>> hi, how are you doing. >> i'm supposed to say it for folks that don't have video on. i have a quick question, are you hearing from dph that if we do have to make additional pauses on reopening it will happen in the same way that reopening happened where we're going to jump an extra -- you know how we reopened -- we went one color before, are we going to jump a color? is that how dph is thinking about it? >> it's a fantastic question. let me just provide context for folks who may not be following that as much. just take a look at what is on the screen right now and you see kind of like the different colored tiers so san francisco's color assignment is yellow. so that essentially means if i just go back on this we can open everything that is potentially in the purple, red, orange and

yellow. the way dph has been approaching it in the past when we've been reopening because our numbers looked good is we're being more conservative and instead of opening everything in the yellow, we were beginning to open everything all the way up to the orange for now. and the reason is because from an epidemiological perspective with the discount that the state gives us for the above testing, it was good we got that and it gives us plex ability to open more but we were not there from a disease perspective so as a result, they really were opening up giving up until where we were which is really in orange zone. so, your question about if we get moved back to -- if the state moves us back to orange at some point in time, does that mean that san francisco is going to move to red, right. so basically only allow for purple and red so one tier off. i don't believe that's going to be the direction that we're going to go. so we're not going to be as blunt as that.

because remember, when we started to open, we were also opening up the orange tier, not at all once, we were opening them up in phases as well. we had opened up to the point all the purples, red and we were beginning right now before we took the pause, we were opening up different parts of the orange and to the point where we have opened everything up. because of the resurgence that we're seeing, we put a pause on some of the openings of the orange so not everything until the orange is open and we'll take a look most likely at some of the areas where we think from what they have noticed with the riskier activities there so there's a little bit of more of a surgical approach as as much as we can be and it's not going to go back to red and purple he

hope that answers the question. >> it does, thank you so much. commissioner chiu, i know there's some concern among some personal care services, particularly the gyms and physical fitness studios where they feel like they're all aggregated together but they have have diffuse cases. one-on-one training versus large classes. do you know if -- i know there was a push among some of them to be designated essential for the one-on-one training because of the positive health impacts, i know that's a state-wide question. do you know if dph or the mayor or anyone else is giving consideration if we do have to go backwards, are they going to

be, as you mentioned, a little more surgical with respect to that specific sector? >> i would imagine that i know that a lot of the folks in the industry have met with the mayor and dph to share some of the specifics about how the industry is different and risk factors associated with how they run their business so i know that dph has been paying attention to those conversations and listening and i think as mentioned some of the issues that are associated with how its designated is a state issue and i haven't heard there's any change associated with that just yet. why want to speak on behalf of the dph to say how they're approaching it in particular but i know they have heard from the industry and are aware that there are differences in how they're run so unfortunately i can't give you more but i can follow-up. >> as have we all. why is why i ask. [laughter] i need to be respond because they'll ask me again i'm sure.

>> yeah. and we're happy to try to help provide and make sure that people get the information they need. >> yeah, of course. of course. so, please, continue. >> so then, i wanted to next talk more about the economic recovery task force's work and so, you know, first off, it would be important to just make sure that people know, especially members of the public who may not have heard of the economic recovery task force know what it's intent was and its charge was and where we are right now and so, previously, we had talked about the folks may not know but the mayor and the board president norman yee convened the task forced to get from on the ground businesses and different stakeholders as much public input as possible to provide a series of recommendations that the city could consider or policymakers can consider to help put san francisco in the best place forward for economic recovery. we had over 100 task force

members and the task force members range it was very broad from small businesses to large, different sectors and industries and non profits and service providers and we had labor partners and we also had folks from hospital, hospitality and among other industries so quite a large grouping. in addition to merchant associations and some of the commissioners on this commission. it was a broad group including some of the board members from the san francisco board of supervisors and as well as city staff so it's a pretty large group as a whole and i think a few things that we recognized and probably you commissioners have also observed this is that when the tax force convenes to even when we were considering policy recommendations to the end of the task force when we issued our report, so much has evolved and so much has changed and even the severity of where we are is completely different and so i think there's a recognition amongst i think at

least from me and my co-chairs we need to adapt as a city and i don't think that any of us believe that the recommendations are the end all be all. it has tee involve especially as we see emerging needs and we learn more about how we need to tackle this. i think the other piece that we want to make sure that folks know is that it was not meant to kind of ignore a lot of other parallel processes that were happening and there were many, many other efforts that were already underway from city departments, from other commissioners to talk about how we can do economic recovery and the task force's recommendations were really meant to compliment that body of work. for example, one thing that we know is really important for economic recovery is our transportation system. we've got to have a solvent working transportation system to get people in and out. and we didn't really touch upon transportation in our task force but that was partially because we knew that the mta was working

on a plan phase process as well and so i think just to recognize for commissioners and for members of the public and we know that it is evolving, we know that even from the beginning the emerging, changing needs are really different and we're going to have to adapt and there are many other pieces of recovery that isn't included in here because there were also parallel processes happening. that being said, many people i think have been confusing the task versus work to say that we are short of an implementing agency or organization and we're not. we're the task force of a body of 100 members of the public primarily and so really now that we have this series of recommendations put forward we've turned that over to the mayor as well as to the board of supervisors and to city departments to move with it and to run with it. so that's just important for folks to know that the public pros was incredibly expensive and you see on this sheet what that process looked like and we have over 1,002 honey males and

surveys that were returned to us and we also heard from hundreds of other folks through focus groups in addition to the 100 plus task force members that we had. we probably convened between 60, 70 or so meetings or participated in hearings at different commissioners and also at community group meetings, so it was an extensive process that we went through. initially we worked hard to understand priorities and then of course coming from that we really started to narrow it down to recommendations that would come forward. the final report was issued in early october and it has been spanishing tag log and chinese and that economic recovery task force brief, which is a 70-page document has been translate and is available online as well.

and in addition to all of those translations and that final document, there are also probably hundreds of pages of aa the policy ideas that have been published to the website. [please stand by]

washington vegetable compa >> we also wanted to know how it is that san francisco can help to make starting a business in our city easier. and of course how can we continue to promote our city's growth? one major element that we did include specifically, but around the arts, culture, hospitality, and entertainment sector, and we asked the question about how we would be able to preserve and strengthen san francisco's identity, understanding how much our cultural identity and the things that make san francisco unique and great are part of what is attract tiive, and it' also part of the industries that have really been impacted

by coronavirus. and amongst all the industries, the one that's going to recover the latest. when i say that, when i talk about the arts, culture, and entertainment sectors, we're talking about these large venues and gatherings that we're probably not going to see as long as we have an active local pandemic on our hands. there was a lot of focus on this sector because it's not only -- how can we preserve the arts in san francisco to make sure we continue to foster it in our identity. so i'd going to be going through a few slides that have

a lot of things on them. eight different things that emerge fr emerge from the task force. i've included a one-liner that emerged from the recommendations, but i've also included, in the middle column, the recommendation from the agency. i think that was one of the recommendation that the commission asked of me, is what happens next. this is to give you a sense of the agencies that are considering the recommendations of the --

[inaudible] >> -- that in turn help to feed the economy. that's a positive thing, so the task force really recommended that kind of thinking. in addition to that, there was a series around what can investments can the city invest in, or businesses to construct in the city.

you know that the city just recently put forward a capital project, the infrastructure bond. that did get passed by the voters this november, and so we see funding coming in from that. that will also help a funding and investment in our infrastructure that will also put people to work. there was some questioning around can we redesign our programs. of course, we want to make sure that we continue to advocate for federal and state funding, and with the election just recently called, we might have some more opportunities in that sense, but i do think there's going to be a challenge there, especially because we still have a divided house, that's right, so we potentially have a senate that we're not sure whether will be democrat or not, so we'll see what a

democrat president can continue to do with that. we'll continue to look at business and philanthropic efforts. one of our ballot measures this november, there was a ballot measure that opened up quite a bit of funding for child care, as well. and then, you can see some of these other items that are going to take a little bit of time to kind of get to. the next area is around jobs connections, and so we have four primary recommendations. one is to essentialize the city's workforce development programs. we have over 200 different programs in the city that all do some kind of workforce development, whether it's resume development or really

in-depth training, so we took a look at them and either consolidates it or really creating ty a no-wrong-door support for workforce developments for the city. that links into 2.2, which is providing culturally competent accessible job training programs. strengthen the implementation of first source hiring is also on the program. i will say that the 2.4, expand subsidized employment and hiring, what that means to small businesses, and this is really important, is that if you are an eligible business, and he hire an eligible employee, you can have between 50 to 100% of that person's wages basically subsidized or reimbursed by this program, so

that's a pretty bill deal, especially if you're trying to restart and open, but you're not quite sure that you have the revenues to bring someone on, this might be a really good program to look into. the third item is around safe reopening. i can't speak enough about how this is important. ultimately, we have to reopen to have an economy that is moving, but also, we have to make sure that people feel safe when engaging in the economy, and so i think a few things jive with the recommendation that the small business commission put forward. you put forward recommendations that we were communicating in precise language and making sure what those complicated health directives are saying,

and we think this is an area that we need to continue to do more work in, but it has been improving over time and will still lead to a lot of work. but that was one thing that this task force agreed with you on. the city's also put in quite a lot in terms of trying to prescribe p.p.e. and contact tracing, so as a city, we are roughly at about 84, 85% in terms of our contact tracing success rate right now. we'd like to do better, and we certainly are going to make sure we have enough resources to contact trace. testing, i think we test more than any other urban area in the united states. we are probably up to about 5,200 tests, and that's about a

pretty big deal. you probably heard the announcement from oewd and the mayor about p.p.e. and supplies. that's something that we want to make sure that you're aware and that we're fostering that. 3 is also about supporting -- well, let me stop on 3.3, supporting a safe work environment. the city has put worth a right to recover program, which says to employees, we know if you have to quarantine in order to get better, if you get sick or have symptoms, we want to make it so you can do so one of the things that the right to recover program really tries to do is let us make sure that you have the financial means, so

rather than losing wages during that period of time, let us make sure that you at least have some compensation to continue to do that. we do need to figure out a way for people to work as safely as possible because people want to get better and not continue any spread. so i think the city has put out a few programs here, but again, more we can do. 3.4 is a big one actually, and i think this has been a big issue before covid-19. this is big because this gets to a lot of the issues that we've heard about from our tourism business, but not just that. our different neighborhoods in the city, i was out in the mission, and i heard the same from businesses out there who said the environment out there is not all that safe. i have a lot of street behavior

that i'm seeing, and it makes it impossible for people to feel safe coming out to my business corner, much less operating any part of any business, so this is really a recommendation from the task force to put more into resources that people feel safe in our areas, that it's safe, that it's clean, and that it's well taken care of. but it's not as simple to say we're going to run the street sweepers and make things safe, it's a challenge to tackle the things that we're seeing on the streets, as well. this is not only a shorter term, but a longer term tight because we know there are a lot of items that are challenging for us. other thing is lessening

regulatory burdens. a of course we want to attract new businesses to the city, but we also just want to keep the ones that we have, so this is trying to figure out if we can create the space for that. you all have been very, very vocal about extending the shared spaces program, so i just want you to let you know that there are a few things that are emerging from the program. there are 2,000 applications that have come in from all of the eligible applications. about 95% of them have been approved so far. i think you guys have heard from robin abbad from planning, and i think it's time to start implementing the neighborhood components so people can make sure that they have grants and things that become available.

