>> this is the meeting of the small business commission augus. the meeting is called to order at 4:30 p.m. the small business commission thanks media services and sfgovtv for televising the meeting which can be viewed on sfgovtv or live streamed at sfgovtv.org. members of the public calling in, the number is 415-655-0001. the access code for this evening is (146)433-4166. 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 by added to the queue. when you are called for public comment please mute the device that you are listening to the meeting on. when it is your time to speak, you will be prompted to do so. call from a quiet location and speak clearly and slowly. turn down the device you are listening to the meeting on. public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker medicals established by the presiding officer and a alarm will sound when the time has finished. speakers are requested but not required to state their name. sfgovtv, please show the office of small business slide. >> today we will begin with

reminder the small business commission is the official public forum for your opinions and concerns about policies affecting economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. the office is the best place to get answers for doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance you can find us online or via phone. our services are free of charge. before item 1 i would like to start media services and sfgovtv for coordinating the hearing and live stream. special thanks to matthew for assisting with public comment. >> 1. call to order and road call. >> commissioner adams. >> present. >> commissioner dickerson. >> here. >> commissioner huie.

>> here. >> commissioner laghana. >> here. >> commissioner cartagena. >> present. >> you have a quorum. >> thank you. the san francisco small business commission and office of small business staff acknowledges we are on the unseated home land of the they have never forgotten their responsibility as well as for all peoples residing in the territory. we recognize that we benefit from living and working on the traditional homeland. we wish to pay respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives and affirming their rights. please call item 2, please. presentation.

kate sofis, director of the office of economic and work force development will discuss her vision and priorities as the new direct or and discussion the office of economic and work force development's charge to lead the implementation of the city's economic recovery plan. this is a discussion item, commissioners. with director sofis is the director of economic recovery initiative in the office of work force development. i will turn it over to you, director sofis. you have the controls. >> all right. good afternoon. >> welcome. >> it is good to be here. i am looking forward to this. thank you for having us today. let's move on to the next slide.

another i will go through the presentation and want to have open dialogue with the commission. we will go through this and have a discussion and dialogue. thank you for the privilege of working with you and presenting to you. we will frame the office of economic and work force development here in san francisco. it is focused on prosperity with a special emphasis on equity and equitable economic development for our city. the purview of this department which i will show you in a minute includes growing sustainable jobs, internships and work opportunities for individuals across the city, supporting businesses all sizes with a special focus on the small business community. really helping create a city that is a wonderful place to work and to live and enable

people to achieve economic self-sufficient see for themselves and families. we focus on businesses, jobs, our neighborhoods, which house those businesses and our people who live here. we also look at the real estate infrastructure around the supporting space for our businesses. this is a model of really how we do what we do. it speaks to how we are organized to do what we do. starting from the top. on the part of our work that supports businesses, osb is what i consider to be our really powerful front door to being a small business in san francisco. you know well what osb does, but the idea that osb is where

someone can start, understand how to get their business off the ground, how to sign permits, find a small space. everything osb does is the top of the pyramid for small business to enter into our department and our city. we have a strong connection between osb and one of our other teams that also supports small businesses called invest in neighborhoods. the invest in neighborhoods team came out of the vision that so many of our neighborhood commercial businesses are combination of business but also a business powerfully rooted in a specific community of people. within invest in neighborhoods we have the sbdc which offers technical assistance to small businesses, opportunity neighborhood initiative that is the work that we do with the

black community and bayview and filmore and latin x and commission. we have the community benefit program with the community benefits districts city-wide to help them invest in our communities. then moving down the pyramid to the largest companies or larger companies, we then start to organize ourselves by sector. within business development we have sector focus areas such as production distribution and repair. that would include our partnerships with groups like sf need for manufacturing or golden gate restaurant association for restaurants. we have these that are focused on entire groups of businesses and how we help drive resources

and insight to those groups to again help generate economic returns for the city and also job opportunities. that leads us to the second area of oewd, work force development. i see a strong connection between our business support functions, which include osb invest in neighborhood business development and other sector strategies and work force development. if you think about it, the health of our businesses are what actively create work activities and career exposure opportunities for young people. within work force development which is really the w of oewd, we have adult programs that help engage in finding work opportunities, youth programs such as opportunities for all, summer jobs program, which helps

