apologized that i didn't know that ahead of time and congratulations so i wanted to share with you programs that our office and the city have put together out of first initiating with the response to businesses who were receiving lawsuits and not understanding why and how this was taking place, and then two as we have been really engaging in on this process really learning some interesting things about what we as city government can be doing to improve the process. so just very quickly in 2009 our office of small business and the northeast federal credit union which we will learn about later we conducted over 66 presentations including information on general workshops, campaigns by district and in specific languages. in 2011 we launched a comprehensive

program to include loan assistance and legal assistance. in february 2011 we mailed out over 3,000 mailers to restaurants in seven languages informing them of their obligations, and letting them know about the drive by lawsuits and then in january 2013 we trained our city economic development organizations to educate their clients. these are new businesses and working through all of our network and support structures to begin to educate businesses as they're opening their business what they need to give consideration to. january 2013 the city launched a small business assistance program and initially targeting five neighborhoods that assist business with access to assessments and grants to help them improve their business, so these are subsidized cass

inspections. and november of 2014 the city launched a portal and i would like to show you and one of the key questions asked how come businesses say they don't know about their obligations? and because we most focus on the building code but this is an area where the inspectors don't necessarily go through every single and update and inspect you on whether you're in current compliance as they do in other areas. and we also know there are businesses who by turn key businesses are very small and not doing any improvements, tenant improvements to the business that would even begin

to engage the department of building inspection and we launched a online portal and one of the keys -- we designed 10 steps in launching your business, and step eight is -- sorry, this is not as easy to navigate as i thought it would be. i'm so used to -- well, i'm very sorry that you're not going to be able to see this. i don't know how to scroll to the side here. does anybody know how to work this? so we have

identified step eight as ada compliance so we're letting every single business that goes to the portal that wants to start their business that they need to give consideration for access compliance, and this is a really important area of which to inform businesses that is something that is equally important giving consideration to when they're starting their business. i will note that the sba on their website they don't make any mention when doing site selection around access compliance. the one federal entity that engages probably

with the most number of small businesses does not even make mention of that, so this is one area that we have really learned. like where have been the barriers that businesses they don't know what their requirements are so what are the touch points we can reach them beyond the contractor and the department of building inspection? and then in january january 2015 we with the sb 1186 the dollar collected through the business administration we are able to expand the subsidized cass inspection city wide. so

to date our loan program -- six businesses have accessed the loan program. 55 businesses have utilized the legal services. we've had over 25 articles in different mediums. we try to focus on especially language specific media. four panel presentations and with the bar association and had many clients come to the office of small business and getting information about navigating and dealing with access compliance and 344 businesses have been assigned and/or have received assessment assistance or with a subsidized cass program. so in january 2011 the program that we launched and i handed out

packets but if the audience is interested we provided some overview of the federal laws and state laws that guide businesses on what their requirements are. we have -- what the cass program is and why it's important to do it. what to look for in a cass inspector when hiring one. a list of cass inspectors. making sure that businesses know their annual federal tax credits -- they're are annual federal tax credits they can utilize and do improvements mpt the loan program i talked about and six businesses have engaged in it. we worked with opportunity fund, a micro lender to set up a loan program and the bar association set up a program for consultant

for $35 for 30 minutes so this just is a quick snapshot of that information that i have run through in it and we provided that information in multiple languages. the small business assessment program -- so its first initial funding came from the mayor targeting five neighborhoods or five business districts in the city primarily where we had business owners where english was not the first language to start with that education and outreach. we contracted with a non-profit to manage and run the program to hire the cass inspectors because as a city government we're subject to sunshine laws and the contract between the cass or the cass report is designed to be confidential document between the business and the cass inspector so if we owned it it's

no longer a confidential document so the non-profit that we contract with is the one that facilitates the connection with the cass inspector. so northeast federal credit union is the non-profit we contracted with. again they're in the business community, and they of course definitely specialize in engaging with chinese owned small business owners but have done the workshop and outreach and door to door knocking to other businesses, and we have conducted workshops in spanish and vietnamese and that gal log. >> >> so how we engage with the -- how businesses get engaged with access to the subsidized cass inspections? again through the workshops, through direct

contact with businesses, and now that it is a city wide program we're also working with our council of district merchants which is an association of over 22 merchants associations to assist in out reach to businesses in those areas. and then i noted that there are 344 businesses that have been able to get the subsidized cass inspections you but we had a total of 450 businesses applied and 36 weren't eligible either they're in litigation and for various other reasons and then we currently have 74 on the wait list. again we probably have more -- we have more requests than i think our cass inspectors can really fulfill and do at least on an immediate basis so i went through the business portal again just to highlight that we

