>> and oh, oh i see something -

>> good afternoon it's 208 and the small business meeting is called into order. item one we're going into roll call >> commissioner president adams. commissioner dooley. commissioner dwight. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. commissioner paul. commissioner riley and commissioner white not here. item two is general public comment this allows the general public comment to comment on meters within the committees purview do we have any members of the public that want to speak >> any must be of the public

want to comment on items noted on today is taunted general comment is closed. >> item 3 is the possible action to make recommendations to the board of supervisors on file number 1040798 this is a business tax regulation code amending the common administrative provision and payroll tax expense and gross receipt tax it is the tax and regulation dpoed code by revising the payroll expenses and making the amount consistent with the requirements for small business exemptions and second and third clarifying the group engaged in business in san francisco must reshlg with the tax collective e collector and

the register fee and number 5 clarifying the basis of the regulation fee and 6 deleting obsolete provisions this afternoon you have the protective manager of the office of the treasure and tax clerk providing you with a presentation today. >> welcome. >> good afternoon commissioner thank you for having us this afternoon i'm going to be joined by the mary ann from the department of workforce development in addition to talking about the changes we're making or we're proposing to the business tax registrations code i want to give you an update around the gross receipts tax you can know about that and take that back to our various constituencies and communities.

as the regunmen said this is our annual administrative active changes and the changes this year are really driven by our looking at the implementation of the gross receipt tax and finding that the law has passed did a good implication of who had to file and when tlgs situations when it might unclear for small businesses about when they had to file particularly if they didn't have a tax liability so we're going to help you to understand the filing relations and they've been go driving ivory driven by the amount of tax you pay but that's evolving it is more consistent as a matter of how much payroll tax and gross e gross receipts and

corporate structures that may or may not effect small businesses but small minor regulation requirement and the final item that the er is working on or we're proposing is that is this does effect new businesses in san francisco previously under current law someone came in the month of april or may and they were starting their business the way that the law worked they would have to registration their business with the renewal period they'd have to come back and pay thirty days latter to renew for next year we thought this the silly so we're striving when someone paid we have to issue within thirty days their certificate even if not

effective until july one we'd have to issue it increase in the mid of may people had to come back we thought it was not very convenient for small businesses so, now once this law changes you can come in and registration and pay nor the current year and the year coming up and we'll issue our certificate for july one this will be a slight administrative active convenience for those new small businesses but we think it will be simple they'll appreciate this and certainly someone that has done it in the past knows it's frustrating. i want to first of all, ask for questions and get into talking about what we've done around the gross receipt taxes

>> all right. 0 so i'll bring up mary an with the office of department of workforce development she and i will talk about what we've been doing with our outreach who we've been talking about and give data on that. >> sfgovtv we're going to be doing a power point from the computer. good afternoon commissioner president adams and commissioners. regina thank you for having us here today, this is our update on what we've done with the gross receipts to date >> ems we've been here before our original outreach was heavy allow front loaded our goal to hit all the businesses prior to the paying the register fee in

may. and we feel that we did a are good job we sent out a survey and 67 percent of those applied to the surveys about the changes in the tax prior to the business register fee. so on a high-level this kind of you show us what we've done we did one hundred and 73 plus online impressions that was people that clicked on the media and some which that included our social media we partnered with interesting organizations unified to help us get our language and information out that are that there we did 23 presentations 34 with organizations and successors and that's high-level that didn't go into speaking one-on-one on the

tax. this slide shows you we launched a website in january this is kind of an overlay of a number of his that went to the website during certain periods in particular like the neighborhood newspapers our hits went up and the engross receipts fee people went directly to the website or directly to 311. this particular graph i've i'm going to turn it over to greg many say our calls to service 311 >> good afternoon this is a chart i know it's hard to read on the power point it's not report you have towards the back. this is showing how many calls we've received at the office of the treasurer tax clerk from

311. i've offer ladies the time periods in blue is the calls received in 2013 and in orange the calls received in 2014. you'll see that if you look at the data around april and may in april we saw an increase in the calls during the first quarter when we had the first gross receipts fees and if you look at the comparison between 2013 and 2014 we saw a decrease in the number of calls to 311 to our office. another the first week of may we sent out the notice hey, it's time to register we saw a decrease because i'm sure you're aware of you got three or four conversations in our office saying something has changed get

ready we've had our outreach and the hundreds of thousands of online impressions and our engagement in the community. so we believe that that really helped us to reduce the amount of people calling into 311 needing the help and we were able to help them and get the register so we counted that as one of the successes of our outreach we're excited about that. >> so also with regards to the comments i'd like to say there was a lot of work put into what we sent to 311 to their knowledge base so myself and grass worked hard through 311 and the consumer representatives to make sure they had the information one of the things this slide speaks to had a

responsibility issue we give them information and beyond that those are actual questions that 311 could not answer and had to refer to the offers of the go tax collector. >> good. >> thank you. so where do we go from if here we're going to continue our outreach in a very not necessarily in an aggressive manner but trying to reach out to the agrees we were not able to context connect with the merchant organization and reflect that the tax changes in effect. we're going to help seek help

for businesses to be able to prepare for the february 2015 deadline for getting more detailed information graeg is working on that and seek partnerships restraining order different organizations for instance, greg and i had a skeptic meeting with the tax commission i'm sure you're aware of all the taxi drivers have to register with the city and one of the things we've discovered with the fee he period they all came to file at the treasure and tax collectors office that created a long cue and had a lot of customers waiting we're going to partner with them so next year when the register fee is due it will go to the taxi commission. those are some of the partnerships we're seeking out and opportunity for associations to perhaps invite like the