but on top of that, we're beginning to talk as a city saying beyond this year and beyond even this fiscal year, how do we continue this program, and we want to make sure that we continue something that's really great, and you see well use of space. it's very similar to this next item about repurposing public outdoor spaces. we want to be creative, making sure that these spaces are critical to slowing the spread. when we talk about retail, we talk about some of the flexible temporary uses. some of the ballots, like prop h will allow for more permissible activities to open

outright, requiring some of the requirements to notice and requiring some flexibility in those areas. we're happy that that's passed, that voters have agreed with that, but again, we can always do more and continue to look for opportunities there. oewd has been trying to provide technical support for them, so we're going to want to try to lean on them there. and then, the last one is around reviewing employer mandates because i think the people think the health -- when you have a health pandemic, this is not the time to muck around health care, but at the same time, i think there are many regulations that are placed by city burden as a whole, and we can look at some of them and say, can we continue to change, reshape

them that makes it easier for businesses. again, this is going to be sticky, but it's going to be worth it for us to look at. you didn't ask me to cover this one, but i just wanted to make sure that i shared this and had this on the slide for you since we'll be making this are you able, but we did have a series of recommendations around how we tried to narrow the gap around economic disparities, and this is making sure that we provide connectivity opportunities in communities that have been historically marginalized. the other one, you didn't ask me to point out, but i thought i would touch on, that housing affordability continues to be a problem for people. they thought about not only the

jobs that people were in, but the jobs that were available in our community. and finally, the last one that you did ask me to spend a little more time on was the piece about kind of neighborhood investment, so i think this was really trying to capture how san francisco was such a unique space. in each neighborhood, you get different feelings, and you get different characters, and i think that that's been great because you don't see kind of the same old box store, same old kind of places in every single neighborhood. you see uniqueness based on investments that the local folks have put into it. so i think part of that just recognizing that, really trying to make sure that as we think about san francisco, we think about how it is that we continue to invest in these neighborhood assets and cultural assets that we have in this city. so some of the recommendations

were how do we try to catalyze these pockets of recovery, these unique pockets of recovery, and also embed in there the arts. remember, the folks in there we talked about had been so adversely impacted and were probably going to be the last to recover because of the disease prevalence, so this is one of the things that came from the task force was to try to marry those things. you is a that the mayor had made an announcement in october for people that were continuing to be unemployed in the arts industry. and finally, the last one i think is about recommendation and making sure that more folks are represented in our different commissions. but the first one, 8.1, is an interesting one because this one, when we talk about planning for san francisco's resilient future, this is saying how do we make sure -- how do we make sure that the

city we built is going to continue to thrive beyond this. this is do we build a more sustainable city as we go forward and how does this look? what are the infrastructure investments that we need to make in the middle of climate change. how do you build an economically resilient community, as well. do we still want it concentrated in one sector or do we still want to make sure that we have manufacturing and other things that happen in the city, as well. that's a different one than the usual way we should be thinking about, but a good one. just today, the mayor announced another $3.5 million, called the san francisco hardship and emergency load program. i want to make sure that people who are small business owners

and others know about it. 0% loans of up to $50,000 for up to 80 businesses. it's not huge, only 80 businesses, but i want to make sure that people know about it. if you pay more than $25 per hours, 50% of wages for six months, and there's some eligibility. i've included the phone number for people who are interested in looking into that program. there is $1.6 million for physical improvement to storefronts, and as i mentioned, the shared spaces program is going to be having some equity funding coming down the line, so stay tuned for information there. i mentioned this a little bit, but just to make sure, the surgical masks and p.p.e., the immigrant worker fund. there's about $1.5 million in

child care, and there's a few things about continues deferraled and other things that are available for small businesses. this, i'm not going to go into. these are programs that were funded but tapped out. it speaks to the need, but there's not enough to cover all the need that's out there, and then, we're going to continue to work hard. the state ballot measures, this is my world. split world looks like it's not passing, so there's not going to be an impact to commercial properties. there is potentially a change to prop 19, which makes it more

turnover in terms of real estate. transfer properties is doubling for properties $10 million or over if you're selling them. the gross receipts tax item is going to be implemented or that's going to be effective as soon as january 1, 2021, so this has big implications for small businesses because it does supervise some breaks -- or i should say additional relief for small businesses as well as some other sectors. i'm just going to leave this here, not going in into too ma details, but i wanted to brief you on this on what it means for people because it's going to have big implications right now. flexibility on our commercial corridors, and that's going to have impact from commercial he

tract perspective, and that's it. i wish i had some water, but i went very quickly so i can answer your questions. hopefully, that gives you a flavor of all the things that we've been working on and thinking about. >> it does. thank you so much for taking the time to share that with us. i want to say on behalf of the commission and on behalf of the city, carmen, i know how much work this was for you personally, on top of being assessor, and so we all thank you for all the work that you put into this and continue to do for so many different constituencies across the city and making sure that they're heard. i just want to see if anyone

has any questions, but while i wait for commissioners to formulate their questions, quick question about property taxes. i want to play to your skill set here. it's not more about small business properties, but it's more about what we can consider the city to look like over the next two to five years. i think commercial property values are going to continue to delaine, i don't know. my crystal ball broke a long time ago. assuming that's true, i seem to recall that commercial real estate is about 30% of the

city's tax revenue. do you, in your work -- and this is just sort of casual curiosity. >> yes. >> do you try to make guesstimates or do you do decision trees about what things look like if properties, say, decline 10% or 5%? >> yeah. as a city, we do run stress scenarios with the controller's office to see what happens when certain kind of economic situations occur. the difference with property taxes is we operate with prop 13, so for many businesses and property owners, even though you might see a 5% drop in commercial prices, for example, or for market prices, it may not mean anything from a tax perspective impact on city operations or on you, and

that's because with prop 13, sometimes you're locked into a low prop 13 value that even with a 10% drop, or 20% drop sometimes, your property taxes are so low that it's built into the protections. >> oh, i didn't know that. i assumed that if the property tax declined, that would decline also. i didn't know that it couldn't go below the threshold. >> yeah. it's been one of our most stable revenues for the city, but that said, we're not going to be able to count on a business property tax increase like we did in the past. just for folks to know, when we set property taxes, we take a look at january 1 that year, and we look at thelene date, and say what is the property value for that date, and that

sets your tax rate for the bill that you pay in december and the following year. so there's a huge lag. we don't expect to see any declines this year because january 1, 2020, the pandemic had not hit, and there were no declines in property values at this time, so we're going to look closely at january 1, 2021, and try and reduce the commercial property values where it makes sense to. okay. thank you. commissioner dooley? >> i wanted to ask about one of the things that came up on your charts about reuse of buildings, and can you give a little more -- can you say a little more about that? >> sure. i think this was really just a concept to say with covid-19, people are going to expect there are going to be some changes in how they conduct their operations going forward.

this had more to do with office buildings than other, and to say will people kind of flock to a retail store in the future or will it be that on-line services have dramatically changed the market. what we look at, when we look at the impact of covid-19, what does appear to be the long-term trend? we want to make sure that we're careful before you jump into a land use change, that it is a long-term trend instead of a short-term one. just because people may be more open to telecommuting or something like that right now, we hear from businesses that it means more to bring people back together for team work and

camaraderie and all the things that bringing together people brings. so even though it has a short-term effect on the business, we also don't think it's going to have an impact on the long-term things because of the need for people to be together. [please stand by]

>> kind of similar to what sf help is. it will be different in the sense that obviously most of these venue have more than $2.5 million in revenue. there's kind of two factors that warrants special consideration here. one is the fact that by virtue of their business model completely unable to open. it will be quite on while before they can. two, because of their cultural value and what that means to the

city both in terms of culture for our citizens and also for our tourism and visitors, there's something special there. do you think that that's that can potentially have legs or is the the door on that barn closed? >> i think we're always open for ideas. i think essentially what you're speaking to is trying to figure out a way to connect businesses to access to capital and to achieve capital as much as we can. i think there's probably different ways to get at it whether we work with financial institutions who might be more willing to do that or whether any way to use city credit to get that guarantee or that confidence.

i think it's perfect exploring. i don't think the door is closed. we would have to explore that more. i'm not sure it's been explored too much yet. >> all of the capital solution programs that i've seen today are in the -- they cap out at most $2.5 million. that puts this particular sector in a squeeze. there's many sectors that are in squeeze, including my own. the city has very limited resources. we do have to kind of pick and choose where we're going to do. it does seem like these entertainment venues are sort of a linchpin to wider parts of the economy in terms of the amount of economic activity it generates. >> if i could add, commissioner,

i think in addition to access to capital, i think one of the things that we're cognizant of, we need to be working with the industry more to figure out alternatives. just say, are there different protocols that we can put in place that helps to create a level of safety that will be acceptable to be able to begin. is there other things that allow for businesses to begin resuming. i think the other piece of it is, especially for some of our larger venues, we also have to give a market indication to people also to the say as a city, even though we can't control the coronavirus, we want to open by xy or z time. that allows our venues to begin booking talent and doing those things that have lead time to it. there's a lot of things that we could be doing to make sure that

we protect the industry. >> i may follow-up with you offline at a later time. >> commissioner huie: thank you very much. i want to thank you for all of the work that you've been doing for leading the economic recovery task force. i think for me, it was really powerful space to be in with so many diverse constituents. my primary question is really like what happens now? it felt like there were real needs to be able to think creatively and talk to somebody about what the ideas were. it felt like there was some cadence towards getting things

done. is that planned to continue? how do you envision the rest of the year and the next year? >> i think the task force itself had issued its recommendation. as a body, we kind of come to a conclusion. we have turned it over to many of the departments and we've shared with them kind of the areaareas that are relevant to . i've been doing presentations to different commissions to make sure they're aware. i do know there's momentum to try to look at it. for example, the planning commission taking a look at some of the recommendations they wanted to know specifically which ones were related to their department. which just had a presentation to board of supervisors and we heard lot of feedback on areas they want to continue to pursue. it's a lot of recommendations for the city. some of them are short-term, things that we can do or things

