all the cbd's. that would be one of those kinds of goals that how can we continue to grow the capacity in our commercial districts to sort of manage the whole public realm and to promote the area and help the small businesses. that's work that we plan to continue. we didn't talk today or come with any information about the dbi program, but if you saw our presentation at the board of supervisors land use committee last month, they also asked to look at that program and determine whether it needs to be refined in terms of an enforcement approach, so we put that here. we can talk about it, but it's not our program. and then, we've been working with planning on a number of different angles to look at policy and zoning related changes that might need to be put in place to accommodate the changes in retail. so the first batch of the sort

of -- i guess the first undertakings should be really on a case by case basis with the districts right now that are going through planning processes. so step back for a minute. we all think that there's these -- there are changes happening, but because every district looks different and some of them don't have a vacancy problem, some of them might but don't think they do. some of them -- you know, it sort of varies subjective. the way we've approached it with planning, well, as much as we can do sort of individualized approach, we will, so we have individualized planning work happening in several districts right now, the mission, excelsior and third street and outer mission -- or mission chavez to randall. so the first step is looking at what types of changes might need to be contemplated in terms of uses in those areas during those processes.

what we have to contribute, as you know is our invested neighborhood data as an analysis tool, and then, the planning department is intending to do a use mix and vacancy survey, and we've talked about coordinating with them to maybe look at the neighborhoods where there's vacancy concerns. because this data is really helpful to think about do we need to contemplate changes or are things actually in the normal range. so the first recommendation is actually case by case and looking at these cases and figuring out, do we need to do anything? then, there's some other recommendations on a kind of policy level that may be -- may need to be looked at citywide but also can be looked at case by case. so one is what i basically just talked about. number two is looking at uses, particularly within a storefront. there's a lot of enthusiasm, i think, at the planning

commission because they've had a lot of these come up where it's been really challenging for an existing business to add a use that was not eligible as an accessory use, and they had to almost start a new business within their businesses, and so there's changes that we need to look at to allow a single business more flexiblity within their storefront. the third one is potentially looking at office and professional services controls that exist in certain ncd's. and as i mentioned in the bulk of the presentation, you know, starting to be more open to some of these professional service uses on the ground floor, at least in certain areas. again, this isn't necessarily things that will be looked at citywide. another one that i didn't mention before, but if we were to become more flexible about what goes in the ground floor, there are things we can do

around storefront design guidelines to increase or maximize activation, if you put in something that doesn't have a lot of public visiblity, do we do things to make sure that there is good lighting and visiblity, and you know, i think there are things that we could do. even though people say, you know, having a nonprofit in a storefront isn't very activating, well, maybe there's ways to make it contribute more to the corridor. and then, the lastati recommendation is working with mta to work with curb management, working with businesses on a case by case basis or whether there's some bigger policies that need to be looked at. oh, sorry. that's the end of our presentation, so we'd be happy to answer questions. >> well, thank you very much. that was very, very informative. commissioner questions?

>> thank you so much for your work on this. it was a really great report, and the conclusions were also really great. a couple things. have you noticed that rents and ncd's are higher? is that anything that came through your conclusion? 'cause an he cecdotally we hea that. and yeah, i'm curious, you know, i think something i'll bring up later in the meeting is for new businesses to be able to have kind of a master list of all the resources and point people for you guys, so i know who to refer because one thing that i've noticed, you know, being connected to retailers and something that's pointed out in the -- in the

conclusions is some businesses are having a harder time transitioning into these newer types of models,en taintment types -- entertainment types spaces, things like retail in the healthy sf program. you've shown that some stores, even when they introduce new protos, they still can't compete. something that i find, we also may need to do an assessment, also, what are the needs of these businesses, where they're at? in addition to ada issues, there's other predatory lawsuits out there that the city hasn't gotten word of yet. i think for some of the safety stuff, i thought it was important to bring up collaboration again. a lot of corner stores that stay open really late, they're

