was asked to do is water system improvement program and one thing i looked at is about the 4.8 billion dollars wurthd of work and a lot of the work was regional. we looked at how can we make sure that we provide opportunities for san franciscan's and people in the region and so we looked at ways we can expand our local san francisco lb program. so, we thought about it and worked with general manager at the time to form an advizry committee to talk about how to include local businesses in the region. >> i was on the first committee back about 10 years ago and the job changed over time. in the beginning, we just wanted people to know about it. we wanted to attract contractors to come into the system which

is a bidding system and bid on some of these projects. our second job was to help the sfpuc to try to make themselves more user frndly. >> i like that they go out of their way, have contractors trying to teach and outreach to small businesses and lots of creative ways. help the community as well. there is so much infrastructure going on and repair, new construction that i think is helping to get construction back on its feet. >> my faiv rlt part of the committee has been that we have played a opportunity for many small businesses. [inaudible] women owned business to come in and [inaudible] sfpuc. it is a great opportunity because some are so small they have been able to grow their companies

and move up and bid other projects with the sfpuc. >> everyone i was talking about with any contractor [inaudible] and super markets and things like that and i realize the transition was on the sfpuc. he got that first job and knows about the paperwork qu schedule and still works on this type of job, but he works with general contractors that also did other things. pretty soon it is like he did that one and that one. it completely changed his business. >> my name is nancy [inaudible] the office manager and bid coordinator for [inaudible]

construction. worked on 10 plus puc, lbe contracts. today we are doing site maintenance on the [inaudible] chr site and currently the gentlemen behind me are working on every moving and basic specs of plants. in order to be success you need to work hard, bid low and keep a look at the sfpuc website for future bidding opportunity. >> this is a successful program because it provides opportunities to regional communities that might not have opportunities to work for large scale projects. the sfpuc is a fortunate agency we have a lot of capital program that span over 7 counties who also to see how some businesses like [inaudible] and bio mass started as small micro businesses grow and expand and

stay in the program and work on several projects before they graduate from the program. that is what warms my heart. >> my name is college willkerson, the principle for bio mass. bio mass has been in business since 2006. 3 partners. small businesses fill a niche but apply and being a part of the program helped us be more visible and show the city and county of san francisco we can also perform services. >> this program had tremendous impact to the region. in fact, the time we rolled the program out was during the recession. this has h a major positive impact and certified over 150 firms in the rejen and

collectively awarded $50 million in contracts, and because of the lbe certification it open many opportunities to work with sfpuc. and, i significantly helped the business. it is one of the major contributors to our success. >> when i open up the paper every day i'm just amazed at how many different environmental issues keep popping up. when i think about the planet i want to leave for my children and other generation, i think of what contribution i can make on a personal level to the environment. ♪

clean power sf is san francisco's key way of fighting climate change by renewable energy and offering it to san francisco customers. i'm from the san francisco public utilities commission. the program came about with state wide legislation in 2002 to enable people to take more control over supplies. i first heard of the program when the organization was advocating to launch clean power sf. what i'm most excited about, it's going to bring 100% renewable energy to my home and reinvest into renewable energy infrastructure and jobs. i had gone to a lot of street fairs and heard from the staff at the san francisco public utilities commission to sign up for clean power sf even before it launched. >> we learned about clean power

sf because our sustainability team is always looking for clean operations. linkedin is the largest online network. there are about 530 million members using our site. in this san francisco office there's about 1400 employees working in roughly 400,000 square feet. >> after signing up for the program we heard about the san francisco program and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. i'm the co-owner of the new wheel electric bike shop. we opened this store in 2012 and the new wheel sells and services electric bikes. 11 people work here in san francisco and our store is about 2,000 square feet. electric bikes are fantastic for transportation in the city, they're clean and green and you

get places faster than any other form of transportation. it amplifies the power, it doesn't replace it. it makes it easier to get places by bicycle and it's so enjoyable and environmentally friendly way to go and more convenient in san francisco. >> clean power sf requires two products, green, 40% renewable and competitively priced with pg and e. for those who want to fight climate change more, 100% renewable at $0.02 per kilawatt. >> i decided to go with the super greens, after finding it only to cost about $5 more a month to have super green, that's a no-brainer, i can do

that. >> we were pleased that clean power sf offers the super green 100% for commercial entities like ours and residents for the city of san francisco. we were pleased with the package of services for linkedin and now encouraging our employees who have a residence in san francisco to sign on as well. >> clean power sf buys its power from renewable plants that feed the energy directly into the grid. >> there's a commitment to sustainability throughout the entire organization and this clean power opportunity reflects that. >> one of the wind farms we use is the shilo wind farm and that is large enough to be able to provide energy for up to 200,000 homes. >> our mission is sustainability, even though our bikes are minimal energy use, it