that we have done. there are other things, when it comes lost of money or hard to do. i think it's really going to take a focused effort to make sure we continue putting forward and advocating for the recommendation you care about. if i were in your shoes and saying, what i do do to advance the tunnel tunnel -- items thate about. say which one specifically from small business commission will have the most impact on small businesses. really start to push those departments as a commission, writing letters, sending letters for response directly to the departments that are responsible for implementing some these things. saying have you read the task force's recommendations and what is your importance. just making sure there's a response to the idea so that people have thought about it. i think another thing is that,

the mayor and board talked about implementing pieces of it. there already series of investments come out going forward. that's another opportunity to really influence things. directly go to the mayor saying out of these 41 recommendations, small business commission, these are the most promising when it comes to you prioritizes. it's a matter of putting pressure on the departments and our city leadership to say, these are the recommendations we care the most about. we want a response to how you plan to move forward. >> that's a really gold -- thata really good suggestion. commissioner zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: tha t was a really great presentation. some things that come to mind

for me, i think in general, it always comes up how we need to better engage our small property owners which are either legacy in the sense, they are old-timers or immigrant. i know that's like a weak area trying to bring folks towards an understanding of our goals as a city at large and what options they may have to start helping -- get to those goals while maintaining their revenue. my question is, were there any representation or any groups that specifically are going to take on that piece of helping bringing the small property

owners and harder to reach property owners into the conversation to commercial lead negotiations that maybe going on and kind of whatalso in that line of question. case study have come around negotiations to identify some trends and, how is the city supporting in some of these areas with minority immigrant or small property owner or potential need to negotiate a lease? >> i think it's a fantastic question. it's a really hard one because i think when we've heard from many businesses, businesses say, we can figure it out.

ultimately, especially with the moratorium items that have come forward, i still have my rent is due. that becomes the dominant and primary thing for people to meet. maybe i can reduce my expenses by not hiring that many people way. ultimately i still have to be able to pay the rent. all too many property owners some of them have not come to the table to say, i'm willing to reduce your rent. i don't think that's the task force recommendation. didn't are a whole lot on how it is we're going to approach commercial renegotiation issue. it feels to me like that is a gap in how we -- in our approach

now. there does same to be a big need to figure out how to bring these grupps together. i heard at the state level, they were looking at a few things to provide for banks to do closures and those types of things. thesis probably the efforts. i think you have pointed out a gap that we need to think about. >> i do want to give it a shut out to the tenderloin landlord clinic. commissioner zouzounis, this is

aan excellent question and it seem to be top of the hour. okay, i got to start paying rent again and the world is different. how do i get into a different place. that's a really important area for the city to start dive into. how do we provide the support for that conversation to have and encourage the stakeholders to have that information with an eye towards the wholistic outcomes. if everybody retreats to this short-term thinking, it's going to be tragedy. >> vice president zouzounis: i think in the same tha that we ae recommending resource for small businesses like already existing programs, we should be doing

that to the small propertiers owners in harder to reach community. so they can feel like -- that's the intent of my question. >> i forgot to mention, towards the beginning of the pandemic, reached out to legal resource that was doing bro upon bono -- it's similar to what you're saying. >> i think it's called lower poke tenant lather.

>> commissioner yekutiel: , now that the erts has sun settled. is there another kind of across departmental strike force that will be putting their heads together owork on economic recovery since we're not done with this thing yet? >> on that point, i think on the schaefered paces program. there is cross-departmental task force. that will continue to happen. now that the task force's work is done, will be up to the mayor to see when she wants to convene. i can't speak to the mayor what her actions are just yesterday.

i'm sure they are going to plan. >> commissioner yekutiel: there are lot of small businesses that don't utilize the pace. one of the small business community appreciate is ertf. i hope that the heads are being brought together as you continue to make it in this thing. the second asking your top of mind thought on emergency measures to help go -- it's getting really cold outside. we're using shared spaces.

it may not be economically viable. the numbers r increase. do of people are -- lot of people are getting really nervous. are you hearing of anything. what ideas do you have. we hope that with this pfizer announcement -- [indiscernible] >> it's a huge question. i think it gets really tied up in how we see with our health results. i think as i mentioned earlier with the raise, it's going to be challenging. knowing what is coming ahead, what's coming ahead is the

holiday season. what can we do in anticipating those kinds of human behaviors to make sure we keep the case rates down. there's some thought around what that looks like. you saw recently the travel advisory that went out. it's really trying to give members. some of the programs that have been announced are good but i think some of the moneys that maybe coming from the shared spaces program, we might want to think abouteve -- it takes a lom

the outside, right? >> new york seems to be investing some money in topping congress that fo -- there are lt of people nervous about a winter that will -- where people are not given a lifeline. folks have been lasting as far as they can. if we have a bad winter, it's going to be damaging. third question i have, we were presented the last month. sales tax dropped in san francisco compared to our peer

california cities, l.a. and sacramento. i asked about why that was. are you nervous about kind of the quickness of the drop in our sale tax revenue and how it has not been picking up as quick as our peers in california? what are ewe learning from other cities to find out more? >> we starting to see that new economic news or indicators relatively recently. two things we're becoming clear.

there was in other jurisdictions where you saw kind of a dropoff in brick and mortar sales coming in, they also had an offset in online sales that came back to offset that economic growth or dropoff. we didn't see that in san francisco. we're asking and exploring with our economist more about why that is. they think it's because san francisco is a huge destination. so much of our economy depends on tourism. people coming from business and pleasure or visits. even for just general day-to-day coming to work. we have a population of 800,000. our population swells to over a million everyday on a monday through friday, typically. all done with shelter-in-place and lot of the work from home things especially for offices. we saw 250,000 people coming

into san francisco on a daily basis. that means 250,000 people not spending money and not using the transportation. some of the challenge there, why we have been very focused, we're trictrying to reenter it's aboue januarjanitor's they employ. and for local businesses, they haven't been catering. there's so many impacts associated with our office sector and downtown sector that we've been focused on bringing them back.

>> no quick comment. nobody asked me input on how to keep people warmer. we've been using electric blankets in our backyard. it works amazingly well. for those restaurants with shared spaces, i encourage you to explore some extension cords and it's cheaper than the propane gas. that's me stepping off a subject i have no business commenting on. on shared spaces in general, i was very pleased to see ertf take a strong stand on extending shared spaces not just for the pandemic but also beyond the

pandemic. it's important to emphasize that the economic damage will lost far longer than the various even if the vic -- i know it's a hit with the community. i also know there's going to have to be more input from everyone in the community and other businesses that have been affected. i'm wondering if you heard anything about when those

conversations might begin? from my perspective, there's nothing that the city has done that has been more impactful to saving small business than shared spaces. that's like the single -- if i had to pick one thing the city did that had the biggest impact, that was it. kind of curious what the next phase of the conversation looks like and where you think that might happen. >> i think the next thing that you're going ose onto oof to see deployment of the equity grant. that's going to be sort of the next level. we've begun conversations with the state department. we wanted to make sure that the group of departments that were charged implementing it, are still coming together.

they are reporting back to us on how it's growing. what charged them to do, if you were to make this a permanent program, how would that operate? what would that look like? we've been doing everything under an emergency kind of structure. that's not going to work for the long-term. we have asked directors to think about what longer term structure would look like. they've begun to do that. in addition to making sure that we understand what is the resourcing to keep up with that level. >> i heard this direct from some small businesses.

i don't know if i want to build it if they will take it away in december. folks not only started building their shared spaces we started getting more beautiful and creative shared spaces. i think the part of it that resonates for me what that means for san francisco's economy over the long run. if we can have really wonderful and creative shared spaces, really artistic, then that's something people will come visit. that will drive more tourism. i really want to see that. before i let you go, i think our commission, something that came up for us as we talked about what we want to focus on over the next six months. i was so happy to hear you talk about the cleanliness of the

city. this is coming from an unusual perspectives. how can the small business community help? how can we be constructive and helpful partner in dealing with -- i totally agree with you. it's not just a street sweeper coming down the street. it's overlay of mental health and substance abuse. how does the small business organize in a constructive way to play a constructive role in that conversation? >> it's a huge question. i think our mayor has been trying to get at it with some of the challenges, especially mental health challenges.

just to throw your weight behind that support is helpful. i tend to think that sometimes that it's so hard because my parents used to be small business owners too. even to get them to respond was tough. i know that people don't have time to spare to try to organize that you do see the difference it makes when businesses come together on corridors to say we want to change the way this corridor is and how it operates. i really do think that ultimately comes down to people ability to do some of that. only thing i can say, personal

responsibility as much as you can do, whatever it is you can do to help that environment, put up a camera if you're seeing crime in your area. just all of those little pieces eventually help. talking to you your neighbors. organizing the way to go. there's no simple solution here. >> president laguana: one thing that i observed. i think it's the hidden resource and we should think about a way to tap in there. i seen it with commissioner yekutiel in front of his shop. it's the personal relationship that business owners and shop owners have with the people. there's something there that we

haven't fully activated yet. i see this all throughout the city. they are tired of being pigeon holed and not caring. they want engage on this conversation from a place of compassion and empathy. too big for the step. i supposed, i don't see any other commissioner questions can. i suppose we should go to public comment. >> clerk: everyone on the line? >> yes, we have two callers.

>> president laguana: please -- >> we operate motorized cable cars in san francisco. an transportation vehicle which although transportation is considered essential, all of our passengers resealed non-essential.

even in the september 14th health or and the ratings -- we're not allowed with the same wherewithal that so of the outdoor public spaces are allowed. i dine at numerous locations in san francisco. i sat back-to-back with other people with a piece of blesscy glass -- plexiglas. pretty much what i offered on my motorized cable car. i written to the mayor's awesome. egotten department. i sat and turned away customers over and over again who want to do something. the number of people you can put

on a cord sin --s -- as a busins owner, like landlord sending letters for his restaurants, for his restaurant who had one of his landmarks sill. i'm looking for some type of guidance and resources. this is ridiculous. what i like to understand is, is there any path forward for

business line might in san francisco t that's a microbusiness. we had exactly two employees in one and we had bunch of contractors under ab5 that we were going to classify but they were shut down. laguana >> president laguana: next caller please. >> hi. report talking about how everybody interdependent and how we have to start opening things up and encouraging this. little disappointed that the city has taken come up idea

employees can stay home and work from home until june of next year. this might be something that's convenient out there. next june, seems like a long time. if it city is the largest employer, maybe they should be seconding a standard it's time to get to employees back out there and hopefully other companies will follow with the city -- thank you. >> president laguana: just to pond -- respond briefly. every public commenter gets couple of minutes to peak. if they end us an e-mail, we will be happy to angel and

follow-up to see what we can do and connect you to the right folks. that e-mail is -- if you send us an e-mail and outline what you were talking about, i'm in transportation, i'm sympathetic and i understand. before we close the item, commissioners are there any other comments or feedback? anything that the public comment brought up for you that we you wanted to discuss. professor chu pleased to let you get back to your very cute family.

