good afternoon everyone and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting for tuesday, may 15th, 2018. madam clerk, please call the role. thank you, madam president. president breed? breed, present. supervisor cohen? cohen, president. super visor fewer? fewer, present. supervisor safai?

safai, not present. supervisor sheehy? sheehy, present. supervisor ronen? ronen, president. supervisor tang? tang, present. supervisor yee? yee, present. will you join me for the pledge of allegiance. without objection, those meeting minutes will be approved after public comment. madam clerk, please read the consent agenda. items one and two are on consent. these items are considered routi

routine. madam clerk, please call the role. on items one and two. supervise supervisor yee? yee, aye. supervisor breed? breed, aye. supervisor peskin? peskin, aye. madam clerk, let's go to the next item. an ordnance to amend the movement code.

item six appropriates $146 million of proceeds from the general obligation housing bond series 2018 d. for public housing, low income housing and investment in the mission neighborhood and middle income housing in 2017-2018. and item seven appropriates $52.5 million of proceeds for improvements in seismic strengthening for mental health emergency response and safety and homeless shelter and service, placing all funds on controller's reserve pending the outcome of the sale of the bonds. same house, same call. without objection, the items pass unanimously. next item? item eight is a resolution to authorize the tack collector to sell at public auction

certain parcels of tax defaulted real property as defined herein. supervisor tang? i know that given previous discussions on this item, i had been communicating with the treasurer and tax collector's office outside of this meeting to go through what the office had been doing in light of our last conversation. i wasn't sure if anyone was here and i didn't ask anyone. so it's not their fault if they're not here. supervisor tang, we could come back to this item later in the meeting and get someone in the department to come. that would be helpful, i think, for us all. okay, if colleagues are interested. otherwise, i was happy to share that they did inform me that they took extra steps for posting on the site and so forth, regardless of whether it was an actual property or not. but if other colleagues want to hear from then, then we could defer. okay, all right. okay, so we will come back to this item and we will make

sure that we reach out to someone from the treasurer tax collector's office to come to our meeting today for this item. madam clerk, let's call supervisor kim on item eight? okay, madam clerk, please call item number nine. item nine is a resolution to retro actively authorize the recreation and park department

supervisor safai? for item number 11. sorry. this is the first reading of this item. just wanted to say a few words about this. supervisor peskin and i have worked on this legislation for over a year. the genesis of this, colleagues, was the general frustration that many of us have felt on this board with our interactions with sfmta.

we put this legislation forward in two pieces, and i'm gonna hand it over to supervisor peskin to speak from his perspective about his approach. but essentially, when we're thinking about it, it was about an agency that was extremely, extremely large and had many different objectives that sometimes were competing objectives. when i came on this board, there was still a lot of general frustration when it came down to the micro level and the neighborhood level issues. so that's the way i approach th

this. we've been engaging for over a year. if you remember, we had a jeopardy conversation about a potential charter amendment that would have broken is sfmta into two pieces. a department of sustainable streets and a department of muni. we are accessing what supervisor peskin and others put into the charter over a decade a go. and as i said, we have seen a change in behavior. we've seen some progress in dealing with some of these issues. there's still a way's to go. but i would say that this is a good compromised piece of legislation. and i think i've heard from many of my colleagues that you have started to see some positive steps in the right direction and gotten more response from the sfmta. so we're willing to do this on

a year. we want to give this some time. but essentially, we believe that this is an opportunity for some authority to come back to this board. now, that does not mean that we will be hearing items on a weekly basis. we believe that like the conditional use authority that we have, when five members of the board sign on to a piece of legislation, that that's happened twice since i've been on the board for a year and a half. we believe that this will be used very strategically, or if at all. but at the same time, it is something that we have access to and we do have the ability to review some decisions that will come forward. i'm gonna hand it over to my colleague, supervisor peskin, through the chair. but i know that some of this is also about the separation of powers and the division of power ins our city. so i'm gonna hand it over to my colleague from china town north beach. supervisor peskin? thank you, madam president and colleagues. first of all, i want to thank