apartment association to invite people into the office and help them with the last filing for 2015 because most of the smallest apartment owners that will be two or 3 questions they'll be fine so we're going to seek out the partnerships with different organizations to help with the 2015 deadline. and then lastly we have a focus on delivering positive customer service at the end of the day people are going to be better served if we give them positive customer service and promptly answering their questions and if we don't have the what's-her-name to find out them. that concludes my presentation. . i want to say that i very much want to thank regina for the

meetings she helps us to do our best by small businesses. this partnership between the office of small business and the office of department of workforce development has had great working relationships and we've achieved a lot in the last few months. we're looking forward to doing more. i'd like to call out commissioner riley i had an interim this summer part of his job was a work with the chinese-american community and he was able to come back with a comprehensive report and at least i want to call out a new person to our team susan she'll be helping with the outreach and greg has a new person as well if you have any questions, i'll be happy to answer them >> i think your outreach is going very, very well. >> so thank you.

>> and people seem to understand it. so they know what they have to give this year and next year and the difference between the it two but people in the business community gets it >> oh, great, thank you. i think when we were come piling the summary we wanted to know we're doing the right thing to do this is kind of not the best measure of ones success the fact that under the business register fee we only had two complaints and we kayaked back with the board of supervisors and kiektd back with the mayor's office and everybody and only two people relied with a complaint it's not

the ultimate measure of our success on scaping people happy but that information is comprehend >> commissioner president adams we need to call for public comment. >> any public comment on that item? >> yeah. i've been on vacation two long. >> public comment we have public comment on item 3 for changes to the tax regulation code? seeing none any public comment on that item? >> do i have a motion. >> i second. >> roll call. >> commissioner president ad s adams. commissioner dooley.

commissioner dwight. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. commissioner riley. supervisor paul and president adams for your information commissioner white sent information she'll not been able to attend the meeting. with that, we have a 6 zero vote to send or send recommendation to the board of supervisors to support this measure. i want to collect and thank you, greg and mary ann thomson and knowing how things in the office as we get calls and got very if i calls during the business recommendation it's been a fun partnership over something that is very complicated and who would have thought taxes can be

fun but it's been a fun partnership and make sure that people get informed we have new businesses registering everyday so i want to extend my appreciation for the great work you've done >> thank you good job. >> next item, please. >> next item is item 4 discussion and possible action to make recommendation to the board of supervisors on the file police code for the amount of time days and arcadia for the location restriction for and mechanical announcement dies and remove obsolete codes in environmental finding. this item has moved through the

board of supervisors i've agenda can i see it you're welcome to take action or take a vote in support of what's take the opportunity it has moved through the board of supervisors there was a delay in the city clerk's office to the commission and also supervisor breed's office wanted to expedite the ordinance so that there were businesses that needed to have the amendments made so we'll want to express our appreciation to the board of supervisors sensitivity and to appreciate that co-sponsor nor johnson is here to inform you thought what changes are made they did an excellent job in the clean up of this code but i have agendized it as an action item so not

necessary to take action but with that connecticut nor would you like to take this over >> good afternoon connecticut nor johnson elective aid to supervisor breed i want to reiterate what the director said we were not able to make it here on a july the legislation was in particular to a part of the district and get things throw in july so that went to land use on july 28th and then to the board of supervisors and passed unanimously it will come with a second reading on september 2nd it's not entirely done and supervisor breed will be introducing minor amendments i can discuss but i'll keep this relatively short i think this effort started out as a measure

to make things easier for small businesses i am hoping the san francisco small business commission will be an ally. there was a small business 3w5i789 of frequenting gal in the european hate in district 5 that bumped into the plodding they're a shirt screening print shop and ran into both the police code they contacted the entertainment commission that afforded that and we looked at into the police code and frankly find quite a bit of it no longer relevant and expensive for businesses. i'll mentioned a few things back in the 82 there was concern our arcadia were corrupting the youth and the board of supervisors at the time this is in 1982 wrote extensive

regulations dealing with or a cascade games it was 6 thousand words dlailt when and where our arcades can be in san francisco. this has been outdated there are reference to the department of electricity that does not exist and to the other department there are arbitrary positions on the square footage and not have an arrest warrant cascade game within 5 feet of another or a cascade or gas station in the district i haven't figured out the reasoning if you're knowingly in violation of the requirements the chief of police will impound our arcades until you pay to the police department. thirty years later a lot of

those regulations look cumbersome and upper necessary and there was a lot of concern about the impact of the arcades on children arcades can't be opened occurring the school year because of truant but in 2014 if a child wants to ditch class they act e, pull a cell phone out of their pocket we want to bring this up to the counter era there are appeal to people in my age growing up in the 80s so we worked with the entertainment commission and the police department and the city attorney's office to completely revise the code i'll 0 talk about that briefly st. the permits for small businesses that point to add a few games it

maintains the offering site and strengthens the controls against illegal gambling foreclosure and that's sensitive to the police department and streamlines the process to bring it in line with other practices. currently under the existing code if you want to add games there's 3 hundred plus dollars for an arrest warrant cascade game each other so we want to give the restaurants the opportunity to add the arresting cascades without the fees. that's ultimately the intent of the legislation there is details at the land use committee that effected the arresting cascades that was approved and we amended that with concerns under the

entertainment commission i can go into detail but we pa made a distinction between bars and non-bars the idea that the entertainment commission times to be engaged with bars and work with them on a good neighbor policy and it's different than some businesses so we want to make the distinction so that the entertainment commission can maintain it's off-site with bars that's what happened that determines the minimum number of games before a bar needs a permit from the san francisco entertainment commission i can go into that but that essentially is the high-level overview and by way of context the entertainment commission was kind enough to put together a list of the or david's cascades it's a relatively small amount 11