>> madam secretary, call the roll, please. [roll call] >> clerk: and we have a quorum, madam president. before we start, i'd like to make an announcement. this meeting is being held via

teleconference and is being televised by sfgtv. if you're watching the live stream, please be advised that there is a time lag between what you're hearing and what is being viewed on sfgtv. i'd like to thank sfgtv staff and p.u.c. staff for what's happening during the meeting.

madam president, your first item of business is item 3, approval of the minutes. >> commissioners, are there any corrections to the discussion of the minutes? seeing none, open the matter for public comment.

mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, we have one caller in the queue.

hello. you have two minutes. >> hello. good afternoon, commissioners. can you hear me? >> yes, sir, we can hear you. this is public comment for item 3, the minutes. >> madam secretary, there are no more public comment. >> thank you. public comment on item 3 is closed. >> thank you. is there a motion? >> so moved. >> seconded. >> there's a motion and a

second. roll call vote. [roll call] >> clerk: you have five ayes. >> great. next item, please. >> clerk: your next item is general public comment.

mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, there are three callers in the queue. first caller, your line is open. you have three minutes. >> eileen [inaudible] san francisco of clean neighborhoods, calling on my behalf. [inaudible] the revised scope could also include the expansion of awas in districts 10 and 11 as these districts

have the highest percentage of children as well as on the west side, which has the highest percentage of seniors. i would invite the members of the 2018-19 civil grand jury who produced the report, act now before it's too late, advance or high pressure emergency water system, and to present their findings on their behalf. i would urge the commission to invite experts who are advocating for the expansion of awas on the west site as opposed to pot joebl awas. i would ask that staff presentations include the following: how dedicated awas functions, how potable awas

functions. i would strongly urge this presentation be made by the a.g.m. for the water enterprise. i would also urge the staff presentation by the c.f.o. detailing the cost-benefit analysis of both dedicated awas and potable awas and how each relates to the fact that the water is heavily leveraged. thank you. >> operator: thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> can you hear me now? >> operator: loud and clear. >> great. david pillpel. good afternoon. so i have supported city attorney [inaudible] yesterday. the last announcement focused

on pg&e and focused hetch hetchy, and ignored michael carlin and staff around the agency. i hope that mike will remain, continue his work, and know that he is valued, to me and hopefully the other citizens and rate payers.

>> hello. am i connected now? >> operator: we can hear you. you have two minutes. >> good afternoon,ition commissioners. during the san francisco public utilities commission, we'll have an opportunity to reverse the mismanagement of the tuolomne river environment. my name is dick allen, i'm a resident of san francisco district 7 and a member of the

lake merced task force, formed in january 2000 and served as cochair of the water committee. the tuolomne, the river we drink our water from, has also been providing an important system, the tuolomne ecosystem, under the management of the san francisco p.u.c., has been allowing a massive reduction of the fish population in the river. historically, well over 100,000 salmon used to spawn in 2000. just over 1,000 spawned in 2020. commissioners, please read my

letter to paula kehoe. you should have this in your packet. i strongly recommend that you hold a robust conversation can district staff about adding section number 12 to the urban water management plan. the new section can be titled, the tuolomne river environment. i also strongly encourage you to reject the urban water management plan in its present format. thank you. >> operator: thank you for your comment. next caller. your line is open. you have two minutes. >> so commissioners, let me remind you, if you want us to

give public comment, before the meeting, whoever is facilitating this meeting, we should know how to dial in. in other words, they should be -- the numbers should be on the t.v. so that we can dial in. that's the way to run the meeting. once everybody is sure that number is on the t.v., you start your meeting. remember, we, the public, put you there, and this arrogance of now depriving us of having the number before we start our public comment makes whatever decisions you took null and void according to the brown act. why is the number on the t.v. not there for us to

participate? don't presuppose, you know, that everybody has a computer and everybody is going to print it out, and they have a printed agenda to they can participate in the meeting. why this buffoonery. this buffoonery should stop. it happened before, and i did not mention it. before you chastise the public, require that all the requirements be fulfilled. under the brown act. all the agenda items that you took before you took this public comment should

redone before you take public comment. >> operator: thank you, caller. caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> hello? >> operator: yes. would you like to offer public comment? >> oh . a republican representative comments once that he would make [inaudible] so hard that people would no longer apply. sfpuc allowed an advance statement with a $1,000 cap while contractors required advance payment. sfpuc shielded themselves for everything that might go work

with the applicants who have no control over the process. even sfpucs program to replace toilets is straightforward and quick. this means the flood water grant program was designed to scare potential applicants straight. it's like offering food to the hungry through a glass door. if these demands are not dropped, at the very least, post your final contract on the website so that potential applicants are warned ahead of time of the headaches and heartaches they would be suffering if they dared to

apply. if the p.u.c. really wanted to help, they would remove all the road blocks. thank you for your attention. >> operator: thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the few. >> clerk: thank you. public comment is closed. >> thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: next order is business is item 5, communications. >> colleagues, any discussions or comments on communications? seeing none, madam secretary, will you open up for public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 5, communications, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d. 146-500-4366, pound, pound.

to raise your hand, press star, three. please note you must keep your comments on the agenda item discussed. please note if you do not keep your comments on the agenda item, the president can stop your comments. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, we have two callers in the queue. hello, caller. your line is open. >> commissioners, this agenda title is communications.

in order to communicate as human beings, we have to respect one another. this commission should have high standards, which it had at one time. now, i stated earlier that some of us participate in the deliberations, also known as communications, so that we can understand one another. but if you all are arrogant and expect the community to be humble, it's not going to work. so this agenda item on the communication, as you know, very little has been stated. but it gives me an opportunity

to bring to your attention that in future, do not start the meeting unless the information is on the t.v. so that people know what number to call, what i.d. number to punch in, and when to speak. so you have the commissioners, you have your secretary, and then, you have a moderator, and that blessed moderator should know to do his job or her job and respect the community so that we can participate because we are a nation of laws. and on this level, we follow the brown act, basically, we

follow robert's rules. we're supposed to be civil. you cannot be civil on one side and uncivil -- >> operator: thank you for your comments. your time has expired. next caller, your line is open, you have two minutes. >> can you hear me again? >> operator: sounds good. >> great. david pillpel again. so i wanted to bring attention to 5-e, the regular streetlight report. i support the work of rich stevens and the staff who maintain our streetlights. thank you. i would add to future reports some data or discussion some streetlights maintained or owned by caltrans or other public agencies in the city. i think, for example, the median streetlights on highway 1 between winston and holloway

were out the other night. i haven't had a chance to call 311. perhaps someone could communicate that to rich and his team, but i'm aware that p.u.c. maintained lights and pg&e maintained lights, that there are lights along the public right-of-way maintained by caltrans and other public agencies, and i thought a reference to that in the report would be helpful. thanks very much. >> operator: thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more public comments. >> clerk: thank you. public comment on this item is closed. madam president, you're muted. >> next item, please. >> clerk: the next item is item 6, report of the general manager. mr. carlin?

>> thank you, madam secretary. our next item we've been working on is kind of special, and i'm going to ask our [inaudible] to key this up. >> thank you very much for the opportunity. i'm really very honored to introduce this item and introduce chair [inaudible] and vice chair [inaudible]. great to have a chance to chair this with the commission today. we think it's really important to acknowledge that our bay area water system in alameda, santa clara, san mateo, and san

francisco counties, are on muwekma ohlone land. we've asked carla schulteish to provide some brief examples of our work with the muwekma in the east bay focusing on the last ten years. we've come back and provide more in the future, but we wanted to provide a little bit of opportunity. carla has been our contact on this raj going on for the last ten years, and i want to thank the muwekma. with that background, i'd like to pass this very quickly to

charlene and to monica, and when they're done, over to carla. >> [inaudible] my name is charlene ishma, and i'm the chairman of the tribe of the muwekma ohlone. [speaking native language] >> we would like to acknowledge that while we gather within the p.u.c. commission, we are in the tribal lands of the [inaudible] ramaytush ohlone

tribes of san francisco [inaudible] of san mateo and santa clara counties as well as the intermarried ramaytush ohlones who were intermarried [inaudible] in alameda and contra costa counties. [inaudible] who trace their tribe's ancest rethrough the mission, san francisco, santa clara, and san jose beginning in a.d. 1769.

the muwekma families are the successors and living members of the sovereign history torque previously recognized burona band of the alameda counties, now formally recognized as the muwekma tribe of the san francisco ohlone area. the land on which the san francisco public utilities meeting is taking place is within the counties of san francisco, san mateo, and alameda and surrounding towns, was and continues to be of great importance and significance for all muwekma ohlone tribal people. this region extends to surrounding areas that held several [inaudible] initial subterranean spiritual round

houses. [inaudible] also, the nearby ahn -- ancestral sites served as tribal cemeteries, and many

have been destroyed. these localities are viewed as special and sacred places, and we respectfully acknowledge that they have been previously settled and controlled by our ancestral muwekma tribal groups for many thousands of years. today our muwekma ohlone tribal leaders and members work over our ancestral village and cemetery sites that are threatened by construction today. the counties of san francisco, san mateo, santa clara, alameda, and other towns are within the muwekma ohlone ancestral lands.

mission records document that our enrolled muwekma images [inaudible] whose ancestors are affiliation with the three bay area missions, and now, i would like to turn it over to our muwekma vice chair, monica arellano, to finish up the acknowledgement of the land.

[indiscernible]. >> -- after we were federally recognized in 1906. it is on the strength of our ancestral elders that our families were able to make [inaudible] furthermore, our muwekma families have never left our sustained ancestral land [inaudible] wrought by over 251 years of colonization. [inaudible] as we follow in the foot steps of our ancestors. i respectfully request that the citizens [inaudible] and the broader bay area community [inaudible] to be faithful stewards of the muwekma ohlone tribe but may taining the fresh

water, habitats -- by maintaining the fresh water, habitats, and air we all breathe [inaudible] world war ii, korea, viet nam [inaudible] in the armed forces today and honor the tribal service members from california and north and south america who have served this country with dignity. [inaudible] we ask everyone who attends the san francisco public utilities commission meeting and those who live and visit the counties of san francisco, san mateo, santa clara, alameda, contra costa, and surrounding towns, to be respectful of our towns and neighbors communities within our ancestral homelands and

strive to be good stewards on the land upon which you rest. thank you, and on behalf of the san francisco muwekma ohlone people, we ask that you stand with all indigenous people in the bay area, california, the united states, and americas as we gather on the sacred land of the ancestral muwekma ohlone territory. [inaudible]. >> thank you. commissioners, michael, do you have any comments? >> i have no comments. i'd like to have carla present just a couple of slides, please. carla?

>> yes. can i have the slide show? thank you. thank you, madam commissioner, and commissioners, i am the watershed and environmental improvement coordinator in the natural resources today, and i'll give you a brief overview working with the partnership of the muwekma ohlone on the watershed project. the red triangle there is the general location of where the watershed is going to be. as you can see, it is within our sfpuc watershed lands, which are 38,000 acres, and that is a big focus of the watershed center. next slide, please. this is the big plan of the watershed center. it is adjacent to the water temple.

it's about a 13,000 square foot building, which will include exhibits, a stream profile aquarium, a classroom, community room, 2.5 acres of informal botanical gardens, and the history of the center is we really want to educate people on the history of the watershed and history of the humans on the land, as well, so that's a big part of the project. next slide. this is a drone footage of the construction. construction started back last year in march 2019. if you came out there today, you would see walls have gone up and the roof is going in, and to the left of the construction site there is a native plant nursery, and we are growing all the plants, about 60,000 plants for the

center. all the seeds have been collected for the watershed. we also grew the plants for the yard, as well. next slide, please. so back in 2010, when we were planning what we wanted to do with the center in terms of interpretation, we set up a meeting with the muwekma ohlone tribe, and we said to them, we are holding space inside the center for you to tell your stories and your history, and so we set up an m.o.u. with them so that we could pay them for their time and their expertise to work with us on this project, and we came up with an exhibit inside the center that talks about the history of the people on the land and how they lived on the

land and their rich lives, and how they occupied this land for thousands of years before any of us were here. and on the outside, we have several interpretive panels that focus on the plants that the muwekma ohlone used in their daily lives. next slide, please. and we're also trying to incorporate as much of the mu mu -- muwekma chochenyo as

possible. the eagle is part of the muwekma creation story, and we also have a lot of golden eagles living in the watershed, so it really connects with us. we're going to take animal calls and blend those with the muwekma speaking their chochenyo language, and it'll be out in the landscape. it'll be quite a few speakers, and it'll be playing around the

landscape that'll be around the native plantings out there. next slide, please. this is what we're calling the history turf. it's along the edge of the guard, and it's a walking timeline where you start with the ohlone people, and you take a walk-through all the different people that have occupied this site while looking at views of the watershed and the landscape, and also, we're planning on having images of artifacts that we have uncovered of the muwekma people and their language, as well. next slide, please. and lastly, we're working with the muwekma for education and outreach. we currently have a field trip program where kids come out to

the park just across the street from the center, but we're developing new curriculum for that as well as programming for the center on the weekends when families would come out to the site, and they'll learn about the history of the tribe and, you know, their ties to the land as well as how they lived and all that, and, you know, i just want to say that it's really been a privilege and an honor to work with the tribe. i've come to know charlene and monica really well, and it's really been a wonderful partnership, and i look forward to working with them in the future on more projects and finishing up this one, as well. thank you. >> president maxwell, i'll turn it back to you. i think, you know, the presentation by tribal leaders today was really important for us to understand the connection to the land of which we occupy

and also the great staff bringing forward the watershed center, and i look forward to a relationship and continued relationship with the tribe, and we will have updates about that in the future, so i'll turn it back to you, president maxwell, and any comments from the commission. >> thank you, michael. i am truly impressed and very thankful. i think this is a great opportunity for us, and i look forward to more of these. commissioners, anymore comments or -- yes, commissioner paulsen? >> thank you, president. general manager, i'm just really honored that this was part of the agenda today. you know, i think it's not just as a commissioner that we acknowledge everything about land that we need to do and resources and what have you, but as a person who, you know, enjoys museums and galleries

and educational facilities and wandering and whatever else, i hope you really keep us informed as to when this opens up because i will be the first in line hopefully with my colleagues to visit this resource that just makes me proud to be a commissioner. thank you. >> commissioner harrington? >> if i could add my thanks to the staff and tribal leaders. that was really good to hear. i've thought it very important, but i attend meetings in canada and other places where the meetings in canada and other places, and they start meetings with, we acknowledge we are on

the land of the first peoples. >> well, you took the words exactly out of my mouth. that's exactly what i was going to talk about, and i think it's important that when we raise the last beam at our new center, i read those -- i read the land management. i read that, so i think it's important that we know where we're stepping, and so i plan to definitely do that, and so i'm very thankful that you brought it up, and everybody's nodding their head, so yes, that will be a part of it. and i believe the board of supervisors is doing that, as well, so we certainly will. yes, commissioner ajami? >> i just also want to thank the tribal leaders and michael for -- and the rest of the staff for bringing this to us and talking about this.

this is definitely a very important issue. to be honest, i'm very excited to hear about the visiting center and to have an opportunity for people to learn more about the land. i think there's nothing more valuable than education and knowledge, and that's the only thing that can move us all forward, and i am also looking forward to taking my kids there. to be honest, i have learned so much through school classes and other classes that they have, and i would appreciate going there and learning even more. so i will be behind commissioner paulsen as he's waiting in line to see what's going on there. and i think it's a great idea to start the meetings, so i'm also adding my voice to that. >> thank you. commissioner moran? >> thank you.

i echo all of those commissions. this is something that we've been talking about for a very, very long time, and, you know, it is frustrating when something takes a long time. on the other hand, it's important to do it right, and it sounds like we're doing it right, and i'm very pleased to hear that report on the presentation from the tribal leaders, and i think it's very important to us and our sitting director as we go forward. thank you, everybody. >> yes, thank you, again. and i think we have an opportunity to certainly do it up at hetch hetchy, the tunnels. whatever work we do, we could start it and think about where we are. so thank you so much, and i want to thank the staff once again, and i certainly want to thank the tribal leaders. thank you for understanding the importance of your heritage and

bringing it to us. thank you. mr. carlin, i believe, next item, public comment on this item. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 6-a, dialing 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146-500-4366, pound, pound. to raise your hand, press star, three. please remind you that you must limit your comment to the item discussed. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff.

mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, there is one caller in the queue waiting to be recognized. i've unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> commissioners, i am commissioner -- i am francisco da costa. some of you i think have met the former commissioner, rosemary cama. i say this because, since 1985, i have vouched for the muwekma

ohlone. it pleases my heart that unanimously all you commissioners have agreed to praise our ancestors, the muwekma ohlone, the other ohlone who lived on this land for over 15,000 years. when i worked at the presidio, we exercised the right of first refusal in 1991. all over this land, we have shellmounds that remind us who

lived on this land, and at the shellmounds, the sacred remains of the muwekma ohlone ancestors. so we have a department of interior secretary, the first native american secretary of the interior. if you all can pass a resolution so that the secretary of the interior can know of your good works. you're not bragging, you're just letting them know the work of the first people of san

francisco, that would honor us. thank you very much. >> operator: thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more commenters in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. madam president, public comment is closed. >> before we go on, i want to acknowledge and praise mr. da costa, because he certainly has brought this to our attention for many, many years, so i want to thank him for doing that. thank you. >> so i will continue on with my report with the water enterprise racial equity action plan. this is one of the presentations we're making to you, and i would call on steve ritchie. >> thank you, michael. developing the water enterprise racial equity plan was a large amount of work to be accomplished in a short period of time, but i am pleased by this effort. a unique challenge for the water enterprise is that we are a large entry, roughly 1,000

employees, with a tremendous geographic spread. we have facilities in san francisco, on the peninsula, tuolomne, and in the county. we've started to make progress with our staff on these dedicated issues, so i'd like to turn the presentation over to staff to provide the report. ellen, please take it from here. >> thank you. next slide, please. i'm ellen levin. i am the deputy manager for this effort, and i was the coordinator in building the racial equity plan priorities. our first step in developing our priorities was actually

hiring cornerstone consulting to help develop an engagement process for input on the priorities. they developed a sur you have a tool used to conduct personal confidential interviews with water enterprise staff. the survey questions were based on the racial equity action plan's seven pillars, and they were geared to generating priorities for action. they developed survey questions with ranked choi, multiple choi, as well as an open response format. the survey was intended to be provided by phone so that we could -- choice, multiple choice, as well as an open response format. many individuals had very powerful experiences being interviewed by phone, but we didn't get as much turnout as we hoped, so we turned it into a paper format and also digital

format to reach as many people as we could. what you see here is one of the fliers that we used to promote the sessions at c.d.d. we used this to build the water enterprise racial equity action plan priorities. next slide, please. the top takeaway from the survey, many of these occurred in wastewater, as well, and i imagine you'll hear from other divisions across the p.u.c. is that folks feel like they're in a dead end career path.