>> thank you. >> president laguana: thank you so much for your time again and walking us through that. we look forward to seeing you again soon. >> thank you very much commissioners for having me and of course please think of me as a partner if there's anything you i think can be helpful with. >> item 3. [indiscernible] >> president laguana: welcome back rick.

the floor is yours. please take it away. >> i'm going to share my screen. good evening president laguana, commissioners office of small business staff, city staff, richard kurylo, before you today is six application for the legacy business registry. each application includes a staff report, a draft resolution, the application itself and a case report and resolution from the planning department. the applications were submitted to planning on september 23rd and heard by the commission on

october 21st. item 3a is don ramon's mexican restaurant inc. the son designed the interior in 1983 and historic mexican style with arches, iron balconies, traditional wood tables and chairs, terracotta flooring. and wall art of 1940s of mexican travel posters. located in the south of market neighborhood, don ramon's is eating and gathering location of the community.

the core of feature tradition that business must maintain on the legacy registry. item 3b is fior d'italia. founded by angela delmonte in 1886, the fifth oldest restaurant in san francisco. located in the ground floor in north beach. fior d'italia offers homemade pasta, fresh seafood, soup and cured meats and other cheesy dishes of northern italy. the main dining area is decorated with technique ceiling tiles, mural, scenes and

landscapes by paul rockwell. throughout its history, fior d'italia has served countless individuals from around the world and is an integral part of the north beach neighborhood. th-item 3c is iyengar yoga association. with one of the earliest yoga studios to find success in san francisco and first of the iyengar institute in the united states. the iyengar yoga provides public classes and started a national yoga publication for all call

the yoga journal. the core featured features business must maintain is practice and teaching of iyengar yoga. item 3d is monroe motor inc. it's motorcycle sales started about by james monroe in 1958. it's the oldest surviving motorcycle dealership in san francisco. the shop sales both new and used motorcycles as well as clothing, art and other equipment. the core feature tradition of business must maintain motorcycle sales and services. item 3e is secret studios.

music recording studio has been in operation since 1982. the demand for studio recording space has kept secret studios throughout its years. today secret studios is the bay area's largest rehearsal facility with 130 monthly studio studios, two recording rooms. secret studios is active in its community and has provided san francisco in the bay area with the space they need to work on their craft and realize their dreams. secret studios has been used by notable musicians. just as important, the studio served the community from bay area legend toe inspiring.

item 3f is washington vegetable company. the business named after its original address 217 washington street was established in 1931 by italian immigrant. in the 1950s, the business moved to gerald avenue on the golden gateway redevelopment project. the company stayed in the pizza family and currently third generation of ownership and fourth generation of family member operations. they also give back to the community donating fresh fruit and vegetables to variety of charities and good bank. washington vegetable company is one of the largest producers in the city and supplies fresh

fruits and vegetables. all six businesses required for listing on legacy business registry and all six received a positive recommendation from the historic press vacation. office of small business staff recommends adding the business to the economy -- thank you. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions. there are business representers on the line who like to speak on behalf of the application. >> president laguana: any commissioner comment? commissioner zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: tha nks for the presentation. i'm really happy to -- i'm looking forward to hearing any

comment from businesses that tuned in to talk more about their narrative. i want to give a quick shut out to the business, my family's business.

>> i have produced declaration of events there. there's something very warm and welcoming about that space. i consider it a huge asset to san francisco and to the community. >> president laguana: why don't we go to public comment and then

i'll say save my comments until after public comment. >> good evening commissioners. i would like to thank you all for considering munroe motors. our shop was started in 1958 by mr. james munroe. it's the oldest motorcycle shop in san francisco. we would regard our confirmation as acknowledgement of the importance and usefulness motorcycles have, especially here in the city and in the bay area. i've done some research on the business a few years ago, i found that motorcycles are more popular in the u.s. than golf.

which is an amazing statistic. something people rarely know about motorcycles, w motorcycles are much smaller carbon foot. they reduce pollution in traffic. of course, in this covid-19 era, motorcycles are socially distance. i started working there in 1985 when i immigranted to the united states. mr. jim munroe started talking about selling the business in 1997. we wind up buying it from him. we immediately got stuck in the community and joined lot of local activities like italian bays and bikes on bikes.

i think munroe motors is here for the long-term. once again, i would like to thank you all for your time. >> president laguana: next caller please. >> i'm calling on behalf of the washington vegetable company. thank you so much for your time and consideration. washington vegetable is a legacy business. my great grandfather has been proud of the designation of washington vegetable business. we're proud of our years of service to san francisco and the entire bay area.

we extend intend to be here for many more years. we like to say thank you to all the wholesale and grocery store workers that continue to work during this pandemic. finally, men and women who work at washington vegetable, we would not have been able to survive. this designation will be dedicated to all washington vegetable employees both past and present. thank you once again for your consideration. we appreciate your time and effort. thank you. >> president laguana: next caller please. >> i submitted a application for the family. i'm speaking here as a community

business. i'm a small business owner myself. i want to talk about this is a business that is really one of the economic anchors of a latino community. the ramirez family, this was not -- one of the many families that came from utla in the early '50s. these families on the mission. some of them haven't put in their applications yet. family business started over on valencia street. this is a family that was self-determination, made a place here in san francisco with doing business over 60 years in san

francisco. also attributed to the gay community and what not. both of you remember bill graham. who used to come frequent the restaurant. it has a long history as well as politicians from the start where mayor diane feinstein did some fundraisers there. everybody knows that is political hangout for most of the city. thank you for putting forth a resolution and approval of the legacy business application.

>> my name is karen wood. i'm executive director of iyengar yoga in southern california. thank you for this opportunity. we've been part of the history and culture of the city since 1975. during these challenging times, working hard to remain for another 45 years and beyond. the first iyengar yoga institute in the country and we're instrumental in spread of yoga across the country and world. iyengar is wildly acknowledged bringing yoga to the west. his style of yoga is focused on authenticity and therapeutic. we have a loyal and dedicated

community of teachers, volunteers and donors within san francisco and travel from all over the bay area, country and world to visit our center in san francisco. it is a beautiful and welcoming space. we offer a full range of class levels, workshops, teacher education and free community programs. we have classes that are geared to the elderly or those with physical challenges or injury. in response to the pandemic, we immediately went virtual with all of our yoga classes. our community was grateful to be able to stay together virtually during shelter-in-place and our classes, especially for those who live alone, provided a lifeline. we have been able to secure wages for our teachers and staff with ppp loan and donor support.

we added two more $10 classes and we offer those three times a week. we have a history in san francisco, we operate since '75 out of several locations throughout the city from the marina, sun set district and richmond district. we're strategically located at the medical center which provides further opportunity for collaborations in using yoga as an important tool and treatment and recovery of ms, parkinson's and hypertension. it's with our hope that the legacy business destination,

we'll distinguish ourselves as a treasure asset of san francisco and give needed assurance to your community and donor. >> president laguana: commission er zouzounis? >> vice president zouzounis: sho t out to washington vegetable company. my dad followed that tradition. to bring the history back into it, the first apples which are long standing tradition, which we supplied, they were from washington vegetable company. bring little music history for you guys. >> president laguana: rick, you had few more comments?

is that written comments that are submitted or do you need to read them? please proceed. >> i have the comments from karen woods. she was going to say regardless of the challenges that we remain commit to our commission to continue to be part of san francisco. thank you for your time and consideration. that was the remainder of karen's iyengar speech. fior d'italia has has reputation for award-winning traditional northern italian food, fantastic service and elevator haven't san francisco eatery atmosphere. fior d'italia, flower of italy was opened may 1, 1886.

[please stand by].

the restaurant became a favorite. the original building was destroyed by fire in 1893. [please stand by]

>> so i have to say thank you so much to every business who submitted, but a special thank you to secret studios. i first went to secret studios in 1995 when i was a young student, and i rehearsed there every night for close to ten years, and when i started my company, rented a tiny little four-by-six office in the left-hand of that building, which was part of secret studios, and over a period of 18, 19 years, gradually wound up taking over most of the second floor. so that building in particular has been my home for the better part of 25 years and has a lot of personal meaning to me, and i was very pleased when the mayor chose to nominate it, and

i can't tell you how many famous artists or had ymusiciat their start there, plus all the hypergeniuses that you never heard that became famous, but just -- [inaudible] >> -- community without them, so any ways, i know it's been a long meeting, but this one is a big one for me, so thank you, secret studios. and with that, can we have a motion? >> i move [inaudible]. >> i second.

>> clerk: motion by commission commissioner ortiz-cartagena to approve the legacy businesses as presented, second by commissioner yekutiel. [roll call] >> clerk: motion passes, 6-0, with one absent. >> wonderful. congratulations, everyone. next item, please. >> clerk: item 4, presentation, economic mitigation working group recommendations. report on the final set of recommendations of the economic mitigation working group established by resolution

number 359-19. discussion and possible action item. the presenter is myself, dominica donovan, senior business analyst of the office of small business. and a representative from supervisor fewer's office may be calling in, as well. she's got some technical difficulties, so i'm going to go ahead and share my screen with you. i have limited bandwidth, so i might lose you, and i am going to upload a powerpoint to you, as well.