put that up front and center. also san francisco in terms of taking a look at other ways in which we can do that intersection we passed a regulation to have a discussion between the landlord and the tenant and/or prospective tenant what is known as chapter 38. it has similarities to sb 11 86 where it's a disclosure requirement although the law is applicable only in san francisco. its effective date is january 2013 and it affects all commercial leases under -- that are 7500 square feet or less. so i'm not going to run through these in great detail but our definitions of landlord and lease. it's pertaining to

the notification requirements to title 3 the public accommodation and for properties 7500 square feet or less and we defined a small business tenant under the law as a business leasing 7500 square feet or less so the requirements are before entering into a lease is either the landlord either ens that the public restrooms and ground floor entrances and exits are accessible if readily achievable or provide a written notice to any prospective tenant that it might not meet all standards and including restrooms and entrances and exits on the ground floor. before entering into a lease the obligation notice must be provided to the

small business tenant and in it the major notifications to the tenants are that the leasee maybe held liable for disability access violations on the property and who is responsible for making any required disability access improvements. we noticed that wasn't always spelled out in leases. if the commercial landlord doesn't ensure that the covered features are accessible then again they shall also include additional statement in the obligation notice of please note the property may not currently meet all applicable construction related accessible standards including standards for public restrooms ground floor entrances and exits so trying to put that up front to businesses so they're notified of what their

potential liabilities maybe, and obligations maybe, and to encourage them to investigate it. that was just a sample of what a notice may look like. additional requirements are that they need to make sure that this document is signed. the lease states expressed terms -- i think i just -- who is making the improvements and who pays for them. and i think the last thing is number 7 of which we have and is in handouts up here is that the property owner is to hand out a brochure which we have in seven different languages. it's kind of a trifold brochure explaining the laws, explaining some of the key areas, how the flow of the cass inspection works and some of the key areas and pitfalls that most businesses experience and not

having their business be accessible. a couple of things that we have learned not just through the subsidized cass inspection but businesses that have done their own inspection is that sometimes the cass recommendations -- what we have heard from businesses when they have taken the cass report. now they're launching it and doing the improvements is how to navigate and interpret what is being reported in relationship to the city's requirements so if they engage with the city sometimes the city will say to them no you can't do that recommendation, so not understanding why something was recommended but yet now the city is saying no you can't do that sidewalk encroachment. also intrptsing the work of what is readily achievable versus long-term improvements in

relationship to the time frame of the lease. but i think so where we are now and working with commissioner lerner has been doing a good deal of work with the city with us is really taking a look at this sort of triad between the building department, our historic preservation and our bureau street use and mapping when it comes to entrances, so those three entities most of the time are engaged when you have to do access improvements that are beyond maybe a portable ramp, so and sometimes it makes it very challenging for a business to be engaging with the three different entities so we started meeting so just to kind of outline for those that may not know that the building code has

its building codes. historic preservation has its requirements so any business over 50 years old is deemed possibly historic so you just can't make any alterations to a front entrance. it may trigger review with the historic preservation and then of course if you're dealing with small spaces there maybe some to try to navigate doing the fully accessible entrance may need to consider some sidewalk encroachment but our bureau of street use and mapping they're mandating to ensure that the public sidewalk is fully accessible as well, and so sidewalk encroachments can conflict with that mandate. so and then also we have found that not all cass inspectors are

fully knowledgeable of what local building -- this whole navigating the building codes, the bureau street use and mapping and historic preservation. if a -- often businesses hire by price and so they might not know they're hiring somebody who isn't fully aware of san francisco's unique city agency requirements, and so we have seen -- not always but from time to time there are reports where recommendations are being done that will not absolutely be doable in san francisco because the cass inspector hasn't consulted with the city agency before making their recommendation. so here's just a quick sample. this is a dining space, 400 square feet. total space -- the dining space is 400 square feet. the total

space is 581 so the department of building inspection provided -- the department of building inspection has equivalent standards that have been approved so the business architect or the business -- there was a suggestion of doing that the equivalent accommodation but triggered historic preservation review and historic preservation because it changed the angle of the door wouldn't approve that so gean some recommendations were going out and going into doing the sidewalk encroachments and of course that provided challenges for that business to be dealing with our bureau of street use and mapping. so just kind of a quick look is that from changing from the angled door -- i don't know if most people can see it and i can't point to it but it

changed to from the corner of the building to parallel so there would be a power door and the landing is on the inside so you could do the power door and go up and landing on the inside. but again historic preservation that proposed conflicts because it changed the architectural -- the historical nature of the front entrance, so i think moving forward one of the things that we definitely need to ensure in our subsidized cass inspection that we mandate that all of the inspectors who are non-profit consult with -- have to consult with all three agencies before they finalize their cass inspection report. we're very fortunate through all this discussion and sort of finding out about some of the difficulties businesses are having triaging the different agencies our historic preservation department is