we also learned [inaudible] and support is growing in those efforts, but there are those who don't understand the need or valuable, which really wasn't surprising, given the context is that steve provided of our workforce. this is our reality, and we need to view it as an opportunity for training, growth, and development in our workforce, and you'll hear more about some priority actions that will get to this, but it also wouldn't be surprising to you to also know that we need to expand on the culture of inclusion and belonging. i'm going to turn it over to margaret hannaford who will talk about some of these equity action plans. >> hey. next slide, please. i'm margaret hannaford, and i'm

going to talk to you about three priorities that we have identified for equity and hiring. our first objective will be to increase our diversity as our [inaudible] polls. we'll be looking at channels to reach diverse candidates. to reach this goal, [inaudible] is establishing a recruitment budget to establish development networks and recruitment hubs. as a second strategy, we will need to assess barriers to job applications and have a support applicant. our second objective will be to increase diversity in our pipeline. outreach and education of sfpuc opportunities in schools, internship programs, community

colleges, and new challenges that have not yet been tasked. the second strategy will be to leverage bay work and other utility sector collaborations to reach new diversity channels. finally, our third objective will be to partner with h.r. and human resources and unions for greater diversity in [inaudible] polls. thank you, and i'd like to turn it over to angela chung, division manager of water supply and treatment. >> angela, you might be muted. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. i'm manager of water supply and treatment. [inaudible] i want to start with something that ellen has already mentioned? we have identified a challenge with some job series, and one of those examples is laborers. our laborers have limited mobility. what we have done in the past is we have trained laborers to become truck drivers and trained truck drivers to become operating engineers. another thing we have identified for the pathway is to become -- to get into skilled trades, and the next thing i want to talk about is mentoring programs. >> i'd like to interrupt for one quick question. this is commissioner paulsen. when you say laborers and moving into other categories such as operating engineers and truck drivers and things like that, we're talking strictly sfpuc employees, correct? >> correct. so the examples i have

mentioned, they are within the water treatment supply division specifically. all right. i'll move onto the mentoring program. we're very excited here to be starting a mentorship program. our goal here is to have senior stuff such as myself to be mentor, and we'll be paired early in their career to give them career advice. and the last thing i want to touch on is acting assignments. what we want to do in the water enterprise is expand acting assignment opportunities to more staff, and we want to do it by rotating acting assignment opportunities, and for those who may not have an immediate opportunity to do acting assignments, we're going to use special assignments or stretch assignments that allowed them to gain more

diverse experience, and with that, i'll turn it over to tim ramirez. >> thank you, angela. happy to be part of the water enterprise team. tim ramirez, division of natural resources and land management. it's important for all of the staff to have the same opportunity whether you're in the office or in the field. we want to get people the same foundation and a place to start, and to have them go

through these experiences together. it's powerful for people to hear from each other, and we want to make sure that everybody's engaged. we also want to give people a greater chance to contribute to how we implement the racial equity action plan. one example, we are bringing this up at our monthly safety meetings. there is usually a part for wellness, but we're talking about equity and inclusion. but we want to give people an opportunity to contribute, to listen, and to offer insights if they want to share those. and lastly, we want to give people a chance during their interviews to talk about their experience especially in management and supervisor positions. they know what we expect, and we want people with that kind of experience so they can contribute to our enterprise. so that's our presentation, and

i'm going to pass it back to ellen or steve. >> thank you. if there's any questions, i'm happy to answer them or steve is available to. >> thank you, everyone, for your great presentation and efforts. i have a question. you might have mentioned this before, too, but i want to know these viewer approach sort of the difference between confirmity and accepting cultural differences because obviously people accept differences differently depending on what cultures they're coming from. what i've seen is it's very much focused on diversity as a box kind of rather than embracing those cultural differences, and it often actually thrives more rather

than check the box, have that diversity and looking good, but trying to kind of force this cultural confirmity that kills all these [inaudible] and everything. so i want to know how you have been approaching that or have anybody sort of raised that as an issue? >> yeah, thank you. that's a great question, and actually really excited that you asked that question because we have purposefully sawing out a cultural competency training for our leadership, and that is exactly what the cultural competency training is about. it's an evolutionary training, so it tracks your evolutionary understanding of cultural competency and shows how you grow over that cultural competency and the differences. it's a training that's been used around the world in

nonprofits, universities, in private organizations, and it's really -- i can't take credit for it. lucky from cornerstone brought it to our attention after having conducted the interviews and recognizing what our staff really need, which is not the check the box equity training, but they need a racial equity training. they need to see their own personal growth. they need to see how their mind is transforming, and they need to be able to see it. so we'll be very excited to share with you how that goes and even the training if you're interested. >> yes. >> i see a lot of heads nodding. we would be interested and would love to have you share it. >> great. great. >> mr. paulsen? no? anyone else? again, mr. ritchie, i want to thank you so much for this great job. you all have been working, and

i just can't tell you how it makes us feel, you know, when we just finished with acknowledging our other -- our ancestors and people who came before us and really making a rich start to our workforce. the more we give and the more we show and the more we develop that at every level, the better off we'll be. thank you, mr. ritchie, for your leadership, and for your staff and all you've done. i can tell that you've really gotten into this. ellen is shaking her head, so i just feel the excitement, so thank you. >> yes. we've learned much, but we have much to go. >> thank you. i'm excited. we all do. thank you. >> clerk: would you like for me to call for public comment?

>> yes. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on 6-b, the water enterprise racial equity plan, call 415-655-0001, meeting i.d. 146-500-4366, pound, pound. press star, three to raise your hand. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual members or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers?

>> operator: madam secretary, there is one caller wishing to be recognized. caller, i've opened your line. you have two minutes. >> commissioners, in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, we all struggled with title 6, and if you read title 6, is kind of encouraged everybody to be empowered, and what you all have been discussing now, you're infusing cultural competency, and cultural competency requires learning somebody else's language, participating in singing and

dancing, and getting [inaudible] to human signed. now, mr. ritchie is my friend, and i have a nickname for him: elvis. may i say, elvis -- mr. ritchie smiles, and you know mr. ritchie, that whatever he does, he goes so deep into it. he's a professional, but know, he's going into a territory that he's embracing, and you can only embrace this if your heart is in the right place. now, the san francisco public utilities commission has over 2,000 employees. the city and county of san francisco has over 23,000

employees, and we must now, those who are over 40 years old or 50 years old or even harder for those over 50, 60, 70 years old, and i'm not going to tell you how old i am, but we have to step up, and we have to share our legacy. >> operator: thank you for your comments. unfortunately, your time has expired. madam secretary, there are no more commenters in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. that concludes public comment. >> next item. >> clerk: 6-c. >> so i wanted to give you a brief overview of the corp.

respondance. so since we started, there has been a flurry of activity at the state level. we've been meeting in smaller group with staff from the state negotiation team, and there is a global proposal that has been put together, and we have another meeting with the two secretaries scheduled for this friday. i can say that we're probably getting a little bit closer to an agreement, but there's -- it looks like it's going to be a bigger settlement both on the sacramento river and the san

joaquin river. if we reach an amendment, it would eventually be implemented through the water quality control program. people are interested in this going forward, but we still have to go through the process set forward by the state. >> mr. collin, i was wondering if this might be an -- carlin, i was wondering if this might be an opportune time to discuss about the meeting on wednesday?

>> it's an initial meeting, and the agenda is basically to talk about areas of common interest and to get dialogue on an interest of implementation. it's refreshing that basically

they made a statement that one size does not fit all, so they're not trying to make the entire state the same. they say there's going to be local conditions that drive things. they are coming out with probably more information, more orders in the near future, and it could involve curtailments, and curtailments are where they take your water rights and they say you have to release water to the environment, and this would be done based on your seniority of water rights. we haven't seen anything yet, but i think they're going to try to make sure they don't get sued again, which they were, and hopefully it works this time. they are also making funding available for conservation and projects, and they're trying to protect those communities that do not have safe drinking water or may run out of water, so there's still a lot of activity going on around that. it's not a statewide drought

proclamation, it's just for two counties, and we expect there will be more counties as we get further and further into the water year. i'd be happy to answer questions if you'd like. >> commissioner ajami.

>> we won't be generating as much electricity in the spring, but we'll hold some in reserve to continue generating our municipal needs throughout the rest of the year, so it will have an effect on our generating capablity. >> thank you. >> if i may add one thing on that, it also will affect the price, so when we have a lot of hydropower, everybody does, so having more water means everybody gets more electricity. >> there's less hydropower being generated because there's less water. >> yeah, yeah. yes, commissioner moran. >> thank you, michael, for that

update, and i was very glad to see that the governor recognized that while drought may be widespread, that emergency conditions aren't necessarily; that's very location and fact specific, and his declaration clearly recognized that. the other thing that i hope is part of the thinking is to [inaudible] the water management plans that we are in the process of updating because those are what we have to look

at. we are not in a drought or emergency water conservation because for three years, our people have been protected by a series of drought policies and practices that are adopted by the p.u.c. and reflected in the water supply agreement that we have with our wholesale customers. taking those policies and practices, giving assurance to our customers that during an extended drought, we would not have to reduce system wide water supplies by more than 20%, and that's a pretty significant accomplishment, frankly, and represents a lot of work and thought that's been put in by staff and commissioners over time. we are not unique in that respect, but i think it's

important as the state looks at its plans and what they may require of people that most urban water agencies have already told the state what their plans are, and the state should take that into account, as well. >> absolutely, that's correct. >> any further comments or questions? then why don't we open up this item to public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 6-c, dial 415-655-0001, meeting i.d. 146-500-4366, pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star, three. please note you must limit your comments to the agenda item being discussed and if you do not limit your comment, the president can stop your comment

and ask that you make your comment. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, there is one caller in the queue. caller, i've opened your line. you have two minutes. >> great. can you hear me now? >> operator: yes, perfectly. >> great. david pillpel again. three points on this item. i am encouraged to hear about discussions from m.i.d. and p.i.d. i think it's fair -- t.i.d. i think it's fair to say that the city's and m.i.d. and t.i.d.s views have not always

been in alignment, so this is indeed encouraging, and i would also agree very much with the commented made by commissioner moran and a.g.m. ritchie about the water and policies made over the years to minimize the potential drought on the city and p.u.c. customers and users. thank you very much. >> operator: thanks for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> president maxwell, that concludes my report. >> clerk: madam president, you're muted. >>. >> next item, please.

>> clerk: next order of business is item 7, discussion only of the commission water workshops held on november 30, 2020, february 5, 2021, and march 26, 2021, to provide direction to staff regarding further consideration of issues raised in connection with the workshops. this'll be presented by a.g.m. ritchie. >> yes, i'm going to do a previous introduction because this item is really set up for commission discussion of the workshops. if i may have the next slide, please. in brief summary, there was the workshop on november 30 on the bay area delta water quality control plan. february 5 was the second workshop, where we presented the tuolomne river voluntary agreement and the basis for it,

and there was a brief response presentation by the n.g.o.s, and then, on march 26, there was workshop three on water supply planning, where we provided a background document there, and a presentation on yield impacts of various scenarios where we would modify different aspects of the status quo and an n.g.o. presentation on various options relative to that. so that was the quick summary of the workshops. some of the issues raised there were predator control, the design drought, climate change and its effects. there were some other issues, as well, but those are some of the key topics that came up. i'm now going to spend about three slides talking about our

raca slides. so on the left-hand side, the left access is unimpaired flow at lagrange in cubic feet per second, and on the right-hand side is what we call water available to the city. so relative to the unimpaired flow, there is a red line that is horizontal there, going across at about 2500 cubic feet per second. and then from about mid-april to mid-june, it bumps up to about 4,000 cubic feet per second, and that is [inaudible] what we mean by that is is that any water less than that that

belongs to the users by rights. the green line here is actually the hydrograph or actually -- excuse me, the blue line is the hydrograph. it's the unimpaired flow of lagrange. so you see there most of the early part of the area has stayed below the red line and now is only starting to creep up on occasions. so the green line is what accumulates as water available to the city. below the line is theirs, above the line is ours. next slide. this is how we track water available to the city, so this shows various years on it, and the cumulative water available to the city in thousand acre

feet is on the access to the left, and then, month of the year, the water year, is at the bottom. so you see that we have various years that we chart here. the high one up there with the mark of 1,676, that's basically 1.7 million acre feet that came down the river that was available to san francisco in 2019. it was a wet year. you also see down at the bottom a purple line, that was a critically dry year, 2014. that was not a good year for us. we've had 26,000 acre feet available to us this year. that number will start going up as we progress through the year and snow starts to melt more. and then, the dashed line with

the number of 554,000 acre feet, was the amount necessary to achieve full storage on july 1, 2021. so you can see, we're well below that, and we don't project to fill our storage. we will fill hetch hetchy but not all of our storage. the resulting water available to the city this year will probably be in the 200,000 to 300,000 acre foot range. so we'll be okay, but nothing needed to fill the system. you've seen these from time to time. this is kind of a summary graph over the years, and this is one that i'd like to spend a little time on. basically, what this shows is

water in the tuolomne river in each of these various years beginning in 1983 and through 2020, and the green line at the bottom is the district entitlement. so you can see those numbers vary somewhat, but they're always there. they get the first cut of the river, what dan steiner used to say, they get the beer and we get the foam. the yellow line is water given to the bay area or captured in storage. so that's water that we ged off the storage in terms of water available to the city, that we can get, and then, the gold bar above that is what we spill over the water bank. that's over and above what we can give to our customers or put in on the water bank.

so that's excess water that we can't capture because of limitations on our facility, both storage and pipelines. so in most years, we're not able to control that, and those are the yellow bars, and there's some years worthy of note on each of these. first, would say years 1988, is 990, 9 -- 1990, 1992, 2014, and 2015, are all year that all had slivers of blue, water that we could do something with. that is when we actually had very little water available, and we had to pull water out of our storage to meet customers' demands, and of course, those were drought years. 1993, 1998, 1999, and 2016, you

see a fairly substantial blue bars, so that is when we were trying to fill our storage. we had a good-sized year, and we were trying to capture our storage, what we call refilling our reservoirs, and that is a goodyear for that. probably the biggest take away from that is there are years that we spilled water from water banks. some years, there's a little bit, but many years, there was a lot, and that's either captured by the water districts or spilled out of their system, as well. this is a good chart to see that we get some of the water each year, and there's a lot that we cannot capture that we actually have an entitlement, too. so just a little bit of help to

learn how that works there to start the discussion, and i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> commissioner harrington? >> thank you, mr. ritchie. you know, when you were talking, it occurred to me that we use these terms all the time, but after our discussion about the tuolomne river, i'm wondering if our terms are accurate. you were talking about the district share and the city share, and where's the river share, right? how do we talk about what goes down the river? is it part of our share, part of their share, or is there another line below this graph that we're not actually seeing? >> yeah. i think you're making an excellent point because those were used in the development of the river. entitlement is water that you cannot use, and the idea was there would be appropriate regulations set what the river

share should actually be, and that has been what our argument is with the state as to what our entitlement should be. there is the river's share, and that would be within the regulations. it would be nice to portray that very clearly on a graph so that everybody knows what it is. the point is that we don't have agreement on that. [please stand by]

>> we spent time doing extra assessment on many things especially some of the debates

around what a drought means and whatever else. i know commissioner harrington not to put him on the line but hey, why not, initiate that stuff. what takeaways are important to discuss in terms of moving policy? and that's a little bit more of an aggressive question but i mean are the takeaways from what was just presented by mr. richie since we're supposed to take the great resources we initiated into our tool belt. >> i'm sorry, you're asking me, commissioner paulson? >> commissioner: yes.