this is due to the delay, but while that is loading -- ah, can everyone see the powerpoint? >> we actually can see it right away, so it's delayed on your screen, but it's on time on ours. >> clerk: i should know that by now. so thank you so much, commissioners, for your time. dominica donovan, senior policy analyst. i am presenting the final report of the mitigation working group policies and recommendations. i'll provide a brief background for members of the public and commissioners who weren't present at this time this issue kind of unfolded. back in june 2019, the small

business commission submitted resolution number 2 of 2019 to the board of supervisors, urging them to issue economic mitigation measures in support of we cares, primarily for corner store and small business store owners who had been affected by local tobacco control laws that were put into place on the heels of one another, the first one being the ban on flafrted tobacco, and the second one being the ban on e-cigarettes that have not received f.d.a. approval. just about a month later, supervisor walton of district 10 submitted a resolution urging the office of small business, our office, to convene an economic mitigate working group to address the

matter, and in october of last year, we did so, and we convened for a series of ten meeting, which were unfortunately cut somewhat short due to the covid emergency. our last meeting was at the -- i believe it was in early march of this year. the working group consisted of a merchant from discigarettes, a representative from the castro district merchants and the s.f. council. the castro district merchants and s.f. council were two commissioners. the small business commission, office of workforce development, supervisorial representation from districts 1 and 10, and the s.f. chamber of commerce, and this was actually requested via the resolution from supervisor walton that this working group be comprised

of individuals that represent the leaders both in the civic realm and business leaders and merchants from local organizations. the working group were to develop recommendations for the board of supervisors to consider regarding economic challenges really incurred due to local tobacco control regulations. we heard a lot back in june 2019 regarding revenue losses that small businesses were anticipating were going to occur because they were no longer going to be able to sell e-cigarettes, and we heard many anecdotes of losses that occurs due to the ban on flafvored

tobacco, as well. so topics that this group focused in on were the tobacco permit retail, [inaudible] regulatory fees, including the [inaudible] the public right-of-way permit fees that display merchandise, tables, and chairs, the commem development programs and equity issues related to the racial and ethnic makeup of tobacco business owners. one remark that i wanted to make is as i was charging along through ten meet beings of

minutes and recommendations, the work that this task force is trying to achieve in terms of the covid-19 small business support, small businesses, as we know, have endured stunning economic losses, and they're just trying to pivot to survive, and that's much like the experience of corner stores, small grocers, when local substance control laws go onto the books that are undoubtedly in the interest of public health, you know, a lot of these small businesses are left without alternative options in a regulatory environment that's not very friendly to them. so as a result of our ten meetings, we drafted 15

recommendations addressing programatic regulatory and system changes [inaudible]. these recommendations are really an effort towards a more equitable regulatory [inaudible], and they also -- we believe that they provide a pathway for small businesses to nor nimbly adapt to these small business local measures, and it also provides economic [inaudible] that small businesses need in order to cope with abrupt revenue losses. so with that, i'll dive right into our findings and recommendations. are there any questions at this moment or -- i'm being very mindful of the time and the hour, so if you have anything

to stay at this stage, i'm happy to provide additional context. >> please proceed. >> first, we discussed the staff and retail sales program. we invited a big -- something very important to the working group was to approach this matter from a collaborative -- by being collaborative with the departments and the agencies, and so we invited department of public health to present to us on the tobacco retail permits program. right now, there are

[inaudible] and many of them continue to be renewed. once -- generally, once a tobacco sales permit is obtained, it may not be sold or transferred. there are a few supervisorial districts where there are less than 45 retail permits, so that is a possibility for some of them. there is one exception to that rule that disallows selling or transferring permits, and that

is when an owner and permit holder would like to transfer the permit to a child -- or their own child. that's a one-time transfer allowance. we discussed that the permission is really limiting for many tobacco permit sales retail holders, particularly for those from nonwhite racial and ethnic groups and immigrant communities. research tells us that nonwhite racial and ethnic groups and those foreign-born americans

often live in multigenerational households. it can also be found in arab households, as well, who makeup a large number of corner grocers and tobacco shops. just to provide a little bit more context, multigenerational households have more than two generations living in them, including kids, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. per u.s. census data, there are about 9700 multigenerational households who are in san francisco. so in light of this, the working group determined that this particular aspect of the

regulation is quite limiting to this group, and as such, we've developed a recommendation around that, which i'll go into in just a bit. we also were -- d.p.h. also provided us with a lot of information regarding their approach to compliance? you know, in all of their presentations that they've provided to our bodies here, you know, they've emphasized that they have a personalized retail approach, and tflavored tobacco is no different, but there needs to be more outreach between the department of public health and the office of economic and workforce development in terms of, you know, really getting out to

immigrant communities and nonnative english speaking business owners. so with that, we developed two recommendations for tobacco retail sales permit program reforms, and the first being to allow for transfers to family members -- to transfers of the permit to family members generally, and to only allow such transfers on a time-limited basis; for example, every five years, this would be a legislative change that would have to be implemented by the board of supervisors, and we are recommending this so that, you know, this -- this allowance within the tobacco retail sales permit program can be more friendly to nontraditional

households and, you know, provide -- yeah. any thoughts or questions regarding recommendation one? the next recommendation is to have the board of supervisors issue a resolution that urges the department of public health and the office of economic and workforce development and the office of small business development interagency working group whose focus is public education outreach to vulnerable small businesses. this recommendation obviously can have a greater scope than just corner store owners and small grocers, and it's one that i think is desperately needed among these three agencies, and i am hopeful that the board will be amenable to issuing that resolution.

>> would you be amenable to widening that scope with -- within the context of this recommendation? >> clerk: yeah, of course. i think having the department of public health and oewd and o.s.b. come together and work for small businesses would be the umbrella, and i think the how and the what would be up to the members of that working group [inaudible]. >> no, it just seems like i tend to agree with you, that that would be helpful and useful and public education and outreach of vulnerable small businesses, the need for that probably extends well beyond

tobacco retail sales. >> absolutely. >> that's why i phrased my question the way i did. please continue. >> okay. in addition, we also talked about with respect to the feder local tobacco federal regulations, there are another federal regulations that they must comply with. they're visited quite frequently by enforcement agents, and where tobacco retail sales permit holders are often from immigrant communities, the working group discussed how these checks can often feel intimidating and

threatening, and how these feelings in recent years, specifically the last four years, have been exacerbated by near constant threats from the nation's top immigration officials. you know with that, you know, this has led to a lack of trust between local business owners in this sector and local and state business leaders. as you know, small businesses really benefit from having positive working relationships with local and state officials, and as such, we've recommended that the board support mandatory training fiermts for local enforcement agencies that address cultural sensitivity. we also are recommending that

state enforcement agencies be urged to implement [inaudible] but at a high level, this is something that, i think, you know, this sector would benefit from and that the agency would benefit from, as well. >> does making a recommendation for state enforcement agencies raise a problem for the commission? >> it would be through the board of supervisors. we would be urging them to issue the resolution. >> got it.

>> >> clerk: so we also discussed at length the full impact to businesses and pivoting? as i shared earlier, when i introduced this topic, the prohibition of the sale of flavored tobacco and the banning of the sales of e-cigarettes were right on the heels of one another. you know, we didn't quite discuss the specifics of determining what that exact fiscal impact was per court -- per corner store, per small business. we know that most, if not all vape shops have closed in the city. we know -- we've read reports in the chronicle and examiner that they've incurred debt in

the tens of thousands of dollars. what the working group focused on instead of trying to determine what the impact losses were was that there are many administrative and regulatory challenges that the city has in place that really restrict a business' ability to pivot in order to recoup those revenue losses. so we discussed the [inaudible] point of sale system registration fee and [inaudible] abatement fee as well as business flexibility [inaudible] and planning for allowances and how they're friendly or not to this sector. first and foremost, the usage

or the nan [inaudible] this was intended to be utilized to ensure that alcohol sales occur in a manner that protect the health, safety, and welfare of san francisco residents. per the ordinance, a fee must be paid to the city to those who hold type 20 and 21 a.d.c. licenses, and they must also pay a fee in the amount of $272 per year. it hasn't gone up that much since it was first implemented, and it's only increased by about 3%. this fee is also largely paid by those who hold tobacco retail sales permits, as well. about 61% of retail tobacco license holders also pay the

d.a.o. fee. performance standards are set by the department of public health in order -- and it's -- those performance standards are what d.p.h. -- is how d.p.h. measures success. these performance standards are also largely duplicative of state requirements which have been -- which were implemented after the d.a.o. was codified. really important to know that businesses in san francisco have a roughly 96% compliance rate with cbph performance standards, and it seems that that compliance rate has remained fairly consistent over the years? it's also important to note that in 2006, when this ordinance was codified, there

was a provision for a fee waiver, as well, but businesses weren't ever really informed of the opportunity to apply for this fee waiver, and, indeed, the first waiver was applied for in 2013. and since then, out of approximately 675 businesses, only 27 have them have ever applied for the fee waiver, and that's due in large part to a lack of education and outreach to the businesses. so, you know, responsive to this, supervisor fewer's office called for a special hearing which was held in february of this year, and at that hearing, the department of public health and s.f. -- the san francisco police department presented, as well as the director of the

office of small business, regina dick-endrizzi, and they contemplated the ability of the d.a.o. program at large and, effectively, supervisor fewer noted, you know, that there are many concerns with regard to whether this program is warranted, and there were a lot of concerns about whether or not the fee was being equitably, you know, applied between small businesses and larger formula retailers. and ultimately, although supervisor fewer expressed support for eliminating the fee and reforming the d.a.o. program all together. the working group concurred with this and recommends that the fee should be fully eliminated. this would require a legislative change from the

board of supervisors, and if you're wondering, the fee generates, i think it's about 100 -- less than $200,000 per year to administer this program, which -- you know, this was obviously before the pandemic struck upon us, but when there are questions as to whether or not this program is indeed effective, and if, indeed, it is duplicative of state irrequirements, then it' up to the board to ask themselves whether it's something that's worth the administrative costs to continue, especially if it's proving to be a burden for the sector in particular, as well. >> has the controller given us a total on how many revenue

this fee generates? >> clerk: it's less than 200k per year, and with that, it largely goes to fund two positions within d.p.h. and the outreach activities, which include reminders to small businesses regarding their responsibilities to prevent nuisance activities in and around their corner stores, and i think it's about 20k, if i'm not mistaken, that goes to the s.f. police department, and that contributes to compliance checks, as well, that businesses receive also from state and federal authorities, too. so any other questions on the

d.a.o.? umm, public right-of-way permit fees, specifically, display merchandise, cafe table and chairs permits. these are seen as something that small grocers and corner stores could really benefit from if they were easy to access. right now, they're very easy to access with the shared spaces program and with the two-year waiver of the permit fees, due in large part to supervisor peskin's legislation, but in normal times, the application for either permit is extraordinary onerous and can take two to six months to obtain. the permit is also costly for most microbusinesses, which is

what -- how we categorize corner stores and small grocers. the permit cost for display merchandise is $160, plus $11 per square foot, and the cafe tables and chairs is $148 plus $8 per square foot. so our recommendation is small businesses would benefit from a permit waiver for costs related to obtaining these permits. you know, we're thinking more strategically about this recommendation and about enhancements to other economic development programs, this is something that might be able to be absorbed in an s.f. [inaudible] program, where not only a small businesses awni'

and display area being rehabbed, but there are different ways of displaying, including tables and chairs or a different way of displaying their merchandise. >> can i ask a question? >> yeah. >> great. >> so i know that -- thank you. this is commissioner yekutiel. so i know that an argument to waiving tables and chair fees were for two years, was that we're utilizing sales and tax revenue for the city so there's both a beautification for the city to make it as unonerous -- i don't know the word for that, but it's as easy and inexpensive as possible. have we made an argument for display merchandise? and my second question is i was

