fully committed collaborative and they partner with the hotels virtually everyday to reach our goals and i just wanted to remind you that we fully support their fulfillment of this agreement that is before you today and i appreciate your time as well. thank you. >> thank you. before the next speaker comes actually i want to recognize we have the president of the environment commission here. you're welcome to come up and say a few words if you like. >> thank you chair farrell. is it morning still? i am speaking as president of the san francisco commission on the environment and thank you for the opportunity to speak and i wanted to speak in support of the department of the environment, our staff. we had a hearing about this conversation at our last meeting and asked a series of questions and comfortable with the fare and bidding process that resulted in the bids that came

in and one being double than the other. what we liked about the contract that's before you and that we support is the ability to lock in a long-term rate that is low, and free us up to do what we want to do which is get to zero waste because that's the solution. we hope this is the last landfill contract we have to sign because getting to zero means nothing, no more hauling waste,ing in except putting it back in the stream and going to the green and the blue and this contract will give us the ability to do that and we fully support the department. >> thank you. next speaker please come up. >> good morning mr. farrell and committee members. my name is john lynn smith and outside counsel to waste management. honesty i don't know where to begin. there are a lot of statements made that are

contrary to the rfp issued but a couple of points i want to make. one is i sent the committee and the full board of supervisors a letter this monday outlining the process that has been conducted since 2008 with the rfq leading up to the proposal to enter into a contract today with recology. i want to make sure that is part of your record. i hope you have it and if you don't i have a copy and can give it to you. i wanted to bring to your attention a couple of things about the deal. when the rfp was issued it was a 10 year deal or 5 million tons of disposal, whichever comes first. it wasn't a 5 million-ton deal. it was going to be from 2015 to 2016 or 2025 or 2026 or 5 million tons and whichever came first. when the

resolution was presented to the board of supervisors on june 1, 2015, this year, the resolution was seeking approval for a 10 year contract, not a nine year contract. the effort to make it nine years not for transparency or the ability to come back to talk about this again. it's basically so anybody can avoid a referendum, make it an administrative act and not a legislative act. the other point it's not 40 miles difference. it's 2,000 miles difference. 50 trucks times 40. that is what triggers the need for an eir and why the sierra club is fully advocating a full eir is done and by not going to the board for the approval you pushed off the appeal for another couple of months and recology and the department that are engaged in the process can get the contract up and running.

>> sir, thank you. your time is up sir. >> [inaudible] (off mic). >> okay. thank you. next speaker please. >> supervisor tang, supervisor farrell and supervisor mar thank you for having me today. i work for the gate gate golden gate association and (paused) because restaurants produce a large amounts of food waste we have a strong commitment to posting and having affordable ratings makes it possible for all restaurants to do it. we love the fact that

farms and wineries use the waste and food comes full circle on the table of the member restaurants. recology has been supportive of the restaurant industry and had a representative for troubleshooting and our needs. this is a strong one to allow restaurants to implement green practices without breaking the bank and different from members in oakland dealing with waste management and we support recology. >> thank you very much. next speaker please and if anyone else wishes to speak please line up and two minutes each. >> good morning. i am paul pender gas and here to speak on the san francisco small business network and 14 business organizations here in san francisco and chair the golden gate policy for san francisco and i

am here to speak on recology and they have been active partners with small business and not just attending events and actually responsive to the needs and the phone calls and emails that small business interact with recology on a daily basis. they are a shining example how a business can be responsive to the small business community. we only need to look at oakland to see how small business can't work with certain companies and we are in support of recology and the contract moving forward. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning. david pillpel speaking as an individual and i have been involved with these issues in the city and area including the rate setting process through the department of public works and the residential refuse collection and rate board and i am familiar with the 1932

ordinance and all the things related to that. i have expressed some concerns about the proposed agreement and a little bit about the process to both department of the environment staff and recology. they have been both responsive and addressed a number of my concerns. however i think at this point and i am sorry i missed the presentation earlier i think the department of the environment should provide a copy of the agreement to the board if that hasn't been done and allow the public some time -- not a long period of time, but maybe a few days to comment on the latest version of the proposed agreement before signing and entering into it so if there are other concerns particularly about going to the nine and six scheme with the 50 truck limit et cetera that they can be reviewed before any decision to approve the agreement by the department of the environment. any other concerns that i might have i am

