ways to delay more fees for our small businesses as they deal with this challenge. we also understand that our community-based organizations or non-profits wonder what is going to happen to us and our work forces specially those who may stay home to care for a child or sick parent with no sick leave. we will work to make sure all community-based non-profits that receive funding from the city continue to receive that funding. we want to make sure that you know that in today's emergency declaration that i signed it was a revision to make sure we are able to support our small businesses through this situation. we are also establishing a fund to provide immediate relief with $1 million in the fund to provide at least $10,000 grants for small businesses and our

goal is to, of course, assess the need and provide the support immediately and look at increasing that support as time continues as we are able to determine whether or not more businesses would need that as assistance. those are just a few things that we are doing here locally to immediately support small business community and we know that even though this is a small step forward that there will be more work we need to do to support the business community. as you can see with many of the leaders here today we are committed to doing just that. i also want to talk a little bit about our efforts with our state officials, our partners to find relief around employment benefits. in fact, this past monday i was in sacramento meeting with a number of other mayors and the

governor newsom and state senator scott weiner to talk about expansion of unemployment and disability benefits in a way that will help support people during this issue. we are also working with the private sector in looking to partner with our financial partners and identify resources line of credit loans and things for small businesses as well and businesses in general. we are asking private sector employers to step up and be as flexible as possible with their employees. helping the employees take time off if they are sick. in the city and county of san francisco with all city employees because we are encouraging people to stay home. if you are sick without enough sick leave we will allow you to advance that sick time. you don't have to wait until you

accrue the sick time, we will basically allow you to take the sick time, get paid for the sick time off and you can pay it back after you work for the time you work later on. we in the city are leading by example by making sure if someone is sick and they need time off for whatever reason they are able to do and not worry if they have an income. the office of economic and resource development are working over time to develop innovative strategies to help the business community, employees and employers. there is more to come. this is the first in what will be a number of announcements as they come. at the end of the day we want to make sure that what we promise we will do to support the business community and employees and residents of san francisco, we want to make sure we can deliver on that promise. we know that these are just a few things we can immediately deliver on. that is why we wanted to

announce them here today. for resources, you can check the website oewd slave covid-19. if you have questions or concerns or want more information call 311. as i said, we are here to work together. we know that this has been a challenge for so many people. there is a lot of fear, uncertainty and folks wonder how we will get through this. we will get through this. this is not unfamiliar tear for refor -- territory for san francisco. we can think back to the h.i.v. crisis. we got through that because we have some of the best public health officials anyone in the world along with the h1n1 and

the sars. we got through it. we got through it by coming together, making good decisions, providing the facts, using data to communicate the message and not living in fear. that is what is going to get us through this. that is how we will be stronger and more resilient. i want to thank all of the folks here today working with us and i want to start by acknowledging some of our elected leaders who are here. our recorder is here, our treasure is here, and then we have members of the board of supervisors including our president, president norman yee is here along with your supervisor peskin and catherine stefani and sandraly fewer and rafael mandelman and hillary

ronen. that is a quorum. we have been working to deal with these challenges. along with other leaders from the san francisco chamber, chinese chamber, business community, sf travel. we are all here because we are in this together. we are all here because we are working together to make sure that we are providing the city with the resources that it needs in order to make sure we get through this together. i want to start with state senator scott weiner to talk about the work they are doing at the state level to help us address this significant challenge. senator weiner. [applause] >> thank you, madam mayor. first and foremost, i want to just say that i have complete

confidence i in may or breed and the supervisors and the department of public health and the city government is doing a great job here. we are very focused at the state level on the health of our community. no city or no county is in a vacuum. we are all in this together, and the governor and the leadership of th the legislature are focusd on this every single day. we are going to get through this. we will keep our community as healthy as we can be. there is a lot of pain that this process is causing and it is going to cause with people getting laid off, small businesses struggling and potentially shutting down, people losing hours and workers

