec center. it's progressing really nice. the ladies here really enjoy the exercise and the play and it's a lot of fun want this program is not for the faint at heart. it's really intense. the ladies come out. they are really going after it. they just love to play and compete. anyone can sign up. we're looking for more players. the women come from all over the city. we enjoy the program and we are getting people out to have fun in this beautiful city. >> rec and parks womens'

volleyball program is available at richmond rec center. please visit us onli >> meeting of the san francisco ethic's commission will now come to order. >> commissioner renne? >> here. >> commison