the ones that keep the lights on on a lot of blocks, and we should be collaborating in a positive way with those businesses. i think all the work you're doing, i want to make sure it's not, you know, being met with counter -- counter active work that's being done by other departments, including department of public health, who is kind of for a lot of businesses, the grim reaper behind a lot of their fee schedules and a regulatory environment, and so while we're helping to build a business on one end, there could be something that's counteracting that work. for example, there's a store on third street that was -- on a month to month lease was going to relocate to a vacant storefront, i think that was vacant for a decade, and because of laws on the books, they weren't able to, you know, transfer a certain license due

to -- due to restrictions on license transfers and whatnot, so you know, we need to create an environment in which we're not fighting ourselves from both ends, you know? and i'm curious if the job squad folks can take out literature for -- with them -- for the merchant organizations and help do that outreach, and if that

>> -- to try that out in terms of being able to fund some of those many improvements to help

someone bump up the technical capacity that they have around pos systems or around ipads or what have you, so that's something that's developing right now. >> thank you. nice. >> thank you. >> any other commissioner questions? well, i have a couple here. first off, a few years ago, we did a small business commission and planning, worked with a fast track on cu's for certain small businesses. it was 90 days. do you know what the success rate on that is? >> my undering based on the advocacy day comment made by a planning department representative, they were near 100% compliance in working with the small businesses and in expediting those services. however, the details around how the -- how much time had actually been saved, i think,

is up for debate, and i think that's something we maybe need to delve deeper. please stop me, regina if i'm going in too deep. the next process was what's actually being prioritized from the point of view of the small business, and that's still -- but we can get back to you on that, as well. >> and then, the next question, but you know here, like, after 20 years, we finally have, you know, the patio this weekend finally opened up as hamburger mary's. and it's for real. i actually went there to check it out. there were people in there, eating, so i mean somebody must have did something to prod him, so thank you, if that's your

department. the other thing i want to talk about is formula retail. some of it's changing and some of it's very successful. in san francisco we have a formula retail if any retail wants to open up. i think it's good because it gives that neighborhood an opinion on if they want something or not. but in other parts of the city, there's an out-and out-ban. and we talk about -- like, when i look at upper market, for example, i know the castro does have some have a canny issues, and it's not that bad. but look at market at where some of these businesses are, it's like a ghost town. we're doing great in midmarket, and we're doing great in the castro across, but it seems like at vanness and noe, there's a lot of these older buildings. these builders or developers think they're going to get some kind of a national tenant in

there. it's never going to happen because there's so many restrictions. i just want to ask your take on that. >> i'm going to ask amy to come up and speak about this one in particular. i'll say sometimes it's a case-by-case basis in terms of how we fill those spaces. i will say what regulations a community chooses to support or accept, we would just ask that moving forward, those communities consider the changing nature of retail, which in our opinion right now is real. and if it's going to become more difficult, if it becomes more difficult to attract specific retail, to -- or types of retail to your commercial corridor, what flexiblity will you have in what you are willing to allow into your commercial corridor. that's one wholesale approach you might want to take from a neighborhood commercial district point of view. and also, what unintended consequences that or those

chases may also create in your neighborhood. i think all of those need to be discussed, certainly what the report is telling us, in terms of taking a few steps back, about the policies that we've been pursuing, and what allowances we may want to make for the benefit of the overall corridor, balancing against what is the cultural identity of that neighborhood or corridor as a whole. but i'll have amy come up and provide some comments as well, just around those development pieces. >> yeah. >> i'm not deeply engaged in the upper market. i think that the footprints of those spaces are big. >> right. >> same with some of the midmarket, so i think size is part of it. but the ban that you're talking about, the formula retail bans that you're talking about are in hayes valley, north beach. they're not actually in upper market, but what's coming to my mind, though, is a lot of the

national retailers don't actually know where there's a ban and where there's not, and so i think there's always hesitation if these developers are holding out for some of these bigger national retailers, maybe they are and maybe they aren't. but i think there's probably always a little bit of hesitation on the part of national retailers for various reasons. but one is oh, i don't want to have to go through the cu or maybe they don't want to go through the ban. but i think all of those factors contribute to the vacancy on market. >> i liked your onion, but what's true is a lot of it -- i've seen, and being involved in a lot of these different neighborhoods in my business, and you know, amy, you know, sometimes it is the landlords. like, there's some odd reasons, like with hamburger mary, when we had the patio situation. a lot of businesses keep places