supervisor safai for having the courage and perseverance to move this forward. i also want to thank the staff and director riskin as well as the commission for working with us in a collaborative fashion and underscore what supervisor safai said, which is just the mere presence of this appeal procedure has already, i think, started to affectuate the kind of communication that many of us felt we're lacking. it's very difficult to explain that as a result of the 2007 proposition a charter amendment, this board of supervisors has little, if any, legislative authority over the works of a $1.2 billion agency known as the sfmta.

supervisor safai said a little bit about prop a. i want to actually, just for historic reminiscence, go back to 1999 when two supervisors collaborated on proposition e, which was the first real piece of charter reform since they were a property of our public utilities commission back in the day. and if you will recall, willie brown had a challenge to see whether or not he could walk down market street faster than the j line got from the van ness station to the embarcadero station. for the first eight years that i was on the board of superviso

supervisors, every red curb, blue curb, green curb, yellow curb, stop sign actually came to the land use and transportation committee for approval. when prop a came around in 2007, we gave all of that authority to the sfmta commission. and prop a actually, which i was the chief author of, included a provision that said that the board of supervisors, by ordnance, can create an appeal procedure so that legislative actions takingen by the sfmta commission could be appealed to this board of supervisors. and indeed, i introduced some appellate legislation and the clock ran out and i actually never got it done. ten years has passed. this is narrowly tailored and narrowly crafted. as supervisor safai says, it takes five members of this board to bring an appeal. i expect that we'll use that

judicially, that this is really creating a pathway for us to have healthy, robust interactions with the mta staff and the commission. and that we will not need to avail ourselves of this appellate procedure very often. and with that, i commend it to you, colleagues. and again, i want to thank supervisor safai and the committee that brought this forward. thank you for your support and committee. thank you, supervisor peskin. supervisor safai? yes, i just want to bring the attention to the board here, we have one small amendment. page 1, line 19-22. and that's the definition of a development application.

i want to thank supervisor

peskin and his staff, my staff, the sfmta, at the present time city attorney gibner. i know that this was something that was on your plate along with deputy city attorney john kennedy and the sfmta staff and susan cleveland knolls. we know this was not an easy piece of legislation. but colleagues, we ask for your support. thank you. colleagues, can we take this item same house, same call? the amendment, madam president. where's the amendment? oh, sorry. this is for another piece of legislation. no, i just read the amendment into the record. i thought they had given you a copy. it's a very small change to the definition of what a development agreement is, application. that's line 19-22. making a motion to accept that amendment. supervisor safai has made a motion to amend seconded by

supervisor peskin. can we take the amendment without objection? without objection, the amendment passes. and on the item as amended, can we take that same house, same call? without objection, the ordnance -- madam president, supervisor cohen. supervisor cohen? on item no. 11 as amended, madam clerk please call the roll.

we did an increased amount of research for this year's auction based on a lot of your feedback. we really do appreciate that. it made for a much better process all around. we did what we call skip tracing in the collections world. we looked for anybody who might have some interest in these parcels. whether or not there was a recorded deed, we really expanded the search and found the widest net possible of folks that may need to be notified. and we sent certified notification to all of those people. we also sent letters to all of the direct neighbors of each of the vacant parcels. so if there were people living anywhere directly around those vacant parcels, they receive notification. and just this morning, we began physically posting the vacant parcels. we're notifying people about

the auction and what to do if they have concerns. we also sent each of you a personalized list of the parcels in your district for consideration with parcel maps and some brief descriptions of the square footage and the taxes owed. and we are having parcels redeemed every day, which means people are getting our notification, paying off their back taxes and we hope to have a very uneventful auction this year. thank you. thank you. supervisor tang? thank you, i just wanted to thank the treasurer's office for really listening to us during that last issue that we had with the auction list. you did personally reach out to our office, sharing with us the list. we did have some very strange deliver of parcels. but i really appreciate you sharing with us everything the office has done since then. and i can see that it is going above and beyond what you did in the past, so thank you. thank you. seeing no other names on the

roaster on the item. madam clerk, please call the roll. [roll call] there are 11 ayes. the resolution is adopted unanimously. all right, madam clerk. let's go to our next item where we left off.