happy to put in writing again to department of the environment. doe and copy the board. i understand there will be some kind of hearing on tuesday but then not considering the substance of the appeal at this time. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? okay. seeing none. public comment is now closed. [gavel] colleagues this is simply a hearing item at the moment. we can make a motion to file this item. however if there are questions or comments at this time we can entertain them. okay. supervisor mar. >> just quickly i think i want to say the two elephants in the room are two powerful entities, recology definitely very influential clearly in this hearing today and the proposal that the panel as approved and this board unanimously over

time and also a texas based large corporation that has at times "bullied and intimidated oakland city council members and others and ballot measures and lawsuits, so i know this hearing is useful to hear the updates but my hope is we focus on the environmental benefits as joshua mentioned and ms. raphael proposed and i am hoping that the two elephants in the room don't pull us away from the zero waste goals and the greenhouse gas issues and the truck 20 more miles per trip and we shouldn't gloss over that as well but i am appreciative of this and it's been many years from supervisors before i got on this board and i think these are big issues but let's focus on the environmental impacts and our very aggressive

climate action goals for our city. thank you. >> okay. thank you supervisor mar. okay. with that i know we will continue to be working on this item and throughout this and beyond so with that colleagues i would like to entertain a motion to file item 15. >> all right. i make a motion to file the hearing. >> okay. motion by supervisor tang. we can take that without objection. madam clerk can you call item 16 please. >> item 16 hearing on the control or's report and for office of economic and workforce development and office of small business, the controller, the planning department, office of building inspection and other city departments involved with the permitting process for . businesses to report. >> thank you. this is sponsored by supervisor tang. so supervisor take it away. >> thank you very much colleagues for entertaining this hearing today in response to a

report by the controller's office and took a deep look how the city's permitting process works especially as it rer tains to restaurants so the purpose is identify ways that we can make sure city's permitting process even more efficient for those looking to start or expand restaurants here in san francisco and hopefully from the lessons that we learn from the collaborative efforts, through the reports and other efforts by city departments that we can apply these lessons to other industries and for us -- at least for me it's about writing a better experience for our customers by the people looking to start or expand a business here in san francisco, and i know there have been efforts in the past to tackle this issue and what is different this time around is that i feel that we have approached this in a more comprehensive manner. for one we have a new online small

business portal in san francisco and credit the team for bringing that up online and the controller's office report and is one of the most comprehensive to date and we made investments in the office of economic and workforce development and i have seen first hand how that customized and personalized support that office has been providing to people has changed over the years. even several years ago when i was looking as a legislative aid and i was the main person trying to facilitate the relationship between the departments so now to have oewd to do that with the merchants is beneficial but of course there is more work to be done. i know there are some small businesses here today and many we encountered in our work that shared horror stories or impediments they experienced while trying to make the way

through the permitting process so we want to identify where the kinks are and in the future we can make this a better process, but before we begin i want to highlight some of the positive things that i think have happened in the past so as i mentioned earlier the small business portal. we have completed phase one and the next step through this hearing we're going to gather some information that we can hope to move into phase two to bring for example permits that you can fill out online and payments submit online as well. we have in the last budget process thanks to the committee and the mayor's office and funding new client service manager hosted through the office of economic and workforce development and that person would be assigned to facilitate the permitting process across the departments for those looking to expand businesses in san francisco so in the coming years really just looking forward to working with the city departments as we try to move towards a true one stop

shop as we co-locate various departments in the site inhabited by the goodwill on van ness and i wanted to layout the process today and i will call up todd from the office of economic and workforce development. secondly i would like to bring up jane to talk about the business portal and ryan hunter from the controller's office to present their report and the office of small business and we have representatives available to answer questions and the planning department, dbi, department of public health and the tax and treasurer's office and the fire department so with that said let's begin with you. >> thank you so much supervisor tang. i appreciate the leadership on this issue and calling this hearing today. from day one the mayor has been this a priority and between the