young people work with both small businesses as well as larger businesses for career exposure opportunities similar to business development. we also have sector training programs within work force development including the city build program, advance manufacturing sector training, training around healthcare. really, it is a combination of collective effort to help businesses start, grow and stay in san francisco and our work to help individual people connect with those career opportunities is how we work within oewd. i also want that list is important path some people take from being a job seeker to potentially being a entrepreneur or starting a small business. that is an increasing focus for us not only helping people find

jobs, also helping them connect to the subset of people that want to instead of just a job want to find self-employment as a way to support themselves to make that leap that is a very important focus area going forward. last but not least on the bottom. the way i think about it. the primary services helping people find jobs, launch businesses and supporting businesses. underneath all of that may be an analogy is tilling the soil in which businesses and people thrive. infrastructure which includes joint development that really is about these larger real estate projects that provide future homes for housing and also for small businesses. for example the work we are doing now with pier 70. these are larger developments

that we in the city want to ensure there is space for our businesses and small businesses to thrive as well as other uses is what joint development is about. then we have a function that we call policy and impact. that is focused on partnering with you, the board of supervisors, and with the mayor's office on policy. it would include work to constantly look at what we might need to advocate at the state level and federal level to benefit small business. last but not least, our new director of economic recovery initiatives is focused on taking some of the work many of you are involved in the last 18 months around covid-19 economic recovery and how we layer those into the work that oewd does and other departments do. i will use an example because i

am the parent of several children, including one with disabilities. for me looking at education is part of economic recovery for small businesses and working families as we might control within oewd. part of what they are looking at is not only how to make sure what we do in the department supports an equitable economic recovery but looking across city departments where we need to go. briefly, what has this department done in the last 18 months? first i have been in this role three months. i have partnered with oewd coming from the community. i came as having founded in the executive director of supporting manufacturing for the last 12 years.

i will say oewd is the department we worked most closely within everything we did. i cannot take credit for all of the incredible results the team osb and oewd accomplished. i am proud as partner for the incredible response this department has taken. again, i see osb as not only its own entity but integral part of workforce development. i am proud to hold up accomplishedments the team have accomplished over the last 18 months. when we look at hot lines a combination of workforce and osb staff responded to 25,000 calls and requests for help, 270

virtual events. our websites which include oewd and specific websites connected to osb have gathered 1 million visitors. we have begun to use what i might call the opportunity of this crisis to start to pilot new ways of connecting with small businesses more proactively. we were able to over the past 18 months start linking automatic e-mail notifications of health order changes to small changes. i have heard in full support going beyond that in the future to look at how to proactively text message to get information out to small businesses. i am excited we have started over the last 18 months. last but not least we have pushed out over $50 million in

loans and grants. these have been zero percent interest to small businesses as well as almost $25 million in direct relief to displaced workers over the last 18 months. this is a summary of specifically some of the grants and loans. i want to highlight here as we did not long ago at the board of supervisors when we were asked to talk about grants and loans and relief to small businesses. i want to highlight a couple things about the $52 million of grants and loans that have gone out. the first is $52 million is significant amount of money out of the city's budget. overwhelmingly these grants and loans have privileged businesses owned by people of color and women.

that is in sharp contrast to the percentage of the same groups represented by the money coming through the federal government, in particular. one thing i want to highlight is the local giving has directly focused on offsetting what has been inequity in who has managed to get some of the federal and state dollars. the other point i want to make is what we have been able to do locally while impressive is a drop in the bucket to the amount of money coming out, particularly at the federal government. as this slide shows at the bottom compared to the $52.8 million that we were able to do we have seen $6.1 billion coming out of federal ppp loan programs into california. some of our businesses, some of

our women owned businesses have availed themselves of the programs. not as many as we would like to see. it is important to see what we can do to recognize that we have to be looking at both what we do locally but also looking at ways to direct more of the federal dollars as we get more dollars released to our community because this is so much more resource than we can have locally. our recovery priorities really are the following so far. i will preface that by saying we are in and continue to be in changeable times right now. one of the things i am most proud of is how flexible and nimble we have been. i think none of us know where we are going with the new delta

variant. i will say i am committed to both putting stakes in the ground about what we want to focus on and recognizing that we as department need to continue to understand what is happening and changing and need to be willing to adjust priorities to reflect reality of what we are all addressing. at this moment in time, these are some of my and our priorities. first and foremost is looking at economic recovery through an equity lens. we have to and i use the example. maybe in the past we would measure unemployed as overall metric to the region. we have to look at unemployment as it relates to specifically different communities and not just assuming that if we have an overall unemployment rate 4% that means that is the same rate in the bayview.