wondering if there's merit to finding out which fees are directly associated with utilizing space to make money that goes back to making money for the city, especially given the sales tax slump that we're in? and it's such a good argument to say, we're literally charging us to make money for you, so you literally don't want to do that. >> yes, i absolutely hear what you're saying, and i agree wholeheartedly with you? with respect to the later question on fees and permits related to the use of space, i believe that they are mostly housed within public works and sfmta? with respect to display merchandise and utilizing the argument that there's, you know, a beautification of our streets, i would actually take the approach that with display

merchandise, because it's typically used for produce, that it would benefit these corner stores and small grocers in that they are better able to -- they're able to maximize space available to promote healthy goods and veer away from controlled substances like tobacco products. >> i just think that most people don't know that the city is charging -- i had no idea that the city was charging corner stores to display merchandise. to me, that 'seems insane. so, like, i'm learning about this for the first time, and i'm, like, we're charging people to do this? so i just feel like this is the permit time to make the argument to do away with things like that. >> absolutely. and, you know, part of the larger thing that i've found through this endeavor is that a

lot of these fees and permits and programs, they have been on the books for literally decades. i mean, the code that authorizes the permit for cafe tables and chairs has been on the books since 1993, so that's 27 years. so there's a real need for meaningful code reform, and i am cautiously optimistic that this can start a meaning -- a more meaningful conversation with, you know, respect to that. >> thank you. >> moving right along, antiquated and equitable fee

that is applied to our small businesses in this city is the point of sales system fee. state law requires localities to ensure that consumer rights are protected through ensuring that the accuracy and that that point of sales system are accurate and efficient in ringing up sales, and so this program is administered through the weights and measures division of the department of public health. we have a commissioner who's in charge of this, and, ultimately, you know, the working group found that this fee, in addition to a mountain of others is also prohibitive for corner and small grocer

stores in particular. businesses basically pay a fee for d.p.h. to inspect their point of sales system. in 2010, the fee was set at $75 per system, plus $14 for each additional system. that's capped at $773 per location, meaning that a business location can have 50 or more point of sales systems and only pay $773. the fee itself hasn't been adjusted since 2010, and it's administered to businesses, regardless of size. so target is paying the same amount in a point of sales system fee as a market up the street from me. the board of supervisors is,

under the code, authorized to adjust the fee schedule via resolution, and per my understanding in discussion with the working group, they have not done so. this could be for a number of reasons, which we could hope to discuss with the board as we move through this recommendation. i think this goes back to this being a law on the book for ten years and not seriously looked at or reviewed. so as such, our recommendation is point of sale fee reform, and hopefully, the board would be able to see how equitably this fee schedule is applied versus what, you know, the point of sale system

legislation hopes to accomplish, and at minimum, that microbusinesses utilizing fewer than three point of sale systems should be eligible for a point of sale fee waiver. >> i'm curious. how often do they find a p.o.s. system that was justifying an inspection? are they debugging the aipads r decoding square? >> if there is a dispute where a customer is charged a price that they don't believe was accurately reflected on the point of sale system, then the -- the weights -- the --

the weights and measures office would go out and inspect. >> i actually know this because i called, and i asked about the p.o.s. fee when i just opened manny's? think send people randomly around to make sure they're using the right p.o.s. and slap you with a fee if you're not using the right one, so it's kind of like a -- yeah. >> this is -- this is director dick-endrizzi. so to add a couple points, for one, the p.o.s. system -- the compliant type of p.o.s. system, this is different than the p.o.s. fee that dominica is talking about, it's actually about the manufacturer, and the manufacturer manufacturing a compliant p.o.s. system that meets our regulation so that when you go -- when the small

business goes to purchase a p.o.s. system, it's already compliant. the way these laws are written because it was written at a time when it was the large manufacturers, the safeways, the walmarts, the costcos, the home depots creating their own p.o.s. systems -- you know, p.o.s. systems. at the time when i was working for buffalo exchange, you know, i was still punching in numbers up until the early 2000s, not working with an electronic thing, so this is one sort of level of statewide reform that could happen, which is really required, especially as we move more into the technology world? it is incumbent on the manufacturer to meet the compliance, not on the business owner. not that the business owner has to know what's compliant and

therefore purchasing a compliant piece of equipment. so even when square was -- was getting up and going, they weren't aware of the p.o.s. regulations, making sure that the customer can see, you know, what's being rung up, and so we had a mass number of small businesses who were purchasing those systems that were not compliant. they eventually became aware of that regulation when their customers started getting fined and corrected. in terms. p.o.s. fee that dominica is talking about, these are scanners, and these are the hand scanners or the swipe scanners like you see at grocery stores. so -- so again, these regulations were written at a time when small businesses really weren't purchasing these, but they have now been applied down.

so the commission, a couple years ago, and i can resend out the meeting -- ydid have a presentation from the weights and measures commissioner. and what the commissioner did say is one, for our small businesses, they're a little bit more complaint driven. they might send out people to test, but they're more likely to send out people to test for things like grocery stores and hardware stores, things where there's a lot more price changing on the shelves. so -- and that still can be small ones. so i do think, you know, i mean, at a state level, all of this really should be reassessed and relooked at in the state of what technology is nowadays. so at minimum, we're having --

you're having not only our corner stores, you're having maybe a hair salon that has, you know, 20, 25 products, and they use a scanner to help just keep track of their inventory, and because everything is so technology integrated, when applying this fee, you know, you have the direct one-on-one really customers talking to the owner of the business if there's any particular -- any particular issue. so i guess that's where i'll leave it, and dominica, you can move on. >> clerk: okay. so with that, moving right along, the literal abatement fees, which was implemented in

2009 and intended to be utilized for street cleaning and public outreach and education relative to tobacco product [inaudible] pand remitted back to the city. the controller has the authority to make fee adjustments based on tobacco litter observed on the streets measured in that costs associated with street cleaning and funds spent on public education and outreach. the fee was initially set at 20 cents per back sold back in 2009, and after the last study of tobacco litter in 2019, the fee has steadily increased. in the 11 years that the fee

has been in place, revenue generated from it almost has exclusively been utilized by the department of public works for street cleaning. and since 2009, the fee has risen by about 400%. right now, it stands at $1 per pack and is expected to increase december 1 of this year. in 2019, a study found that a lack of [inaudible] and receptacles largely contributes to the tobacco litter in the city, and in 2018, a pilot project was administered to -- on the west side of the city between districts 1 and 4, which resulted in a 92% reduction in observed tobacco

litter. that project focused on public education outreach and implementing butt cans across districts 1 and 4. most concerning to the working group is that the fee has almost never been spend towa s towards -- revenue generated from this fee has never been spend on public education and outreach which has been proven to reduce the amount of tobacco products used in the city. also of concern, the controller has been relying on six-year-old data now to make increases -- to authorize increases to this fee.

so while the amount of tobacco litter on our streets may have changed, the amount of fee is increasing just due to standard increases in living costs and in relationship to employee costs. so what we're recommending is that the board of supervisors call a special hearing similar to what they did for the [inaudible] ordinance fee and evaluate how this fee has been administered, what the you tut of this fee is [inaudible] is provided. anything on that? >> keep going. we'll interrupt if we have

questions. >> great. so moving onto city programs. some of which we changed, managed through the office of economic and workforce development were the s.f. shines and healthy retail s.f. programs. so first s.f. shines and s.f. shines [inaudible]. the intend behind it is to help small businesses improve their storefronts in hopes of generating more foot traffic and ultimately more revenue. since 2009, 117 storefronts have been improved and $2.7 million in grants have been approved. [inaudible] window displays and most recently, s.f. shines were opening provides grants of

between $2,000 or $5,000 for health and safety upgrades to storefronts to ensure compliance with covid directives. so our recommendation is to enhance this program, you know, in order to service more small businesses, in particular, corner stores and small grocers. in order to do this, this does require a budget ask, which we, you know, recognize the magnitude of that in this environment. you know, in order to serve more businesses, the s.f. shines team of one definitely needs more staff assistance, and they definitely need additional funding to support small businesses in this respect. with regards to the healthy

s.f. retail stores in particular, it's been helping small grocers and retailers, making sure that alcohol and related items occupy less than 20% 20% of shelf space. this program has been successful, however, this program is extraordinarily costly and time intensive for staff to administer. you know, its successes are rooted in that our economic programs in the city are staffed to specifically help small retailers and corner grocers, but that does take a

lot of staff time away so that not as many businesses can participate in this program as there is demand. so our recommendation with respect to the healthy retail s.f. program is that, similar to s.f. shines, request that a modified version of this program be created and implemented, and that it is also enhanced through the budget add-back process, and that more staff time is wi allocated to this program because it has been highly successful for the businesses that have participated, and these businesses have also been primarily in our equity neighborhoods in the tenderloin and excelsior. so city programs continued.

we didn't get a chance to opine significantly on the color curb program or the bulk purchasing ideas, but we want to be sure that we didn't just not mention them at all? the color curb program, much like the public right-of-way permit, can be onerous and costly, and we're recommending that this be brought up as a topic at the sfmta small business advisory group. with respect to bulk purchasing, we've seen through the local emergency that city departments, you know, finally found their flexibility and innovation, [inaudible] by both purchasing p.p.e. for small

businesses and distributing them, and we want to take the best practices learned from that endeavor and apply them to the small -- the corner store and small grocer sector. competing with larger story tailestory -- store retailers is extremely difficult, so this is something that could be extremely beneficial for this sector. with respect to business permitting, the steps to supporting small businesses and grocers and mom and pop shops in becoming more nimble in

light of recommendation and the covid-19 pandemic. our role is to provide specialized technical assistance to small businesses, and this would require another interagency working group, formed by the office of oewd, the office of small business, and s.f. planning to convene an interagency working group and to develop a practical guide to leveraging the city's flexibility land use policies access for small businesses. i think it's something that has been desperately needed for sometime. with respect to this topic, as well, small grocers and corner stores who hold permits are not able to take advantage of the

community business priority and processing program that was recently codified. this is prohibited in affording this sector the ability to pivot if they'd like to change their use or add a use, so we're recommending that a legislative amendment be approved by the board of supervisors to allow this sector to participate in the program. with respect to retail equity in the [inaudible], we are recommending that city departments be required to issue guidance rules in forms and languages other than english at the time that they're released or published in order to provide equitable access to information. so this is something that -- this is a finding made long before the covid-19 pandemic hit. this is something that's been

exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. businesses owned and operated by nonnative english speakers are falling a lot farther behind their english speaking counterparts. right now on the books, there's not a requirement that this be done, and we are recommending that the board of supervisors issue legislation requiring this. with respect to tech literacy, we're finding a lot of the same issues, that our small business owners who are often from immigrant communities who are older, who are nonnative english speakers, have low levels of tech literacy, and that has proven to be paramount to success during the covid-19 pandemic but also prior to, and so we are recommending that