invested neighborhoods program, loans, targeted customized assistance for small businesses we have lead the effort with the city with great support from the committee and i want to thank you from that but we heard from small businesses from each of you and from the small business commission that the process needed to be improved and that's why in 2014 again through with partnership within oewd and office of technology and office of small business we launched a comprehensive business portal as you mentioned supervisor tang and brought that information into one place and most importantly shared that information from the perspective of a business. what it's like for a business to interface with government opposed to how government is structured. as you mentioned jane will be up in a moment to share an update on that but sharing how a process works isn't the same as making a process better and that's where the second half of the

initiative is focused and i want to acknowledge the office for the report on business streamlining and ryan hunter will be up here in a moment to do a briefing out of that report. but i think most importantly what comes next? what are those recommendations are going to be implemented to make a real impact for the small businesses and thanks to the mayor a budget as well as the support of this committee. we're going to be launching a small business accelerating team with a client services manager as you mentioned supervisor tang and regina will be up to talk about the implementation of that initiative as well as a couple of others focused on making these recommendations real. one final point before i hand it over to jane. this initiative is interagency and requires strong collaboration and i haven't seen such collaboration as with this effort and i want to thank and

acknowledge the range of departments here today and department of technology and ben the controller, treasurer cisneros, john from planning and dbi and barbara and her team and chief hayes white from the fire department. it's a team effort. we know the work isn't done and looking forward to present this to the committee today and next steps and questions and with they will bring up jane. >> thank you very much. >> good morning supervisors. thank you so much for having us present to you today. i am going to talk to you about where we were at the state of small businesses. the approach we took to building the san francisco small business portal and share the outcomes from the last eight months and where we're going next and feels like yesterday i was here in front of the budget and finance

sub-committee to ask for the funding for the business portal and here we are eight months later so if we could go to the slide please. i like to call this the worse slide ever. the reason is this a representation of what the small businesses have to go through. not only do they have to visit geographically dispersed departments and dig through websites and oftentimes if they find the information they're looking for and it's boroughed a lot of municipal code we don't understand so the intent was to build a single place to get the information and also get rid of some of the arrows in the process itself. our goal is create the first stop for everything business in san francisco, inn integrated scalable business solution that scales from the inception of a business owner's idea through the entire life cycle. what we did was sort of take an

unprecedented approach. for the first time every government website is not just municipal code, maybe clip art and a couple of photos. we conducted user research. our users are internal users and the permitting staff as well as the business owners so we conducted workshops and brought together nine departments and 20 permitting staff as well as the small business owners who were from the inception of the idea and a business was on the way out and we wanted to capture their experience as well. we looked at hundreds of analogous experiences in the private and public sector. from this research we put together a customer journey map so i have a bigger version if you want to see it up close but it's showing you that both during the consideration and the preparation phase and maintain and go it's more of a linear process but the orange section in the middle -- this is what i

call the infin infinity loop of death and they're dealing with the government and they're reaching out to find information on permits, trying to stay compliant on ada requirements and they get cent around to three departments and only to come back to the first one. >> >> that's the infinity loop of death you called it? >> actually just made that up on the spot so don't call it so the infinity loop is what we're trying to solve and this is a common goal with all of the departments that are here. this is what we're trying to make better. we came up with some design principles and i won't read through everything but they could be applied throughout the entire city to websites and digital services that we deliver. one is treat our constituents as customers and

increasing the content and increasing the trust in what we deliver so we went into building the business portal. this is a collaboration with 18 different city departments. again as todd mentioned an unprecedented the effort and pulled information on 400 permits and licenses. we wrote every piece of content in the business portal and made sure that the language was simple easy to understand and translatable in spanish, chinese and seven other languages and designed to be responsive so users can access it from the phone, desk top and tablet and at the same time we engage with the business owners and staff to ensure accuracy and [inaudible] prelaunch. we did user testing and it showed that the people described the site as professional, easy, accessible, engaging, beautifully designed and comprehensive. not the

usual words that people use to describe government websites. we conducted stress testing. made sure that the site could with stand 200,000 simultaneous hits at once to avoid any healthcare.gov debacles and the soft launch took place in 2014. the full launch happened and we put together a promotional video and postcards and links and seeing referral traffic from the tax collector's office and sent out emails and staff and a lot of the non-profits that support the businesses and reached out through social media and muni bus ads and i will show you an example. am seeing these postcards in your office and in

