a different mix of events than outside lands but the proportional they represent, maybe 8 percent of the total events and employment of all of them and so the number that you are sight ining that report are pretty much in line what we are finding here. >> it seems from your findings that events of the 5,000 and above events that you are looking at that even the smaller ones and cultural and the arts are really the magnet that are pulling the people to the city to spend money but you are looking at the large events, but my hope at some point that we could think about the smaller events that attract from the bay area region and other spots as well. but thank you for the great report. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and so, thank you. so now i would like to mr. chairman if we may move to public comment? >> sure. we will open this up to public comment, anyone wish to speak on the item feel free and i know that there are a number of

speaker cards or you can line up on the wall. everyone will have two minutes. >> i do want to call on metri who was on the commissioner and the events. and then mr. chairman we can move to public comment. >> good morning, supervisors, thank you. first i want to thank supervisor weiner for commissioning the study and for the office of doing great work and working with us. in a dual capacity serving on the entertainment commission now and serving as the executive director of fullson street i can tell you that there are many needs in our field and there are many ways in which hopefully you as the supervisor cans support our work. mainly one of the things that we are hoping to accomplish is possibly reinstating a position that needs to exist in the entertainment commission to support the special events and

this person could be supporting all outdoor events but particularly larger events that have significant community impact especially in the cases of halloween and saturday in the castro and there are from time-to-time, events that don't have a designated producer and therefore lack the organization that is required and many of us have also talked about another thing which is kind of a one top shop possibly an on-line portal where many of us could go and kind of ease the permitting process and many of us have to apply for five or more permits and many cases up to ten and that can become cumbersome and difficult to manage those. >> in addition, of course we want to thank the city for all of the support that they gave us through grants for the arts, and we have already been talking internally at the entertainment commission about ways to generate new money for

outdoor events so we would like to explore that with you as well as legislative advances, and the breed legislation was very significant for the entertainment commission in terms of how the developing city growing and we would like to see expanding that to include the outdoor events. the important thing to note here is that as the city develops and grows, outdoor events are going to become that much more important >> thank you. >> we will open up to public comment. >> i have a few cards. >> brad olsen, liam frost and bar bra and steven loso. >> you don't want to speak in

that order. >> good morning, supervisor weiner and ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is rosa hernandez and i am here to represent the march and first of all to give us a opportunity to contribute to your findings. vy been with the march for a few years andvy been a dj and produce, for, over, 16 years, this is a beautiful and dynamic season and this is a beacon, not just of you know restaurants and wine and things like that, but also the cultural beacon, the fact that pride and the chinese new year parades are the biggest parades of the year are no surprise at all, this is also a gay meca and i want to make that clear because i want to point out that a lot of the participants in this survey were actually the gay events. we were unfortunately not able to participate but happy to be

here now. what we want to do is encourage the city to make more of an investment in supporting the process and i like the idea of the portal waving fees and a number of things that come into place. the march for instance, is pretty much put together by a small group of women who we have our own lives and jobs and so it is a labor of love. to find a number of bear ors makes it that much difficult, and i know that my time is running out i want to make a point that this one is expected to be a large number in attendance because of the decisions that are expected to come down from the supreme court. so i want us to work together as a city and these events to be create these relationships, build more strength and in producing these events and making them safe and attractive to anybody who comes, this may be one of the last that san francisco has not actual diversity thank you.

>> next speaker? >> good morning, supervisors, ladies and gentlemen, my name is barbara and i am the director of the bay view opera house and we are funded by the grants and donations and it is our mission to provide opportunities for bay view residents, and visitors to engage in the arts and all tracks, 30 percent of the population live at or below 200 percent of the poverty level and 25 percent lack high school education and while i appreciate all of the emphasis on economic development, i want to say that outdoor event also increase community cohesion and make the neighborhood more safe and get the neighborhood community together and engage in their own lives. since our building has been closed for renovations for a year and a half, my organization has organized at least one sometimes more large outdoor events per month and getting all of the necessary

