great question. randy good one. one of the many hats i wear i have been trying to guide a group in the city with our transition plan updating our transition plan which is a living document for a city showing that we are removing barriers and our self evaluation, and i have to explain that not only the importance of this and all of the facets of it. it's vast to our council groups who represent different disabilities and have different agendas and again it's a task that often falls to a building official and it's an important facet of the

community. i have learned a lot through the transition plan process and the different community members that we have dealt with. we still have a long ways to go, but yeah. >> i think we're about ready to wrap things up unless anyone has closing thoughts or impressions you would like to share. i will yield to angela executive director of the ccda. >> we at the commission truly am so pleased of each and every one of you share and enlighten us today, and i know -- well, i hope that this will not be our last time together with all of you. this has been truly a tremendous effort to have this knowledge base together in one house. the energy is

fascinating but i do know that it does not stop here as said over and over again. this is a living document and it's going to require our commission to be on top of it to help you to continue to do your work and aid you and if it's not maintained it's not an aid and that's our job to make sure the document is current. however however proud of it we want your feedback and our desire is after a while come back and respond and get an open forum discussion from your jurisdictions and we look forward to hearing from you and we quite frankly. to hear any negative thoughts of things or opportunities. we believe that that's the best way to grow and learn from the document so whatever you have to share we

look forward to the feedback and we hope as you stated that you have already done share with your colleagues. we like and that's why we ask those on the phone and listening to see that this is something that we want to hear back that it's not a negative thing. that we enjoy and look forward to hearing from you. our website was given to you earlier. ccda. c adot gov and a website and contact information and our email that you may email or contact us directly. we do want to pause. we notice that in our introductions and recognitions commissioner dolim wanted to mention a couple of recognitions and we want to make sure we do that. >> thank you angela. i am afraid in handling the papers

and thanking the members of the check let list sub-committee and i will omitted a name and edia o'neal and i failed to into that in the meeting and i know she may not be on the phone or here and i deeply apologize because -- and i am being prompted that -- nia mar vely was on the list but i may have skipped over her as well at the building standards commission so my deep and sincere apologies. at the end wrapping up my part and representing the california commission on disability access. we are a small commission -- please, it sounds like a big name but we need feedback. we need participants. we welcome each one of you to get on the phone during the meetings or

drop us a note but we would love participation from people on the phone, people in person, or getting in contact with one of the commissioners or angela and this input is very vital to help us be meaningful as a commission going forward and to help everybody in california attain this goal of accessibility for all so thank you very much for my time today. >> thank you. thank you. well, with that note we're going to transition this meeting to another important aspect and responsibility our job at the commission, educational tool we're providing for the building inspectors but we know our consumers are needing and required to have some educational process assist them and this is something that we have been working on and developing, a questionnaire, what we call an informational tool that we would like to

provide to our business community, and we want to do is actually share a little bit of that questionnaire so what we do now is transition the dais with a round of applause to our panel and again thank you all for participating. [applause] we would like to ask at this point and a special recognition to yomi and lead the panel discussion. [applause] she is an awesome person and she does many brilliant things for the north bay area and we are thankful she came to lead the

panel discussion. as we're bringing forward up to the dais we're asking that regina dick-endrizzi the executive director of the san francisco office of small business join us here on the dais as well as jesse torres deputy director of small business advocate for the governor's office of business and economic development, go-biz . as we transition we

recognize that to create this educational tool for our consumers we need to know what you're interested in, so we created a questionnaire and i'm just going to read a little bit as we transition because we want to know what type of financial incentives would be appealing to bring your business into compliance for california accessibility regulations? so we know and this is where we will begin in the discussion today because we have two -- what we call heavy hitters in this particular area of discussion, to answer those questions. we also want to know have you used a cass within your business and if you have used a cass what were some of the challenges? if you haven't used a cass why not? couldn't you

not find one? did you know about the services? so we're going to ask those questions in our informational tool. the part of if you have used a cass we would like to know exactly your level of using the report? there is an assumption once you get a cass report done it's over that you answered the question and know how to move forward but a possibility that some are not equipped to know what to do once they get the report so we want to know is there more information or instructions to assist you in using the report? and then we also have in our questionnaire -- basically what are some of the things that you need? we have come up with some ideas. we need to hear from you as small businesses so we have this opportunity as we're

setting aside as we go through the outreach opportunities across california and for small businesses and this informational tool is on the website as well as we're delivering to e-blast if you're on the list and we ask to you respond and we will follow up on the questionnaire and we want to know and we have done as you have seen a tremendous effort for the checklist for the final building inspectors but we know there is more to go in regards to the consumers to use to help them become compliant so again as we stated we know that typically -- we already heard that financial incentives would be the possible answer for many small businesses so that's why we brought today two knowledgeable representatives that can share and beginning regina. she's going to present

-- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, so regina will be sharing with you and then jesse torres from the governor's office will follow. >> so regina dick-endrizzi director of the office of small business and it's an honor to be before you today and thank you angela. i just realized today you weren't the director so i 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