still matters where the energy comes from and part of our mission in sustainability is how we run everything -- run our business. having the lights come on with clean energy is very important. >> the sunset reservoir has solar panels that take up about four city blocks covering the reservoir and the solar power generates energy for city resources and clean power sf for residents participating in the program. >> it was easy to sign up for the program, i went online to cleanpowersf.org and i started getting pieces in the mail letting me know i was going to be switched over and it just happened. when i pay my bill, i still go to pg and e and i don't see any difference between now and a year ago. >> sign up online, just have

your account number ready and it takes about two minutes and there's nothing to install. no lines are getting connected to your home. all the power goes through the existed power grid. >> we haven't had any problems with the switch over to clean power. >> it's super easy to sign up. our book keeper signed up online, it took about 15 minutes. nothing changed but now we have cleaner energy. >> we see clean power sf as a key strategy to meet renewable energy goal, we have a goal of 50% renewable energy by 2020. currently we have enrolled about 86,000 customers across the city. about 20% of what we hope to serve in the future and in the next two years we'll offer service to all san francisco electricity customers. >> an easy way to align your environmental responsibilities and goals around climate change

and it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it and it doesn't really add anything to the bill. >> joining clean power sf is one of the easiest ways to fight climate change, receiving cleaner energy at low and stable rates, you're helping to support a not for profit that helps influence the energy grid and produce more production. >> i would encourage any business to seriously convert to the clean sf service. it's good for environment, business and the community. >> you can sign up online our call and the great thing is, you'll have the peace of mind that you're doing your part in your household to help the environment. ♪ ♪

[gavel]

>> all right, welcome to our land use committee of, i'm katy tang, to my right is jane kim and to my left, asha safai. we would like to thank sf gov tv. any announcements? >> be sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. items acted upon will appear on the may 1 supervisors board agenda. item number 1 is ordinance amending the building code to extend the times for existing buildings, extension of time deadlines, deletion of administration fees and directing the clerk of the board to forward this ordinance to the

california building standards commission. >> supervisor tang: i wanted to explain it. i passed out packets, outlining the amendments. back in $2015, we work with the mayor on disability, the department of building inspection, of which we have representatives, the access appeals, small business community, sf public works. we had so many people involved in crafting what i thought was the most comprehensive legislation around accessibility in the nation back in 2015. since passing the legislation, we've actually amended already one time to extend the time line for compliance. and the program was modelled off the seismic safety program and has three components. one is that places of public accommodation must submit a checklist identifying where they may have accessibility issues or not. secondly, they must obtain

building permit and thirdly -- sorry, secondly file for a building permit and thirdly obtain the building permit. all of this was in an attempt to make sure our businesses are available to people who have disabilities, who need accessible entrances as is required by law under state and federal law. and also, it was in response to many of the litigation that came about throughout the state of california, around what we're calling drive-by lawsuits, where people are going around literally to buildings and seeing if your entrance complies or not. so this legislation really was to identify or to address really two different kinds of goals, which again, was to help small businesses or business in general being more available and open to those with accessibility issues, but also with the drive-by lawsuits.

today i have a set of amendments. the main crux of the amendments are extend the time line fort different types of compliance tiers that we have. so for example, if you fall into category 1 building, your new date would be january 1, 2019. category 2 is also january 1, 2019. category 3, june 1, 2019 and category 4, december 31, 2019. you have an amendment chart in front of you. we're pegging some of the definitions such as the place of public accommodation and what hardships are to other codes, so regardless of our legislation locally, or what happens on a state or federal level that these definitions are amply clear, clearly defined in san francisco. we also wanted to just further

clarify if buildings are to comply with seismic safety, the program that you as a prorlt property owner would be working to have your front entrance in compliant and we clarified the section on that. and then of course, we know that although the onus is on the property owner and/or the business for complains, we want to -- clienompliance, we want t make sure they have 30 days notice, if they have to make and irremediable yat the entrance way or the sidewalk. we want to make sure the small business tenants understand what it may be. we're not trying to harm small businesses, we're trying to help them. because when there is a lawsuit brought forward, the responsibility can fall on either the property owner or the small business tenant.