everything we do whether it is measuring unemployment, recovery of businesses, has to have an equity lens through all of our work. i think the same is with our work force, whether we are looking at businesses, who we are helping secure employment in our work force, same goes. that is exciting and also an important lens to how we approach what we do. >> third and this is not necessarily in order of value, but third and i think very important for this city to -- we have had a harder hit with respect to our economy around tourism than some other u.s. cities. as an example we know that new york has already returned a significant amount of travel to its economy. new york city.

we have not. it is very real that our downtown and our tourist district have been hit hard. we are not yet nearly at recovery level. with delta, that is really pushing out the recover retimeframe. you might ask how does that relate to small businesses across the city? you can start with the overall tax base benefits. there are small business businet serve downtown. tourism doesn't start and stop only in designated tourist areas it is throughout the city. we also know that we have a lot of work force and jobs for our residents being supported by downtown hotels, offices. we know that while we focus on our neighborhoods and focus on small businesses, we also have to keep an eye on our larger

businesses and on getting visitors back to this city. that might start with the visitors from california or those who can drive to san francisco. at some point it also needs to start looking at how we also get visitors back from other parts of the country and from oversees because that is such an important part of our economy. last but not least, we have a dashboard that pat daniel is working on to all start to have a shared set of visual metrics around recovery. -- number five is taking the opportunity and i will use that word of this awful pandemic and pause in our economy that none of us asked for to restate what it is we want to be as we exit

this pandemic. in talking with many organizations and businesses and people who were born here and people who moved here, there is something around seizing on our roots as a creative place and founding our version of what often has -- what is us? what is our san francisco? how do small businesses fit into that? what is it that will make a visitor want to come here and how do we lift up our arts, performing arts, music, you know, even creative small business and taxi economies? how do we find a new umbrella to express identity in san francisco? that is something i want to use

the opportunity of this awful moment in time to start to put some words and thoughts around. last but not least, i want to talk about oewd. oewd came out of actually several departments that used to be separate and that also used to be within the mayor's office as opposed to independent department. we have work force development, economic development. we now have been building previously the idea of one strong department to serve everybody. my commitment as the new department head is to really focus on one oewd that connects our work force development, economic development together. just like our programs on

equity, racial equity and how we think about our department and that starts with how we hire and promote and see ourselves in the same way that we see our work in the community. again, i am a mom. i have a lot of care for building a department that has accountability and also creates sustainable work paths for the 140 people that work for this department in the service how we support the work in the community. last but not least that we constantly root ourselves in data and insight. that is why this economic recovery dashboard for me is so important. when we have policy discussions about small businesses or big businesses it is rooted in data. are we at the end?

that is it. >> great. i know that there is a hard stop at 5:30 p.m. i want to have some space available for cat and anything she wanted to share and comment on before commissioner questions. >> maybe talk about the process to develop the dashboard since that is a primary focus for now. >> absolutely. thank you for allowing me to be here. this is the first day of school in oakland. i need to make sure my first grader made it through in person. i attended the last small business commission meeting as an observer and listened to your discussion around recovery and just appreciated so much the insight that you had and look forward to working with you all

going forward. around the economic recovery dashboard, as kate mentioned, we are aware that we are very much in a dynamic environment and we still don't have complete information around the consequences and real impact of covid in the last 17 months. we don't know how things are going to change going forward. the first discussion that kate and i had was about her focus on making sure that we had the data that we needed and the information we needed in order to make really smart informed and strategic decisions. this dashboard is meant to encapsulate that. there i want to sort of put this in the full context.