city permits for each is time consuming and expensive, each event requires us to deal with 8 city departments each of which has their own forms to fill out and vaouls and fees we are required to get permits from the department of health work, fire, dpw and sometimes industry closures and we have to talk the local station to make sure that are okay with the plan and provide security, all of these fees add up to $2,000, sometimes more. luckily, most city departments have been very responsive to our plight after we showed up asking for permits so often. but this took a while. writing letters and going to hearings, both dpw and the entertainment commission have issued annual permits and we appreciate that and it has helped a ton and we are locked into the certain food vendors and cannot accommodate new ones, they have found a way to lower the fees to a manageable

level by imposing that all vendors must use our equipment. our local -- is very accommodating so any way just want to close in saying that shout out to dpw and entertainment commission especially -- for helping us out with the annual permits which helped a lot. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good morning, supervisor >> i am frost from the retired from the san francisco police department and i service as the law enforcement seat and i am also on the united irish society and the president of

the united is responsible for the saint patrick's day parade and also responsible for putting on the festival after the parade in the civic center plaza as well as putting on the street fair the next day, generally sunday at 45th avenue in front of the irish cultural center this is my first year of being involved in this. and i got my eyes opened, and pretty wide to see what it is like to run an event like this. i started contacting the city departments in november. and i kept getting put off and, finally to the middle of january about whether or not we could have that festival or not. i was about to go into a board meeting so i had to call somebody in a position of power to notify them that i was walking into a meeting embarrassed to say that nothing had been done. that got the ball rolling and we finally able to get this.

there is just a lot of bureaucracy, when i was in the department i didn't notice and i didn't know what it took to run something. but what i just explained was a small thing we were able to get that festival going and the permits three days before the festival. so we didn't even know. but in a perfect world someone else already said it if we had a one stop shop to be able to go to one place and get the permits as well as a class to teach the people that want to learn and put something on. >> next peeker. >> thank you. >> my name is ben lyman and i am the chairman of the california music and culture, and i am also a local businessman who is putting on a music festival in set. september. >> i want to commend everyone

in this, and we think that it proves what everyone kind of already knew that music festivals are totally awesome flt we are looking forward as an organization to work with the city hall now to encourage responsible festivals, in the city. and to remove the frustrating bureaucratic road blocks and the fees that makes the festivals impossible and we are very much looking forward to keeping this study m mind when we negotiate with the groups who sometimes have varying degrees on whether they have the direct benefits to themselves and the city. >> thank you. >> and the next speaker? >> hi, thank you. >> community affairs manager at the stern grove festival and i want to thank you for including us in the study. active public spaces in the city are engines for successful cities and sustainable growth.

creating the fafrable environments for public engagement is vital. and the cities play a role in that and we are lucky to have a lot of great public spaces that we can activate. this year for the first time the festival took our stage on the road and we found that it was easy to do it on private land navigating the city requirements for permit and for fees was difficult. not being able to put a cable cover on a sidewalk and having to bring in generators is another fee that we encured whereas the entire sidewalk in my building is block fromed construction, we are fortunate to have these public space and we are asked to activate these spaces but the costs are high. just asking a few friends of mine about their experience in

the city was overwhelming. being told by dpw that it would be east tore do our events on private land made me realize that the city knows how difficult it is to do this. another person told me that their advice was find a good soul in city hall to help you navigate. >> and i think that putting someone in the entertainment commission to navigate this would be that good soul. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good morning, i am mary, condy with plan and entertainment and thank you for including outside lands and treasure music festival in this study for the outdoor concerts. we are pleased to be part of the community that produces events and we work closely with many city departments and we

are also happy to be a san francisco based company and we work with bringing in the local restaurants, and the local vendors to support our festival and we also do the hiring fares to bring in the local employees and part time jobs into the festivals. the permitting process, can be a little cumbersome but i think that by and large, our experience is that the departments that we are working with are trying to be reasonable and assist our events coming into the community especially rec and park department where we have a close relationship with them for outside lands. so just want to thank you for having this as part of this discussion >> thank you, next speaker? >> i am with the (inaudible) san francisco and thank you for having this hearing it is way over do. carnival for 30 years when we

started there were no fees now we have to pay the police department the health department the fire department we have to pay for occupancy permit and now for signs for know parking signs we have to pay and you have to pay dpw. ill mean and the list goes o we get a check from grants from the arts to support it and guess what we got to write nine different checks to the city it doesn't make sense, i think that you need to look at that and i think that the community events that i was born and raised with here in san francisco, a lot of them have disappeared. because, community-based artist and organizations can no longer afford to do cultural events in the city and that is what makes san francisco what it is today and i understand that the city is trying to make money but you know what? charge the corporations that want to do the events here one