supervisor ronen? i'm very excited to be here today voting on this legislation that i introduced past october. over the past few months, my office and i have worked diligently to incorporate input from city departments, existing cultural districts, community leaders and many of you, my colleagues on the board. and thank you to the many people who have been part of the development of this legislation. what this legislation does is create an official recognition of cultural districts in san francisco. and formalize the process for operating them. this legislation establishes cultural districts as a community stabilization tool and provides a frame work for city departments to invest resources into preserving and strengthening culturally relevant businesses, arts, festivals and affordable housing. a cultural district is an area in san francisco where certain communities have historically established themselves, have brought a rich diversity of culture, business and

traditions and continue to have a significant presence today. for example, we have the latino cultural district around 24th street and the mission. and the compton's transgender district in the tenderloin. these are areas in the community that have been marginalized and oppressed. they've gone to seek refuge and establish themselves in the city. they are also neighborhoods that make san francisco an amazing international travel destination. these enclaves prevent san francisco from becoming a cookie cutter city where every neighborhood looks and feels the same. because of the housing affordability crisis in san francisco, we're not only losing the people that make up these districts, we're losing the businesses that provide the rich cuisines and products that you can only find in those neighborhoods. we're losing the arts and culture organizations that exist for these communities to

express themselves and bring vitality and art into our lives. we're even missing that place making that has made us the envy of the world. i've created this formal concept of a cultural district as a way to shift this trend. we currently have five cultural districts in the city and two cultural districts in the making. supervisor cohen is working with the community in the bayview for an african american cultural district. this legislation, just like cultural districts themselves are a collective effort. i want to thank brian chu for helping us collaborate with many departments to strengthen the legislation. a huge thanks to the cultural district organizers who provided input and are active in protecting their vulnerable communities every day. and lastly, thank you so much to my colleagues who have

co-sponsored this legislation, particularly supervisor cohen who was my lead co-sponsor from the beginning and supervisors kim, fewer, sheehy, sa fany and safai. i look forward with protecting the unique identity of san francisco. and colleagues, i just have one small amendment that i passed out to you. i'd like to make a motion to adopt those changes. supervisor ronen has made a motion to amend. without objection, the amendment passes. supervisor kim? i also want to thank supervisor ronen's office for all of your work on this ordnance. it took almost half a year if

not a little bit longer. and i'm also happy to be a co-sponsor of this ordnance. my district includes three of the cultural districts that are mentioned in this ordnance, including the lgbtq cultural districts. these cultural districts are much more than honorary. and in fact, the work that our community members are trying to take on is far more ambitious. we are trying to preserve these communities so that they can continue to live and thrive here in san francisco. this is also to honor the history of these communities and what they have brought to this great city of san francisco. i'm fortunate to come from a district where we have a rich history of lgbtq leather transgender activism, small

businesses and residents. we want to make sure these are more than just street re-namings and plaques, but that we're continuing to invest in the resident small businesses and non-profit cultural organizations. thank you to supervisor ronen and your office on working to create a formation process that is streamlined, provided a road map, but also sets out clear expectations of our departments and how we expect them to work around the preservation of assets in our city. thank you, supervisor kim. supervisor ronen? i'm sorry, supervisor cohen. thank you very much, this is exciting. we have an african american arts and cultural complex. and now we have on the horizon an african american arts and cultural district. and i think this is something that we should be celebrating. i'm so excited. i'm excited also to continue to