>> commissioner: obviously, all of us own this discussion but i think what was coming to my mind and helpful about those conversations was that it focused on certain key areas we want to follow-up on and there's so many issues but clearly the areas that keep resonating the design drought, working with the districts, alternative sources of supply and whatever comes out from the voluntary agreement, our own or master one in some way. and the parts of that in terms of predation or other kinds of things we want to do to make the river a healthy place and you

hear of meetings with the district and state. i'm not sure there is a particular deliverable they want next week, right? it's the whole discussion and how we keep track of all the different things. do we want to speed them up? sure. part is having ongoing discussions and a question that came to mind after receiving public comment is yes, this is urgent and some things take forever and there were comments about we should do something quickly in terms of the design drought because it does impact the urban water management plan and how we make decisions over the next five years.

i'm not ducking your question but want to ask the question of the staff, my working assumption is we do a five-year plan but not set in stone. if we find for some reason we can speed up alternative delivery of supplies or we choose to change increase or decrease the designed drought period that affects us all. they can happen whether there's an urban water management plan or not in effect for five years is that true? >> that's absolutely true. so the extent we continue to work on these things and know more, there was some concern what we do in our plan affects our wholesale customers' plan and they may make decision on offering water to a new development that would be a problem for the next five years. if we change our thinking, does that roll through theirs and allow them to also make different decisions over time? i'm thinking yes. >> the answer is yes. i think the question came up at

the time are we changing the contract in the water management plan and the answer is of course no. but in terms of planning it's a snapshot and why they sent a five-year plan so people will give thought on a regular basis. if we start to make changes in how we do our planning, our wholesale plan customers would be a part of ta and what the commission comes up with would roll out to everybody else. >> thank you. i would like to see us say, here are the five or six areas of focus and how do we hear back on a regular basis about those

areas and continue the conversation, what are we doing, what's the result and there may be different time lines. that may not matter in august by may in march and when we know something and have regular updates will allow us to have the conversation of interest to me. i understand commissioner rand was involved in this and want to see if he has additional thoughts. >> one of the takeaways i had you can't help but be impressed with the magnitude of the

issues. in the first two workshops we saw different approaches to deal with fishery issues. both approaches are offered in good faith trying to solve the same problem. but there's a very different approach taken and there's also very different and makes me interested in early implementation. if we as a commission can say we're committed to the health of the fishery and want to start early implement and believe the fish will like and respond to this let's get it in place and monitor it over time but we

should start the and not just in the realm of studies and legal filings. that's one major takeaway i have the other thing, as we talked with the various issues and the tuolumne river trust sent us a letter giving more information about the design drought. win thing that may be helpful is to recognize the design drought and we'll be discussing it in depth in the future. it may be helpful to think the

design drought is not a prediction or forecast. we're in the saying this is what is going to happen. this is a stress test and a stress test that challenge our conditions the most. we need to think about it is it the right stress test or designed properly. >> commissioner: i think we'd like a resolution, policy statement that talks about what the commission's goals are and

commitments are in terms of the river and commitment for what we'll focus on in the next year or three years and staff could come back with a time line when the think the topics will be right for better discussion to move the topic along whether quarterly or happening to bring in so everybody knows in september we'll focus on this topic but a combination 6 resolution of commitment and a time line to solidify the work that was done. >> commissioner maxwell, i'd

like to follow-up. >> commissioner: do that now. >> commissioner: my perspective is the four or five things that were covered or however it gets paraphrased is something we've put into our internal discussion and policy making agenda as it moves forward and movg it forward is great but having time lines on that it's important but the sense of all of a sudden we have to get something on an urgent level or something we have to change the time or this or that and we'll absorb that as commissioners because we're in

charge of dealing with these resources and open up the discussion and i'm not signature here thinking i'm going make a radical decision because we opened up our communication. time lines are important and decision making dead lines are not. >> commissioner: thank you. commissioner moran. >> commissioner: we split it up for staff to come back with a plan and schedule for how and when to deal with the issues and that's a deliverable for the next meeting some may be on a

workshop or future report but maybe come back in two weeks' time and give us a schedule when staff thinks to have the other discussion. there were some things we did that were different in the workshops. i would like the commissioners' sense of what worked and what didn't and one is the workshop and providing opportunity for other voices to be heard. we put out the summary of concepts to be reviewed ahead of time but not discussed at the meeting itself. the presentations staff gives to commission are face withcally a

preview -- are basically a preview of what is to be talked at the commission meeting and that is different than saying that's information but we're not going to talk about it but think you should know. that's a different approach. if there's any thoughts about how those workshops were conducted and what you liked or didn't like is helpful to staff to go to the next phase of this. >> commissioner: i think the workshops worked. we got better at them and the last one was better than the first one and there's different ways to approach them but overall it seems as if it provided also the public an opportunity to listen and to hear more in depth about things and certainly for us.

as a new member it was helpful to get a better understanding of the agreement of how you got to the agreement and other things that influence it. for me i think the workshops worked. >> i don't want to jump over commissioners but to the chair, i want to say i think it worked. as somebody who spent all my life having meetings, as long as people are civil we get more information. if somebody says, okay, commissioner paulson that was the stupidest thing i've ever heard in my life that's not a bad thing. the fact we've had the discussions are of value. we can micro manage it and goes ways in which business conducts

itself but i see nothing wrong. i do agree, madame president, the dialogue got more patient from the first meeting to the third though there were different subject in all of them. >> commissioner: commissioner harrington. >> when i became general manager of p.u.c. i said i want to clear the calendar of all these little things we have on the calendar that fill up hours and hours of our commission meetings and talk about policy and want engaged discussions about policy. another department head said you have to be out of your mind. don't let the commissioners ever touch important things like policy and fill their calendar with contracts and that's part of your world and keep them out of it. it's interesting to see how we

roll through different things over time i think a healthy relationship commission and staff and moving things along is a great idea and hard to do when have you a whole other agenda going on which is why we had the work shops on different days. i know it's a lot of work but i think it's helpful to do it that way. >> commissioner: yes, before we leave this, getting back to commissioner harrington, you mentioned you wanted some resolve, like a relatio -- resolution, a policy. setting us in a direction, giving some direction. is that something of what you said or -- >> i wasn't trying to presuppose

the position but talk about the topic and the staff wasn't dealing with 25 things but looking at six or whatever it was. i wasn't trying to say this is the answer on the design drought. i'm saying let's make sure to talk about it and not forget it and do that in a scheduled way. i was thinking more process than final decision if that makes a difference. >> process rather than direction? >> commissioner: i'm not presupposing what you'll do with the districts. >> final decision not final topics. >> commissioner: yeah. director carlin. >> this is great discussion and

appreciate everything that's been said so far. i will push back a little bit on commissioner moran. i don't think i'll have something available in two weeks. it will take longer to think through to the issues you've raised and things we need to define such as adaptive management and other issues i think need to be addressed as part of this. if you can give me four weeks, i think we can put together something credible and greater value to this commission for discussion. i will say this and president maxwell said it, we got better at the work shops as time went on, yes, we did. we actually started focussing on them. we saw what the commission wanted and able to respond whether on water, waste water or even power we've gotten better and the discussions have been most valuable for staff. thank you for that. >> commissioner: commissioner ajami. >> thank you, president maxwell.

i had two comments. to the workshops were useful and appreciate the discussions by my colleagues. two things i think we should think about and strategize around is the demand management discussion we had. i think it still needs to be central to the discussion we're having around development and ultimately water supplies and the second piece is i think working with our wholesale customers, it would be good to have a more accurate and living database of what is happening in their districts with project development and alternative water supply solutions that are coming online. because it is beyond the water management plans are coming out

every five years it would be good to know how the supply demand dynamics are evolving in each one of these districts and how that impact us over time. it would be important to keep discussions around water supplies central to what we have and the big delta plan and the eco system management. thank you. >> commissioner: thank you. >> commissioner: anyone else? any further discussion? madame secretary why don't we it up to the public. >> clerk: members who want to make public comment on item

number 7 dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366, ##. limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being and remind you if you do not stay on topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your remark to the item and comments to refrain use from profanity and keep remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual members or staff. >> there are six callers in the queue.

caller you have two minutes. >> caller: i want to thank members of the commission for holding the three workshops related to the ecological impacts of the water diversion from the tuolumne river. i've been working on a project and voluntary agreements came later and i've met members in private and public forums and there's nothing about the presentation or proposal that convinces me it has any chance of restoring tuolumne river and it doesn't attempt to satisfy the requirements from the water board for the many state and federal policies the water board needs to uphold. what strikes me about the commission's discussion of time lines and commitment is a bit of history. 2010 it was apparent to most observers the state water board

was likely to require greater fresh water flows reached the delta from the tuolumne. and yet p.u.c. staff have not studied the requirements but pursuing litigation approach with district partners. specifically in the workshop on water supply i noticed staff identified 35 million gallons a day as an option for some but not other scenarios. some scenarios may capture the larger problem. most water experts recognize conservation and alternative supplies are no longer optional. the evidence that current water diversions are unsustainable are around us. water recycling in particular will help the city address environmental challenges on the horizon. san francisco bay is having

problems from enrichment from waste water and designs of water water systems are likely to be required over the next decade and the cost of acting or not acting will be -- >> thank you for your comments. sorry, your time has expired. next caller your line is open. >> caller: i'm with coalition of san francisco neighborhoods speak on my own behalf. i'd like to thank the commission for conducting the work shop as they provide in depth information and allowed other voice to be heard. i'm assuming the tuolumne river trust will be speaking and will be supporting their comments which i have seen in advance. in regards to thursday's meeting

with the irrigation districts i would strongly urge the commission to include discussion of a pilot project to implement the u.c. solar aqua grid for irrigation canals with solar panels. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. >> next caller, please. >> caller: i think the discussion today was also helpfully framed around producing solutions to the crisis of the rivers and our

bay. i think that's important to note because unfortunately historically the s.f. p.u.c. has been more about explaining why things can't happen than making things happen. i also want to drill down a little bit on the design drought. my comments are informed by my work on drought. i'm an expert reviewer for the intergovernmental panel on climate change and a particular working group 1 report. the reports form the basis for the framework to require change in the climate agreement. i want to point out that some have objected to changes in the design drought which i think were rightly described as a stress test rather than a forecast. nevertheless some people have objected to changes in the

design drought express test on the basis of climate change reducing water supplies. i don't think it's quite accurate description of how climate change is affecting the hydro logical cycle in california and think it mares quite a lot for for instance in particular. there hasn't been significant reduction in precipitation and the climate model s are mixed on what they will be but there's been an increase in warming temperature changing the timing the hydro logical cycle so run-off occurs sooner -- >> thank you for your comments. next caller, you have two minutes. your line is open. >> caller: this is barry nelson with the salmon association.

i want to join others in thanking you nor work shops and discussion and we welcome the clear direction and working with you and the staff on both the supply and demand issues as well as the science and delta issues the substance of those through work shops. four quick comments. i want to draw your attention to the letter after the science workshop that's an important and simple next step and there was an update on the discussions and i wanted to add to the report first, there are no n.g.o.s involved in the discussions. the appear to be on a 2020 framework with no n.g.o. support. it's not clear if there'll be an agreement coming out of those discussions. at the moment there's no effort

to include the n.g.o.s. first, the need on the 60% on the coast and there's a risk of massive fish kill and a growing number of species on the brink of extinction and growingal growing algae and meeting on policy use will hopefully be important issues. we're eager to keep working with you on the issues and thank you again.ssues. we're eager to keep working with you on the issues and thank you again.we're eager to keep workih you on the issues and thank you again. >> have you two minutes. >> caller: i'm with the

tuolumne river trust. we have a 222,000 acre fear and we're likely to get as much water as we're going use and storage won't fill but it doesn't have to fill every year. we'll still have enough water in storage to last four and a half years. commissioner harrington mentioned from our water management plans aren't set in stone then why has the s.f. p.u.c. been referencing the 2015 plan when it was off by 15% though we saw demand lower than projected all included in the water supply? and every error the s.f. p.u.c. makes harms the environment. they never benefit the environment. when errors are always in one direction they're intentional. an example, in january the s.f.

p.u.c. was asked to use sales cap in demand in water rationing. sfpuc did that and got caught and thanks to some of you are commissionsry dufd that and reduced it from 55% to 40%. just correcting that information and several agencies weighed in as well as because they want to develop housing and if their housing points sees there's going to be extreme rationing they have a strong case for those projects. the design drought. we've talked about this five years. two years ago dave warner produced his probable analysis and encouraged the sfpuc to do their own. we're still waiting on that. that's where you can have a huge impact and help bawsca and their design to build housing and disappointed to hear you won't

be considering that. population growth. it wasn't based on plan bay area. >> thank you for your comments. >> have you two minutes. >> caller: i'm a palo alto resident. regarding the water management plan, it's a published and widely used document. it would be a shame to miss the once in a five years opportunity. i fully support the tuolumne river trust proposal to reduce the design drought by a year and to meet the july 1 urban water development deadline. there was an aanalysis based on 1100 years of data back in february of last year. and resent it earlier this year 1100 years of data back in february of last year. and resent it earlier this year. my point was to show the ways it

could be done and encourage the sfpuc to do their own analysis and to my knowledge it has not been done. we're two months from the urban water management plan deadline. how could you make such a decision without knowing the probabilities? the early water management plan becomes the plan of new record and impacting development. you make the decision with the data you have. there's 100 years of actual data showing nothing worse than the '97 drop. and a history of inflated demand projections and populations responding to a rationing better than what the design drought anticipated. perhaps you considered having the urban water management plan include a draw? do what you can to investigate the tuolumne river trust

proposal in time to meet the july 1 urban water management plan deadline. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller you have two minutes. >> caller: i'm a private citizen. i've grown up always valuing water and considering the availability of water in the '50s we lived in italy and post-world war ii we had to chlorinate all of our water. i was a biologist in the arctic on the ice where we had to heat the ice into water. so i value having water. i value having clean water. but i also value having nature and being able to have our rivers too. and i think it's possible and

sometimes i hear people talking about we have this growth. we can't save the fish but i'm reminded back in the '70s when wehood had the clean water act and we need progress and growth and if we have environmental laws toood had the clean water and we need progress and growth and if we have environmental d had the clean water act and we need progress and growth and if we have environmental laws tod had the clean water ad we need progress and growth and if we have environmental laws t we need progress and growth and if we have environmental laws t we need progress and growth and if we have environmental laws to make things they will -- they will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help thell -- they will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help the -- they will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help the -- they will healthy we can't do it and with - they will healthy we can't do it and with - they will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help th healthy we can't do it and with they will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help th healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help th healthy we can't do it and with

ey will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help th healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help thy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help theey will we can't do it and with all this water we can't help they will we can't do it and with all this water we can't help theey will e can't do it and with all this ey will healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help they will can't do it and with all this water we can't help the will h can't do it and with all this water we can't help thewill he can't do it and with all this ill healthy we can't do it and with all this l healthy we can't do it and with all this water we healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help the healthy we can' do it and with all this water we healthy we can't do it and with all this water we can't help thehealthy we can't it and with all this water we can't help the fish. and i really appreciate the workshop and for me it's like fish, people talk about having habitat and this will solve the issue. if you're in a room and people say you're going to have all this food but you won't have air. that's how i view we need water for the fish to save the fish which is a natural resource and also a cultural resource. thank you very much for having the workshops and thank you for inviting the public to give comment. >> thank you for your comments. next caller your line is open. >> caller: thank you. this is cindy charles. i'm a board member of the tuolumne river trust as well as the california sports fishing protection alliance. i wanted to thank you commissioners for holding the workshops an i encourage the commission to now take action on taking steps to further make meaningful progress on water

use. along with the tuolumne river trust i encourage the sfpuc use contractual obligations for water demand. so often the demand projections are very inaccurate compared to actual demand. let's take a closer look at the reality of true demand and stop over estimating demand which constrains not only development but also providing water for the environment and threat -- threatens fish. i don't get why the sfpuc is dragging its feet on getting new water sources online in this day and age. the sfpuc needs to get more nimble and on the ball for additional water source to give back to the tuolumne river.

i worked during the don pedro model on water supply and use and reiterate, respectfully, the request the commission direct sfpuc staff to provide a data set for a 200 mgd scenario operations model. finally, i support the request that commission direct sfpuc technical staff to review and discuss with us recommendations and options for dry year sequences with the framework of the faced delta plan. i thank you -- phased delta plan. i thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller your line is open. you have two minutes. >> hi. i'm co-chair of the sierra club

chapter water committee. thank you for the workshop series. it's important that the commissioners and the public understand as much as possible. everyone needs to be informed. i'm glad commissioners mentioned paying more attention to how water is used and other sources and the wholesale customer area down where we are for best opportunities. the users of the water need to make the best informed decisions together.

>> i want to thank you for the discussion today and for holding the three workshops and inviting us to participate. i'm encouraged by the tenor of the discussion and about continuing the dialogue with the environmental and fishing communities and all stakeholders. to focus on a couple quick follow up items. we had asked for data requests specifically the fish population model and the analysis of required flows under the voluntary agreement appeared to the state board proposal and i hope we can get that information to us in the near future. second is that i strongly applaud the focus on alternative

water supplies, demand management and design drought and related topics because they're integral to your job and ours. the job urban water management plan gets it right when it says the sfpuc recognitions the plan -- roig recognizes the plan and based on our review of the water management plan, the draft plan does not actually have that planned for how to respond to the plan being fully implemented. it over estimates demand by at least 10 mgd by the population estimates and we see a lot of opportunities for future dialogue and collaboration. we know we are not going to agree on everything but want to leave you with the impression that we hope to continue the dialogue. thank you.

>> thank you for your comments. madame secretary there are no more callers in the queue. >> thank you. public comment on item 7 is closed. >> commissioner: all right. commissioner harrington. >> commissioner: thank you, madame chair. we got additional information. can somebody give us an update of what is happening with that? >> i was thinking one last

letter and let the issues lie. maybe it's better off just to send the data they request and hold that out there and leave it in the draft form so we don't get into this continuous debate where they say our science is obviously wrong and totally inadequate and can't accept it. that's not constructive. we'll share the information we can and the don pedro model is not ours it's the direct so we can't run those -- district so we can't run those. we'll hold off on the letter to all the counters of all the counters of all the counters of the issues and maybe follow commissioner moran's advice and let the fish do the talking. >> commissioner: that is probably a good idea. thank you. >> commissioner: any further comments? commissioner moran? >> commissioner: as woe -- we

heard the comments come through one thing that wasn't talked about so much in the workshop but needs to be on the follow up lift is the discussion on climate change because it's complicated. it's clear warming moves early which means under the entitlement structure we may get more and drought likely to get deeper and longer which would have the opposite effect. i understand there is a study all but final and given to the science based group doing it and going in for their review and that's a topic we do need to discuss and it sounds like the time lines are such that that

could be included in the program of things we decide to talk about in months ahead. >> commissioner: mr. richie. >> it's being done in the office of the research and being submitted to and the ones who go through the final review prior to it being published. >> commissioner: and we're expecting that some time in the summer? >> yes. >> commissioner: any further comments? questions? seeing none we've had public comment and next item please, madame clerk. >> clerk: new commissioner business, item 8. >> commissioner: any new business or new topics? seeing none, next item, please. >> clerk: next order of business is item 9 the consent calendar. all matters secure under

constitute 9. all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the san francisco public utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar and considered as a separate item. >> commissioner: any comments? public comment, please. >> clerk: dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366 ## and to speak press star 3 we ask you

refrain from the use of profanity and address your remarks to the commission as the whole not to individual commissioner members or staff. mr. moderator do we have callers? >> there is one caller in the queue. caller, you have two minutes. >> caller: david pelgan again and want to pull item 9c and make belief comments on that. thanks. >> thank you for that. madame secretary, there are no more callers in the queue.

>> clerk: thank you. >> commissioner: all right. then may i have a motion and second to approve the consent calendar's items, a, b, a and b. >> so moved. >> commissioner: moved and seconded. roll call, please. >> clerk: [roll call] you have five ayes. >> commissioner: thank you, item c. c) approve the plans and specifications, and award contract no. hh-1003r, moccasin powerhouse generator

step up transformer installation, in the amount of $3,321,432, and with a duration of 716 consecutive calendar days (approximately two years), to the responsible bidder . >> this is a contract to install the transformers which were purchased under a separate purchase order through the city administrator's office and i'd be happy to answer any questions. i know there were issues around the process for ceqa and i also have environmental management to answer any questions related to ceqa. >> commissioner: okay. >> commissioner: i have no questions. >> commissioner: anyone else?

>> commissioner: my only thought is mr. colpel asked it to come off consent for a reason. >> commissioner: so we'll have public comment but, yeah. so public comment on the issue? >> members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 9c dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366 to raise your hand to speak press star 3. please note you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and remind you if you're not on topic the chair can rint interrupt you and ask public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and refrain from the use of profanity. address your marks to the commission as a whole not to members or staff.

do we have a caller? >> there is one caller in the queue. >> caller: david fillpel. i support this project to replace two critical transformers reinforcing the commission's asset management policy and practices. i understand the timing of the approval is critical with the scheduled shut and coordination with other aspects of the water system. i hope this project is delivered on time and on budget. it is key to continuing to deliver us clean hetch hetchy power. i think this is probably the last project that involved a friend of mine who was working in ivy funds group and recently

left the p.u.c. for other opportunities perhaps we can get her back some day. she's great. a very thoughtful calm person who worked for p.u.c. finally, i have no ceqa comments on the project at this time and thank you all very much. >> no other comments. >> commissioner: a mention to aprevious. >> second. >> commissioner: moved and seconded. roll call, please. [roll call] . you have five ayes. >> commissioner: next item.

