>> 2013 meeting, the time is now 5:40 p.m., and the meeting is being called to order. first item is roll call. >> before we call order, would i like ask members of the public to turn off all cell phones and pagers. and please sign in at the front table if you would like to be added to the mailing list. public comment will be taken on each item and speaker cards are available at the front table. if you fill out a card and you can leave it at the front and i will retrieve them. we would like to thank sfgov tv and city hall media services for the constant support of our meetings. >> adams? >> here. >> dooley? >> here. >> commissioner dwight?

>> here. >> commissioner o'brien. >> here. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> here. >> commissioner cartagena? >> here. >> commissioner riley? >> here. >> commissioners that brings you to item number two, public comment? >> do we have any members of the public who would like to make comment on any item that is not on today's agenda? >> seeing none, public comment is closed, next item. >> the general public comment, sir? >> okay. >> general public comment will be limited to three minutes. >> if you can please state your name clearly. >> sure. >> good afternoon, my name is (inaudible), and i'm the resident of (inaudible) association. and i was hoping that when i come back to your meeting, that it would be for the purpose of

(inaudible) lombard street, (inaudible) and i have to speak on behalf of (inaudible) about the confusion, the confusion of the published agenda item number two and three. it is totally confusing whether the commission is discussing whether or not to continue item number three, or whether we take action today? >> sir? >> i have to interrupt you. that is item number three and this is on public comment on any items that are not on today's agenda. >> so it will have to wait until three is called. >> okay. >> thank you. >> any other members of the public that would like to make comment on any item that is not on tonight's agenda? >> okay, public comment is closed. next item three? >> commissioners, the next item is proposed for continuance, the commissioner will continue a request for a continuance to a later date, the commission may choose to continue the item to the date below and to

continue it to another date or hear the item on this calendar. item three, presentation and possible action regarding the potential impact of the proposed pet food express store at 2460 lombard street on small business pet store retailers, this is a discussion and possible action. and it is proposed for continuance to july 22, 2013. >> and commissioners as stated on the introduction remarks you may choose to continue this item to the date proposed or continue it to another chair or to the call of the chair. >> okay. >> commissioners? >> i would recommend that you take the public comment before taking action. >> okay. >> commissioner white? >> i would like to request that we have a continuance date outside of july 22nd. >> okay. >> commissioners i would recommend taking public comment, first and then having a discussion. >> and so we have public comment on item number three. for the continuance of the pet

food express. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is (inaudible) and i'm the president of the lombard merchant association i was hoping that it would be for the purpose of explaining the status of the street and supplying the neighborhood corridor and unfortunately like the last meeting, i have to speak about the confusion, and once again the confusion of the published agenda two and three it is confusing whether the commission is discussing whether or not to continue item three or whether it to take action today. it sounds like any action is possible. and please don't forget that i am a small business owner too and the same is true for many of the members of the (inaudible) and i have to come here again for i don't know what the reason. and also, it is not possible for me to notify the lombard

street merchant to come on short notice and whether it is unclear and lastly, it is very important to us that the hearing to be continued to allow us an opportunity to give input and in this situation and to question the same impact on small business, if you could please come to lombard street. >> thank you. >> and okay, commissioner, dwight? ? i mean, commissioner white? >> yes, i was just recommending for staff to look into another date, other than july 22nd for this agenda item. >> commissioner dwight? >> i do want to be sure that we have an opportunity to hear comments at another meeting before the planning commissioner is schedule to look at this. because i have personally done some research on this to educate myself. and i do definitely want to hear from the local merchants.

>> second? >> any other comments? >> so, do we know then? the planning commission? >> there is still not a date. >> we need to make it the 22nd or a date that staff finds that we can get everybody together and what is convenient. >> is there any reason why we would not make it the 22nd? >> i think just to make sure that we are most flexible in dealing with the matter that we have on the agenda today, if we do need to... i am not sure what the timing of that is. so, and it may... you know, it may be staff will take or make sure that we take the best effort in mind to work with the schedule of the commission. and the planning commission. >> okay. >> in scheduling it. >> as long as we consider both the needs of ourselves, planning and the constituents so that they have time to

prepare and to get the word out to their folks that they can show up. because i don't want anyone feeling like they got rushed but i do not want to miss the planning commission's schedule on this. >> i would agree. >> okay. >> and you want to make sure that we have... >> i want to be certain that we have weighed in with having heard from the people who are affected by it. and i don't feel that we have heard everything that we need to hear from the constituents. >> well i am going to going to go out on a limb and apologize to the speaker that just spoke because i think that this agenda was very confusing. and i think that it is unfair that people are trying to pay attention to what is happening with their political representatives and other political members of the community. and that is part of running a business in san francisco. and i think that this pretty tough to try and be on