developing guidelines to minimize time and review so that either contractors, architects and/or the business can look at what some of the guidelines that they require as looking at building solutions and of course cass inspectors can use this as well and the office of small business is advocated for a city entity that has expertise and authority to assist businesses, landlords and cass inspectors to navigate to get to conclusion when the city's determinations are in in conflict with each other and there has to be someone to bring all together and develop a resolution and the access appeals commission could be one entity that could possibly doo do that so with that i think i will be happy to take any questions and i don't know if you would like me to move back up on the dais and you

can see that. . >> >> thank you for the presentation and we know in california we have been a leader with access and training and again while we have reached out to you on a number of occasions and help us to pass this information on and to help because there's so many other -- well everyone in the state of california in terms of jurisdictions are receiving the funding to do these type of work we know not everyone has been as proactive and developing the extensive program like you have and we're appreciative and we want to get the word out so everyone else can take advantage and learned from what you put together so we thank you for that and we look forward to more communications in that area. >> thank you and i just want

to say that i find it a great partnership and also to have the commission as well and the website and information has continued to grow and utilized the information and it's a great partnership and i look forward to continue tg. >> i just applaud the efforts. thank you very much and i see a lot of bounty that you have accomplished here. it's fabulous. one question of the novelty of bringing in and focus the consumer or the business person with you to say well look streets or building or whoever

the different departments -- historical to say you have conflicting requirements. come on let's get together here. i think it's fabulous and i can't tell you the number of frustrations i have had in my career with different conditions where maybe the sidewalks 9% cross slope but i'm only a little segment of the block and if i fix mine there's got to be a transition to meet the neighbors, and nobody willing to take that to the rest of the city to say can't we organize on this so i just applaud that effort. thank you. >> next we have jesse torres to share just give a little background on jesse in case -- he's maybe on the shy side of telling his background personally but jesse was a pointed deputy director of small

business advocate in the governor's office of business and economic development this april but previously jesse served as the regional director at the los angeles small business development center working in the long beach city college branch and from 2011 to 2015 and he was also director of alumni relations at pep dine university so we has been working in various locations and out there a long time so we're fortunate again to have him join us from los angeles to share at the dais. >> thank you. it's a pleasure and honor to be here and i think i want to start by absolutely also sharing my own opinion that i think the city of san francisco is leading when it comes to disability access and helping small business owners. i have never seen anything as comprehensive as this and i have done lots of work with small

business owners in los angeles and served as a chair to our council and for me being in charge of centers where a lot of the assistance we provide to small business owners is giving information and check list and what they need to do before setting up shout and the work is mind blowing right now. >> >> i wanted to start with a story and i was late to the session and i apologize for missing the majority of the hearing and my flight was delayed getting out of lax with delta and was on a lighter flight and i ended up sitting down a blind person and i didn't realize it until i almost hit her dog with my computer and having the frustrations of a traveler trying to find a place

to sit when the airport terminal is packed or getting away to round and carrier which i don't use and i'm a southwest guy and i thought about her experience and what it's like for her and entertainment and she didn't have entertainment, book to read and that was pointent to me and on the delta side and the care the staff did to take care of her and we're about to land and trained. the business owner thought what they need to do with this community and they figured out there is an advantage of working with this community and have leveraged that so a lot of things going into this meeting today, but so i'm here. i represent the governor's office of business and economic development. in my role i serve a couple different hats. one is to the be

advocate of small business owners. it's my job to find out what are your areas of pain. where are you finding success? how can we elevate best practices across the state and like programs here in san francisco? in addition we operate a number of programs. we have a grant program where we give funding support to the small business development network to increase the capacity to do consulting and access to capital and we oversee a program in california through my shop and in addition the go-biz office has a number of programs and working with international trade work permitting. and if anyone is interested i can share it by email but the objective today is to listen and see

where there are opportunities for us to increase transparency and information. like i said i used to run a network and saw 4,000 small business owners every year and the common issue we saw with our business owners was just they wanted to do good work. they had a hard time figuring out how do they proceed and for me it's always about providing information, providing transparency and providing access to people that can help whether it's a cass inspector or an consultant. there is a tremendous need for people on the ground to provide technical assistance which is the worse word for [inaudible] individual consulting and that 101 kind of guidance so please note that for the state of california we are deeply invested in our small business community. we want to know what we can do on the

state level to help small business thrive and succeed and to me this information needs to to be shared so they can understand what some of the best practices are so that's all. >> well, we have created on this time agenda that we shared to learn more about what small businesses interested in and looking for and we have to open up the phone lines for any questions or comments as well as in the audience to share any ideas and thoughts that they may have. we have a number of our commissioners that have joined us and we will be hearing from them shortly, but we definitely look forward to any comments or thoughts from those on the phone. do we have any calls at this time that would like to make any points or i see our