so with that, colleagues, we have a representative from dbi. if you have questions, we can go to public comment. mr. sean, any other remarks? >> i would say the department is appreciative of this consideration, supervisor. we have had a number of small businesses and property owners come back to the building department and request additional time beyond the may 23 date. a lot of this has to do with notifications and people paying attention. per your reference to the program, which has a september 15 deadline for each of the different tiers, we know that people often wait until literally september 12 or 14 before they'll submit for the september 15 deadline. so, i know we have done two notifications and four or five

public workshops so far. we have another public workshop in may and our annual earthquake safety fair will have a special workshop on june 13 as well. so we're increasing the notification aspect in order to try to get more of these responses in from property owners. and we do appreciate the extra time. >> ok, thank you very much. and i neglected to say that we're also in the legislation waiving the building inspection permit fee as well in regards to this program. so i want to thank you because we have been trying to work with dbi on outreach. they actually have on their website, a link to the video, so if you're a property owner or small business owner that needs to comply with the legislation and you can't make it to the workshop, that information is available onlinement without any

further questions or comments, we'll go to public comment on item number 1. any members of the public who wish to speak in -- to speak? ok. >> hi. good afternoon i guess, supervisors. i want to say i am pleased, this has been extended by the period that you proposed, supervisor tang. we have 12,000 places that will be subject to possibly requiring the upgrade for the accessibility to the store fronts. so i really appreciate your improving this and happy to here that the things will be eliminated. supervisor, in the long run it's good legislation. hopefully it will save these drive-by lawsuits and that way

small businesses will benefit. i am the president of the council of district merchants association. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. and again, just to clarify, this is only the dbi fee that we're waiving. there may be other fees, but today, only dbi. we will close public comment. item 1, colleagues, if we can get a motion on the amendments first. >> i'd like this make a motion to amend. >> supervisor tang: we'll do that without objection. and then on the item as amended? >> i'd like this make a motion to move, i wanted to thank supervisor tang for your work on this. this is incredibly important for us to do, another way to support small businesses here. while it is really important that meet the mandatory access, for so many reasons, we know this has been such a challenge for small businesses that are in

old spaces and buildings that preexisted these mandate. thank you for pushing this forward. >> supervisor tang: if we can pass this out as a committee report. that would be great. we'll do that without objection. >> thank you, item number 1. >> the resolution establishing the leather and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender cultural district. >> supervisor kim: thank you so much. we have been -- well, first of all, i should start with a little bit of history. this has now been a little over a decade in the making. the concept of a leather cultural district was first introduced through the neighborhood community planning process starting in 2007. so this was a part of the promise of the western soma plan

to recognize the historic contributions of the leather community in particular, as well as the lgbtq community to the development of the western soma neighborhood, with bars ranging from the stud to the eagle to so many iconic venues along with the fulsome street fair, this neighborhood has been made stronger and more interesting because of our leather and lgbt community. after the passage of the western soma plan in 2012, we have been spending quite a bit of time, figuring out what it meant to build out a social cultural district. it's a great concept, but it's making it into a living breathing district, so it's not just a series of monuments and street signs. it's challenging, how do we grow small business that cater to this community? how do we build housing and services to ensure that members

of the community continue to live in western south market. so this process has been with the community for several years, but in particular the community has been meeting in ernest over the last 18 months to try to bring this to fruition. i want to recognize the many community members that are here today for engaging in so many meetings, on doing something very different. it's very easy to set up social cultural historic district, but it's quite a different thing to put into place a series of mechanisms an incentives to ensure this community continues to thrive and live and play in the western south market. so i want to acknowledge the group that is here today. this ordinance does more than honor the people, places and institution that gave south market its distinct appeal. it will help protect the remains

businesses and sustain the people who work, live and recreate here. the goals of providing affordable housing, protecting our bars and clubs, which is more than just night life. they're also safe spaces for our community, a place where people come to and feel they can be who they are without being attacked or criticized. and also, figuring out how to create a new community center. and also support institutions like folsom street fair. i mentioned the process began last year. we submitted the first draft in 2017 and did not get a response from any of the departments or commissions to our initial referral. i want to recognize gail rueben as well as bob gold farb and make it clear we're naming is

the lgbtq leather district and want to recognize jeff shi hi. i want to recognize the collaborators. eric will, braylon, dawn, bess, jonathan, nate, steve, alex, david, and rand as well as the san francisco bay area leather alliance, center for sex and culture and it has been moving along a parallel course. and finally, want to recognize bobby lopez, legislative staffer, and shelly. also say that there are many cooks in the kitchen to make something this big an fabulous happen in the western south market and i'm proud to be authoring this ordinance today. so, seeing there are no comments

or questions from community members, i was hoping to open up for public comments. i have a series of speakers cards. [reading of names] please come up to the mic. it doesn't have to be in the order that i called your name. >> thank you so much for that beautiful summary of how this came to be, that was well done. thank you. good afternoon, thank you for the opportunity to speak, i am a longtime san francisco resident. i have a background as author and writer, community organizer,