top of it. i read that and i was a little bit confused, i said am i hearing this or not hearing this, should i be preparing this or not preparing for it so i am going to make that statement to the gentleman that just spoke. and not happy with the way this has evolved from before. and i am concerned about it. and i just needed to make that comment for the record. i hope that what ever decision we make here, will be in good faith, will be first and foremost to the process of fair hearings, and fair comment from all parties, free of anybody's particular personal feelings about big or small or any other aspects and i will go along with whatever the best decision

is as long as we have that in mind. >> commissioner dwight? >> likewise, i want to make it clear that i was not prepared last time and i was not happy about that and i have done the research on my own and researching the neighborhood and walking the neighborhood and i will continue to do the research and that is why i want to hear what the people have to say about this issue before making any decision and i think that it is incumbent upon us to do that. >> commissioner riley? >> why are we not hearing it today? >> because we have the bigger presentation today. >> can we hear both? >> do you want to be here until midnight? >> once we set the date and i just don't understand it. >> we did not set a date last time. >> we moved it to the 22nd. and i have that to the 22nd. >> through president adams, we did set a date last night which

was this meeting but we did not know about the ordinance that we are hearing today at that time. and so once the ordinance was referred to the office, president adams and i consulted about how best to agendaize what was the staff's schedule and the fact that i was going to be away for three weeks prior to this commission meeting. and just what... or how best to manage the responsibility on both staff's plate and the commission's plate, for this meeting. >> okay? >> okay. >> and that does make sense, i understand that. and i think that was the right decision, this other ordinance is a big deal. and that is probably needed to get this attention. so i am okay with that. and i would love to have some kind of assurance that we get, or as the commissioner dwight indicated to get to weigh in on

this before it goes to the planning commission and again i have apologized to the pet food community for what has happened. but hopefully we can give them a timely notice and have this heard before it goes to the planning commission. >> commissioner dwight? >> i would like to make sure that we know who the key people are that we need to contact in the community. like the gentleman who just spoke and any other key representatives so that they know in advance, when and what we are talking about. so that they can come prepared. okay? >> so, if they are unknown to us, however, it is that we make ourselves known to them, please make sure that we know who we are contacting in the community so that they can get the word out to the community. if it is a merchant association or pdma i know who to get in touch with. make sure that the merchant association and as well as the key constituents know how to be notified. >> a motion and do we have a

second? >> the motion was not july 22nd. >> that is correct. >> it was the call of the chair? was that the motion? >> was the motion to the call of the chair? >> yeah, the motion was to continue at a further date that staff felt appropriate based off of making sure that everybody had enough time. >> but before planning. >> right. >> would the director be more appropriate to the call of the chair or okay to be directed to staff? >> and it can be either or. >> okay. >> to the staff, if that is what the commission would like the staff to make that determination? and the staff can conduct with the chair. >> and the chair which, if i have any advanced notice that is the call of the chair. >> so we don't know yet when planning is going to hear? >> no. >> we don't have a date.

>> okay. >> okay. i think that you have commissioner dooley, she seconded it? yeah. >> okay. >> what was the motion? >> do you want to read it back. >> i have the motion made by commissioner white is to direct staff to calendar prior to planning with advanced notice to all interested parties. >> yes. and seconded by commissioner dooley. >> okay. >> on that motion, commissioner adams? >> yes. >> commissioner dooley? >> yes. >> commissioner dwight? >> yes. >> o'brien. >> yes. >> ortiz-cartagena? >> yes. >> white. >> yes. >> commissioner yee riley? >> yes. >> that motion passes 7-0. >> next item? >> commissioners this puts you on the regular calendar, item four, discussion and possible action to make recommendations

to the board of supervisors on board of supervisors file number 1 30622, administrative code, san francisco family friendly workplace ordinance, motion ordering submitted to the voters in the ordinance amending to the administrative code to allow san francisco based employees who are care givers to request the flexible work arrangements subject to the employer's right to deny a request based on specific undue hardship, require that the employers give advance noticed of changing in the employee's work schedule, prohibt adverse employment actions based on care given status, prohibt interfer ans with the rights or retaliation against the employees for exercising rights under the ordinance, require employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the ordinance, require the employers to maintain records regarding with the compliance with the ordinance and authority enforcement by the office of the labor standard enforement

including the imposition of the remedies and penalties for a violation and an appeal process independent hearing officer, authority waiver of the provisions of the ordinance in a collision bargaining agreement, and making environmental findings to the voters of the san francisco at an election to be held on november 5, 2013. >> welcome supervisor, and president chiu. >> thank you, and good afternoon, thank you commissioners. and as a former member of the small business commission and as a former founder of the small business, i want to just thank you for your service, and for your consideration of all matters related to our small business community. and i also want to thank the members of the public who have taken the time out to talk about our proposed family-friendly workplace ordinance. let me first start off by saying that i was a little surprised at the attention that the ordinance received. and i think that the policy that we are proposing is quite