fee, but you know what? you need to look at the legacy events in the city, pride, chinese new year's and the hate street fair, june teenth, and carnival and you know make those legacy events of the city and make them part of the city budget and don't penalize us for preserving our cultural traditions because this is what you are doing you are making us pay if you speak to every organization as it has been doing cultural events for the last four decades, they will tell you that the pain that we go through every year trying to raise money on good years when the economy is good we get sponsors when the economy is bad all of the sponsors disappear. they don't exist and i think that having one system where you can just go and get one stop shopping is a perfect thing to do thank you. >> how much what do pay total in fees to the city for

carnival? >> approximately? >> okay, so we have $5,000 to the police department there is another $4,000 to the health department, and another $3800 to the fire department, the occupancy permit was $140 last year and went up to $900 this year and the signs the no parking signs that we never had to pay for, this year we have to pay $1800, and then we have to pay, scott for that permit. and the entertainment commission waived the fee this year and last year for us. but that is another fee -- how much is that fee? >> $540. and then you got to pay dpw, depending on what that bill comes out to every year. >> so almost, $20,000. >> yeah, over. >> yeah. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> and that is all of the other

events and pride and everybody else. >> thank you. >> >> good morning, my name is steven and i am the arts advocate and the community event producer for burning man andvy been organizizing events in the san francisco for close to 19 years now. and i would like to say that we enjoy very warm relations with all of the public agencies involved and we have built the close relationships over time with them, but if you don't help those relationships in that trust it is difficult for a new, non-profit or an arts organization to be able to work the way through the process, right now with increasing housing density, and sound becoming more and more of an issue throughout the city i am seeing that it is harder and harder for events including ourselves to organize our street gathering without some kind of pressure, locally. and so it is becoming less appealing in a lot of ways and there is a quieting down that

is happening as well in the city. and i would really welcome an aappropriate to working with the affairs, especially the non-profit events that are trying to do it in a community building way and do have an impact while we are increasing the cultural diversity and so i would like to throw out the idea for extra special support for gathers that are not public oriented public events and also for the simplifying of the process and just generally a tone to support new street fares and events because the conditions are getting pretty hostile right now. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> hello, my name is brad olsen and i want to thank supervisor weiner for sponsoring this study sxim the founder and event producer of the howard street fair which started out

as a small block party 16 years ago, and we were the oldest electronic music festival in the west coast. certainly in san francisco. and it has grown and we were at the point where we are at capacity for the last three years. i have asked scott the last two years to expand this event in to just one more intersection, where we are only allowed the second street intersection. this year i was told if your event is too big, why don't you move to the palace, why don't you move to treasure island. you really want us to leave? you want us to go away? we give the entertainment for 20,000 people and this is an event like so many events that you just heard of that add to the cultural fabric of san francisco. and once you lose them, they are gone, fortunately for us, swre been successful and we

have enough to weather some of these increasing fees but, if we were to start out today, it would not be possible, i get asked by people in new york city in chicago, and in la, even in brazil how can we do a fair in our cities and the answer is i hope that you have a big budget because the way that it is here you have to come in with quite a bit of money and as the other speakers have noticed, if we could stream line the process there is a way to bring the fees down and if we can work with you as partners i think that it would greatly help us believe that what we are doing is something good for the city and recognized by you, thank you. >> and if i could ask you the same question, what do you pay? total in the city in fees. >> i think that carnival is getting off easy $5,000, tb and

our tbs for plus two is over $10,000. and so our fees are up towards of $30,000 just to the city agencies alone. our operating budget is getting close to 6 figures. so this is one day, i mean that we have 6 hours in one day to make over 6 figures to match our budget and so it is challenging. >> thank you. >> is there any additional public comment? >> seeing none, mr. chairman may we close the public comment? >> okay. >> public comment is closed. >> could i ask you if you know an estimate of what fulson estimated fees are to the city i know that you don't have a spread sheet in front of you, more or less. >> right. >> i have actually been tracking our police costs over the years and the police alone, we do two. >> for fulsom. >> so for both of them it is over $30,000 just for the

police. and you know, what is challenging is i think that at one point kind of reflecting of howard said that we were forced to expand the smaller street fair because it was becoming unsafe and we were told that there were two many people and that the people would come to see how many people there were and turn around and leave. and we have to respond in a public safety measure, and the only way to do that was to expand, when we expanded we were hit with new 10 b costs which increased our bill, for just the smaller street fair. >> and so, just focusing on fulson. >> sure. >> do you have an estimate for what the total city fees are everything? >> the total city fees, no i couldn't give you that estimate, although i can follow up in an e-mail. >> okay. >> thank you. >> miss kane could you come up?