there are several at the controller's office creating a monthly report around some economic indicators every opening and recovery in the city process. the chamber has a dashboard looking at some data points around their interest areas. we are working with both of them. we have also done a scan of what other cities are tracking as they are looking at recovery so that we can bring together the telling data points that are complimentary to those other projects and create one comprehensive view of major indicators of recovery that focus on the entire city in

scope and collectively together give a very good snapshot of our city's progress towards recovery. what may be going well and what may be with the intent to serve as jumping off point where people can get comprehensive snapshot and see where they might want to dig in and look into that data set a little further to understand the formula. that is the intent of the dashboard. we are working right now with the more data-minded people within the city to identify what will our indicators be. we have had a brainstorming session among a couple of the leaders within the mayor's office and i think we are identifying other groups we would like to reach out to in

order to vet the data points when we start to pull them together. once we feel like we have a really good solid set of data points, we will start to build out the dashboard, make sure the visualizations are really don't need explanation and not confusing so people can use the dashboard for their own purposes and understand what the city is looking at, understand where they might want to explore and we hope to have this up as soon as possible. realistically we are aiming for some time in the fall. >> this will be a visual publicly accessible dashboard so we can all sort of use it across our departments and commissions but also it is a more accessible way for the general public for

the media to access the data so we are all working to the same goals. >> thanks, cat. i appreciate your time today given your constraints. >> i am so glad to be here. thank you all. i will sign off now and look forward to connecting with you in the future. >> congratulations to your first grader. >> thank you. i will tell him. >> commissioners, do we have any questions. commissioner adams. >> i want to welcome director sofis. i have been a fan of yours in everything you have done. i think it is remarkable what you did in bringing that to the forefront. it is awesome. i appreciated your presentation,

and i am so happy you are now somebody in the city is focusing on the downtown core, tourism business. i sometimes feel like we all know that tourism is the backbone of the city. sometimes i feel like it is forgotten, and i am seeing this in other cities and it is lagging here and the reasons why. there is an awful lot of small businesses, especially lunchtime spots and retail in the financial district hit really bad. i know you see that, and as the neighborhoods are recovering the businesses in the financial district are not. we have got to get people back. we need to get transportation lines back open. there is a big what if now with

the delta. i am freaked out as much as anybody else is -- really freaked out, to be honest. i am back at my office four days each week. we got momentum in the financial district. two weeks ago it stopped. again today i noticed there wasn't as many people on the street as there was three weeks ago. some of the lunchtime places are we thought we had a chance now we are going back. i know there is nothing to say as long as you stay focused on that. the tourism, you know, people who go to fisherman's wharf. the f line is open. tourists are back in the castro and back in other neighborhoods. keep that momentum going. everybody wear a mask and stay

safe until this passes. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. it is a troubling time. a lot of people feel disheartened. we were taking two steps forward now a step back. you absolutely have my commitment to continue to focus on tourism and visitors. it is not going to get solved in the next couple months. it is a marathon. we are not taking our eye off the ball and leave downtown behind. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> commissioner huie. >> congratulations on your new post. i have a few questions here. one is in terms of equity

metrics. i have been giving a lot of thought what are some of the metrics that are good indicators for economic recovery and revitalization for neighborhoods or groups who maybe in the past or presently aren't on equal footing. can you talk more about what equity metrics look like at this point and maybe who could get involved in that discussion to be able to give maybe more creative thought towards that? >> thanks, commissioner. i know getting data is something you are spearheading as well. let me start by saying one reason i was excited that you met cat daniels today. she is the focal point to start developing this.

i would offer that if this commission wanted to appoint a delegate to work with us directly it is an excellent time to do that. i think we are not set yet, particularly around those metrics, the right ones to use because they haven't necessarily but been tracked at high level by most communities. if there is interest, we would love to have that input. i will tell you where we are starting. it is interesting when you look at small businesses because you can get metrics who owns the business, where the business is. i think in this city we sometimes focus on the confluence of the two. if i look at the way my department has been historically organized in supporting businesses we have opportunity neighborhoods reshaping the communities which is hybrid of

neighborhood business and racial equity or gender equity who owns the business. you are looking at where do you have the data to begin with? okay. if we look at small businesses, we could look at geographically where they are. where we are seeing new businesses start, seeing businesses fail. you can look at that by neighborhood. that is one way to get at it. what is going on in bayview versus filmore, versus japan town and versus chinatown. a different be way is look at the ownership of businesses. that is tricky to keep up within terms of realtime. i am interested in looking at combination of what is ideal to make sure equity and where do we have data?