oewd coordinate with neighborhood economic development organizations to facilitate trainings that would improve tech literacy among the most vulnerable store owners. that is it. >> okay. any commissioner discussion or questions? commissioner -- commissioner zouzounis? >> thank you so much, dominica. that was a great presentation. i thank you to all the commissioners for sticking it out with us. this is a culmination of several years of work. i think because we developed this in a practice of working with departments, and we've been able to mold, in addition to our office's role in this working group, merchant

advocacy has also helped shape departments and how they deal with businesses, so the compliance-based approach that we kept referencing, this is -- it was a work in progress that we really saw the results of in terms of how department of public health in particular interacts with retail and gives them options how to mediation a violation, instead of just leaving them with no options of recourse, and no know-how to change. i think this is a rubrick for our modelling going forward. i think this is something that we can very easily provide to the supervisors. we've done a lot of work for them. this was one-on-one with the departments. this was a whole bunch of citations on dominica's, you know, part, in terms of

research and background. and i have a million case studies on the ground to back it all up. so to give you a little bit of context of where some of these things -- because we are dealing with very much in the weeds recommendations, so feel free to ask questions, but to give you a sense, we've -- we often see the approach, the orientation towards the corner store, convenience shop, tobacco store sector is the only [inaudible] to deal with them. we saw this time and time again. we saw it on market street, which has lost its public space. you know, gentrification on market street just from five years ago is so obvious, and corner stores are that place of public access, and we're losing that because, you know, the city will pressure a landlord to evict a tenant that has

people loitering instead of giving them a pathway. we're helping other businesses get shared spaces and table and shares, but deemed approved applies to type 20 and 21 also alcohol licenses, and they get a violation in people are hanging out in front of their store. there was a whole entire, again, health code during covid that sent police into these businesses because people were loitering out front. so we don't have a compliance-based approach as it applies to this sector. and i've had incremental wins, but i think this is a process by which we can develop that more. the supervisors -- this is also in their interests in the sense that getting things off the books that haven't had updated

studies, this should be something very baseline that we have in addition to their small fee business mitigation work, so we've already [inaudible] how to approach that type of policy legislative process. so, umm, yeah. that's the little context that i have for you. even at this time, i'm getting messages of specific types of covid related warnings that tobacco license retailers are getting that other places aren't. so we have a playing field here that is inequitable, and we unfortunately have to kind of chase it because we lost about 30% of our tobacco licenses since 2018, when some of these first laws went into effect. so hopefully, this will allow

us to make the case that mitigation has to come at the same time or prior to regulation, and i think that this is kind of -- these are things that our commission can help bring to the board in line with, you know, their very proactive policy making. so happy to answer any questions, but this has been a culmination of years of work, and i'm so thankful to the hard work of our office, staff, and to our director, and to all the merchants that, you know, have been coordinating with our office and to make this a really democratic process. and also, thankful to the supervisors who can -- who held seats, and to the staff and to supervisor walton and supervisor fewer's offices who have contributed so much to this. >> great. thank you.

commissioner hui? >> i really just wanted to express my gratitude at the level of length that you're given is wonderful. i feel like this piece i can appreciate. how many meetings and how many people you really had to -- it must have been, like, calling somebody and then finding out you needed to call five other people right after that call, so i can totally imagine how many effort this took. but, you know, it also is really innovative in the way that, you know, a lot of these pieces of -- like you said, have been on the books a really long time. the reputation of our city has been it has been a challenge

for somebody who has whatever it is, money or grit to get through. and in terms of making it easier for people to do business in san francisco, being a place where innovation can actually happen, i feel like this is a real door that's opened to be able to see, again, you know, mitigation before regulations. if we become a city where we actually proactively think about our relationships and have positive working relationships with our city legislators where we give them the support to begin with, then, we can begin to think about revenue sources for our city that are positive all-around. i think these fees -- i paid,

when i had my retail store, like, the point of sales, like, weight and measures fee. i'm like what am i weighing? i sell clothes, but you play along. so i think it really needed your leadership and, you know, your perseverance, it sounds like, to actually go through this effort because every supervisor who's ever run for supervisor in our city has talked about fee mitigation. and i think for you to put it out there for them to see and for you to have so many very tangible points for us to be able to put all of our weight against, i think is an incredible thing for me to be able to, you know, come into this commission and have this piece to be able to support. so thank you so much for creating this -- you know, something so incredibly tangible for the entire merchant community to really rally around. >> thank you. you know, when i hear about

these display fees or p.o.s. fees, by honest reaction is i want to -- my honest reaction is i want to burn it all to the ground. it just seems ridiculous, unbelievable, that we are making it so difficult for these businesses to continue, especially in the current environment. i want to commend you guys on all the work that you did. it's hard to digest it all, all at once, in this form coming at you, but one thing that i really appreciated was how thoughtful the recommendations were, and how measured they were. i think there'll be a real opportunity here. it would be really easy to reaction, you know, with my gut reaction, which is just burn it all to the ground, and, you know, you guys made some, what

i thought were some very soft and easy-to-roll-along-with suggestions that i think the board of supes would be well advised to adopt, particularly in this environment. so is there any other commissioner comments at the moment? then i am going to make a motion -- sorry. >> before you do -- >> clerk: sorry to interrupt, public comment, and i believe supervisor fewer's assistant may be in the queue, as well. >> sorry. it's late, and i'm starting to lose track of things. let's hear the public comment. sorry, commissioner zouzounis, please. >> sorry, i was on mute. i just wanted to ask a point of information before we -- after we take public comment, before

we take an action. what are our options for this, in terms of actions? >> clerk: so next steps will be to presented to the public safety and neighborhood services committee, likely december 10. i'm hopeful that perhaps angelina could speak to the possibility of coordinating with the controller's office on the cigarette butt abatement team prior to december 1, but that would -- you know, the next order of operations would be to present to psns, and if there are any substantial, like, pieces of feedback from this meeting, it would include that, as well, in this presentations. >> okay. if we -- >> i'm sorry. >> if we need some -- >> sorry. whoever's pounding on the key

board, please mute your mic. >> so in terms of what action we can take today, just adopt these -- [inaudible]. >> this is director dick endrizzi, so commissioner zouzounis, it's agendized as an action item. i think it -- as a discussion item. i think it's important when it goes to the public safety and neighborhood services committee, you know, in adopting it, we are saying we are supporting these recommendations. we are encouraging the board of supervisors to act on these recommendations. >> okay. >> so does that -- does that answer your question? >> yeah.

>> great. so with that, should we go to public comment? >> clerk: yes, and i think if it's possible to start with angelina, araceli, that would be great. >> yeah, there's only one person with their hand raised. >> clerk: okay. awesome. >> good evening, commissioners. this is angelina, staff with supervisor fewer's office. thank you for all of your work to support our businesses during this time and for lasting through this late hour as we're getting attention to look at our corner stores and tobacco permit retail holders. as dominica has mentioned [inaudible] near term and long-term mitigation measures to help the small businesses kind of stay open and evolve, given the market forces and legislative changes that are frankly changing the business climate and what's feasible.

this working group has really demonstrated [inaudible] opportunity to engage business owners as allies as we think about stronger public health and economic development policy. as we were engaging in these conversations, a lot has changed in the world since they started. early on during shelter in place, we saw many of these corner stores and small grocers become lifelines for residents to get essentially even more. they're brick and mortar stores. they're places where people affectionately know each other, so we wanted to preserve these as neighborhood spaces but also essential spaces for our neighborhoods. [inaudible] that dominica has touched upon, including the framework for how tobacco sales retails are done, the need for

and frankly basic need for increasing interagency, whether it be local and state coordination to make it so that we're doing culturally competent and linguistically outreach to our communities [inaudible] in terms of the fee structure and how and why we're assessing these fees, whether it's an alignment with public health or public [inaudible] goals, everything from the tables and chair permits to disclaimers [inaudible] which at this time, we're seeing completely transformed the way we're using our public space. but if we're talking about supports activation of our streets or having more eyes on the street, having the street work four our businesses, those are -- work for our businesses, those are two easy things that we discussed that would support our small businesses, including the point of sales fee. things that we're going to continue in conversation fee

include a cigarette abatement fee and really having that work toward the goal of reducing cigarette litter and tools of outreach and education, and supervisor fewer is looking to advance deemed [inaudible] ordinance reform and the d.a.o. fee, given the dumb ratiff nature of what we're doing locally versus at the state level. we also had really good presentation through the presentation that highlighted some of the best practices and some of the infrastructure that already existed in our agency through the many departments but also the technical assistance and supports, and what we realized that while these were great programs, such as s.f. shines and healthy real estate tail, there was a -- retail, there was a question of [inaudible] for so many of our

small businesses, and just recognizing that so many of our grocers in immigrant communities, a constant theme was the working group was really looking at how equity was prioritized and really focusing the conversations on recognizing their hardships, and a lot of the experiences of operators and what they are experiencing on a day-to-day in groce re grocery stores, so we just want to give a shoutout to [inaudible] staff and challenges and recommendations to address this and that we're actually mitigating it as we're talking about legislating this industry and this sector, so thank you, and a special shoutout to dominica for keeping us on task, and we look to the opportunity for working with the commission as we investigate next steps and recommendations, and i'm available for questions. >> great. thank you.

>> thank you so much, angelina. >> so my only recommendation is on the interagency working group is that the scope be expanded to go beyond that -- to -- to help educate and outreach to all vulnerable businesses and not just be limited within the scope of tobacco retail. other than that -- >> clerk: yeah, as it's currently written, it's null verbal small businesses. >> with that, i would be inclined to suggest that we move to support the economic mitigation working group's recommendations drafted, and encourage the board of supervisors to take those

recommendations under consideration. but i propose that as a suggestive motion; that somebody else may make that motion or another motion before it's formally made. >> i think that i would -- i would agree with that motion. only thing i would say is if we could add some additional things to the motion when we send it as an official commission document, so maybe some of those comments can be comments can be, like, what president laguana said, this is outreach for vulnerable communities, and maybe we can highlight some of the -- in the motion recommendations as for d.a.o. and c.o.a. as part of our qualification for adopting

this. >> i have no problem with that, but how do you address that or how is the motion phrased? >> adopt with comments. >> and just to make sure that we adopt with comments, so commissioner, zouzounis, you have put out there that an emphasis on addressin

>> clerk: role call vote. [roll call] >> clerk: motion passes, 6-0, with one absence. item 5, approval of draft meeting minutes from october 5, 2020, action item. >> so moved. shoot, public comment. any members of the public that would like to make comment on item number 5? >> operator: there are no commenters in the queue.