modest and with that being said, i want to thank the literally... (inaudible) have had hundreds of conversations over the last couple of weeks and i want to thank many of you as well as leaders in the community who have reached out to my office and thanked them for the feedback and much of which we have incorporated into the draft that you have in front of you. let me take a few moments to talk about the imp itus, behind this and what it does. >> it addresses the challenges for faces working families. p way going up in the 70s, the typical family as you can imagine was that of a working father, and a stay at home mother, in fact at that time, over half of all families met that description. today, less than 1 out of five families meets that description. and over that same time period, we have seen the number of single parent house holds double. and today, as i think that we

all know, is women make-up half of the workforce, and in fact, out of four out of ten families women are actually the primary bread winner and i think that you know that san francisco families in recent years have been very challenged. and there have been a lot of reasons why san francisco families have seen challenges even though our local san francisco economy has been booming. we have had issues with our schools, we have issued with housing and others. but i have heard, from hundreds of parents, about the challenges that they have in balancing their work and their personal life. and in trying to be both good employees and good parents. part of these challenge surround to pick up the children from the daycare and bringing the kids to the soccer practice or the doctor's appoints. when we talk about the challenges facing our families we are talking not just about the challenges that the parents have with the kids or the challenges that the individuals

have taking care of spouses who may be ill, taking care of folks who are in the sandwich generation who are taking care of their parpts and all of these are challenges that have made life more difficult for the folks who are working and are still trying to provide care giving to these individuals. the proposal that you have in front of you, at its core, i believe, is extremely modest. what it does, is it creates the right of the employee. we have to create a safe space and the conversation around the possibility that the employee could potentially change a shift or could maybe go and work part time and work part year, and engage in job sharing or y number of what people now understand as short of the 21st century and the working arrangements and now the legislation though, also says that any employer, if they

received a request, can deny such a request as long as there is a valid business reason and we defined that. and it could be that there is any increase to the bottom line of a company. it could be that there may not be a shift available. >> customer demand may not be able to be met and there may be not enough work at the time that is requested. and we specifically exempted in the first version of this legislation, any small business that had less than 10 employees. and then, as part of the legislation, we wanted to make sure that if there was retaliation around these and if there is discrimination based on the fact that someone was a care giver, that there be protects for the employees, and as we do with other local employment and labor ordinances, this is an ordinance that will be enforced by our office of labor standards enforcement. now this idea came to my office, because it has been very successfully carried out in other countries, so it can go to england or ireland or new

zealand, the right to request was put into place a number of years ago and it has been extremely successful. and so for example, in britain, in the first year after this law passed, over a million individuals, requested a potentially more flexible working arrangement. nearly all of these requested were granted voluntarily and the experience of the employers have been good. and i will talk about that in a moment. in most of these countries, these countries after the experience of working with the right to request for care givers, the experience was so positive, and that a number of these countries actually moved to expand the right to request to all employees. and at this time, you might have seen the newspapers in congress and there was a senator and a member of the house, who have proposed these similar national law and here in the united states, and we have just learned that the state of vermont has actually implemented a law of the type that we are talking about today. let me talk a moment about why

is it that employers have found this policy to be a good one, and it is sort of what you would expect. and if i could just boil down the simplicity of what we are talking about. this law boils down to nothing more than the following interaction, if i, for example, if i have a child, if i have a six spouse or i am trying for take care of an ill parent and if i work for the president of this commission and for mr. adams, i would provide to mr. adams a piece of paper that says that i would like to propose a particular flexible working arrangement. and the president would then have an opportunity within a few weeks to give me some feedback on that to either accept that suggestion or to deny it. based on various business reasons. and if i would prefer to have a different answer than the one that mr. adams gave me, i would have the opportunity under this legislation to request a meeting. that is it. that is what we are talking about. now, when employers have granted employees a more

flexible working arrangement, there are good things that come out from that. as you can imagine the employees who receive these arrangements they are happier employees and they are more productive employees and more satisfied employees and more loyal employees. and what hr studies have shown in these sorts of arrangements the number of absentee rates go down and the turnover rates go down. and studies have shown that this actually positively impacts the bottom line of companies and i have a fact sheet, that lays out a summary of all of the studies by hr professionals in the united states and beyond of the positive economic impact of what we are talking about here. and now, i also want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the many san francisco businesses that already have workplace policies of the type that i am talking about, many business leaders and my conversations in the last couple of weeks have told me that the companies already do it. for the companies that are already doing this, this