we may need to look at neighborhood and the vibrancy of businesses and vacancies in neighborhood as a proxy for racial equity, for example. i think we are in the early to medium stages of picking out one or two metrics. would he would be very much open and would love to have input from the commission. my goal is to pick for everything maybe 10 things that we measure city-wide. very much welcome. this is new for every city. no city figured this out so we might as well be the first. >> that is wonderful. i feel like i have been trying to wrap my mind around this whole thing. it is challenging. it is like the more you dig, then you started to find this other thing and you are missing data and trying to figure out how to get that piece.

it is quite a puzzle to try to figure out what to look at to define health in certain, you know, neighborhoods or business communities. thank you for that. i had a couple other questions. in terms of -- one of the positive things that has come out of this years specially this particular year as we are talking about recovery is that there have been a lot of organizations that i see collaborating with one another that in the past maybe they hadn't had the opportunity or leadership or bandwidth to collaborate. this year it seems like that is a real priority for organizations and people are ready for it. i would love to see if there is a way oewd could help support those collaborative efforts that

are new and need additional support. it is a wonderful community building kind of thing. >> commissioner, would you be willing to give me an example of one of the organizations or communities to ground it in my thinking? >> sure. i have been working in efforts in chinatown to understand the dynamics. in the richmond district moving to chinatown, there are different organizations that have been there for hundreds of years. newer organizations that are just popping up because of needs, different needs. i have seen a lot of people have gotten together from different places to have meetings about certain things. we are having talks about digital equity strategies there.

we are talking about supporting tourism, what does that look like in the neighborhood? space for different leaders to emerge. i think that is a wonderful thing. some of the newer organizations are not as well connected with the resources as well as city resources. i am encouraging them to have the conversation and be out there to make their names known. i love that people are active right now and engaged. >> i welcome that, actually, having started back when people didn't think there would be manufacturing any more in san francisco. i remember how hard it was to start building relationship with the city. in hindsight i can say our partnership with oewd and other

organizations was essential to the community. i would welcome that bridge for other organizations we didn't have when we were starting. that is part of equity. there is equity around long-standing relationships and know how to partner with the city versus really young organizations who have just as much to offer but may not understand the channels to build the partnership. very much open to having my team help facilitate that. >> that is wonderful. last piece talking about tourism. i am wondering who the small business community can talk to about tourism? in the past we talked to sf travel and they have been the key player in talking about

tourism. i think now, i feel like we have quite an opportunity, also, in shaping the way tourism looks when it returns. speaking about chinatown, there is an opportunity to build historical and authentic experience in the neighborhood so that when tourism returns it may not reflect how tourism looked in the 1980s. i hope neighborhoods can find support in that type of tourism coming into their neighborhood. i feel like there is tension between tourism and gentrification. it is like this uneasy tension we know we need visitors. we want the visitors to really feel -- we want to carry that experience for the visitor. i don't know if that is too

lofty of a goal. a now we have an opportunity to do that. how do we support our neighborhoods to do that. >> i agree i would say sf travel is part of it. i think under economic recovery oewd we want to be part of it and use our convening power to bring more voices to the table to partner with sf travel to shape how we think about tourism. i agree with you that we are entering a brain new world. i like to see it as opportunity as well as crisis. if we don't figure out how to reclaim the kind of tourism we had in a way that privileges our outer neighborhoods that brings people into the authentic san francisco beyond fisherman's

wharf. i would argue it is as much pertinent to their relevance and san francisco relevance as a worthy travel destination as well as communities outside of our historic punch list where to go. lombard street and fisherman's wharf. it is in everyone's benefit to curating what i would call expanding the vision of what a tourist experience can be in san francisco. cities around the world are figuring that out. it can't be business as usual. we are competing on our version of keep austin weird. what is it that makes san francisco? not because it is awesome but we can explain what we are about that is different from other

communities. what makes us different are the people and cultures and micro neighborhoods that add to the story of who we are which includes the golden gate bridge or iconic. it is not one versus the other but it has to be both, is my view. i do think sf travel can be part of that but only the province of sf travel now, it is all of us working together. >> i agree. thank you very much. you answered my questions so well. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. appreciate it. >> thank you. commissioner ortiz cartagena. >> congratulations. i want everybody to know this

might be the first time but i have been working with you and hitting the ground running 100 miles an hour. i want everybody watching to know that. she is out there, in the neighborhoods. she is everywhere. i appreciate you and really looking forward to working with you. >> thank you. i am a trail runner when i am not working. it is good training. [laughter] it was good to see you commissioner in the community. my two daughters are born and raise understand the mission. i have an equal interest in all communities i will have a soft spot for where my kids were run and raised. thank you. i am looking forward to working together.