further the conversation as we continue our budget conversation because there are projected expenditure costs associated with having a cultural district. with that said, i will recognize supervisor david. supervisor ronen, i'm delighted to be your number one cheerleader on this legislation. and i think the process of establishing the cultural district will benefit all of san francisco. my only apprehension, one thing that does make me nervous is we'll make san francisco so desirable that more and more people will try to come and live here that will create a different type of problem for us. anyhow, i'm delighted to be your number one co-sponsor on this. i think this is a direction the city should be moving in to celebrate the different cultural contributions that historically have permeated in neighborhoods, even officially

and unofficially. the recognition of many members of san francisco and their contributions should be celebrated and acknowledged, thank you. thank you. supervisor ronen? thank you. i forgot to also mention a huge thank you to both katarina morales who's been working her tail off on this legislation. as well as nate who worked with me when he was legislative aids to create a cultural district. it's something we've been passionate about for a long time. supervisor cohen is absolutely right. it was a child born out of supervisor compost's office. huge thanks to him as well. thank you. and it is past 2:30. and before we take a vote on this, i am trying to confirm with the leaders of japan town that they have no issue with being included in this legislation.

looking forward to passing it and setting, you know, the standard for how we address issues and provide cultural school districts in the future here in san francisco. so maybe we can come back to it later in the meeting and continue with our honorees. sure, i just wanted to let you know that sandy was at the hearing on the district and she's very excited about it. thank you, thank you so much. all right. colleagues, it is now 2:34. and this afternoon, we are proud to honor 11 small businesses that are making an incredible impact on san francisco. we are recognizing all sorts of businesses. retail, restaurants, night life, early childhood education and are celebrating the diversity of our local businesses. small business is the backbone of san francisco. of the 133,664 active businesses registered here in san francisco, over 73,000 are sole proprietors with no

employees. more than 95% have fewer than 100 employees. and more than 80% of registered businesses have 10 or fewer employees. nearly 350,000 people are employed by one of these small businesses. as i'm sure our honorees can attest, owning and operating a small business, especially here in san francisco, is not easy. thankfully, we have an office of small business led by executive director regina and the small business commission who work diligently to help our small business owners. this office provides programs like shop and dine in the 49, mayor lee's legacy by local campaign that encourages residents to shop locally inspired other cities. open in san francisco, which has helped more than 150 businesses with free services

to open small brick and mortar businesses within the city. invest in neighborhoods, a program that has invested more than $11 million in small businesses in neighborhoods city wide and provides neighborhood empowerment development projects and programs. access to capital, direct small business assistance grants to businesses for disaster relief, ada improvement, sf shines, women entrepreneurship fund and construction mitigation. 166 businesses have received grants city wide and 1139 small businesses have received technical assistance to date. the office of small business also focuses on our legacy business program with 132 long time businesses receiving assistance and 53 businesses added from april 2017 to march 2018. the office also works so hard to promote manufacturing

facilities and the city, night life and women entrepreneurship. and i'd like to now turn it over to the president of the small business commission, who will give introductory remarks and then we will welcome our honorees to the floor, steve adams? thank you, president breed and thank you board of supervisor members. again, this year, you all have tremendous honorees for your district. and every year, i am so amazed at the small businesses in your districts that you honor. my name is steve adams and i'm the president of the san francisco small business commission. supervisors, it is my honor to be here with you today to recognize this group of outstanding businesses. san francisco small business commission is the proud host of the 14th annual small business week, along with our 9th annual

small business week board of supervisor honorees ceremony. san francisco small business week is in partnership with the u.s. small business administration, the city and county of san francisco and the san francisco chamber of commerce. and i have joey here today who is also co-chairing small business week with me. and 15 other san francisco business organizations. this week, it's our opportunity to put small businesses at the center stage to highlight and celebrate small businesses that make san francisco diverse and unique. san francisco small businesses, we make up 95% of businesses that employ one or more persons in the city. and 80% employ 10 or fewer employees. san francis san francisco small businesses