educator, in various members of the leather and lesbian. and the news weekly, my roots in the leather world are deep. i'm here to add my support to the creation of the historic leather community. certainly the past decades have shown that our city is ready to stand with their lgbtq citizens. i contend that the leather community deserves similar respect and acknowledgment, especially in san francisco. the market is a well known beacon of light for the countless men and women who identify with leather. by leather, i mean the strong bonded community both locally and nationally that consider these identity and social structures to be vital to the

full expression of who they are. their history that brought them to the present time and the current businesses, nonprofits argueses and events that -- organizations and events that support. i urge you to vote for the resolution to move onto the board of supervisors for consideration and vote. thank you for your time and thank you for the beautiful summary. >> supervisor kim: thank you for being here. >> i have lived here since 1986. i came to visit san francisco to see a friend. i did not plan on staying. after a week, i was at the gay pride celebration in june and the vibrancy and life of the city's gay community persuaded me to stay here. as i stayed i found i was attracted to the leather community. this community is incredibly strong and vibrant and

supportive. the resolution before the committee is to support the creation of a leather and lgbt cultural district. san francisco has long been on the forefront of the historical, it was in san francisco that gay men and women flocked to the city to create community. you all know about the castro and the pope district neighborhood, but you might not have heard of south market. this is also a community district. its working class neighborhood of run down warehouses became fertile ground for the leather community to open bars and businesses. this neighborhood fostered the growth of the recognized subculture that had its own mayor. i want to say that again. globally recognized subculture. alan shelby moved here from england and started the famous store leather and was officially known to the friends and people of the community as the mayor

of -- [bell ringing] -- the neighborhood is also unique in the culture and will facilitate the businesses and people instrumental to its implementation, but will also create communities that will support -- sorry. i'm sorry, i lost my place here. >> supervisor kim: it's ok. [bell ringing] >> -- vibrant subculture to stay in the district. i urge you to vote to pass this. >> supervisor kim: thank you very much. >> i'm steve gains and i wanted to let you know that my husband here of 27 years is with me and we were both brought -- both pulled into san francisco because san francisco leather community has always been such a

leader in the world. and right now, we feel very, very threatened, threatened by the new development and we don't want to stop the new development. what we want to do is have a leather cultural district so we can be included in the new development. and this is really important to us and the next generation of leather people who are moving to san francisco because this is the best leather community in the world. thank you. >> supervisor kim: i agree. and i apologize for separating your last name. thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is guy. thank you for the opportunity to speak. this means a lot to me.

because san francisco is my chosen home. where i group up. i would never even have this opportunity to speak. i came to san francisco for university first, and this is the place where i found out i was gay. then i found out i was -- that i'm into leather. and then i went home. i went back to singapore. i realized that was not where my heart is. that my heart belongs to san francisco. i came back here because this is where my family is, the leather community means the world to me. and i've seen it changed a lot. i've lived here for 25 years. change is always good and bad. i've seen the economic growth in san francisco. which is great for san

francisco, but at the same time with economic growth it has threatened the lifestyle and the cultural vibrancy of this city. which draws many people here. why i think -- [bell ringing] -- it's important to have this cultural district, never mind for my personal interest, but economically it makes sense when a city as vibrant and when it has many layers of cultural offerings, it draws people here, it draws tourists here, it draws money here. so for that reason, i urge you to -- [bell ringing] -- support this cultural institution, thank you very much. >> my name is jeff millard, i

was mr. san francisco leather last year and the first runner-up at mr. international leather. i speak for myself for a second and also some former mr. san franciscos, the current, former and current ms. san francisco in asking you to support this measure. i got to travel the world during my title year. literally the world. and everyone knew mr. san francisco leather, because we are the heart and soul of the international leather movement. no matter where i went, australia, europe, canada, all over the u.s., everyone knew who mr. san francisco leather was, not because i'm special, but because the title is special and leather in san francisco is special. next month, i will be moving out of the bay area because 100% service connected veteran, i

can't afford to live in the bay area. my income is not going up. but prices here are. and that's the story of leather right now. we're under threat of losing the heart and soul, much of the heart and soul of the international leather community because we're losing leather folk here who can't afford to stay. if we don't do something actively to hold onto our culture, we're going to lose it. that terrifies me. [bell ringing] i strongly ask you to support the measure and help us preserve the heart and soul of the international leather community here in san francisco. thank you. >> supervisor kim: thank you, i'm going to call a few more speaker cards that i have in front of me. david, ryan -- i might have called this, grailen, rover, eric, paul, daniel, safaio.

>> good afternoon, i'm a native of the bay area and speak on the behalf of the filipino cultural heritage district and the community that has called south market home for more than a century. we like to support the lgbt and leather cultural district. our neighbors in the south of market, the filipino heritage district seek to represent the needs of long established communities that have faced continuous displacement. representatives have been working with other cultural districts to form legislation that goes to committee may 9 that provides for a framework of