>> commissioner dooley. >> congratulations. we are excited to have you on board and hope for great things. i want to ask you if you collaborate on what work you have been doing with the san francisco flower market. i am close to the vendors there and have found them all to still be basically fearful and not feeling like they are being supported. >> thank you, commissioner. i use that as an example. i know about it because as i -- we were developing our own facility. i would say to give you a more full response to that i would want to invite my colleague to

an upcoming commission meeting. i would welcome her to give you more of an overview of exactly what is going on there. you know, what i will say from where we it is at oewd any big development like that is between the private developer themselves in this case and the tenants and the city. what we try to bring forward under the director's vision is the city sort of carrot to help ensure we take care of the businesses while achieving the larger goals of development for the city in a way to provide space for everybody. i would invite director if that is of interest to go through that in more detail. i know she would welcome the opportunity to do that, commissioner. >> thank you.

i speak to the vendors almost daily. they are terrified. i would really, really appreciate that. thank you so much. >> okay. i will leave you to you to agendize, but we would be happy to explore that at this commission. >> it is important to me personally as well. my kids grew up going there. we could get our christmas things there. we need to get this one right. >> director, would you make a note to invite ms. topia for the purpose of discussing the flower matter? >> yes, i have it noted. >> commissioner dooley any other

questions? >> director, it is a pleasure working with you. post appointment you are an asset to the city and we are very, very grateful to have you. i know the commission is very excited to have you. you know, there is probably likely more than one commissioner that would be delighted to work with oewd on the dashboard. i think we can have that discussion internally. i think we would be delighted to partner with oewd on this because it is such a critical input to the work that we are charged with doing and i also think it is critical input for our policymakers. we should certainly strive to do

everything we can to get it right. it is quite a challenge when you think about a dashboard because on the one hand i tend to agree with you. you want clean easy to understand digestible data to lead to good solid decision making. on the other hand, our city is so deeply hetro genius with respect to the neighborhoods, you know, i know of businesses that are and we saw some of this in the survey. they are the minority but they exist. they are doing better than ever. then there are businesses that by all accounts should be doing at least something approaching where they were before but just by virtue of geography, you have the misfortune to have a small business downtown, it is quite a

fog to navigate that terrain. how do you express what is likely very different challenges facing different neighborhoods in a way that doesn't require somebody to invest hours and hours looking atgraphs and charts and trying to navigate? i guess one question i have and i am sure you thought about this. what are your thoughts? how do you think is a good way to cross that particular hurdle? >> first of all, thank you to are your comment. i would absolutely invite this commission to maybe appoint a point person to work with us or whatever mechanism works for you. we value direct engagement as we

figure this out. it would make what we release more authentic and useful if we have this commission involved. our vision right now is to have a dashboard with 10 overallmetrics and something very visual and where we have the data. it is not going to be on everything. we have databased on neighborhoods, for example, we have a graphic way for the neighborhoods. let's say business failures or something not optimistic but i will use that as an example or storefront vacancies. we might have an overall vacancy rate city-wide then the idea with the graph cal interchange

we would have the ability to click on the neighborhood to see what that is an example. i think that vision is where we have the lower level data. whether it was businesses, about unemployment by ethnicity or census tract we would be able to visually represent that. not all metrics have that level of detail. we have the top level. you would get to drill down where we have drill downable data. flip side we don't want to build a dashboard with data from the last census or only updated once a year and not enough frequency to include. i think the other piece we don't want data that is so not reliable and vacancies is tricky.

i will use that as my example. it is difficult to determine th reliable source. is it costar or some other metric? sometimes the database is not as reliable for the purposes of true vacancies as an audit when someone walks town the street. there is liability that has to factor in to this. the other piece and this is also an insight into how i tend to think about things. my goal is to figure out what to start with and get it done soon. then we can, you know, talk about it later. a year from now, i don't want the discussion. we get started and have reliable data. the controller's office has been

doing an exceptional job pulling the data. we want it more data so you don't need it in a report. we know we will get started and we will improve upon it over tight with your and other community members help with what is useful and less useful. that is my philosophy on how to do this. >> i agree with that. a couple observations that may or may not be helpful. some thoughts how to get there. one is our i am pleased to mention "ted." he was at the last meeting. i think both he and i and the commission agreed the gold standard for meshing economic activity was merchant charges.