>> clerk: item 10. 10. authorize the general manager to extend by nine months through march 31, 2022, the following programs currently scheduled to end june 30, 2021: (1) the temporary emergency customer assistance program for covid-19 relief for single-family residential customers providing a discount of 15% on water, 35% on sewer, and 30% on hetch hetchy power bills, (2) the application deadline for the small business and nonprofit customer assistance program for covid-19 relief providing a 20% discount on water and sewer bills with bill discounts under this program continuing for six months from the date of application approval, and (3) the temporary suspension of rules governing water/power shutoffs, liens, and fines. this will be presented. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm aaron franks. i'm the rates administrator within finance and here to request an extension of three programs we implemented in response to the covid-19 pandemic. this slide shows an overview of the programs proposed for extension. first two are discount programs that provide a discount on

eligible customers bill one for residential and small businesses and both targeted at customers who lost income due to covid-19 and the shelter in place orders. the third a moratorium on shutoffs and fines related to our collections process. that does apply to all of our enterprises. it includes clean power s.f. and instead of shutting off the power, what happens is we send those customers back to pg & e. that's currently not happening under the moratorium. all three programs are set to expire at the end of june of this year and we're proposing to extend these for an additional nine months through march of 2022. this slide provides a lot of numbers. i'll talk you through the highlights. this is a little bit of data on the programs as they currently stand. the first two tables in blue reference our emergency discount

programs. we have over 6,000 customers receiving bill discounts under the emergency programs and not proproved -- proposed for extension today but there were customers already enrolled in the low-discount program. the second table shows information on the average customer who has applied for water and sewer discounts. the median income which is the middle income point for residents of san francisco is often used by housing authority an other benefits programs to assess what customers' income is. 60% of the median is considered to be low income and 30% of the median is considered to be very low income. this tells us the people benefit from our current emergency

program were already below average income for san francisco and have lost almost half of their income due to covid-19. so this and we'll talk on the next slide will highlight how the program is reaching a meaty subset of people from san francisco. i wanted to highlight in brown at the bottom the number of customers who are currently protected from being disconnected. in the case of water sewer that would be a shut off. in the case of clean power s.f. that would be return to hetch hetchy. sorry, return to pg&e and just to give you a scale of the number of people currently benefit from the moratorium in place. next slide. one thing we're tracking is where customers are located applying for the program. so these two maps show census

track level information and the darker shaded areas are areas where a higher percentage of customers are applying as a percentage of total applicable accounts. in the case of residential is a total in each census tract. this allows us to overlay demographic information. as you all know we have a real marching order to consider racial equity and there's a whole lot of work within our agency to think how our collections process and discount programs have a disproportionate racial impact. it would not surprise anyone to see the highest number of applicants are from our southeast parts of san francisco where we know we have more low income communities and more black, indigenous and people of color households and want to take a sharp eye how the racial equity work ties into our collections as we think about coming out of this covid

pandemic. so the purpose of this extension is really to give us some time to think through what the right level of support is for our customers. as we come out of the pandemic while balancing the need to fund our operations and have collections for delinquent bills. i'm personally excited about the arrears management plan presented at the last meeting. that is an innovative new way to think of how to reengage with customers who built up delinquent balances without saying we're shutting you off there's no hope for. programs like that and some others we're looking at are things we'll try to make sure we have in place so when the moratorium ends there's options for people. other things we're thinking about is i am proving our preexisting low income discount and before the pandemic we had a

low income discount program and want it super easy to apply to and make sure it's providing the right level of support so those currently in the emergency program when they come off if they're still experiencing hardship there's something to apply to to continue receiving the discounts. finally regarding clean power s.f., the california public utilities commission which regulates pg&e is looking at their own disconnections moratorium and similar arrearage programs and if i am plented they would a -- implemented they would apply to the clean power s.f. team so whatever we do at the p.u.c. lines up with the timing those acts. if we extend the programs from nine months today we'll work on all of this over the next nine months and i fully expect to be back here in front of you to talk about what we're trying to do to make sure this is a smooth

transition for people as we come out of the pandemic. i think the last slide is just a summary of the actual proposed extensions. the residential program we're extending through march of 2022. that means customers currently enrolled in the program will continue to receive benefits and will also allow new people to sign up. the small business and nonprofit program is structured a little differently. the way it works is everyone when you are accepted in the program you get discounts on the next six months of bills. essentially it extends the application deadline so businesses can continue to apply through march of 2022. the moratorium on shutoffs, liens and fines would be extended and communication of these programs is a huge priority. these programs are not effective if people don't know they exist. we'll notify the current enrollees and remind them this is targeted towards customers

with hardship and they have a requirement to notify us if they're no longer eligible and continue our targeted outreach to at-risk communities and doing work to make sure we reach in-language programs to people who do not speak english as their first language and trying to work through community-based organizations who regular interact with customers who may be struggling to pay their bills. with that i'm happy to take any questions. any questions? >> commissioner: yes. >> i have a question on slide number 3. you had a line item in your

third table. are there overlap between the two? do we know are those people part of the 1200? a lot of individuals are water metered so it's a slightly different customer base in some cases. >> commissioner: that's gai

point. thank you. >> commissioner: any other comments? public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 10 dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366, ##. to raise your hand to speak press star 3. limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the item and ask public comment be made in a civil manner and refrain from profanity and address your comments to the whole commission and not individual members or staff.

>> there are no callers. >> clerk: item 10 is closed. >> commissioner: a motion to approve and second. moved and seconded. roll call, please. [roll call] . >> clerk: you have five items. >> commissioner: next item, please. >> clerk: 11. approve amendment no. 4 to agreement no. pro.0029, project pull internship services, with the japanese community youth council, to continue providing administrative services and technical assistance for the project pull internship program through the summer 2021 session; and authorize the general manager to execute this amendment, increasing the agreement duration by six months, for a total agreement duration of five years and six months, with no change

to the contract amount. there say presentation. >> i'm the acting of program services. the plan for the upcoming summer is to do a similar virtual program. for this agenda item we're requesting your approval to extend the existing contract with the administrative and technical assistance of the japanese youth council. this is for time only.

i'm happy to answer any comments or question us have. >> commissioner: i love the work in the program. the contract is not what i call best practice. you're saying you'll go out for r.f.p. next year. it started with general manager's approval.

>> clerk: members of thepublic wanting to make a comment please address your remarks to the whole commission not individual members or staff. do we have any callers? >> there are three callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> first caller your line is open. have two minutes >> caller: hi, good afternoon, mortgages. -- commissioners. i had the honor to be part of

project pool and have seen the program grow substantially throughout this time. it's always been a diverse program focussed on including the youth of under represented communities and gain the opportunities to work closely with different city of san francisco agencies which is a very unique experience that not many people get to participate in. when i first started, there were less than 100 interns and since then the program has doubled in size. throughout the seven years i started out at the high school intern as my first job, transitioned into a mentor and got to become a team leader. i have made wonderful and lasting connections with my peers and mentors that otherwise wouldn't have been possible if i wasn't given the opportunity and would not be where i am today without the program and director, lisa myles-wilkerson. without her the program wouldn't be as successful and as well known and loved as it is today. thank you for your time.

>> thank you for your comment. next caller you have two minutes. >> caller: i'm kelly ommeran. i was in the from 2014 to 2019. i was super committed to this program from the start. the reason i continue to apply and return every year is because i knew i was part of something very special. i aligned with the program's mission and goals which are to give young people a chance to learn and succeed and the opportunity to grow especially for those who come from under privileged backgrounds who never thought success would ever be possible. the project is so diverse and has such an inclusive, inviting atmosphere and warm people and i'm a child of immigrant and first generation college student

and growing up i never thought about working for the city and didn't realize it was something that was possible for me to do. once i learned of the project it opened up my eye to the world of professionalism and i gained work experience and skills and i've learned so much from my experience there and as a result it's opened up doors for me and gave me the opportunity and the reason i have my job now working at the san francisco public utilities commission and many colleagues have also gotten a job with the city and it shows the program prepares us to succeed and become the next generation of civil servants and

to be forever grateful for those who have been set up for success. thank you for listening. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is. open. have you two minutes. >> caller: good afternoon, commissioner. the san francisco public utilities commission is one of the departments intentionally bringing city services and resources to the community rather than waiting nor community to come for resources. i'm carlos ramos and i'm a san francisco native who's life has directly been impacted by the public utilities commission through project pole. through this experience i was able to learn and gain invaluable work experience that has shaped me into the young professional i am today. the project gave me the exposure i needed to and drive i needed

to obtain a college education and work in the public sector. for 25 years project pull has provided opportunities that directly impact the san francisco youth with minority identities. i'm thanking the commission to continue to support the program that is make a difference in the lives of minority san francisco youth. thank you. >> thank you for your comment. next caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> caller: i'm shenise patterson and i want to talk about project pull and how it impacted myself and the lives of so many young people. as in alum i remember applying to the internship and remember i did not receive the internship

that year because i wasn't quite ready and the reason why i want to add that so what i'm saying is because i think it's important that project pull is a program that gives second chances and gives young people that may not know what career focus they want or what jobs they want in life but it's a way and opportunity for them to find that and i feel like once i was invited into the project pull family i was able to work with others and in a professional environment and gain experience that i never experienced before. being a young african american woman from the bay view i can speak for myself but also want to speak for other young people i know that have been in project pull. it was any first time i had ever seen there was a building downtown that was able to operate the city and had all these jobs and showed me where water came from. i never knew any of that and i went to school and they never talked about the different jobs. being able to come to project pull and given the opportunity i

was able to not only to change my life and go in the direction i wanted to go in but also help so many young people that eyes were blown by the opportunities and folks. i want to say to the many people and commission and i never met any of you but i want to say continue to keep project pull because it opens our eyes to so many young people that need people like us and need the resources and need people to tell them they have an opportunity to be something not only than what their community tells them they're going to be. so i just want to say from the bottom of my heart this program deserves to go on for 30 more years because it has changed me and i know it's changed the lives of so many young people and thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> thank you, caller. next caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> caller: hi, hi name is angie. i'm a project pull alum and had

an opportunity to be with the project pull family over eight years as an intern and mentor's assistant and help impact the lives of so many teenagers and young adults in for instance and without project pull i wouldn't have gained the leadership skills i needed and wouldn't have found the second family i needed and wouldn't have gained the professional and interpersonal skills to be as a public professional in new york and it's help propel my career and a couldn't emphasize enough how the program is very much needed to change and impact the life of so many others like mine. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> caller: hi, my name is erica

and i was lucky enough to be part of the project pull family about 10 years. being in project pull i found that support system i needed. it also led me to being a leader and helped me in my current role as a nurse in france helping my community. if it wasn't for the project pull family i don't think i would have been where i am today. and i'm thankful for the opportunity it gives me and other young people and those skills to be in the real world in the work field as young as 15, 16 years old and thank you for your time. >> >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open.

you have two minutes. >> caller: cyrus. a former project pull alumni. the program has given me the opportunity to understand the importance of working the public sector and being a public servant. this is my first full time job in college and helped determine my career path. as of next year it will be my third year anniversary working as a public servant for the city and county of san francisco and wouldn't have been possible would the guidance of the project pull program. thank you. >> thank you. madame secretary, there are no more callers on the queue. >> clerk: public comment on item 11 is closed. >> commissioner: commissioner harrington. >> sometimes we do forget about folks and i'd be remiss i didn't mention i believe project pull was founded and would not be

where it is without harlan kelly so thank you. >> commissioner: thank you. any further comments it sounds to me like it's worth every penny of it and sounds to me people are asking all the things we talk about and i'm very pleased we are a part of this and people could comment and let us know how they feel. it's extremely important so again thank you and thank you for acknowledging mr. kelly -- commissioner harrington. madame secretary, i think we're ready for a vote. a motion and a second. >> motioned. >> second. >> commissioner: moved and seconded. roll call, please. >> clerk: [roll call] .

you have five ayes. >> commissioner: thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 12. 12. approve the selection of edelstein gilbert robson & smith llc (egrs); award agreement no. pro.0178, state legislation representation and advocacy services to provide state legislative lobbying services; and authorize the general manager to negotiate and execute a professional services agreement with egrs for an amount not-to-exceed $1,680,000, and with a duration of five years. being presented by megan scott. >> good afternoon, president maxwell and commissioners. i'm here to seek approval and

the scope of work is to develop and implement a state lobbying strategy for the agency only on legislative and regulatory issues that impact all of our enterprises an bureaus. the state lobbyists work and a large scope of items. through the legislative session that just wrapped up we tracked over 400 bills related to water, sewer, infrastructure and the myriad of issues that touch our agency. many of these bills had large fiscal or operational impacts on our agency so my team along with the lobbyists advocated. our lobbyists are essential for their expertise and relationship. so far it's been a very active year already in the state legislature. we're hopeful you will approve the contract to ensure our agency continues to be well represented in sacramento.

thank you and happy to answer any questions you may have. >> commissioner: thank you. commissioners, any questions or comments? commissioner harrington? >> i'm talking too much today. >> commissioner: no problem. >> commissioner: thank you for having the contract in front of us. what it brings to mind is we have a lobbyist and strategy in sacramento and washington, d.c. but dont talk about it at the commission level and would be useful in the near future to arrange to have sacramento and washington, d.c. lobbyist come to our meeting and talk to us what their strategy or how to engage with us. that would be helpful i think. >> commissioner: i think that would be helpful. mr. carlan, are you taking note, please? >> i am. we'll arrange that in a meeting in the near future. >> commissioner: thank you.

>> commissioner: that being said, outside contractors are one thing, good/bad and important. we also do have in the big infrastructure of san francisco people that are on the executive staff that are lobbyists also. just putting it all in perspective based on commissioner harrington's request is important to add to that mix of the report back if that's what we're going to do. >> commissioner: thank you. yes, commissioner ajami. >> commissioner: out of curiosity do they represent other water agencies or utilities? >> the firm in question does represent some of the associations we are are a part of. they represent the california

municipal utilities association overlaps the water and power side and represent cal c.c.a. the community choice aggregation. >> and we're members of both. we engaged them prior to their engagement with the other soccers -- associations they asked us to represent them as well so there was no conflict of interest. >> commissioner: that was my next question. i realized we are involved in both of them. my curiosity was around the fact if we have conflicting interest how would they approach that and do we have an individual lobbyist that works with us or

for the lobbyist representing us and cuma and the community choice aggregation but assuming since we're part of both of them our policies are aligned. >> correct. >> commissioner: thank you. >> commissioner: any further questions, comments? thank you very much ms. scott. public comment, please.

>> clerk: the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366, ##. to raise your hand to speak press star 3. limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the item and ask public comment be made in a civil manner and refrain from profanity and address your comments to the whole commission and not individual members or staff. do we have any callers? >> madame secretary, there are no callers in the queue at this time. >> clerk: public comment on item 12 is closed. >> commissioner: may i have a motion and second to approve item 12. >> so moved. >> commissioner: second. >> commissioner: moved and seconded. roll call, please. >> clerk: [roll call] have you five ayes. >> commissioner: thank you. madame secretary, will you read

the items to be heard in closed session, please. >> clerk: following items will be heard during closed session. item 15 unlitigated claim julieta jay carlos dmd, inc. v. city and county of san francisco unlitigated file no.: 21-00132 date filed: 07/17/2020 proposed settlement with city to pay claimant $175,000 and claimant to release all claims. 16. conference with legal counsel - pursuant to california government code, section 54956.9(d)(2), and san francisco administrative code, section 67.10(d)(1) (action item) (gessner) unlitigated claim monika neuendorf/state farm v. city and county of san francisco unlitigated file no.: 21-00777 date filed: 10/30/2020 proposed settlement with city to pay claimant $46,181.51 and claimant to release all claims. 17. conference with legal counsel - pursuant to california government code, section 54956.9(d)(2), and san francisco administrative code, section 67.10(d)(1) (action item) (gessner) unlitigated claim stephen besselman/state farm v. city and county of san francisco unlitigated file no.: 21-00238 date filed: 08/05/2020 proposed settlement with city to pay claimant $29,107.03 and claimant to release all claims. 18. conference with legal counsel - anticipated litigation as petitioner per california government code 54956.9(d)(4) and san francisco administrative

19. conference with legal counsel - pursuant to california government code section 54965.9 (d)(1) and san francisco administrative code section 67.10 (d)(1) (discussion only) (whipps) existing litigation san joaquin tributaries authority, et al v. california state water resources control board . item 20 has been removed. >> commissioner: can we have public comment on the items. the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item dial 1-415-655-0001 meeting i.d. 146 500 4366, ##. to raise your hand to speak press star 3. limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the item and ask public comment be made in a civil manner and refrain from profanity and address your comments to the whole commission and not individual members or staff. [please stand by]