struggling to pay bills. we need to make sure we soften the blow and support the service workers, people who cannot tele commute and take time off and small businesses who have very, very little margin. we have a number of safety net benefits. not everyone knows about. i encourage people to look into it to see if you can be helped. we have disability insurance. when people are sick unable to work, particularly for an extended period of time. if someone has to take care of a loved one, they can file for paid family leave. we have some of the most robust paid family leave in california among the 50 states. there is unemployment insurance. in addition for employers and businesses impacted, there is a redoesed work hours benefit where someone whose hours are

cut can get partial unemployment you don't have to be completely laid off to get unemployment benefits. businesses experiencing financial hard ship can apply for 60 day expense for payroll taxes. the state we have made sure to wave all co-pays to make sure people can get tested for covid-19 and they are not charged for hospital services as a result. this is the beginning. we will see more work happening at the state level to make sure we are having that robust social safety net for individuals who are at risk for workers struggling and small businesses and i will close by saying we need the federal government to step in a big way. the federal government is the only level of government that can spend and go into deficit spending, which we cannot do at

the state level to make sure we provide a stimulus and not a bad stimulus like what the president is proposing but a stimulus to support workers and small businesses. the federal government is in the best position. we are all doing everything we can at the local and state level. we need the federal government to be a strong partner here. let's pull together as a community to get through it. this is the best city and most resilient city on the planet. i am optimistic what we are able to do. thank you. >> thank you. president of the board of supervisors norman yee. >> thank you, mayor breed and state senator scott weiner. i am glad that the state is weighing in on this. we can't do it by ourselves and we can't do it in isolation. mayor breed, as you named off my colleagues on the board of supervisors.

there are eight of us. we have a majority so whatever you want we will give you. this is not a joke. we have two branches of government, executive and legislative. we do battle sometimes. we disagree sometimes and we agree sometimes. this is one commitment all 11 of us on the board of supervisors are agreeing to. this is not about the legislative branch or the executive branch. we have one government. we are going to work together. we are totally committed to this. in terms of solving this issue and also to provide some of the relief that we need to give to businesses to workers and to everybody else impacted with this virus. now one of the things i want to mention is that the board has not had the opportunity to come

together to have a discussion. my colleagues urged to have this type of discussion. thank you supervisor ronen for spearheading the push. next week at some point we will have a discussion in which we could be part of the solution and the mayors and department heads will be there to help with this discussion. rest assured we have no division when it comes to the virus. it is going to take all of us to battle this. we will defeat it quicker than people will realize. thank you very much. >> thank you for your leadership, president yee. i would like to introduce the supervisor for this community, supervisor aaron peskin. >> hello everybody. i am district three supervisor

aaron keskin. kespeskin. well to to a community that on the business side and residential side has been impacted long before the rest of the city and county of san francisco, and thank you, mayor breed, and to my seven colleagues for gathering here today because chinatown is indeed suffering. let me also give you doctor colfax's advice which is after today none of us should ever stand so close to one another as we are right now. that was bad material, sorry. to ms. lee and her son here at 150 waverly place who are suffering like many businesses throughout the city and county of san francisco, thank you for making your shop open to all of

us. to all of the folks from chinatown, the chinese companies, presiding company, to the chinese chamber of commerce represented here today, and to this community, and i have seen it all before. i have been a member of this board during 911, i was a member of this board during sars, and i was not a member of this board during th aids crisis. we will pull through. what the president of the board said is right. we are going to tran send politics and work in the public interest, and we all understand that our number one priority is public health. part of public health is economic health. the package that the mayor and

the board are announcing today is the first step. there will be many more steps to this. this is going to continue to evolve as the situation evolves. these are extraordinary sometimes. today the mayor and chief health officer took extraordinary actions. this is going to be the new normal until we reduce and then defeat the virus. wash your hands, wash your hands, 20 seconds, wash your hands. thank you, madam mayor, and thank you colleagues. >> thank you for continuing to be leaders on this issue. i really truly appreciate it. now, i would like to introduce the president of the san francisco chamber of commerce