employ approximately 348,700 individuals. the san francisco office of small business will end this fiscal year assisting nearly 3500 new and existing small businesses in san francisco, which is a 5% increase over last year. and this is the one thing i am very proud of. the legacy business registry, we now have 132 businesses. and most of them came referred by all of you here on the board of supervisors. and i want to give a shout out to supervisor peskin. an italian restaurant received the sba northern california of the year. so thank you. and supervisor peskin is one of our leading advocates on the legacy business. and with the legacy businesses, 72 businesses out of the 132 took advantage of the business assistance grants.

and 16 businesses took advantage of the rent stabilization grants and extended their leases with their landlords. and that's nothing but a good thing in this town. the san francisco business portal, which we launched a few years ago, you can go online and navigate all your issues that you have with your permits and everything in san francisco. we have open in san francisco, which is a small business acceleration program focusing on the food and restaurant business. we've helped over 150 entrepreneurs open small brick and mortar food based businesses in the last year. this is nothing but good news for all of us. once again, i want to thank the

supervisors for this honor to be here before you today and celebrate small business week with your honorees. and again, you all have great honorees. supervisors, you have nominated a great group of businesses that include restaurants, realtors, hardware stores, neighborhood food markets, children's centers, jazz clubs, each are an integral part of each neighborhood they are located in. this speaks to the close relationship that you have with the small businesses in your district. thank you again to the san francisco small business community. we really appreciate the many contributions to your neighborhoods and the city overall. and it is the small business commission that remains dedicated to representing your interests in city hall. the office of small business and the san francisco small business commission look forward to a continued collaboration in the coming year and we need more legacy

businesses, so send them our way. now i want to turn it back over to president breed. thank you very, very much. this, to me, is the best part of small business week is honoring all your local small businesses, so thank you. thank you, commissioner adams. yes, you [applause] [laughter] >> julie: now we will turn it over to supervisor tang for our first honoree. oh, thank you. i guess i get to go first since i was last last week. today it is my honor to bring up other avenues. i know we have many, many people here in the audience joining as well for the honoree shonta. you're welcome to join her at the podium. she's retiring after more than three decades of working with the other avenues community.

[applause] i want to welcome her to our chamber, her husband richard, her son and all of the workers and supporters who have joined her here today to accept this honor. having grown up in the sunset district, it's really clear to me that other avenues is not just a store. it's a community that has stood the test of time and one that has a timeless motto, healthy business, healthy people, healthy planet. other avenues was established in 1974 by food conspiracy, a grass roots organization of food buying clubs dedicated to distributing wholesale food to tit -- its members. over the years, these clubs expanded and collectively called themselves the people's food system, opening more than a dozen food cooperatives like other avenues and living by the motto, "food for people, not for profit." we are so fortunate that even though by the 1990's, most of these food co-ops closed their doo

doors, that both rainbow groceries and other avenues remained open, preserving the legacy of the system. currently, other avenues is operated by 18 workers. and all workers manage other avenues collectively, making all different types of decisions on a consensus basis. the co-op is deeply connected and involved with the community. the workers participate in local events like world vegetarian day. they organize conferences locally and nationally and have social events for shoppers and neighbors. they also provide discounts for senior shoppers, members of the bicycle companilation and workers who work in the neighborhood. they're also a certified sf green business. they have solar panels

purchased with community funds in 2015. and of course, this is a store that carries all vegetarian goods. there is nobody that is better.

we also went to the food market, the farmer's market which is still going and that's where we purchased our fresh produce and that