>> clerk: [roll call vote]

you have five ayes. president? >> president maxwell: yes, i'm here. >> clerk: if you are ready we can enter in

who told you we were going to be here? it was supposed to a secret. i got a call thursday from mayor breed saying "i want to come down." and it literally brought a tear to my eye. before i introduce his honor,

willy brown, who i want to tell you a quick story. there was a rumor he was going to run for mayor and i ran into him in north beach and i just put my hand out and i said would you make your first campaign promise and he said "yeah, whatever it is. what do you want?" i said, "i'd like to see water running through lotus fountain." he said, "you got it." and it wasn't an easy project. if they put water in it it was going to actually blow up. so i'd like to bring a long-time lotus flower supporter. earthquake celebration. and celebrated those brave souls who rebuilt the city from the ashes. so it's my honor to introduce

his honor. and wish him an 87th birthday. >> i am, of course, delighted to again be here with all of you for the occasion of memorializing and remembering how difficult it must have been in 1906 for lots of people in san francisco who at the time the clock struck, the city began to fall apart and before it was over within a few hours, the city had fallen apart. but, as usual, if you read yesterday, you know in the chronicle that, in fact, the city came rolling back. and it always coming rolling

back and when lee housekeeper approached me in the middle '90s asking about this fountain there was a time period where absolutely i said, "i don't understand why that fountain isn't already working." i had no idea that fountain hadn't worked in hundreds of years and no one bothered to do anything about it. fortunately, there was a fellow named ed lee. he stepped up. i gave him directions on what i needed to have done and ultimately, it did get done. it got done because many of you were participating in one way or another providing the inspiration. and, since the time that this fountain began to emit water again, every mayor thereafter has made it his or her responsibility to see that that fountain continues to spray

water, that you continue to come here on april 18th, early morning for the express if you were of making sure that san francisco continues to remember what we are all about. and, believe me, it was a very special breed of people who in 1906 actually started the process of the resurrection of san francisco. so it shouldn't surprise you that some many, many years later, more than 100 years later, the word "breed" is still the foundation of our city. the new mayor is "breed." i don't know if that's her real name. i have no idea, but i do know that it represents everything this city is all about for so many years and i am just

delighted, believe me and i was told by lee housekeeper that again we would be celebrating. i actually thought i might be here alone. i remember one time i came here and they said "you've got to speak." and it was like one minute before the phone would ring and low and behold i said not enough time. on this occasion. ladies and gentlemen, the mayor of san francisco and the lady who keeps the fountain going, mayor london breed. >> thank you, mayor willy brown. we appreciate you being here early this morning. and let me just start by saying i appreciate the city so much and everything you all have done to keep us safe when we had to shut this city down a year ago. today, we commemorate the 1906

earthquake and we also recognize our first responders. we have our fire chief janine nick olson today as well as our police chief bill scott and the person who has been leading during this pandemic, the emergency operation center thank you all so much. dr. colfax didn't get up this early in the morning. when i think about san francisco in the 1906 earthquake and how far we've come, just think about it. 250,000 people were homeless because of the earthquake and the fire. when i think about san francisco and our resilience, that's what we've been talking about this entire pandemic. we've come so far and we have made magic happen out of tragedy. the 1989 earthquake.

many of us were around during that earthquake. maybe not the 1986, the embarcadero was shadowed by a freeway and now it's open and bright and available for all to enjoy and to see. the same with this pandemic with san franciscans. we go through earthquakes. we go through pandemics. we go through things. when the time comes and we need to rise up like the phoenix we are, we stand strong, proud, and together and that's what the people of san francisco did in 1906 when we rebuilt this city and that's why we come here today to show appreciation to the guardians of the city, to show respect for the people who risk their lives to remember the 250,000 people who

were homeless and the thousands of people who lost their lives. at this time, we commemorate the 1906 earthquake and we recognize how amazing and strong we are as a city and so i'm given the signal from martha cohen that we are almost at a minute. are we there, martha? all right. and our sheriff paul miamoto is here. thank you so much, sheriff, for joining us. and, at this time, in recognition for those first responders, for the people we lost during the 1906 earthquake, for the people we lost during this pandemic. let's take a moment of silence.

thank you all so much for joining us in prayer. we're glad you've seen us survive 150 years. thank you again to the fire department and our chief and

the police department and the department of public health, our sheriff's department, our first responders, the people who will continue to be the guardians of san francisco, we are coming out of this pandemic and we are coming out stronger than ever. thank you so much. ♪ san francisco open your gate here is your wondering one saying no more ♪♪ ♪ san francisco welcome

>> this is the regular meeting of the small business commission held on april 26, 2021. the meeting is being called to order at 44 7:00 p.m. the small business commission thanks media services and sfgovtv for tele vicing the meeting, which can be viewed live or live streamed at sfgovtv.org. for the viewing public, we did have a glitch. there is a new call in line or new pass code. members who call in the phone number is the same. 415-655-0001. the new access code is

(187)093-4330. you can press pound and then pound again to be added to the line. when connected you will hear the meeting discussion but you will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up dial star 3 to be added to the speaker line. if you dial star 3 before public comment is called, you will be added to the queue. when you are called for public comment mute the device you are listening to the meeting on. when it is your time to speak you will be prompted to do so. best practices call from quiet location and to speak clearly and slowly and turn down the device that you are listening to the meeting on. public comment during the

meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker unless established by the presiding officer of the meeting. an alarm will sound when time is finished. speakers are requested not required to state their name. sfgovtv please show the slide. the office of small business slide. >> hello. today we will begin with reminder the small business commission is official public forum to voice opinions and concerns about policies affecting the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. 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 at this time you can find us online or via telephone. as always, our services are completely free of charge. before item 1 i would like to thank sfgovtv and media services

for coordinating the hearing and live stream. can we have item 1, please. an. >> call to order and roll call. >> commissioner adams. >> here. >> dickerson. >> here. >> dooley. >> here. >> hule here. >> laguana. >> here. ortiz cartagena. >> here. >> mr. president you have a quorum. >> next item, please. >> item 2. board of supervisors file 210285. planning, business and tax regulations, police codes. some is the small business recovery act. ordinance amending the planning, business and tax regulations and police codes to simplify

procedures and allow flexibility for neighborhood, cultural and entertainment establishments by 1 expanding streamlined review and inspection procedures to storefront uses city-wide. 2, deleting separate definition of cat boarding, jim, trade shop and veryvises from the planning code. 3. allowing permitted conditional uses to continue after three years. 4 allowing continuation of long-standing places of entertainment, 5. allowing outdoor activity areas on rooftops. 6, temporarily requiring conditional use authorization for uses replacing nighttime entertainment uses, 7.

allowing accessory catering uses, 8 knowledge allowing accessory dwelling units on the ground floor. 9. allowing temporary outdoor entertainment, arts and recreation activities. 10. deleting certain considerable use finding requirements for nighttime entertainment. 11, delaying conditional use findings, 12. requiring expedited permit possessing for commercial uses on ground floor. 13 s.shortening time for the historic preservation commission. 14, extending time for limited live performances from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. allowing additional one-time entertainment permits and one-time outdoor amplified sound

permits m16 exempting single individual performances. >> laura and sheila, welcome. happy to see you. thank you for your patience. looking forward to your presentation. let's see it. >> thank you. i am the director of business development for the office of economic and worke forcer development. i was working many of you before the pandemic facing a criessition moment for small business. you were pushing us to take it seriously and do more. in those moments, i don't think any of us were predicting what was to come. seeing the impact of the year of the covid-19 pandemic we know businesses are suffering. many are adapting to the needs of preferences, new technology, new business models and a need

for more flexibility in order to survive. we know that we are facing a new challenge. the other challenge of large number of vacancies one before the pandemic and one exacerbated by the pandemic. we also know that teams like the office of small business are busy during downtown. these are the moments our owners are inspired by an idea or opportunity. the it is our job to ensure they take that leap. oewd and planning joined together to create this legislation. first goal to build upon previous success of bureaucracy and. second enhance flex bill for businesses and third provide both protections and opportunities for entertainment and cultural establishments. since introduction we are

working to ensure they understand this legislation. we have identified two specific changes that we intend to remove from the legislation. we will submit these at land use. first, retain the requirement for concentration calculations for uses. this is an item did community would like to address through broader work they are engaged in cultural district. we are leaving in place until they are able to create unique solution appropriate for neighborhood. second retain linear foot for market retail to address feedback we heard. this was heard by historic preservation commission and entertainment and planning last week. you are our last stop before heading to land use. with that i would hand it over to sheila for foundational data to all the planning code changes in the legislation.

>> thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. i am planning department staff, sheila. this ordinance called small business recovery act is built on three goals to support neighborhood businesses. one build on prop h to simplify opening and operating a neighborhood business. enhance flexibility by implementing recommendations from economic recovery task force to support short term recovery and long-term viability and support shared spaces. protections and opportunities for arts by simplifying the process and encouraging the process between neighborhoods. performance and arts were first to close at the start of pandemic and last to reopen. the challenges facing the

neighborhoods before the pandemic. with the rise of online shopping brick and mortar is shifted to more expireential retail. they buy locally what cannot be bought online. it was a challenge given the high cost of living. regulatory environment made it tough for brick and mortar to adapt to the changing retail landscape. in the past decade one retail sector has grown. that is dining. which shows how jobs have boomed. top four lines of the chart blue restaurants and green is personal care. restaurants were hit hard during the 2008 recession and past year in the pandemic. we have seen the covid impact in several ways.

health regulations pushed businesses to close. as we re-open they are limited to 50% capacity or less. new legislation including prop h changes the environment for retail. the dramatic change in the way people are working is impacting where we travel and shop, dine and socialize. downtown is quiet right now. renewed interest in the neighborhood as workers stay home. transit is limited. it is important to meet daily needs in your home. more about the impacts of covid. in the past year they have been felt by neighborhoods, small businesses patrons and employees. neighborhood commercial districts rely on regional visitors that will recover in different ways from the neighborhood district catering

to the local residents. there has been a 620% increase in moveout rates downtown, chinatown, nob hill. in may change demographics. patrons felt it online sales increase. retail vacancies make it harder to meet needs close to home. uncertainty about pent-up demand. some are eager to return to old habits. neighborhood businesses a year's worth of openings and closings were difficult. opened until december then shut and today we are operating at limited capacity. employees we have seen a lot of jobs in leisure hospitality, food service, drinks. entertainment lost two times more jobs than national. employees in the retail sector

are not white. the covid response has been broad. some city's investments have been closed including grants and loans from the city and federal sources. fee deferrals for registration and cap on delivery fees, shared spaces program permitted more than 2000 businesses to use outdoor space for business operations. commercial eviction moratorium in place through june. $11 million to support 6,000 workers facing financial hardship. in the summer of 2020 the following shelter-in-place orders. the economic recovery task force identified tangible steps for economic recovery. specifically related to neighborhood businesses the task

force report from october 2020 made five recommendations. redesign and eliminate unnecessary permits, expand and support shared spaces, allow more flexible use of ground floor retail. in november 2020 voters approved prop h to reduce the patchwork of regulations on neighborhood businesses. most significant change is 30-day permit possessing system. this ordinance builds on prop h to make it easier for businesses to open and operate. it is a collection of changes with challenges facing the businesses today. now, i will take you into the weeds of what the measures actually propose to do. first, this ordinance will

expand prop h guarantee to process permits within 30-days of application. under prop h the process to all ground floor retail in neighborhood commercial zoning to ground floor retail in all zoning districts. prop h agencies with operational and construction permits, planning, d.b.i., fire, entertainment public works through the administrative system for review. this would expand this benefit to more businesses. 30-day permit possessing for businesses reduces time and costs for applicants and provides value certainty. it benefits city by reducing staff time possessing. second to make this possible for 30-days. small business recovery will expand the neighborhood notification to save 6 to 8 week

this is opening doors. in place for commercial zoning. notification for mixed use areas will be eliminated. it has been useful for neighborhoods that want to attract businesses. planning has been working with mission to develop tools. they will expand access. these are formula retail. this expedited possessing provides 90 day commercial use timeline. inclusion of small formula retail in response to public request for publicly grown. this doesn't change any of the zoning regulations for formula retail. it is saying we will put the

smaller category to ex to ex pe dieted. under current regulation bars with conditional use authorization were to close and the space sits fay can't more than three years the incoming bar would repeat. we are moving the abandonment clause when the new business is not used. second, cently restaurant bar formula retail for conditional use authorization is required to produce concentration calculations based on linear footage analysis within 300 feet of proposed business. this can be costly with a substantial margin of error. if the use isn't clear to aply can't. the difference between limited restaurant and restaurant for planning code definition may not be clear to the and lay can't

collecting the data. many calculations may not represent how one experiences the streetscape. it may not be meaningful measurement. this important note on this one under prop h restaurants are permitted for the next three years. in the short term the impact will be a change for the 23 zoning districts that require s c.u. for bars and the formula retail. this does not change formula retail controls. it removes the requirement that the applicant produce the linear feet calculation. the commerce industry does discourage undesirable concentrations of one type of use in certain locations in order to contribute to the variety of uses.

this can be discretion marry review or other ways of measuring concentration. a larger policy question of uses is part of the planning department retail strategy. the principal may still hold merit regarding concentration. the current process is creating a burden for businesses. under category of enhancing plex built four changes. prop h outdoor activity in neighborhood commercial and transit with specific limitations. ground floor, operating 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. not operating in association with a bar, where associated with limited restaurant the outdoor activity had to include seating, no standing. alcohol dispensed inside and brought to the table. these were all in place to make sure there was no bar-type

places operating outside. this ordinance would permit rooftop uses with the same provision as those uses permissible. outdoor paces for lifeline during the pandemic continuing through recovery. subject to health and safety requirements. in almost all neighborhood districts, restaurants to rooftop in single story only. small business recovery act will allow restaurants to host catering businesses. this gives the entrepreneurs more opportunities to share space and operating costs. dining industry is particularly hit hard by the pandemic. this would offer a path to recovery. third, on the list it would allow a.d.u.s in the rear of

the ground floor face if 25 feet is maintained. code currently allows not a.d.u. so long as the ground floor meets active use. it can take over any amount except with from 25 feet this. would allow an a.d.u. allowance under the same provision for regular dwelling unit, they must be accessory to residential. this would only be applied to mixed use including commercial and remember. this may give more flexibility and they will be subject to a.d.u. programs including rent control policy. last is simplifying the retail definition. the small business recovery act will delete cat boarding and trade shop and categoryvise those. they just get moved to a higher

level hierarchy. it deletes instructional service to make those part of personal service. this reduces overall number of separate retail definitions and decrease need for change of use permits. specifically for uses that are similar like personal service and instructional services. on the ground floor this will not trigger any changes to the cat boarding or instructional service, make trade shop more permissible in one neighborhood district. the last category supporting arts and culture. laura will walk you through the changes. >> thank you, sheila. currently we are allowing temporary enter at the same time

uses outdoors to ensure that as part of our expansion of moving outdoors there is a path for businesses to incorporate entertainment. it still requires a permit. it gives a path through planning department. we are going to require conditional use for removal of nighttime entertainment. this is the idea that the industry that is uniquely hit by the pandemic being shut first and one of the last to be allowed to reopen to full capacity. because of this we are the legislation proposes anyone who wants to remove nighttime entertainment use for the next three years and then it expires get conditional use approval to ensure there is a moment with the community and neighbors to make sure everyone is aware of the changes the property owner is considering.

we want to -- >> you want me to do this one? >> yes. >> removing duplicate fees for nighttime entertainment. currently the planning commission applies conditions to ceu. those duplicate the conditions by the entertainment condition. we are taking this requirement away. they can apply conditions if they want. what is happening with two sets of requirements placed on a business if they ever change the business has to come back through the entertainment commission and planning commission. we want to remove that redundancy. it doesn't mean conditions are going away. we are no longer going to require planning to impose them.

>> thanks, sheila. >> there are a number of long standing nighttime entertainment. [indiscernable] land use authority from planning. in this moment of time we know the businesses are facing changes looking for new ownership and there is fear from the people coming in to continue the businesses of the land use process. what this is proposing is that when long standing nighttime entertainment use is operating with all of the required permits from departments like the entertainment commission for at least 10 years, zoning administrator will add mince straighttively place the land use authorization and not go through conditional use. this is someone operating, known to the city more than 10 years

with per mets. that we have access to this. the next final changes are to the police code. first is that we would like to remove requirement for limited live performance permit. if you have someone who is performing without amplification and is a so low performers. this is the you were booking a guitarist to a book reading. a solo creating atmosphere to draw you in. they should not be required to get a permit. we do still believe that permits should be required for more than one perform error if they are amplified. in those cases the business is currently able to get a permit that and they can go back after a year of operation and request extension to 11:00 p.m.

we don't believe this needs to come back to the commission to ask again. we believe the condition should have as part of their ability the ability for that performance to go to 11:00 p.m. starting from the beginning. we want be to allow one-time entertainment permits more than 12 times per year. the commission will still have authority over there and after 13 times of one-time permits they will look to ensure the use of this permit is not to avoid getting a different permit. if your restaurant has a rock band every saturday night for 12 saturdays in a row, on the 13th saturday the entertainment commission will likely say, hey, business owner you are avoiding place of entertainment permit. if you are a farmers market in the sunset and you want to add a

guitarist every other saturday with amplification, that sounds like something that is appropriate and that the commission shove the opportunity to allow to happen more than 12 times per year to draw people into the space. that is what we are proposing here. i did want to clarify a few items that some people have seem to be confused about. i want to be clear we are not changing the requirement for formula retail. all formula retile is required for conditional use. we are not changing pdr regulations or protection. not changing any zoning tables except in limited cases where we made trade shops more permissible on upper stories. we are not changing the public process for entertainment. businesses will have to be publicly noticed and get permits from the commission. the public will still have the

opportunity at those hearing. where entertainment is appropriate those permits should move forward and we should move the bureaucratic hurdles in the way. >> great. somebody needs to mute. commissioners, do we have any comment? or questions? >> commissioner dooley. >> i have a couple questions. one is the part of this program about making more things available for our cb p program.

i wanted why it says medical cannabis. basically there are very few now. almost all of the dispensaries are going to be not strictly medical. is there some reason that the majority of cannabis dispensaries are excluded out from this cb 3p? >> actually it currently nonmedical cannabis is included. only medical cannabis is excluded. we didn't see a reason to make it harder for medical cannabis than retail. that is the intention of the change. >> my other question was on the rooftop operations, how is that in terms of mixed use where it is only on a single story? a lot of neighborhoods have

retail on the ground floor then residents on the higher floors. would they be allowed to add outdoor rooftop operations above the residence? >> it is complicated. >> for door it has to be approved on that floor and comply without door activity regulations. to be an approved use. we looked at all of the neighborhood commercial zoning. restaurant is only permitted on second floor, not on the third floor. it would be allowed with a first floor with nothing above it. there wouldn't be a situation with a restaurant then two floors of residential then elevator to the roof. that is not permitted under

current regulations. >> thank you. >> okay. great. commissioner ortiz. >> i am in support of the legislation and spirit of it. to laura you have taken time to listen to us in the mission district, getting a reputation as someone we can trust. sometimes we don't agree with you, we know you have come from a good place. with that said, you know, in my neighborhood in the mission there are concerns. one of those is allowing catering use. we don't know how that can be exploited with ghost kitchens. notifications.