rodney fong. >> thank you very much. as the mayor alluded to san francisco has seen many challenges. these walls, this alley has senmany challenges. i want to thank mayor breed for taking fast action, decisive be action to support small businesses and working class families in san francisco. this is the kind of leadership we need. our small businesses and employees are going through a critical time. small business owners in the tourism industry understand ho difficult and fragile small business is. one bad week or month can take you over the cliff. we know this economic crisis hits the folk the hardest and that is the small business and families and front line staff in san francisco. >> this will bring immediate

relief to small businesses and employees suffering from major cash flow for the moment and next several weeks. this will allow small businesses to pay rent, continue to pay employees, so important. this is a first critical step towards creating an economic resilient city that may be on the journey but we will succeed. we are proud to work with the electives and mayor to make this a great city to make this a learning lesson for other challenges in san francisco. we will be strong. chinatown is very strong. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have the vice president of the chinese chamber of commerce. >> on behalf of china town and

chinese chamber of commerce. we are so glad that the mayor and supervisor are proactive with action against this virus. to promote the businesses in the community. i hope the community around the chinatown and san francisco we have to do something else. we have to do the business in our part. we come out to shopping, we come out to eat, to support the local business. we are working together, we can overcome this difficult time. now let me use a chinese word.

[speaking chinese] (applause) >> now, i would like to ask our recorder to say a few words. >> i would like to ask our treasure to stand beside me. the leaders today not only the mayor and board of supervisors and state representatives but jose and i have been working around the clock to figure out ways to help to support our

community. a lot has been said already about the importance of all of us taking decisive action to make sure we are doing all we can to support local businesses. one thing to say is that this is not the last action. what you are seeing a united front to say no matter what it is we believe in terms of political preferences this transcendses all of that we will address it appropriately. when we talk about small businesses and the people employed by those small businesses, this is not something about people once removed. these are neighbors, friends, people who are in our community who are impacted. as much as we are seeing this relief package hit the local small businesses it is about helping neighbors and city and our communities. i applaud all of the efforts here. i know all of us before you are committed to ensuring we continue to monitor the situation, continue to take action to preserve and make sure

we are healthy and we are going to continue to support our local communities, friends and neighbors. [applause] >> i am the san francisco treasure. i am proud to stand with mayor breed and city leaders to deliver help to support small businesses, particularly businesses suffering during this time. the treasures office we manage the city banking, investments and tax collection. we work very hard to make sure we can do everything to support our local community and the businesses in it. i want to expand on what the mayor announced. there are two important payments that we are as a city deferring in order to provide some relief to thousands of businesses here inen the city. all of the businesses that pay business taxes, many are required to make quarterly payments during the year, and

the small businesses that we have selected there will be 8,000 of them that will not be required to make first quarterly payment, which would have been due the end of april. they can make that payment on time and in full by the end of february of next year. a 10 month deferral on the time they can have to make that payment of their taxes. over 13,000 small businesses here that pay license fees would normally have an annual payment due at the end of this month of march, a couple weeks from now. the mayor and leaders in front of you have coming together to give a three month extension on that payment for over 13,000 businesses here in the city, most small businesses to wait until the end of june to make that payment. we are doing everything we can

to support the small businesses here to make sure everyone survives these difficult times. thank you. >> before we end it i want to thank sf travel and the hotel council as well as many of the members of the small business commission that are joining us here today. we will continue to work together to make sure that -- and i appreciate what supervisor peskin said. we have to protect public health and economic health. that is what we are committed to doing. there will be other announcements. thank you all so much. please make sure after this press conference you eat at a restaurant in chinatown. thank you. [applause]

>> president yee: good afternoon and welcome to the march 10, 2020 meeting of the board of supervisors. madam clerk, would you please call the roll. [roll call]