's where we met a lot of our people to share recipes and different stories. this is also where we decided that we should buy into this idea of opening up collectively bargaining with farmers to get a lot of food directly and from other venues so that we can distribute food easily and mor

the legacy left behind -- in addition to that, we have other things going on in the food system as far as food and justice issues go. we have other farmer's markets. we have lots of them now. we also have community gardens

and we have other food co-ops such as the bakery. the food community is still very much in demand for more cooperative ventures and other small businesses. there's a lot going on and i'm really happy with what the president said about gaining some more leverage to support small businesses. but more needs to happen. we need more of these venues. we need more food co-ops. the city needs more small businesses. the city has the resources. but we have to demand for more and more of a share. we have to ask of our elected representatives, such as you people here and other financial institutions and banks to help small businesses and co-ops to keep their doors open.

with the financial help of our community, other avenues was able to purchase our building. workers also need affordable housing. so affordable housing too should be considered a human right, not a privilege for the wealthy. [applause] i want to finish with a positive 70's slogan. and i want you to repeat that. power to the people. power to the people. thank you. [applause] thank you. and again, congratulations. colleagues, i want to just remind you that these commendations take some time. we have another ten people to

provide awards to. so let's show the honorees respect and stick within the time limit so we can give them as much time to speak as we possibly can. i'm gonna need to implement the five minutes into this particular presentation at this time. and so thank you again to all the honorees for your patience. supervisoor stefani, you're up next. thank you, president breed. colleagues, today i am proud to honor eleanor carpenter and lesl leslie, the co-owner of jess jewels. jess jewels is a san francisco based company sxeshlizing in

fashion and fine jewelry along with accessories including hats, bags scarves and fun gifts for all sorts of occasions. the store has been a neighborhood leader serving the community and residents on union street for 32 years. they just opened their newest location in hayes valley right next to the grove. i've always loved jess jewels, but when i started working as an aid, i realized that it was not just a cute store to go into, but it was a community hub for the desire district. we've worked on so many issues together over the years, addressing pub crawls, street cleaning, zoning issue to increase the amount of restaurants and getting benches finally along union street.

we've worked together to make sure their annual

it really has always been a dream of mine to be in this position so that i could honor you. for now, i'd like to turn the mic over to you. wow, that was incredible. i don't even know what to say after that. you were such a great ad. katv lin, i'd like to thank you for all you've done for union street, speaking as the president. but also, you helped us create a tremendous neighborhood where the customers love to come and they love to come to the street. i want to thank you for the

benches and all the news racks and everything you've done for us.

okay, congratulations. and next up, supervisor sheehy. >> thank you. i would like to call up rick

and nadia malu. you have friends from the neighborhood. the chief's boutique. you are welcome to come up and take pictures. the chief's boutique has been an icon and fixture in glen park for 25 years. rick and nada are both refugees from turmoil in the middle east. rick from lebanon, nada from syria. this store has been, you know, you first came to glen park, a quieter village. i still remember when the grocery store, we had the neighborhood grocery store go out, the chief boutique filled the gap. i remember bringing my daughter michelle in, while she was in a

baby bjorn, took a bite, almost blinded me with the squirt to the eye but lucky he didn't charge me for the squirt of the tomato. hand made sandwiches, homemade hummus, which is the best in san francisco, along with babaganoush but what is important about the chief's boutique is part of the family and fabric of glen park. his daughters use to babysit my daughter. they have, and other people will have stories about how the cheese boutique has been almost like a community center in the middle of our village. always warm and friendly. just the sweetest place in the neighborhood. i really want to give a shout

out to marianne delair who is their landlord. when we talk about this, and we always talk about retail spaces and businesses being able to survive we never recognize the landlords who go out of their ways to keep these anchors in our community. and i do want to take a minute because a lot of these small businesses here today are only still in our city because there are landlords in our city who are willing to forego getting the maximum dollar because they want to preserve their neighborhoods. they are part of the neighborhood, they care about the neighborhood and i really do think, and i'm not a big fan of landlords per se, but when they go far beyond to keep an icon in our neighborhood like the cheese boutique, i want to give them a shout out. i think we could bring dozens of people fro