removal of any notification in our neighborhood is very, very sensitive issue. the conditional use i am one of the biggest fans in my neighborhood expediting anything it just doesn't allow the community that is spread thin dealing with so many other issues from food scare city to housing. it doesn't allow time for input. planning and zoning is where gentrification happens. this is it and since it is not sexy it doesn't get the pr press. no marches behind planning and zoning. this is the concern in the mission. overall i am a business person

with the whole legislation. i know we need it. it is just some concerns in my neighborhood and a know you have taken a lot of time to hear us out. i just wanted to say that. >> thank you. i am thankful for the time you have taken with me. there are a million priorities in the mission, many food scare city and things much more important than be this. the catering. i want to clarify the changes to catering are accessory to established restaurant. we currently allow this in the restaurant. if i had a bagel shop that doesn't serve alcohol and i am only open until 2:00. after i close when my space is closed you commissioners could come in to start granola

manufacturing. you could use my commercial business and help me with rest. my business must remain open. this is allowed throughout our restaurants. as soon as my bagel shops serves champagne you would no longer use my space because i would be full-service. it shouldn't change your ability to use it when i am already closed. that is what this is proposing. the ghost kitchen has such a requirement for active space. i don't think that is a loophole. >> did you also want to -- the commissioner mentioned notifications. did you want to speak to that? this is the only way a business

for principally permitted uses only, first of all. it essentially adds on average 60 to 90 days for a permit. if we want to allow businesses in all neighborhood permitted to get permits from us in 30-days, there is no way for those two things to marry. we believe it is important that keeping neighborhoods competitive to attract businesses. if it is going to take 90 days longer if i move to soma than hayes valley thanks is a problem for that district. we believe it is an important removal. i understand the community's frustration. i believe we have other tools to utilize through the community. i would like to work with you on that. i do believe that is the important change. the expediting of c.u.s, i

think that as a city it is our job to promise people they can have an answer in the certain amount of time. that is what i believe this does. it doesn't promise an outcome but an answer from the city that you will get to commission in 90 days and we will tell you what we think. i hear that is a huge burden on communities. a burden that has to be more responsive. i think we have to be as a city responsive to multiple constituents and small accident owners are one of those. this is us trying to find the balancing act, yes, this causes concern, yes, we are going to hold ourselves to a standard and get to that place where you can get that answer within a timely fashion. i understand that is a place we will probably not come to

agreement. i do want to note that it is excluded from this process. quatro does continue to have the historic process that this would speed up some uses for the first conditional use in the mission. i understand that is a concern. >> any o questions? okay. vice president zouzounis. >> thank you both. great to have you here. i have a question. in section 30.2 eligibility for ex i dieted possessing -- expedited possessing. is that amending the language cdp? >> we are calling it cd3p this.

is what we are amending giving more uses access to it and removing a few things that excluded you before such as alcohol. it is up for debate. something like beer should be disqualifying for the business owner for access to the program. we are proposing that is not it. >> that is great. i know that there has been other ordinances and resolutions passed by the supervisors that want to do what you just said and make cb 3p more accessible with businesses with regulatory likenesses. the economic mitigation working group that produced 15 recommendations passed by the board include tobacco licenses to be part of that. i am curious if that is

considered since that was a resolution adopted by the board to make sure that our immigrant retailers are not excluded from the program, too? that is a question that i had. also, we have seen in our last meeting a stand alone ordinance from supervisor peskin's office that we have seen a couple times relating to c.u. businesses that have to relocate. because they are tobacco license business he has to make a whole new ordinance because there isn't ability for city construction or a fire, right? for a business to be able to take their c.u. when they relocate. small business commission did recommend that we make this more

permanent statute in our planning code so key don't have to keep doing one resolution whenever they need to move with that type of license. i am curious if that is considered in this process. that was my question. if section 303.2 includes relocation as opposed to establishment of license? >> it does not. that is an interesting topic that we should look at further for another piece of legislation. i appreciate the suggestion. >> do you mind clarifying number two where it says it can't go on that same section it is discussing the tenant improvements allowed?

>> let me find it. >> i am curious if there are allowances that need to be written out a little more clear so people know if there is a type of tenant improvement not allowed in that section? >> let me refresh that while we keep going and i will get to you unless sheila has that in this moment. >> no problem. >> it is limited to changes of use tenant improvements or interior or storefront work. i am curious what that means if there is anything we need to make more clear there. >> what was the section number on that one?

>> section 303.2 possessing in commercial space, reduce application fee, eligibility possessing number two. it is limited to changes of use, tenant improvements or storefront work. >> we will keep going on with questions. >> we can do that. vice president zouzounis, did you have more questions? >> no. >> commissioner hule. >> thank you very much for the presentation. all of the work that i am sure

has gone into this legislation as well. just quick question about the process. they have always been complaint driven. we never really got a neighborhood notification that something was going to happen until they had to do neighborhood notification and the residents in the area would do whatever would get notified. as a merchant's association it is body if we were notified or not. the last couple formula retail storefronts in contention were triggered by neighborhood complaints and neighbors looking into whether they had applied

for c.u. and things like that. my question is there a current list of who gets notified in terms of the neighborhood organizations? you know, just wondering what that process looked like on your end so if we are shortening the time, you know, part of that is just knowing what is coming down the line. this this is a little drop off of what commissioner ortiz cartagena mentioned. we would also know who to look for for the information so we can get together a community opinion. >> there is an opt-in list the

planning department maintains for certain kinds of notification. that is one plan. the planning department developed a notification system for the mission specifically. i think there are others. it is a detailed question about notification. i don't know the full answer to but i would be happy to get back to you with the specific list of ways that the community can be proactive or stay proactively informed about things like this. >> it is my understanding and laura and sheila correct me if i am wrong on this. it is my understanding neighborhood associations and merchant associations this is what you are referring to with the opt-in list, sheila. they are automatically notified when the permits are coming through. they are signed up and they

automatically get that notification. >> yes, that's right. >> i mean i know that is the way it is supposed to be. for some reason we are not always getting them. we don't get them if somebody is supposed to apply for one and doesn't apply because there is no mechanism to track that. it is i think on the ground it is challenging sometimes because you do tend to be the kind of person policing your neighborhood for new businesses which you don't want to be. you want to be the one to welcome everybody. it turns into this kind of a little bit of disorganization on the ground. >> president laguana you are right. i would like to dig in to the

planning process to make sure there is not a typo. what is happens is making you slip in and out. that shouldn't be happening. you should get the notifications every time. i would like to work on that. >> commissioners i did find the section you were talking about. the intention of the section is to limit who has access to this in the sense that if you are getting a conditional use to expand office space on the 12th story of a space where we required it requires conditional use you do not have access. we are thinking about the capacity of the planning commission to hear these in 90 days. by limiting to first and second where we are really trying to prioritize the activation of streetscape. that is the intention of the language. you have to have access to the

process, creativity on the ground floor. >> thank you. >> all right. i don't see questions from other commissioners. let me just say how much i appreciate all of the work that you all are doing on this important piece of legislation to help small businesses recover. in particular, i want to commend you as commissioner ortiz cartagena said to outreach with communities that are sensitive. you know, it is challenging work to come up with city-wide policy that also works in our most critical cultural districts and finding ways to move forward.

thank you for that work and thank you for listening. that is high praise coming from commissioner ortiz cartagena. that means a lot to me. that is really important to get it right with our cultural districts and support them. i had one quick question to what you are presenting. one of your staff aid 53% of san francisco retail was nonwhite. i was wondering if that was just pure retail and not including restaurant or also included restaurants? >> i believe that includes restaurants as well. >> usually retail is ex clusexclusive. i don't see any other commissioner questions. i am familiar with the work you

guys are doing. i think what we will do now is check to see if there is any public comment. >> commissioner there are six callers listening but zero in the queue with questions. >> all right. seeing no questions, public comment is closed. commissioners do we have a motion or would you like me to make a motion. >> motion to approve the ordinance. >> we have a motion by commissioner adams to approve the ordinance as is. do we have a second. >> second. >> seconded by commissioner dooley. roll call. commissioner adams. >> yes.

>> commissioner dickerson. >> yes. >> commissioner duly. >> yes. >> commissioner hule. >> yes. >> commissioner laguana. >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz cartagena. >> no. >> commissioner. >> yes. >> that motion passes 7-1. 7 yes and one no. >> 6-1. >> excuse me. 6-1. >> thank you for the presentation. >> are we ready for the next item.

>> next item is item 3. this is board of supervisors file no. 210303. it is amending the administrative code creating a neighborhood anchor business registry. this amends the ads enough code to create a neighborhood anchor accident registry under the office of small business and make it city policy to promote participation by neighborhood anchor businesses in city grant programs for small businesses and for commercial eviction defense. ian fergosi is here to present. i have a slide to present.

let me bring that up. >> welcome to the commission. >> thank you all for having me. hello. thank you, president laguana and commissioners for having me this evening. i am ian fergosi, aid to supervisor co n nie. we are excited to talk about our legislation to create a neighborhood anchor business registry. i have talked to a couple of you about this. i am excited to speak to the full commission to hear your

feedback. the background and the purpose of this legislation and why supervisor chan wanted to bring this forward because as we are recovering from the pandemic we can agree it is really crucial that the city does everything it can to support our local small businesses, particularly those who are serving our neighborhoods and bringing foot traffic to the commercial corridors for decades. over the years these are businesses that have proven themselves as viable to the neighborhoods. we believe they should be priortized for legal aid to prevent them from being displaced.

the legislation which was introduced by supervisor chan and cosponsored by supervisors haney, ronen, preston and walton. this would expand on existing legacy business program by creating a second tier of small businesses designated as neighborhood anchor businesses. i will talk about the qualifications. it would make city policy to prioritize both legacy businesses and neighborhood anchor businesses for grant and loan programs for san francisco businesses subject to legal restrictions. we are considering that feedback soon. also, priority for commercial lease assistance. conflict resolution or

commercial eviction programs for san francisco businesses. such as legal restrictions. the qualifications for becoming a neighborhood anchor business. 100 or fewer employees consistent with the definition of small business and would also address -- make it so that along with intent for local small businesses as opposed to formula retailers and second thing would be requiring the businesses that have been in operation for 15 or more years in a storefront in a neighborhood commercial historic or conservation district in san francisco. they can have a break-in operations of up to two years and having the shutdown during the covid pandemic would not

count against it at all. that is consistent with the legacy business program. also no pending complaints or findings of misconduct within the past five years from labor agencies. we want to invest in good employers. in order to become a neighborhood anchor business, the business could be nominated by the local merchant association or by petition signed by 50 or more residents who live within one mile of the business. then, of course, confirmed by the office of small business. priority and equity goals for our office on this. this legislation is intended to expands and enhance the legacy business program by providing new benefits to the legacy

businesses. in addition to creating second tier of neighborhood anchor businesses. this would not affect the existing rent stabilization fund which would be exclusively for legacy businesses. these additional businesses that we would additional benefits that would be granted to both legacy and be neighborhood anchor businesses. in order to advance the city's racial equity and language access goal, we want to encourage black and indigenous and people of color that serve communities of color and non english speakers to apply. often times those business with nonenglish speakers are not aware of programs offered by the city and potential resources.

we want to make that a priority that we are doing outreach to those businesses and especially those that serve our communities of color. on feedback abrepresentations, we have been discussing this with a lot of different stakeholders and folks including chambers of commerce and the council of merchants association and a lot of other individuals and stakeholders and the first and foremost we want to make sure that the office of small business has the staff and capacity necessary to carry this out effectively. our office has been in touch with both the mayor's budget office and the budget chair haney, cosponsor, to make sure this is a priority the small business office has the staff it

needs and we also advocate for more money allocated to the legacy business program. it still has the original $1 million budget that it wanted to pass several years ago. we hope to expand on that as well. calling out the racial equity goals mentioned in the legislative review making sure that we are that any prioritization is going to advance our racial equity goals and language access goals. also, i mentioned this earlier the formula retail component which i wanted to address again with 100 gees or less making sure that this is -- 100 employees or less for the local small businesses in san francisco and not for any large chain or formula retail.

another suggestion about limiting the financial aid prioritization for grants and loans to specifically covid recovery which we have discussed and we think it is a good idea because it is really meant to make sure as we come out of this recession triggered by covid we are saving the businesses that are sacred to our communities. a couple more we actually have not really had a chance to discussion. they are included. i am sure the director will talk about this. limiting the program to for profit businesses and also allowing additional organizations such as neighborhood organizations with

potential ability to nominate groups to act for places that don't have merchant association or more in touch with those businesses that are not as connected or that don't speak english as first language. those are some of the feedback and recommendations that we are considering right now. thank you again for having me. i would be happy to take your questions. >> i have a cough. i have been muting. that is why i didn't greet you when you joined. thank you for the great presentation. commissioner adams you are first in line. >> thank you, ian. this is very good. i like this legislation. one concern you already

addressed that is letting other organizations such as cdps and other neighborhood groups because there are neighborhoods that we just don't have merchant organizations or very poor ones. it is important we get those included. the other thing is could you guarantee another person in the office of small business to manage this? right now we are very short staffed. if today we had somebody apply for this program and they were told due to the volume of stuff going on in the office of small business, their application is not going to be heard for at year. -- another year. you are not helping if you don't have people to manage the programs. you have the entertainment fund

put on with no f.t.e. now we have this. i want something to give us some extra manpower to help manage this. >> absolutely. we are making that case right now. we believe that this is totally in line with the mayor's small business recovery and relatively speaking there is budget constraints. we know that because of the pandemic. we think this is more than worthwhile to add additional staff to carry out this program. we are making a case. i can't personally guarantee because i don't control the purse strings. i can tell you that is one of our top budget priorities and we have made that very clear to the

mayor's budget office and also to budget chair haney. >> thank you. >> any other commission questions? >> ian, thank you. i appreciate you and the supervisor taking the consideration of making the prioritization for loans and grants covid based under consideration. i also want to highlight because this is the first that i have seen or heard this that you are considering making this pro profit only. i think that is a good step in the right direction. it will be something that would be well received, especially given the stuff that we have seen happen with the legacy program and rent availablization programming.

i want to inbe can you remembering you and your office as i mentioned when -- encourage you and your office when we think about how to help encourage our new businesses as we fill out these vacancies that are pro liferating all over the city. if someone qualifies and becomes part of this new program, is there a point where after a certain number of years they are rolled into the legacy business because they have gotten to that number of years? are these going to remain separate categories? >> that is a great question. that is one we have heard only

from one person so far who suggested that. what if you just make businesses automatically once they turn 30 years old they automatically join the legacy business program? i think that is something we would look to a body like yours for your thoughts on that. it is an interesting idea. we are very sensitive to making sure this is enhancing the legacy business program and not in competition in any way. i would be most curious to hear what you think about that. we are very open to that idea. we would want it to make sense. given we understand that. the idea behind this if we want this to be lower barrier to entree with businesses not around for 30 years. it may make sense. we want to encourage those

businesses that reach legacy age they would want that legacy status. we are open but would want to hear from stakeholders like yourself what you all think about that. >> thank you. >> i am a little confused about the status of nominating right now. your presentation said 50 or more or merchant association. the amendments i have been given it sounds like only a merchant association that are on the list or are nominated by the director of the office of small business. i guess where do you see the nomination process finalizing? it is hard to see because the

legislation is obviously in flux and a lot is changing. what is the current thinking how the nomination process will look like? >> it is a question if we are going to add the additional organizations that could serve the same purpose as a merchant association? >> it wasn't the most well formulatedded question. does the -- is it still possible in the final version for 50 people within a one mile zone to nominate a business? >> that is currently in legislation. we are keeping that. the question is there are two options one is merchant association making the nomination.

second is 50 signatures. we are considering based on feedback from the office of small business if we should add a third option which would be a neighborhood organization or some other cbo or someone else determined by the director as additional nominating authority. that is a new concept we are just starting to think about. >> to maybe elaborate on my recommendation is that the the two options are -- the merchants association or the petition, then what i am trying to fall for is the ability to add -- the

ability to identify additional organizations that would have the same role as the merchants association can then help broaden the number of businesses that would be nominated, particularly organizations that would represent businesses that are either the owners are not, english is not the first language. [please stand by]

. >> i think, you know, it's a really good idea, and that's why we're considering that. but, you know, that -- it

really comes down to things like that and priority type of outreach that comes down to sort of the traditional business organizations that are not connected with traditional fitness organizations. >> yeah. i guess i'm just think bg the -- of course, the neighborhood associations themselves aren't under -- we don't have the influence to control who they nominate because they're not part of the city, so presumably, and hopefully, it'll all work out well, but that has not always been the greatest plan in the past, so i'm just thinking prescriptively how we get ahead of that. commissioner huie? >> thank you very much. i have just a few questions.

along the same lines in terms of, like, outreach, is there a game plan at this moment to promote this and for the outreach? i mean, definitely outreach itself is going to be important so far, but as far as who and what? i mean generally, looking at the legacy business program already, i think for one person to administer the program itself takes up almost 100% of their time, and if there's no allocation for someone to do outreach, who then is expect today do it or can there be an additional person beyond what's been asked to do outreach? >> you know, that's come up a couple of times, so i just -- ian, please allow me to jump in on your behalf for just a second here. >> yes. >> so supervisor haney is chair

of budget, and so -- and i know their office is interested in adding to o.s.b. staff. i think the challenge is there's no way, with the way the city budgeting works, they can't, like, snap their fingers and make somebody appear. so it would be a fair amount of time, i think whenever the next budget happens, and the hiring process, they've got to list a job. ian, you can correct me if i am wrong on any of this, but the earliest we can get somebody would be next spring, summer-ish, and i could be wrong. it could be a little sooner than that. but then, it's not normal --

typically, legislation won't have a budget aspect in the legislation itself. that happens in the budget committee and through the mayor's office. so you wouldn't write into your legislation oh, we're going to put $1 million for staff, and then all the suits would vote on it. that's not how the budgeting process works. and ian, i didn't mean to jump in, but there's been a lot of conversation about that, and you can correct me if i'm wrong. >> yeah. responding to commissioner adams' comment before, we can't write it into the legislation because there's no staffing for it. but the reason we're doing this at the same time we're

advocating for those positions while enacting legislation, but one of the other things that we're hoping is -- and the office of economic and workforce development -- and i wouldn't know how long it's going to take to hire things, but the office of economic and workforce development would be able to provide some sort of assistance, at least in the interim, and again, other conversations we're having, and we have a new director there, and so they may be, i'm assuming, mixing things up. and that may be a good opportunity to identify someone who can step in in the interim and help with that. but any way that we're able to identify the support need today get, you know, businesses registered, do the outreach, you know, get people excited about supporting our small businesses during this

recovery, and having as strong a recovery as possible, we're for that, so any ideas you have, we are all for that. >> i just want to point out that i understand it's not going to be happen today, to be able to put this in the legislation, but i think it is my obligation as a commissioner to point out the missing pieces. when we're talking about not till next spring -- summer or spring, and this is supposed to be a piece of covid recovery legislation, then, you know, like, you know, i have to paint that into a real timeline. so we're saying that we're going to talk about this legislation and get people excited about it, but, like, when is it going to start and, like, what is going to be the actual benefit at that point?