vacant. you go in and talk to them, and nothing ever happens for a while. and also, too, the broker aspect of it. i know in san francisco there are some brokers that are territorial, and you're smiling, and you know it's true. you know, one thing that we did many, many years ago in the castro was we had a broker's tour, and it worked. i think you were part of that when we first started the cbd. >> maybe. >> but we had all those brokers, and these people are no idea about the neighborhood. and i think, you know, it's these little things, too, i think that can help. i think after a while, i think we are going to start seeing price persquare foot start to come down because i'm personally seeing it in some neighborhoods. other neighborhoods, you know,

where you have nothing, i real credit -- you know, you invest in neighborhoods, because mission bernal, there's nothing available in mission bernal anymore. and for a while there -- i mean, maybe that's a perception thing that you talked about, but i went to my favorite spaghetti place over there, you know, without mentioning their name on a friday night. and that neighborhood was rocking. you know, and you didn't see that, you know, five years ago. they had like a night time event where they had all the businesses open, and an art walk. they just seemed very active. and then, again, it goes to they had an event that night, and they brought people in. >> and they have a bill board that markets the businesses. >> and it just didn't seem like there there was a lot of vacancy in that neighborhood. whatever you're doing, you're doing -- it's like wow. whoever thought this no man's land at one point like it is,

so i'll give you credit for that. so i have no more questions. any other questions before we go to open public comment? >> i just have one question for the commission. if it's for a comment now or comment later is what additional -- just in terms of the small business constituencies that you think should be aware of this, whether they're looking -- whether they're concerned about their own individual business or businesses of their associates or they're concerned about the vitality of their overall corridors in the years ahead, in terms of how -- how -- how proactive, how much more specific should we be from your -- from your point of view? just i know it's a lot to absorb in a short amount of time from programs to policy to recommendation, but if there are suggestions you have about what level of engagement you would like to see happen around

the recommendations of the study, the data of the study, we would love to hear it from you. if not directly today, then certainly later on through regina to help guide us in it our next steps. >> and one of our things that commissioner nunez, i thought was brilliant what you said earlier, because i see the same things. you have the city helping them on one hand, but then, you have, like, the health department coming in behind them saying well, wait a minute. or a restaurant wanting to move and there's an abc issue. and having those work together for the betterment of that business instead of the distraction of it. and i know commissioner ozuna, she wanted to speak. >> yeah, definitely that piece, and i think something that we've discussed with you all

before, and it's in the report, the regulations and fees are really compounded for small businesses, and i think that maybe needs to be honed in specifically. and i think maybe looking at the fee schedules and assessing which ones may be redundant and which ones can be turned into workforce opportunities, whether it's a fee related to street cleaning or whatnot. so i think that from me and from constituents that talk to me is probably the number one thing that's going to keep pima float. >> that's big to me because we have two measures on the ballot, if you're taxing landlords, that's going to get passed through to small businesses. and again, you know, small businesses are nickelled and dimed to death in this town. and you know, there are some fees, and i think there are some things out there that, you know, maybe we should look at.

because you talk about the future vitality, but some things we have to look at them now, because if we don't look at them now, we're not going to have a vitality to look at in the future. >> i think we have the high end high dollar store places, and low end, and then you have the middle ground, and the middle ground is being obliterated. we know certain demographics are in those sectors, and i think having attention to how those sectors may it be disproportionately targeted or regulations aren't equally applied to every sector, i think that needs to be looked at, as well. >> commissioner dwight? >> i do think it would be useful for you guys to bring

your show to the individual merchant association, either at cdma or you can do the leaders of those groups in their own forum, or -- but i think even down at the neighborhood level, you know, your cbd's are a great effort, and there's -- but there is a broader group of merchant associations, business e so's. you know, i've -- i run a manufacturing business, and we have traditionally until recently had a retail component to that because i've always firmly believed in manufacturing a theater, being able to come to our factory and see something being made is not unique, but it's certainly increasingly novel here in the united states. and so we always regarded that as the experience that we could provide. also providing local pickup for those, since many of our y customers are local, they like