>> and i'm hearing no public comment, public comment is closed. we have to approve the item. i'd move to approve the item. >> second. >> clerk: motion by commissioner laguana to approve the meeting minutes of october 5, 2020. role ca roll call vote. [roll call] >> clerk: motion passes, 6-0, with wub absent. item 6, general -- one absence. item 6, general public comment. allows members of the public to comment generally on matters that are within the small business commission's

jurisdiction but not on today's calendar, and suggest new agenda items for the

commission's future consideration. discussion item. >> are there any members of the public that would like to make any comment on any item that was not on the agenda tonight? >> operator: i see no callers. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: item 7, director's report, update and record on the office of small business and the small business assistance center, department programs, policy, and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor, and announcements regarding small business activities. discussion item. the presenter is director dick-endrizzi of the office of small business. >> commissioners, thank you. it's director dick-endrizzi. i know it's late, so i will stick to some of the highlights in my key director's report. thank you, commissioner laguana of making note of the $3.5 million s.f. health program. i also want to let you know that the mayor's also working with oewd to create a bilocal campaign for the holidays, and we're likely to hear more about that later on this week. it will also be highlighted of.

azrie and as assessor chu noted, we are starting to see more covid cases, so there may be some adjustments in relation to that. also, our shared spaces program permit renewals, a reminder, the applications are due on november 15. commissioner yekutiel, you may want to take an opportunity to remind the valencia street merchants and merchants in your

area to call the p.u.c. to make sure that your drains, the street drains are flushed so that there isn't any flooding that takes place before the rain starts. i also want to let you know that next meeting, we are having the director of public works attend the meeting to talk about street and sidewalk cleanliness, and i have reached out to the department. so we'll have that next week, and then, the last meeting of the month, we will have the presentation on the permit center in addition to legacy businesses. i've reached out to ted egan to schedule presentation on the tax measures that passed, that thankfully, assessor chu went through that for you. and then, either at the 23 or the 14 meeting, you will be

receiving a presentation from the planning department about just exactly what prop h is going to be doing in terms of amending our zoning code. and then, a couple highlights. we just received a referral for -- for an ordinance waiving the fees and the taxes for entertainment businesses, so that will be scheduled soon? it does turn out that supervisor peskin, preston, and mar's administrative code around the commercial tenants legislation is moving forward. there's a lot of detail to it, so i will send you the details

of it, but there are some good things in it, and it's creating -- businesses are being slotted into tiers in relationship to those tiers having a schedule to payback their rent. so -- but i'll be providing you with more information on that. and then, lastly, just, you know, assessor chu, in her presentation, gave you a good overview of the economic recovery task force next steps and kind of like an idea and an orientation on where the commission can take, what they can do with the task force recommendation, so that is something for you to give consideration to and determine what you want to do with it. and then, as president laguana

identified, we have a new -- we will soon from a new leadership at the presidential and vice presidential level, and so it may be time or you may want to take the opportunity to retake a look at a list of recommendations that you provided the mayor on federal relief and see if there are new -- there are things from that list that continue to need to be pushed or there's new things to add as we continue to have a new opportunity and an open opportunity, i think, for our city to be able to push forward recommendations and identify the needs that we have as a city. so with that, i'm happy to answer any questions, and i will leave it at that and send you a written -- a written update as to whether or not some of the written legislation that you've heard -- the status of that. >> do we have any questions -- commissioner questions for director dick-endrizzi. commissioner yekutiel.

>> sorry. this is commissioner man manmann manny yekutiel. specifically to your last question, the framework for business advocacy has changed a lot, even if we don't take the senate, so i'm wondering what -- there's a letter to the mayor, but i 'm wondering what other advice you might have for san francisco to make sure that we fully utilize the opportunity of a democratic president and vice president to assist in the small business community. do you think it's a letter to the mayor to [inaudible] or what would you say is -- how can we population ourselves best now as small business advocates to utilize the

opportunity as best we can? >> well, as a commission, your body and the structure is that you would be advising the mayor on what you -- you would be putting forward to the mayor on what is the did shall did shall what you determine are the priorities on what the city needs to really push for and advocate for at the federal level and/or what may need assistance at the state level. it is the mayor's office that works with our federal and state representatives on that. outside of that, the business organizations, of course, can go directly to our representatives and advocate, but as a body, for you, we do make those recommendations directly to the mayor. >> okay. and then, my second question is i'm hearing that there is consternation within the fire department about a lot of the changes that are being made on

the streets to help small businesses but are causing a lot of, you know, streets to be closed down, and i'm wondering if you are hearing the same thing, and what advice you would have to address it? >> i am not hearing the same thing, but i am -- i am working to try to -- that is one of the items that has been on the list, is to get the fire department scheduled before you. >> commissioner yekutiel made

that recommendation and request representedl repeatedly. it's challenging to get the schedules to align apparently, but -- >> the only reason i'm pressing on it again, commissioner laguana is because renewals for shared spaces are all coming up, and through the grapevine, it is becoming -- it is filtering down to me at least that there's interest in the fire department to -- at least to protest some of the renewals of shared spaces applications, and i -- i hope that before that comes to bear, we can have a conversation and a constructive conversation with fire as to small business survival. >> director dick-endrizzi, you've heard commissioner yekutiel's comments. commissioner yekutiel, i would charge that if not the fire chief, then, the fire marshals would be the appropriate person to have the conversations. >> yeah.

whoever you feel would be best. it doesn't need to be a fight. you know, we're one city, we're trying to get to one goals. >> that's right. >> but if we could just have a constructive dialogue. thank you. >> you know, and i'll bring to your attention and to everybody else's attention, too, that there's a corresponding conversation that needs to be had, and i'm starting that conversation, as a matter of fact. apparently i've received reports of, you know, one of the side effects of shared spaces is delivery trucks don't have a place to pull over, and so now, they're getting harassed with double parking tickets, and it's becoming a problem to the extent that some -- some retail shops are having a hard time getting deliveries because the trucks don't want to come, so i think

we need to have some sort of meeting of minds with the folks in charge of department of parking and traffic -- actually, i think it's now m.t.a., but it's kind of the same conversation, right? just getting everybody to understand how important it is to the community that we get this working effectively and for the benefit of all in the city. so that's coming down the pike. and then, of course, we have a joint hearing with the m.t.a. that'll be happening sometime in january. i'm not sure which commission you'll be on at that point, commissioner yekutiel, but you'll be at that meeting. so that will be another

opportunity to have a discussion, so any ways. all right. is there any other commissioner questions or comments for director dick-endrizzi? okay. i'll open it up to public comment. >> operator: there are no commenters at this time. >> great. seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: item 8, commissioner new business and discussion item. >> okay. are any -- commissioner hui?

and the department of health joining forces. there's a meeting this week with supervisor ronen's office has also expressed interest, so i think that there's some hope here that we'll get a lot of broad support from the city. and what that means to me is if they are engaged at this stage, then there will be more likely to listen to the results of the

survey. so echoing what commissioner hui said, when you have so many departments and agencies involved paying attention to the output of the survey, it's really important when the survey launches, that we get lots of engagement from business owners, so i appreciate her bringing it up, and i want to amplify that we will need to lean on all of our networks to participate so that we have a good, strong survey result that policy makers can build policy around. any other commissioner comments? okay. is there any public -- anyone on the line for public comment? >> operator: there's no one on the line for public comment. >> okay. public comment is closed. next item, please.

>> clerk: sfgovtv, please show the office of small business slide. >> we will end with a reminder that the small business commission is the official forum to invoices your concerns about policies that effeaffect you're saying adjournment. sorry. am i doing this right, regina? >> i am so very sorry. i didn't mean to throw you off. i thought i'd just -- >> i thought i did it wrong. >> you did it right. my apologies. >> all right. we will end with a reminder that the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco, and that the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, continue to reach out to the office of small business.

>> clerk: item 9, adjournment, action item. >> so moved. >> i second clerk cle. >> clerk: motion by commissioner ortiz-cartagena, seconded by commissioner laguana. roll call vote. [roll call] >> clerk: motion passes, 6-0, with one absent. meeting is adjourned at 9:13 p.m. you.

>> what do you think about working at an airport and i love it is busy all the time. >> we want it to be an those away was this is a venture if i

didn't love it i'll be an accountant. >> we want the experience that is a non-airport experience the negative stigma we're trying to erase that. >> everything is in a bad food to excite them about the food and they have time to learn about us. >> people are imitated by traveling and the last thing to do is come to a place fill of chaos. >> telling me how the extent of napa a farms came about. >> it was a vision of the airport director he had a suspicion of a really cool gourmet speciality market locally friendly products this market local flavors this is the best.

>> can we get a little tour. >> absolutely (laughter) ♪ ♪ >> so first on our tour. >> we have the clock we like to call it. >> this is coordinating it is made in san francisco. >> what about the customer presence. >> we like to get the permanent farther i love the cappuccino and you have to go to multiple places for the cupcakes the cup a cakes from kari's people want to live here they're longing phone call for one thing in one spot in you know anything about san francisco the cheese the most popular cheesy think a lot of the people from the west coast say so this the real san

francisco sour dough and they're curious. >> you find people respond to the idea of organic and absolutely. >> this is autumn. >> thank you, thank you and there's a lot of personal touch. >> i see san francisco. >> it's very hands on. >> what's the most popular items. >> this is quite surprising our fresh jotting this is the chronicle special a bowl of warm oats and coconut that's mites farther. >> and speaking of drinks tell me again the cocktail scenes is that one, the things your known for . >> the cocktails are fantastic. >> really. >> fresh ingredients we don't have a mixture it to order this

is our marcus bloody mayor. >> farmer's market bloody mary the bloody marys in the airport are great shikz it up. and then we're going to garnish it with olives. and some lime and a fresh stalk of selly. right on. >> we like ♪ ♪

♪ >> the san francisco playground's hitsvery dates back to 1927 when the area where the present playground and center is today was purchased by the city for $27,000. in the 1950s, the sen consider was expanded by then mayor robinson and the old gym was built. thanks to the passage of the 2008 clean and safe neighborhood parks bond, the sunset playground has undergone extensive renovation to its four acres of fields, courts, play grounds, community rooms, and historic gymnasium. >> here we are. 60 years and $14 million later, and we have got this beautiful, brand-new rec center completely accessible to the entire

neighborhood. >> the new rec center houses multi-purpose rooms for all kinds of activities including basketball, line dancing, playing ping-pong and arts can crafts. >> you can use it for whatever you want to do, you can do it here. >> on friday, november 16, the dedication and ribbon cutting took place at the sunset playground and recreation center, celebrating its renovation. it was raining, but the rain clearly did not dampen the spirits of the dignitaries, community members and children in attendance. [cheering and applauding] ♪ ♪