>> i think that what might be or maybe useful is to try to figure out what these festivals are paying total. to the city. and in fees. and i don't know if that is possible to send out a survey to or maybe the city could and i think that we are getting the fees and the department should be able to do that. it might be i think that it would be interesting to know what the city is receiving in fees from all of these festivals, and i agree that there is a big difference between when you have an oricale world or even an outside lands where you have an outside entity that is putting on a huge event as opposed to these more community driven events that are non-profit. and so do you, is that

something that maybe we could look into to try to figure out what is the city getting from these events? >> sure. i mean that it is easy to do. trying to make a distinction between ticketed verses free event and that income stream does not exist for the folks that and many of the ones that spoke today don't charge fees, and sell tickets. >> but, you know i am happy to do that and we know now based on mr. eagan's report what the value is in a lot of other ways, i can find out what the cost is, and i want to reiterate as well that while the complain about how much it cost for police or fire and i know that everybody is appreciative of the service that they get and i think that part of the issue as well is that it consistency and the timeliness and i know, commissioner frost spoke about

achieving a permit, three days before an event which is not acceptable when you are trying to budget year to year. so, i mean, i am happy to assist with the request for sure, with how much the city is getting in fees. but, that, and the end result might be a shrug to the extent that we know that it is a lot and we now know what the value is and so maybe we ask additionally for what else can be done. >> and i think that it is not a shrug, if we know how much that it is, we can figure out is there a way for us to defray those costs? >> sure. >> i think that it is outrageous and the lack of predictbility and that there are new random requirements and fees that are put on, and i don't think that, you know, the no, and there should not be a fee for putting up a no parking

signs and the whole, barricade issue and it is just like one thing after another and sometimes it seems like some of the departments are just looking for ways to generate more fees. and so i, i just don't think that it is appropriate to level the fees that we are charging on these events to the smaller, you know the community based events in particular. so, yeah, i would like to maybe put together that data for the non-ticketed. >> sure. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> and so, colleagues, thanks, thanks for hearing this, item today and you know i think that it is clear that these events are really important for the city, culturally and economically, and i think that it is also clear that the city is not doing enough and i agree that i do believe that the city agencies want these events to happen to succeed and there is some really terrific people in

the city government who are working to help make these events succeed and so this is not about the city not caring, it is about the way that we structure the system where there are too many departments that are involved or too many fees, involved, and there is not enough centralized coordination, and i mean that you go through the scott process to get your street closure which is supposed to be the departments working together and after that permit you have a bunch of individual departments to deal with who can charge fees and put different requirements on. and so it is not centralized enough and i would like to see first of all, a we used to have a staff position, someone who is responsibility it was to really provide that kind of portal and the help and for the entertainment commission for the street festivals and i think that it makes sense to reentait that position so that

the people who have existing fairs or starting up a fair have someone that they can go to who understands how these things work. and can tell you the path and help you out, and help you when you are having permitting issues and so forth. i would like to see better centralization, and where, and as i think that someone called it a one stop shop for permits and i know that say real challenge and we still have not really achieved those businesses who have to go to multiple place and pay things and i don't understand why that has been fully centralized and i think that this should be fully centralized and i think that the city should be providing a level of financial support to the permit cost to defray and it is just does not make sense to especially for the events that we are supporting financially and have to turn around and pay us back with permits fees and then in

terms of i know that we had issues of events where the people move into the neighborhood and complain about the noise. i know that we recently passed that the board under the leadership of breed which i co-sponsored and around the place of entertainment and live music and requiring disclosure to people and that would be interesting to know if that will be expanded to the outdoor events, and that is trickier because it is clear where those permits are. it seems that we should be addressing this issue especially in the south market where we have more and more housing being built and the people move in and then the shop that