to come in and pick up their bag. or try on things. you know, people still buying over the internet, if fit is an issue, then, there's a lot of back and forth, and sometimes you can avoid that if you can go in and try on in person. and you look at these on-line retailers, like warby parker, who are doing these pop up shops, so that you can just kind of keep -- or minimize the risk of retail so that you're not locked into long-term leases. but these pop up shops are retail experiences. and on-line retailers are realizing that something some brick and mortar component can be useful to them. but we need to turn that around for our existing retailers, especially, and teach them if it's not already obvious to them because there are many people who, you know, who might not even be using e-mail to the

extent that they should be. we think all these things are obvious because we talk about them all the time, but on the ground and in the trenches, it's not always obvious because you're busy running your business. whether you're running it into ground or whether you're running it into the future, you're usually head down and if you're not savvy, sometimes hearing from people like yourselves and people who are doing these things in their own businesses, their peers in their neighborhood merchant groups can really be helpful. and you know, in doing it in a way that's nonthreatening, right? what the stationary store is doing and what the apparel store is doing, they don't have to keep it close to the vest. it's going to be good for everybody. but it's very obvious that

resisting amazon, to use that as sort of the big ogre, it's not just amazon, it's all of the sophisticated on-line retailers and categories is not a strategy. that -- you're doomed if you're resisting amazon. you know, it's easy to say amazon is doing to neighborhood retailer what china did to manufacturing. china did it with cheap labor, but amazon did it with innovation. they' they're changing the way to stop. like they say in star trek, resistance in -- resistance is futile. it's in the moment, the thing

that you need to be doing, and so flexiblity and agility are a key component to going forward in these businesses, whether it's having a short-term lease or a retailer who's traditionally on-line who wants to try brick and mortar retail, to a brick and mortar, thinking about what's the next experience i need to compete? from having a dj and food this week to something different next week. it might be having a conference or it might be having a lecture. >> over the past five years, we -- we realize that its application to a traditional brick and mortar needed to change for accessiblity purposes. but that also, it seems now in

terms of supporting these immediate needs of popping up at certain times in a specific manner like we just did in the excelsior at certain times of the year to create a sense of experience for a certain period of time and maybe how to replicate some of those idea doe -- ideas. those big ideas that support a brick and mortar space, they may not benefit as well as some other experiences. >> i think bringing your story to the neighborhoods, to the extent you can pull that off. i know it's labor intensive for you, but i think that can be really useful. i believe firmly in neighborhood business associations as the way to do grass roots development in the neighborhood. >> yeah. >> you know, i've been on the board of the chamber of commerce. that's not for small business in my opinion. what's for small business is

your neighborhood association and its relationship to cdma. and the council of district merchants, which is named merchants, but it's really about small businesses, whether you're a merchant or a service business or whatever. i mean, even service businesses are going to have to be experimental. and the better you are at it, the better your business. >> thank you so much, commissioner. >> commissioners, hearing some of the presentation and thinking about, first, what amy cohen said about the 40% of the retail sales are on-line and thinking about some of the legislation that you've recently heard and provided comment on is that much of the regulatory environment that we have is around the brick and mortar, and if we have more on-line, more revenue -- more

sales going on-line, you've had discussions about equally applying those regulatory requirements to align. so i don't know if there's a recommendation that goes into their final report that if we're going to be putting sort of land restrictions on our brick and mortar businesses or developing taxes and/or licenses and fees, if -- [ inaudible ] >> so since you've had that discussion, i just wanted to mention, you know, in terms of sort of doing the level playing field between our brick and mortars and on-line retailers. >> absolutely. commissioner riley? >> yes. this commission has been working on streamlining some of the permit process and eliminating some of the unnecessary or outdated permits so -- to make it easier for the