the city and now the outcomes. this is what i am excited to share with you. we're seeing 10 times as many users as a daily basis compared to the previous city online permitting site so right now seeing 117 users a day compared to 10 users in the past. responses in the give back feature along with social media mentions have highlighted the portal for this and it's a pleasure to explore, make it easier to do business in san francisco and even in the words of one business owner they're saying we're doing them a solid. city, state federal officials -- even the white house have reached out to learn about the san francisco portal and we share this online and now we're able to use analytics and feedback to inform our decision making as we move forward in expanding and building out further features on the portal.

the numbers -- so these are the numbers that we gathered since launch. we are seeing 14,055,000 -- 14,000 views a month and many come from the phones and hopefully that will drive more content through the phone making it easier to see on a mobile surface. tablet users are 3%. 39% come from san francisco with 8% from the surrounding bay area. i am excited to share that in the third quarter of the previous fiscal year so january through march of 2015 there were 311 reps were able to resolve many cases just using the business portal and in the age break down and supervisor mar you talk about the digital divide quite a bit and it was surprising to me and conventional wisdom that the portal is geared towards a

younger audience but the majority are over 35 years old and 61% of total users and that speaks to how we designed a portal that supports and helps every demographic. awards. recently we were mentioned in a article for fast company and by the governor's office and kennedy from recognized it as a bright innovation and we were a web emmy nominee and this includes second phase features so these are in the works. we're looking at using software as a platform for forms that are submittable. we're using individual users and check

lists and data storage and delivery and prefill are some of the other capabilities. portal maintenance is important. we want to make sure it's not another government website left alone and unattended and a year from now or two it's obsolete so we update the content when legislation changes or important due dates to remind owners about fees that are due. we constantly create new content, new starter kits and adding information about the business registration going online and information about gross receipt taxes et cetera and we audit and fix links on the site and security updates and training manual of what we do to update the portal and i have been saying that technology shouldn't be the only thing

that drives change. we also need to look at the process itself which is why in the last six months we had a great collaborative effort with the controller's office to map out the restaurant permit process and why did we choose restaurants? san francisco has the most in the nation and $30 million in sales tax for the city. it creates 19,000 local jobs and 230 restaurants register each year and they face up to 24 individual permits and deal with many different state and federal and city departments and let's fix the process and add in the technology to make it even more efficient. next steps. portal streamlining once we did the mapping will move over into different sectors and implement all processes into a

unified plan and recommend streamlining measurements between and within departments. we would also like to plan for the future integration of online and off line processes with the physical one-stop center as supervisor tang mentioned earlier. with technology we're working with the tax collector, the assessor's office, county clerk to create a new functionality and integrate all of the forms with electronic and digital subjects as well as electronic payments and make recommendations to integrate city data bases. the portal maintenance continues and we hope to operationalize this maintenance and some of the projects that the team is consulting on is the mayor's housing prortal and with other commissions in the city and working with the creation of the

public strategy. our ultimate goal is give san franciscans a single experience across city departments thereby making the government more responsive to citizens and bring government to the people by creating an exemplary service. the possibilitys are endless and as we put up the slide of the supporters i would like to acknowledge the mayor's office and department of technology and other all the other departments for the collaborative effort. >> thank you for the effort. if you don't know jane worked in the office of small business and did a great job fusing working with the businesses that came through for help and assistance and bringing that to a wonderful online portal. if you haven't taken a look at it i recommend it and it's amazing and i couldn't believe it when i saw it and it was produced by government and i don't know if

colleagues have any other questions. if not i will move on to the controller's office and we made strides and now the report will tell us about some of the challenges when people are receiving services in person. >> thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is ryan hunter from the city performance unit of the controller office with our team and we have been working with the business portal team to map the process of opening a restaurant in san francisco so i will tell you about what we have been doing and what we found, what we're recommending. so this slide -- could we get the powerpoint? thank you. this slide has the journey map that the business portal team put together. really what we have been working on is trying to get into that infin itd loop and untangle that. could we see what is going on in