so, i mean, i just don't -- you know, i caution, you know, i -- i don't know. i'm having a tough time grappling with the idea of creating more legislation that's sounding really wonderful and supportive but does not offer any true benefit, but what are we going to do? how are we going to create more excitement over something we can't promote until spring, or we can promote, but we don't have logistically people to sign them up till spring? like, that's not what my merchant friends want. and i think with what -- what i do appreciate, though, is the spirit of recovery and the spirit of support. so for sure, i hear that, and i

appreciate that, but i think i'm having a tough time understanding how this is going to actually be administered, if that's the reality of the situation and the timeline. >> i'm not sure about the timeline. i -- maybe director dick-endrizzi could speak to that, but no, we would not want to have any false notions of being able to do something that we can't, and we'd want to have solutions and help find them. >> so the good news is this is a -- today, this is a discussion item, and this is all important feedback i think that we're all reporting about the budget, and ian will be taking that back to supervisor chan, and there will be more conversations to be had before it comes back to us to be an

action item, and hopefully, we'll have more answers by then. hopefully, as ian pointed out. it's not uncommon for departments to borrow employees on a short-term basis, and that could be one way of solving this. but there are conversations that need to happen, and this is very much still a cake in the oven. but you're exactly right to point that out, commissioner huie, and commissioner adams, that that's a critical part. we shouldn't be making promises we can't keep, and we're going to put it out there, let's make sure we can deliver. did you have more questions, commissioner huie? >> i just had one. i had one in terms of formula retail, and how does that fit into anchoring neighborhood businesses? are they eligible? i think i saw, but i don't recall exactly. >> yeah.

what i just mentions is the reason we had set that -- the limit at 100 employees or less for businesses, the reason we wanted to was to focus on small businesses and not formula retail. that's really what that is, is to make sure that the intent was for local small businesses to benefit. >> and it's any businesses. it doesn't have to be, like, a retail street facing business? it can be, like, an office or something? >> well, actually, it does say having a storefront in commercial district, so it is more -- you know, because we're really looking at businesses that are critical to the communities that they're in and

already are helping bring other foot traffic in to support the corridor, you know, the commercial corridor around them. so, like, an office business wouldn't be unless they have like a street fronting, a retail space. >> okay. thank you very much for your clarification. >> thank you. >> thank you. commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> thank you, president laguana. thank you for the presentation. i'll be brief. just appreciate staffer. it's very important because the unintended consequence of not staffing this, always people of color are the ones that get underserved the most in situations like this. again, like my other commissioners huie and adams said, make sure we get staffing for this position, that's all,

for small business. thank you. >> thank you. vice president zouzounis? >> thank you. thank you. i have a question. the period -- the part that is referencing a minimum period of closure for eligibility, does that include temporary closures due to construction or disasters or soft-story retrofit? does that need to be specified or do you think that it's covered? >> you know, we -- this just took this directly from the legacy business, like, definition, so -- so to be honest, i don't know, but if it's shutting down operations -- so i don't know. i would assume that, like,

construction period would be included in there, but we also say any shutdown during the covid period would not affect that at all. >> so i don't remember. was there any specific time? when you say low barrier programs, are you referring to just the number of years a business has to be in operation to be considered or do you mean, like, in its implementation and -- and ability for a business to pass

through this process and successfully get on the registry? >> yes, both, really, i mean, because obviously, it's half the amount of time that the business has been operational as a legacy business, so it's not at that level. but also, you know, going through, you know, being nominated by a merchant association or by their own, you know, petitions that they gather from customers as opposed to being nominated by a supervisor or the mayor, and then also being approved by the office of small business as opposed to needing to schedule a hearing date at the small business commission, so both of those things. >> yeah. those are good points that you mentioned. i guess my fear of where it

might get stuck in the process, the legacy asks the business to self-certify if they have not had any labor violations, and then, we -- our office isn't required to check with olmb. so it's asking the office of small business to certify this prior to any sort of fiscal introduction, and that is not low barrier. so if you ask a legacy business coordinator how even the olse timeline works, it is a long, long, long, long process for each application. so that's one question i had, is why do you -- why is -- do

businesses say we have to introduce a state agency into this and have it as a preliminary process. and then, that's one question i have about the low barrier process. and then, the second is an application, so are you -- is the application process something that we do after this passes and it's something that is presented to the office of small business or is that something that we create after the fact? yeah, i had a question about that, so i think those are my two for right now. >> right. yes, good questions. one, the first one, i'm glad you brought that up because i didn't actually bring this up in the original feedback that i was talking about, but one thing i did get to discuss with director dick-endrizzi is we have discussed that with the city attorney, and we are going

to be changing to the self-certify as opposed to -- because for the reasons you mentioned. i don't need to state it perfectly. those are barriers that we did not intend to add, but we are going to make that change, so thank you for mentioning that. and then, the second piece was -- sorry. can you repeat the same question again? >> yeah. it was about the application, because i know -- >> right. >> -- there's language in there that says the office of small business is responsible for standing this up, when i think a recommendation we had planned to make is once an application is provided to us, but i just wanted to understand what that means. >> yes, so that was a recommendation. so two parts of that. the application, yes, would be created by the office of small

business, and one of the amendments that we discussed would be to change the -- the -- right now, it says there needs to be a report within 30 days of the legislation becoming effective. we would add an amendment as recommended by the office of small business, make that 30 days after the application is presented, is basically made available. so that would -- i hope that answers your question. does it? >> yes, thank you. okay. so if i may, i have a couple more comments. i know you were receptive to the prioritization question, so where is that now, as far as

businesses on this registration having priority to grants? >> yeah. so the language would be to change to say you have access to grant and loans -- or priority, prioritization for grants and loans related to covid recovery, so it would just be adding that to say it's related to covid recovery. okay. and i assume, like, we're talking about grants that might be with different agencies in the city, so is this language going to be enforceable in a way that different agencies will have to adhere to it in their dissemination of grants? >> yeah. i think it says in there that all city agencies would have to comply with the office of small business in administering this and making sure those goals are realized. >> yeah, that's helpful. and just the last comment i'll make is i agree with my

colleagues here about olsb in this. we should also have the option of the director being able to okay another organization to nominate, and lastly, i also agree that we should make this up for profit only registry as part of our final recommendation because just the capacity of the office of small business, we're not able to field nonprofit bookkeeping questions, so the technical supports that would be, you know, provided to businesses is not something that we even have the capacity to do at this point in time. thank you so much. >> thank you. i appreciate the [inaudible]. >> commissioner dooley?

>> i wanted to talk about the rollout of this program is not going to be maybe realistically a year from now? what will be the effect, if any, if the covid situation has more or less resolved itself in terms of on a daily basis for our businesses? will this become a moot -- will this cancel this legislation? curious about that, and i just want to add, like all my other fellow commissioners, you know, i am apprehensive of supporting legislation that would put an additional burden on the office of small business with no real guarantees that we're going to be able to do it. we don't want to be in a position where we can't fulfill what's laid out in this legislation, so that really worries me, and so i think that

is just the huge elephant in the room. we know that we're basically understaffed as it is, and if -- if we didn't get another full time employee, we're just not going to be able to do this. and i know myself and probably the other commissioners, i don't want to be put in that position is saying well, we can't execute this program, so it's just a huge issue in terms of our commission. that's it. >> president laguana, is it okay for me to -- >> yes. >> okay. absolutely. so i'm not sure, you know, when the next -- this is the first time i'd heard the idea of this being not until next spring, so i think we are doing everything we can, but i think we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we can -- that we get

the staffing or we get whatever's necessary as soon as possible, but i think what solves for that issue and not putting the office in the awkward position is as the office has suggested is the sort of promotional and the reporting and all of that wouldn't come due until 30 days after the application for the program is released, so we're not telling people, like, hey there's this new thing you should sign up for now, and it's not actually happening. it wouldn't happen until after that is released, so i think that's the attempt to solve for that. >> so i did want to say, for the benefit of the commission, i didn't mean to suggest there was a specific [inaudible]

we've known now for three months that we would be needing a commission secretary, and we're just now reviewing the applications, so i'm just doing some mental health. if this legislation were to pass in july, or if this legislation were to pass fairly soon, there would be a budget process to make that position available, and once the position was approved, there would have to be a job listing, and there would have to be interviews, and then, the person would be hired. i'm just mentally guesstimating that that wouldn't be this year, but i'm not the expert on this, and i didn't mean to put in the commission's mind a specific time frame. rather, it wasn't going to be something that was overnight or instantaneous. so commissioner adams? >> yeah, really quick.

you said this was an action item, and i'm showing on the list this is an action item, as well. >> in my notes, i have action and discussion. director dick-endrizzi. >> then that's an error on my side in terms of your notes. it is a discussion item on your agenda. apologize to you for that, president laguana. >> commissioner adams, thank you for bringing that to my attention. do you have a question on that? >> no, i'm good. >> okay. commissioner huie? >> as i'm thinking the thought process of the origin story of, like, the legislation, i would like to hear the story of how

you and supervisor chan and your office, you know, came up with the legislation. i just -- yeah, absolutely. the -- supervisor chan, before she was elected, thought this was something coming out of the pandemic, knowing that there would be the eviction moratorium in place, which was going to be lifted, that there's going to be a lot of --

anything related to commercial lease assistance aid, preventing evictions, so that's what this came out of. we started having conversations with different merchants and different, you know, organizations to get ideas about what this could look like, and that's -- this is where we ended uplanding on this, but that's really what it started from is the need to protect businesses that are assets as we come out of the pandemic and the restrictions are lifted. >> i think that's important for me to understand because my personal belief about legislation is it should be solving for something. i mean, it's not a question that i always ask, but it's a

question that came to mind as we started to talk more about this particular piece of legislation to really kind of understand what the specific issues were that you felt that, you know, could resolve, so thank you. >> thank you. ian, just two quick questions, or maybe not quick questions. i shouldn't prejudge, but just a few questions before we go to public comment. what is a neighborhood anchoring business? >> absolutely, yeah. so i -- when we think about -- you're -- i'm assuming you're meaning beyond just those strict criteria that we lay out? >> yeah. i'll tell you where i'm coming

from. there's a strict applying process, so i'm wondering what is the magic sauce that is the delta between the criterias outlined in the nominating process? what is what makes a business an anchoring business? >> yeah. it's a business that's a part of the community, and it brings in people to the area or maybe outside of the area and it's beneficial to the corridor and all of the businesses on the corridor. that's really what the heart of what we feel an anchor business is. >> okay. so -- and yeah, i think i'm going to leave it there for now. so with that, is there any

public comment on this item? >> mr. president, we have nine callers listening and two in the queue to speak. >> okay. let's have the first caller. caller, please go ahead. >> oh, okay. this is tom. let me kill my audio. okay. hi, this is tom frank. i'm one of the owners of finnegans wake. >> oh, tom, i'm sorry. i think you're calling about the legacy business, and we're hearing public comment on a separate item. >> okay. >> we'll -- >> i'll wait.

>> yeah, that'd be great. thank you. next caller, please. >> hi, good evening. this is earl shattuck, the economic of [inaudible] on third. thank you, commissioners, and president laguana, for vetting out this legislation. i think it'll be extremely impactful in the bayview-hunters point. specifically, i had communicated with commissioner dickerson as i was just overviewing the legislation. it came to mind that almost all of our african american owned businesses on the third street corner are in fact 15 years older or longer, so they would all be pretty darn good candidates for this, and i would also like to encourage all of you commissioners, if possible, to amend this, or at least strongly encourage, that

a third party or a c.b.o. gets a seat at the table or has the ability to nominate these businesses. i think it's extremely important that those c.b.o.s that are on the ground interacting with these businesses that are sometimes hard to rash, -- reach, that we somehow move the legislation forward. with that, i thank you for hearing this legislation. thank you. >> thank you, earl. are there anymore callers? >> mr. president, there are no more callers in the queue. >> okay. thank you. commissioners, i'm going inform make a motion to continue this item. there's a lot of discussion how the office of small business

will meet this legislation, and there's still, to me, a lot of balls in the air. i would move that we continue this to a later hearing, and once things are a little more finalized and we know what we're voting on. >> do we have a time -- and excuse me for not putting my name in -- for when this is going to be heard at either the committee or at the board of supervisors? >> ian, do you have a calendar on when this would be heard at the board of supervisors or any committee? >> i don't. it was being planned to be heard in the next meeting in two weeks, but other than that, i don't know. >> we can hear it at the next meeting and move it up if it

looks like it's going to be heard at the board soon. >> second. >> wait a minute. for clarification, if i may, are we able to add a recommendation onto this motion to -- to -- >> a recommendation onto the motion to continue? we've made a bunch of recommendations during the meeting, but director, can a motion to continue also have recommendations attached to it? >> yes, it can. so if there are specific -- as -- because your motion is to continue to hear this, which is you're wanting to bring it back after some more deliberation, correct? so if there are very specific things you want to ensure even though the commission is not

ready to take final action but get amended or considered between now and the next time that you hear it, then those -- it would be advised to stipulate those. >> yes. so commissioners, would you like to amend the motion with any additional recommendations for the benefit of the supervisor? >> i would like to include language that makes sure that this is not going to be approved without us hearing it again, and that our recommendations that were made in this meeting, we will -- can can -- i'm trying to think of the exact language. i just don't want us to go without a formal motion and recommendation, actually. >> i think that is actually really well said and

encapsulates everything nicely. so i think the motion would be to continue with a recommendation that the supervisor bring it back to the commission before advancing it to the board, particularly as we're the body overseeing the department that's the subject of the legislation. regina, did i say that well enough that it's conveyed -- excuse me, director dick-endrizzi, did i say that well enough? >> yeah, and i think that just because it's in my legislative review that it's, again, you know -- there are a few key things that will be important in this administration should this legislation pass. it's been noted, but i want it strongly noted that it's

for-profit businesses. >> yes. >> definitely, the director to be allowed to identify additional organizations to be able to nominate so that good -- it would be good to stress the things that you're also looking to ensure that are in the legislation when it comes back before you. >> i agree. i think we can -- those points are subpoints to what -- what you just said, president laguana, is this legislation will have an expectation of our office, and we do not -- we feel like we are asking that it should come back before us and not move forward until procedures that the office of small business is comfortable with in the recommendation,

including for profit [inaudible] and director's ability to bring in community organizations. >> i would add to that, director dick-endrizzi, the suggestion that the prioritization for loans and grants only be for covid related loans and grants. you know, i have some concerns about prioritizing already successful businesses ahead of brand-new fresh businesses, that that's what we're going to need to be filling the vacancy, so i don't want to create something that's, for years ahead, putting already successful businesses, at the front of the line. that, in my mind, creates some equity issues. >> all right. so the motion in my mind is to -- that the legislation --

that there's not a specific recommendation that you want to hear the legislation, have the legislation come back before you, and when it does come back, it does not move forward before coming back to the commission in terms of the board of supervisors process, and that the three key items that -- to be amended in the ordinance is, one, that the supplies to for-profit businesses, this registry applies to for-profit businesses only. two, allows the director to identify additional organizations to nominate, and three, that the prioritization for grants and loans is specifically covid related. did i capture that correctly? >> yes. those are current recommendations, although i will say several -- as recently as today, several business

organizations have reached out to me. i think everybody is still digesting this, but that's the current recommendations. i think that's right. are we ready to take a vote? >> so that was a motion -- that was a dual kind of motion between president laguana -- i think, president laguana, you made the initial motion. are you willing to accept commissioner zouzounis' recommendation? >> i do accept them, and i am thankful for them. >> okay. so we have a motion by commissioner laguana, seconded by -- >> commissioner dooley. >> by commissioner dooley, and i will now go into roll call. [roll call]

>> that motion passes, 7-0. >> all right. thank you. thank you, ian. >> thank you for your time and your feedback. >> all right. next item, please. >> item number 5 is a resolution drk-small business resolution 003-2012 ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement statement. the resolution complies with the city's racial equity action plan to have boards and commissions read a statement acknowledging the ramaytush ohlone community at each small business commission meeting and to amend the rules of order to reflect this mandate. this resolution is part of the office of small business -- >> excuse me, director, i

apologize. in my notes, i have legacy business as being the next item. >> so sorry. i've really lost it today. pardon me, rick. we are now back to item 4, approval of legacy business registry applications and resolutions. we have six, seven businesses to have you this evening, and i will turn it over to richard kurylo, the legacy business manager to present to you, and my apologies to the legacy businesses that are before you this evening. >> no problem. welcome, rick. go for it. >> thank you. regina, can i steal the ball from you or do i have to wait for you to give that to me?

okay. see if i can share my screen properly. can you see that? great. can you hear me? can you see everything? everything's good? good evening, president laguana, vice president zouzounis, small business staff. rich kurylo, legacy business manager. before you are seven businesses for the legacy business registry. the applications were submitted to planning on march 11 and heard by the historic preservation commission on april 7. item 4-a is fanta cleaners, inc. it provides business cleaning

and laundry services under two different names in two neighborhoods. fanta deluxe cleaners in [inaudible] and [inaudible] in cow hollow. the core feature tradition the business must maintain to remain on the legacy business registry is laundry service. item 4-b is finnegans wake. the bar opened in noe valley in 1976. after a five-year hiatus between 1984 and 1989, the business opened at its current location in noe valley. they have hosted annual barbecues for three decades on memorial day and labor day and regularly host and sponsor

several sports leagues like pool, darts, softball, and soccer. the bar has also won the san francisco bloody mary festival five years in a row. the core feature tradition the business must maintain is bar. item 4-c is flowercraft. the business is a local family owned garden center founded by philip lerner in 1974. flowercraft sells a large variety of soils, trees, flowers, and gardening hardware. they also provide natural and organic fertilizers and pest control. flowercraft regularly hosts three workshops that are open to the public such as beekeeping, rose keeping, pruning, california native plants, and more. the core feature the business must maintain is garden center.

item 4-d is lyon-martin community health services. it was formed as a clinic for lesbians who lacked access to nonjudgmental affordable health care.