small business. i'd like to know how we're doing so far in the process of the permits. so maybe it's time to take a look at it again to see whether or not we can stream line it more and eliminate some of the outdated ones. >> just in terms of having an assessment of how our accelerator program has been doing and providing some real-time data in terms of the business portal and how it's been doing and providing some of the real-time data there. >> any other commissioner comments before we go to public comment? okay. let's open it up to public comment. do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this presentation? come on up. >> hello. my name's david broadwin, and i live in the noe valley. i think the presentation was

great, but there's just a couple of things that i'd like to add for consideration that i think might be helpful. first, while it's great to have spaces with tall ceilings and so forth, i think we might have pushed that one too far in relation to small neighborhoods. i see businesses going up in my neighborhood that have 15 foot ceilings. they're putting money into something that they've never recapture. and then, i feel sad for the tenant because people are going to have to pay too much because the developer has to try to recover their costs for overbuilding the space. so i think the whole situation would be better if we could maybe tamp down some of those requirements to allow a little bit more modest structures that would still be very attractive and would better suit the needs

of the area. another suggestion is about price transparency. in our area, a lot of the building owners are not local, and they're not big professional operators. so they're probably looking at their storefront from across the country and reading everything about all the d dot-combillionaires in san francisco. i'm wondering if there isn't some way that the city could create a -- kind of a legitimate and trusted way for landlords -- for building owner to see come up to speed about the current pricing pressure, because i think there would be a little less holding out if people could see realistically how is it possible that there's downward pressure on commercial space when at the same time a single-family residence is selling for $4 million in the same neighborhood. i think people are having a

hard time understanding it. >> great. thank you. >> thank you. >> great. thank you. excellent. thank you very much. any other members of the public? welcome. >> hi. thanks, martin and amy. did he observe neiman. noe valley. the biggest complaint i here from the tenants trying to rent are the city regulations and processes involved in opening a new business and how they handicap a business. i would say this beautiful purple circle -- well, maybe i i i'm reading this wrong, but i'm here to say i think city regulations and processes are a bigger issue than what i see on this chart, and i hope that we can work on reducing some of those, some of which david has mentioned. i also hope that the planning commission is starting to look

at the planning codes for each neighborhood, because on 24th street, we have prohibited -- a planning code in terms of space. like when real foods finally sells, we're supposed to divide that in half, which will look ridiculous, you're talking about two 13-foot storefronts, and nobody's going to want this. all of this, is the planning commission looking at individual neighborhoods and asking them to review their planning codes or does the initiative have to come from the neighborhoods to review their planning codes? there is no -- and just work through the supervisors to change them, to get rid of some of the cu's? we have cu's for everything on 24th street, which is why i think we have vacancies more than what you thought, so... >> can you?

>> our preliminary conversations with planning, we're going to look at your district and say your vacancy rate is really low. if there's concern among folks and they go to the supervisor, then i think it would be kind of a case by case, according to the way. so there's nothing stopping that, but i think that planning isn't saying we're going to do an across the board deep dive into everyone's zoning right now. >> no. that would be insane, but i have to wait to see who gets elected supervisor. >> thank you. next? >> hello. good afternoon, commissioners. thank you oewd for putting this great report together. super timely. my name is vas kineras. i've been a small business owner on fillmore for 25 years. i took it from a noninterat the

ti time -- non-internet business to a highly internet business. and actually, fillmore street was one of the test cases for this report. so it's really interesting, because as a small business, we see the small of creating experiences for consumers to come into our stores. and analogously, we should do this on a street wide level. it's really important to think of these merchant corridors not just as individual businesses, but a collection of businesses that create a brand in these different merchant corridors. the brand consists of the history of the neighborhood and also the type of brands that are in these neighborhoods, so it's important to highlight these not only to our surrounding neighbors, but to other parts of the city and our

tourists, as well. it can only strengthen us. i want to think about these merchant corridors as experiences and where people can go and spend a whole day in different neighborhoods, so i really look forward to working with oewd in the future in helping these merchant corridors, and thank you again for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi. steven cornell. just a couple of thoughts. when we talk about changing the or loosening some of the regulations in neighborhoods, let's think about a little bit about why they're there and how they came about. the biggest changes in the start of this was back in the '80's, when union street and west postal came to the city and said -- or to the planning department and said we have a real problem. union street, all of a sudden, started having a lot of bars and restaurants, which caused the rents to go up.