ordinance will not add anything in addition to that, but it will also, though, insure that all employers, and all employees fall under this policy. and from my perspective i do do think that if many san francisco businesses are already doing this, we should celebrate this and should say that and hopefully be an example like other jurisdictions of how we ought to engage in the relationships in our workplaces. >> let me also say that this was a measure that we drafted and we introduced it quickly in part because we wanted to make sure that if there were amendments to be made in our process that we can do that and i want to thank the commission for your consideration today and i of course wish that wi we had a little bit of time that we got feedback before we introduced it. i am working on a few too many things at this moment but the past is the past. i want to talk about the amendments that we have made

that are in the draft that you are working at right now to address a lot of the concerns that were provided to us in many meetings with the business leaders as well as in particular the advocates for the small business community. there were issues that were raised with the possibility of asking for not just flexible but a more predictable work schedule, it applied to all employees and now it applies to all care givers in the first draft, the predictbility language was crafted as a requirement in this draft and crafted as a request and in the first draft there was the idea of a requirement for all employees of two-week's notice and in this draft based on feedback from some small business leaders we heard that one week might be more appropriate and we added some language to insure that simply requesting a more predik able

work schedule should not engage in more interactions. >> other changes, there were a bit of misunderstanding around, the possibility that an employee, if they received an answer they didn't like, could somehow file, numerous appeals with the office of labor review and that is not part of the ordinance. >> to make that clear we have included language to state ta there is no right of an employee appeal to osc, osc is an independent agency and if they receive a complaint and they think that there is something to it, they can investigate, there is no right to an actual appeals process by an employee or an employer. and there were also questions around the possibility of a city agency looking into whether or not the particular business reason was valid or not. and hearing that feedback, i was comfortable with specifically stating that, that would not be part of the purview of osc and that language is in this ordinance

as well. there were a number of suggestions on how to more cleanly limit this measure, so i want to mention, there was a suggestion that every week an employee could ask an employer for some sort of flexible working arrangement. there would only with two requests a year unless there was a major life change and that would involve the birth of another child or adoption or illness of someone in the family. >> we also were asked by small business advocate to make sure that an employee had a minimum number of working hours-per week before this applies to him or her, this included the threshold of a minimum of 8 hours per week. and there was also, some language and frankly we went through the ordinance and called the language that i think was confusing, and for example, suggestion of a 90-day presumption if i may say this as an employer who terminates an employer after the request

for a flexible working arrangement be added and removeded that language and also have eliminated other language that i think is unnecessary that was suggested by members of in particular the small business community. >> and i want to mention that there was a suggestion that if, if there was a predictable work schedule that was asked for and there was a particular shift that was assigned for a certain day and it turns out that there is not enough work for that day, we specifically say that if there is insufficient work, the employer can alter that predictable arrangement. one last thing that i will mention, initially we referred to an employer being able to deny a request based on undue business hardship. we have changed that language to clarify, that what we are saying is that if there is any good faith business reason, and again, anything that adds to the bottom line of a business, and that that could be a reason to deny a request. at the end of the day, we are talking about creating the

opportunity, the space for a conversation, and a negotiation and a policy that has been well tested in other jurisdictions, i want to thank you for your consideration and i am happy to answer as many questions as you want to discussion. and he will be presenting his economic analysis of this. . >> good evening, ted eagan, this legislation has introduced about three weeks ago. and did you know that we have an obligation to report on it having a material economic impact within 30 days. and given the scheduling of your meeting, i was asked to prepare not our final report, which is not prepared yet, but

our thoughts on this legislation as of this point. our final report is probably two or three days away and so we are quite close to it, but i want to clarify that this is based on our reading so far. if we could go and ask sfgtv to go to the presentation? and i can take it from there. i also wanted to just clarify for you that we received president chiu's amended legislation on july third and this is based on the analysis of the amended version of the legislation, as the supervisor told you there was significant changes between the original and the amended version but what we are talking about is the new amended version. first i want to give you an overview and i will echo what the supervisor told you, but i just want to set the stage sfo some of my later remarks. and what it essentially does is allow a qualified employees, a certain number of employees in san francisco to make one or two types of request, a flexible working arrangement or

a predictable working arrangement. from a certain set of employers in san francisco. now a qualified employee is anyone who is responsible for the care of a child, or a serious medical condition or taking care of a parent over the age of 65 and has to have worked for the employer over 6 months and work eight or more hours a week, it is important to consider that temporary workers are included. so a temporary worker as the way to legislation is written now may make a request to the agency that employs them or to the client in which they are placed and show up and work during the day, as the supervisor said two requests may be made during the 12 month period unless there is a major event occurring. the covered employees are really two sets, and every private employer, in san francisco who rights ten or more employees as well as the city and county of san francisco, itself, to put