-- item 4-e is old ship saloon. the bar is the oldest known business to still be operating in san francisco and may be one of the oldest bars on the west coast. opened in 1851, the old ship saloon has a well documented and fascinating history, starting with its inception as a ship wreck turned alehouse operating out of the ship's land locked hull. when the hull was overcome by the sandy terrain, it was moved to this building. old ship saloon has weathered many turbulent storms in san

francisco's history and has been able to stay afloat during its ever changing tides. i did not make that lineup. i thought it was very clever; i really liked it. item 4-f is san francisco bay times. it's a publication in the mission to connect the diverse community in the bay area, specifically, the lgbtq area. today, content is available in print and web based applications. after 43 years, the core goals of the bay time remains the the same: providing quality content to its readers on a biweekly basis. the core it must maintain is covering issues in the lgbtq community. item 4-g is yankee clipper travel. it moved to san francisco in 1991.

yankee clipper serves the lgbtq community for all aspects for travel around the world. the business is staffed by world travelled staff who have a wide range of experience for customers. yankee clipper represents a number of lgbtq cruises and tours. all seven businesses met the three criteria for listing on the legacy business registry, and all seven received a positive recommendation from the his torque preservation commit -- historic preservation commission. thank you. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions. there may be business

representatives on the line who would like to speak on behalf of the application during public comment. >> awesome. thank you so much. commissioners, do we have any comment? okay. so we'll go to public comment. before we begin public comment, i'll just say to the gentleman for finnegans wake, please do not feel bad. that's an easy mistake to make. the public comment system could not be more confusing if the city tried, and sometimes i think the city really, really tried its best to make it as complicated as possible. so with that, the fault is entirely ours. so with that, is there any public commenters on the line? >> mr. president, we currently have four callers on the line. >> okay. first caller, please.

caller, go ahead. >> good evening. i'm donna sashay, proud san francisco resident for 35 years. thank you, commission, for your service. [inaudible] and to foster civic engagement and pride by assisting long-standing businesses to remain in the city. i can think of no more well suited or qualified candidate that the san francisco bay times. for over 40 years, it's brought issues about the lgbtq community to that community. i have written regular columns, features, and guest pieces for several other san francisco publications and never have i received such wide ranging

editorial support, with a strong on-line presence and social media posts, and never have i seen a local business so willingly and skillfully serve its immediate sponsor organizations large and small, events for hundreds and events for dozens and individual charitiable efforts that impact a wide variety of our diverse community. the san francisco bay times has become the go-to source for the entire lgbtq community covering everything from politics to medicine and supports, from fundraising galas and who's wearing what to life altering rallies and protests. the san francisco bay times undoubtedly reflects san francisco's wide cultural

identity. please give swift approve to the san francisco bay times to be designated an official legacy business. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. can you hear me? >> we sure can. please go ahead. >> great. thank you so much. thank you, president laguana and commissioners. good evening. think amy by -- this is amy bynart, legislative aide to supervisor hillary ronen. first, there's flowercraft garden center, which has a unique and vibrant history with deep roots in san francisco. the founder of flowercraft, philip lerner, now in his 80s, opened the business 40 years

ago. it has an ever growing number of dedicated, intergenerational clientele. the company regularly donates to many local nonprofits and schools, including city of dreams, district 9s own drag queen bingo and homeless prenatal programs. it donates christmas trees to several organizations during the winter holidays. while the surrounding neighborhoods continued to change, flowercraft has remained a constant. it has served district 9 in san francisco for decades. and then second, but very much not in second place, is lyon-martin health services. lyon-martin was founded in san francisco in 1979 to provide access to health care for lesbians and soon to become a model for culturally sensitive community based health care.

now, in its 42 year, lyon-martin health services is a community run nonprofit serving low-income cisgender women and lesbian women. it has been a life saving service for the community, and supervisor ronen supports this consideration and supports your applications for the legacy business registration. thank you so much. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. can everyone hear me?

>> we sure can. please go ahead. >> okay. thank you, commissioners, for considering fanta cleaners on the legacy business registry. i'd like to also thank the staff that has assisted us throughout this process and has been a huge help in us being here today. my name is bryant park, and i'm here representing fanta cleaners on behalf of my mom, young park. this is a very emotional moment for my mom, and i'm going to do my best to convey what she'd like to say today. for the best part of her life, she provided essential services to the city, cleaning people's clothes, tailoring to people's needs. she became a part of their life, and through cleaning and tailoring their clothes, she

served people in many different communities. despite challenges on a personal level, including the tech crash and business closures directly affecting fanta, and now this pandemic, my mom didn't waver in her effort to help the community in the best way she knew how. the tech companies have come and they've conquered the market. they've found ways to monopolize the service, yet she has found ways to keep the relationships that she has come to love in the city, and she has found ways to survive. she has been a survivor.

over the past, i would say about 40 years that she's been serving the city, she's found ways to, whether it's through luck or hard work or perseverance, she's found a way to stay around and not be closed down by the larger private equity funded b.c. funded companies that have wanted to basically take the business away from her. even most recently during the pandemic, rather than finding ways to figure out how she would financially survive once again, she has prepared masks to share to local residents because she knew that it's about people first, and i think that's where her heart has always been, for others first before herself. so basically, to be a part of this registry is such an honor,

and words cannot express enough how we feel to be a part of our city, a part of our home, so thank you, again, commissioners. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hello there. thank you, office of small business, for maintaining the legacy business program and considering these applications. my name is casey, and i've lived in the panhandle area for 14 years. i'm calling in support of the application for finnegans wake. they not only certainly qualify for this program but would also be a top nominee for the afore mentioned anchor business program. they are a main stay of cole valley and have continued to provide a community gathering space for the city. i appreciate your time and consideration and urge your support of their application. thank you. [please stand by]

we started as and continue to be truly for community health care clinic. people who bring life and light to our city while struggling to survive. we have contributed to the black and brown communities, people who are disabled,

undocumented or formally encarson rated, we serve them all. we are our communities. given our struggle to survive as a clinic ourselves this past year and with the passing of our name sake, phyllis lion last year, to demonstrate their commitment to the most marginalized queer and transgender communities. to the life of the city when no one else can or will. to preserve phyllis and dull's legacy to ensure queer and transwomen don't fall through the cracks to ensure the health and well being of our community. please keep us alive. thank you. >> president laguana: thank you. next caller please. >> mr. president, there are no more callers in the queue at this moment. >> president laguana: okay.

seeing no public comment. commissioner adams. >> commissioner adams: yeah. congratulations to all the nominees today. i want to give a shout out to two special ones. i know the first caller and i want to wish donna sashay a happy birthday today. calling in on your birthday. what betty has done with the writers and the columnist really does affect our community and the online presence, it's so important for our community. so i just want to congratulate the bay times and thank betty for what she's done with that paper and just turning it in to the power house that it is in

the san francisco lgbtq community. i also want to give a shout-out to lion martin health center. a caller said something very important. it's for our community run by our community and what they've done for our community is, you know, my heart, we owe you. so thank you for everything lion martin has done for this community and it hasn't been easy especially the last couple of years, but you guys made it work, so thank you. >> president laguana: thank you. commissioner dooley. >> commissioner dooley: words can hardly express my admiration for flower craft nursery. i have been a patron for [inaudible] years. the whole neighborhood nursery,

reasonable prices, always there for help, always wonderful people from the community working there and i'm thrilled to see that they're going to get some well deserved recognition. so thank you so much flower craft nursery. you make my life much better. >> president laguana: thank you. vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: i just wanted to say thank you to all the legacy businesses that called in today. those were amazing testimonies and the generations and the generations of families that have created these businesses, it really shows through in your comments. so i just wanted to thank you. >> president laguana: thank you. and, just to add a few words of my own, you know, i grew up with two dads and in the 80s,

the san francisco bay times i think was called "coming up" or up coming" something like that and i lived in ohio and they would go to cape cod, to p-town and they'd go to san francisco, those are like the two vacation spots and they would come back with this paper and, you know, i remember when i moved here in the early '90s, i was like oh, that was that paper i used to see in ohio. so it's so amazing that, you know, and it was great to hear commissioner adams' comments. what an amazing contribution to the culture and to that community. and, on a side note, not a side note. so the old ship saloon. i had a friend that was the chef next door. there was a restaurant next door, i can't quite remember

the name, but i would wander up -- commissioner dooley's reminding me. unmute yourself. please tell me. >> commissioner dooley: glow. >> president laguana: yeah. that's it. and so i would wander in there and it's called that for the amusement of my fellow commissioners. it was called that because it started as an old ship so those were all shipyards right there and everyone would go up and go gold mining and so the ship that was there was called "the arkansas" so the owner set up a plank and all the gold miners would walk up the plank. it was actually in an old ship and in 1906, that's when they think it went away because everything collapsed in the earthquake, but, you know, there was always these rumors

that the ship was underneath where the bar was and everybody was like and they're digging right under and sure enough, there was the ship. the pieces were still under there and i had to tell it. congratulations to all of our legacy i guess it's too early for our congratulations. we have to have a moment. >> commissioner: i'll motion that we approve all legacy business. >> commissioner dooley: second. >> secretary: we have a motion by commissioner adams. seconded by commissioner

dooley. roll call. [roll call] >> director: mr. president, that motion passes seven to zero. >> president laguana: thank you so much. congratulations to all our legacy business. next item, please. >> director: next item is item number five. i have the numerical item correct now. it's resolution number 003-2021 and it is the ramaytush ohlone land a resolution to adopt the statement as i read earlier to

be read during our commission meetings and to have it amend our rules of order to reflect the reading of the statement. and, commissioners, the resolution is in your packet. please let me know if i need to bring it up for review, but also i'd like to turn it over to the racial equity special committee chair miriam zouzounis for some words. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you, director. yeah. i'm, again, excited to bring some of the work we've done in the racial equity committee to our full commission. this is on the top of our agenda of items that are part of the racial equity goals and we i think today we're voting on the full resolution which

the statement itself is that we will be reading is an abridged version of that. we have reviewed it as a racial equity committee and i believe we are all in support and i'm in the formal capacity. >> president laguana: thank you, vice president. would you be so kind as to read the statement for us. >> vice president zouzounis: just the statement part, not the full part. >> president laguana: yeah. just the statement part. >> vice president zouzounis: okay. i don't have it right in front of me. so give me a second. or can someone put it in the chat? >> president laguana: we're not supposed to use the chat.

>> director: commissioner zouzounis, i will bring it up. >> vice president zouzounis: okay great. >> director: it's split between the two resolutions and i will share. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you. great. i'm going to read the statement that we will vote on to be read at the beginning of our meetings. the san francisco small business commission and office of the small business staff acknowledges that we on the unseeded and central homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the san francisco peninsula. as indigenous stuarts of this land and in accordance with their tradition. the ramaytush ohlone have never forgotten their responsibility as caretakers of this place as well as all people to reside in their traditional territory.

as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramatytush ohlone community. >> director: that's it. >> president laguana: you're good. great. thank you. yes. so should we go to public comment? let's go to public comment. >> clerk: mr. president, there are currently no callers in the queue for this item. >> president laguana: great. seeing none. public comment is closed. i move that we approve the statement or resolution. i move that we approve the resolution. that's what we're supposed to do here. >> director: yes. approve the resolution to read the statement at the meeting.

that's the summary of it. >> vice president zouzounis: i will second. >> director: all right. we have a motion to approve the resolution by commissioner laguana seconded by commissioner zouzounis. roll call. [roll call] that motion passes 7-0. >> president laguana: wonderful. great job, everybody. thank you for the work to get that done. next item, please. >> director: next item is item number 6. this is general public comment which allows members of the public to comment on matters that are within the small business's jurisdiction, but not on today's calendar and

suggest new agenda items for the commission's future consideration. >> president laguana: are there any public commentors on the line? >> clerk: mr. president, there are currently no callers on the line for this item. >> president laguana: seeing none. public comment is closed. next item, please. >> director: next item is item number 7 director's report. update and report 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. so i have a very brief report for you. i do want to let you know that the music -- the live music and entertainment venue recovery fund has officially launched last week and i'm very happy to say that we had a very smooth launch. we didn't have any technical

glitches with our online application. so and currently to date, we have 38 applicants. the application deadline on may 5th so that's just a little overa week. in addition to that also the city's additional grant program, but the mayor was part of the mayor's announcement a couple months ago have also launched and then happy to say that the s.b.a. and vice president zouzounis if there's anything you'd like to add. no. okay. correction. >> vice president zouzounis: restaurant revitalization didn't launch yet. it will be may 3rd.

>> director: okay. >> vice president zouzounis: for the public. >> director: so, yes, so just those are coming. so that's exciting news for our businesses to be able to apply for those financial support packages. and, in addition, it was noted in our eblast on thursday that president biden is providing credit for businesses who are allowing their employees to take paid leave to be able to get their vaccinations. so i will send you details on this, but this is a huge incentive to really encourage employers to, you know, allow their employees to take time off to get their vaccinations

so that we can get more people vaccinated and businesses will be reimbursed for that time. and then, next, i want to just highlight that for our next meeting. we will be hearing supervisor ronen has introduced a code for establishment this is something that commissioner dooley and commissioner adams and commissioner ortiz-cartagena and perhaps commissioner zouzounis, you'll remember back in 2015 when we heard the ordinance it was the recommendation that massage needs to be aligned as part of the healing arts with health services and so this legislation is actually aligning massage with our health services and really

increasing the number of zoning districts where that can take place. so this is very exciting. it's been awhile and it's as you know, dominica had presented on the bite paper that the office developed to help justify this legislation which i will resend out for everyone in case you want to read it, but we will be hearing that on may 10th along with hearing for congestion pricing. you'll be getting a presentation on congestion pricing and then a special presentation from community member. so those are some of the key highlights for our up coming

meeting. and, then, i do want to make note that we will likely be, i will, for the month of may start working on plans for bringing back in-client services to our office. so, that is on the horizon, it's hard to believe that we will be back at a place and getting, having the ability to be able to provide services face to face and indoors. so that planning process will be taking place during the month of may and the likelihood is we'll be not at full capacity, but some capacity looking at june. so, i think, with that, i will end my public comment -- i mean, my director's report and

i think as commissioner laguan said, we have received our applications for the commission secretary policy analyst position and so we'll shortly begin interviews. so that is on the horizon for us as well. if there's any questions, i'm happy to take them. >> president laguana: commissioners, do we have any questions? great. seeing none. is there any public comment? >> clerk: mr. president, there are no callers in the queue for this item. >> president laguana: seeing none. public comment is closed. next item, please. >> director: next item is commissioner discussion and new business items. >> president laguana: commissioners, do we have any new business?

vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: well, we are coming to an end of era of american heritage month so i wanted to note that the city administrator did recognize that and send commission profiles of different arabs that are in our public service. so if you all got that, cool. and, yeah, i just wanted to let you all know that we have celebrated that and small businesses were a big part of the mayor's statement for american heritage month. so she did give props to all the arab small business owners in the city. >> president laguana: awesome. commissioner adams, were you looking to make a comment. >> commissioner adams: i was going to say i'm just giving

her a thumbs up. my hometown of dearborn, michigan, i had several family and friends celebrate arab heritage month and it was special. >> president laguana: great. so, commissioners, i'm going to remind everybody that may is small business challenge month. we had a very successful launch of the san francisco small business challenge and now i'm bummed out i don't have one of the challenge coins. if we were meeting in person, i'd give each of you a challenge coin. for the month of may, can you shop and dine only using small businesses. that is the challenge. heather knight and peter heartlove at the chronicle have agreed to take the challenge. pretty shortly here, i'm going to be challenging each of the supervisors. several of them have already agreed to take the challenge.

i will be of course expecting the rest of them to take the challenge and so, i'll need your help holding them to account on that because we want to make sure all our elected officials take the challenge and that will be a fun game that we get to play in may which is how many small businesses can we shop at and the hashtag is hashtag smallbizchallenge. there's a website at smallbiz30.com for the 30-day challenge. but it's actually 31 so i didn't think about that before i got the domain. that's details. whatever. the other thing i wanted to mention -- shoot. i guess i can't mention that.

stupid brown act. well, actually -- no. director, like can we talk about future agenda items if it's actually in a public open meeting? >> director: you can mention it as an informational item, but not have a discussion on it. >> president laguana: okay. got it. so several small business leaders including myself put out a petition this morning. we are supporting -- you know what, i think i'm going to save this. i'll let you guys google it or find it. i don't want to say anything that's going to get me in trouble with anybody down the line because i'm realizing if i'm talking about this stuff, now i just said i'm supporting it. maybe i'm not being informational. you know, it's tricky gray

zone. so i'm just going to shut my mouth before i get myself in trouble. so that's my news. is there any other commissioners with news? i don't see any. so do we have any public comment? >> clerk: mr. president, there are no callers in on the line for this item. >> president laguana: great. so seeing none. public comment is closed. next item, please. >> director: sfgov tv, please show the office of small business slide. >> president laguana: 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. >> director: item number 9, adjournment. this is an action item. do we have a motion. >> commissioner: so moved. >> director: motioned by commissioner ortiz-cartagena. second? >> president laguana: i second. >> director: seconded by commissioner laguana. roll call. [roll call] that motion passes 7-0. the meeting is adjourned at 7:27. >> president laguana: thank you all. >> director: thank you, commissioners. and thank you for putting up with a meeting that had a lot of hick ups.

>> president laguana: we appreciate you, director. >> director: thank you.

. >> president yee: of the 26 neighborhoods we have in west portal, it's probably the most unique in terms of a small little town. you can walk around here, and it feels different from the rest of san francisco. people know each other. they shop here, they drink wine here. what makes it different is not only the people that live here, but the businesses, and without all these establishments, you wouldn't know one neighborhood from the other. el toreador is a unique restaurant. it's my favorite restaurant in san francisco, but when you look around, there's nowhere else that you'll see decorations like this, and it makes you feel like you're in a

different world, which is very symbolic of west portal itself. >> well, the restaurant has been here since 1957, so we're going on 63 years in the neighborhood. my family came into it in 1987, with me coming in in 1988. >> my husband was a designer, and he knew a lot about art, and he loved color, so that's what inspired him to do the decorations. the few times we went to mexico, we tried to get as many things as we can, and we'd bring it in. even though we don't have no space, we try to make more space for everything else. >> president yee: juan of the reasons we came up with the legacy business concept, man

eel businesses were closing down for a variety of reasons. it was a reaction to trying to keep our older businesses continuing in the city, and i think we've had some success, and i think this restaurant itself is probably proof that it works. >> having the legacy business experience has helped us a lot, too because it makes it good for us because we have been in business so long and stayed here so long. >> we get to know people by name, and they bring their children, so we get to know them, also. it's a great experience to get to know them. supervisor yee comes to eat at the restaurant, so he's a wonderful customer, and he's very loyal to us.

>> president yee: my favorite dish is the chile rellenos. i almost never from the same things. my owner's son comes out, you want the same thing again? >> well, we are known for our mole, and we do three different types of mole. in the beginning, i wasn't too familiar with the whole legacy program, but san francisco, being committed to preserve a lot of the old-time businesses, it's important to preserve a lot of the old time flavor of these neighborhoods, and in that capacity, it was great to be recognized by the city and county of san francisco. >> i've been here 40 years, and i hope it will be another 40 year

>> during the coronavirus disease covid-19 emergency, this committee will convene remotely until it is allowed to meet in person. comments or opportunity to speak during the public comment period are available by calling 415-655-0001, access code 146-187-9247. again, 146-187-9247, and then pound and then pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions, but you will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of