a landlord can actually get a lot more money out of a bar or restaurant than it can a standard retailer. and the neighborhood became less neighborhood shopping area but a destination area. union street was and is very vibrant, but it isn't a neighborhood shopping area. so by changing regulations, putting regulations -- putting restrictions on bars and restaurants slowed that process down. at the same time, west portal went through the same thing with financial institutions. all of a sudden, there was a million financial institutions, so they put a stop to financial institutions to slow that process down. financial institutions, again, can pay a lot higher rent to a landlord than a traditional business. the latest -- the latest one that was doing the same thing, we got a law that came in because all of a sudden nail

salons were popping up all over the place, and they tended to pay a lot higher rent. so for instance, in west portal today -- excuse me, about a month ago, they had 23 places you could get your nails done in three blocks. it seemed a little bit high. that caused a -- regulations of nail salons. it is something to think about when we start taking regulations away, why were they put in, and you know sometimes, we're going to create a lot worse situation. i believe in -- all of us in business are trying to get more business. one of the ways we can do that is taking care of our own. i've always said the city of san francisco, our largest employer should sit there and take care of its own and not say do -- tell you not as i do. recently, i've -- okay.

>> you've got 30 seconds. >> recently i went to a meeting at the mta, about 15 of us. they served us cookies and milk, so to speak, they all came out in styrofoam containers. here they're telling us, we can't sell them, we can't use them, but the city is using them. lastly, the puc tells us about toilets, with flappers, that just kills a businesslike mine. where do they buy them? never from san francisco businesses. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> anymore members of the public? seeing none, public comment is closed. i definitely have to agree with what the last speaker says. we really have -- the city and county needs to look at its own business for procurement. then, another thing that the last couple of speakers said,

you know, a lot of these retail laws, these neighborhood cu's, and this is just my opinion, 'cause i -- i dealt with a lot of these different neighborhood cu's and rules and regulations. you know, a lot of them came out and about in the 1980's, and things just get built and built and built and built on top of them. and some of them need to get cleaned up, you know, and i think a lot of neighborhoods -- i know in the castro at one point, we were looking at cleaning up our -- what we want as a cu, what we don't want. and that -- i'm trying to think of the gentleman at planning that started it and then passed away. little things like that i think we need to look at. commissioners, anything else? no? well, joaquin and amy, i want to thank you very much. we can sit here and talk about this all night long.

[applause]. >> i want to thank our -- our public, your comments. i thought they were great. you know, this is something we're all going to have to come together and talk about, because you know, retail is changing, as you see in your surveys. i thought your presentation was actually clent excellent, and i read the full presentation. i think we need to get in front of it, and i think what commissioner dwight said, take this to the individual neighborhoods. each neighborhood is different in this town. as you know with vested neighborhoods, everybody's different, everybody's unique. and when we look at neighborhood regulations, we've got to look at this. and i do think there's a revamp. you know, when they talk about west portal with financial institutions. you know, at one point, there were 29 financial institutions

on poes west portal. you're down to ix is. the wor -- down to six. thank you for a long presentation, but this is needed, and so thank you for an excellent presentation on this. thank you very, very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> next item, please. >> item five, approval of meeting minutes, action item. in your packet are the draft regular meeting minutes from january 22nd, 2018, and february 26th, 2018. approval of the minutes can be done together or separately. >> okay. do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on the meeting minutes? seeing none, commissioners, do we have a motion to approve them together? >> second. >> all in favor. >> aye. >> any opposed? >> motion passes.

>> unanimous -- >> 4-0. >> 4-0. >> okay. item six, director's report, update and report on the office of small business and the small business center, department programs, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor and announcements regarding small business activity. discussion item. >> i have a short director's report for you tonight. just want to highlight some things that took place between meetings. i met with supervisor tang's office, the office of labor standards and enforcement, department of public health. they're developing their rules and regulations around the lactation in the workplace, and so we had a preliminary -- a preliminary review, and they're going to be sending out an announcement in conjunction with our office soon on wanting businesses to provide input and

feedback on the facq's. i think this particular meeting, it was a good thing for me to attend. it was a reminder to include a posting that goes up in the employee area. this is one that's not done with a posting, it's done by the employer providing the policy at the time of hire. so some of the items that we did discussion is that oesc provide sort of a guideline for businesses to implement this requirement because there are existing employees that need to be -- that need to be informed, and particularly for businesses that don't have employee manuals. so this -- and because this law

applies to every single employer who has one or more employees. it did -- so it did, you know, remind me that one of the things that i think we need to do as an office and once we start managing the content of -- for the business portal is we do need to upgrade the business portal's page on all of the employer laws and actually develop a handbook that we can take to meetings so that employers are really informed of the stay in the box, the lactation and all of the different laws that have been passed over the years. last week, the chamber had their coming to city hall day, which i think was very well attended. mayor farrell met with several

businesses, and i know commissioner to you tyou attended, and you can speak on either employers or business owners who may be feeling a little concerned because of the ice actions. so i do know that with -- when i talk about we, todd ruffo and the office of workforce development will be putting together some guidelines and information that's specifically targeted to businesses. we've been doing that more for individuals as a city, but we haven't been doing that for businesses. and i think when small business week is coming up, we are going to be changing the awards ceremony to wednesday morning. there are more affiliate events that are taking place, and so

to allow people to attend multiple affiliate events, especially the sponsors, we are going to be hosting the awards ceremony in the morning on wednesday, the 16th. so i'll send out a meeting invite in relationship to that. so that concludes my report unless you have any questions for me. >> any questions for the director? do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on the director's report? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item seven, commissioner's reports. allows president, vice president, and commissioners to report on recent small business activities and make announcements that are of interest to the small business community. discussion item. >> i just have one quick announcement. castro farmer's market starts

on wednesday at 5:00. runs through thanksgiving. that's my baby over there, so i'm going to push it. >> i don't have anything this evening. >> the other commissioners? >> yeah. as the commissioner mepntioned i attended the civic affairs. i was really impressed with the additional resources that they've banded together in light of the federal environment right now. the arab american grocers have been tuned in to the rapid response right now. one thing that i brought up was i requested from oewd and the

mayor's office kind of a look at the sting operations and enforcement efforts in the next year, whether they're from the department of public health or state regulatory agencies as we've been advised through -- by immigration lawyers that federal collaboration with these types of agencies isn't unheard of, and there's a precedent for it. so even though we're in a sanctuary city, there's sfpd and fbi collaborations that are under an mou that may be reinstated, and those are targeted to a certain demographic and particularly the arab and muslim communities. the sector of the workforce that those folks are in often interacts with a lot of those regulatory agencies, whether it's fbi. so we ask for a lot of

transparency around those sting operations. i think that's all i have to report. >> okay. anybody else? do we have public comment on item number seven? seeing none, public comment is closed. item eight. >> item eight. new business. allows commissioners to introduce new business to the commission for future agendas. >> do we have any new business? commissioner zouzounis? >> i want to focus on getting a list of task businesses so i can better refer other people. and also, you know, following the conversation we had around commercial and retail, i'm curious if there's any numbers kind of circling back to the housing and density bill and the soft side acquisitions, if there's any information we can receive around commercial protections with development -- housing development in general as i've seen, you know, commercial ground floor spaces being lost and i'm wondering if

there's any numbers on that. >> okay. any other new business? we have public comment on new business. seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> sfgovtv, please show the office of small business line. >> so we begin each and end each small business meeting with a reminder that the office of small business is the only place to start your new business in san francisco, and the best place to get answers to your questions about doing business in san francisco. so you know, visit us on-line or in person at the office of small business, and it's free of charge. so come check us out. >> item nine, adjournment, action item. >> do we have a motion to adjourn? >> so moved. >> all in favor? meeting adjourned. thank you. >> meeting adjourned at 7:21

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