he mentioned in passing and this is the first i heard that some of the possessing companies were looking to product that data. anonymous to some degree. that data would then be accessible. i would say that is something we are keeping an eye out for, obviously, we have hometown heroes who have captured a lot of data and square in particular have really good penetration into the small business. we are driving home from covid test today and stopped at in excelsior and they were selling barbecue chicken on the sidewalk in front of a corner store.

you know, i am not sure they had a health permit or anything like that, but it smelled so dam good we pulled over. we went home and ate that chicken. it was delicious. with respect to data any way to access currently existing or data that would save us the hassle of trying to parson and analyze it. the other thing i would notice is linked to them. small business section is currently under revision but you may have heard of harvard opportunity insight. they have detailed website that breaks things down by the county level. i am not entirely sure what all sources for the data are, but it

does seem to be very interesting and very credible and perhaps there is a way to plug into that or make that data available. the third part really goes to do with third bit of feedback goes to do with the work the city does and something i think about when running my own business. if i am looking to collect data about something, i generally try to make it so it is in the person who i want the data from to make it in their interest to give me that data. to make it inherently attractive to tell me what i need to know whether it is an employee or customer. maybe i am making their life easier in some way, you know, we don't get into financial rewards because we are not that kind of

business. under certain circumstances i wouldn't be opposed to that is i notice earlier in your presentation that we had an e-mail list of about 3700 businesses. i know this worked perceived you joining the commission. we know there are about 100,000 small businesses or businesses with less than 100 employees. most are sole proprietors. maybe not apples to apples comparison. it seems like we should be doing much better than 3700 for a contact list. i was very pleased to hear you talk about the ability to text them. you know you and i share that goal. that is something i harped on for a long time. i do think there is an

opportunity here in skilling multiple birds with one stone. my favorite way to throw stones wherever possible. i think there is something here that we can get those e-mails, get those cell phone numbers and that information we need in exchange for doing something that they need from us, you know, make it part of some kind of exchange or service that we can offer or something that would encourage them to participate. certainly, we have $52 million in loans and grants we have issued. one would think and hope we have collected e-mails and cell phone numbers as part of that process, particularly given those are people we have already vetted as

needing services and meet all of the city equity goals. these seem like critical touch points that we should know exactly who those folks are and we should maintain some contact list so that we can continue to follow up with them to do longitudinal analysis and we can, you know, basically do a better job at achieving the goals. a couple thoughts off the top of my head. i think post this meeting we will send an e-mail around to see who wants to get involved with the dashboard. the only reason i say more than one is because, a, i would want it to be possible for anybody who wants to participate to

participate. i have a keen interest as well. i don't want to blockade anybody else. at the same time i have to be a nerd where i am a married. i have to do that nerd thing. the other thing i wanted to go back to highlight. you talked about something that i think we haven't spoken enough about which is the need for the parents who run their own businesses to get support they need. i wonder if you will elaborate a little bit more what you think about that. this commission passed a resolution in support of women and small business and certainly this is something that impacts many moms but also has an impact on many dads. i am curious as to what your

thoughts and plans are there as to how you want to move forward. >> thank you. welcome to the collaboration on the dashboard and the concept that i can't comment on yet operationally. the concept of being able to get as many small businesses who want to, particularly to sign up for text message is absolutely a laudable goal. my guess is that our e-mail communications are limited by those businesses oewd has directly worked with, but we know we have a much broader for everyone business we worked with to provide a service or technical assistance or loans. there are 100 others we don't touch. the question is for me how do we get to them? what is the legal process for

them to subscribe themselves to something? as a systems person i am interested to figure out what that is. we are taking notes as we speak. we will look at that. i think it seems likely-hanging fruit. there is a reason we haven't gotten there that i don't understand but i am interested in digging into that. regarding women and families and working women, working parents and families. this is one that i warned my boss, the mayor, this comes with me in this role as a person who grew up with single mom, having kids of my own, having a disabled kid in the mix. it is impossible for an economic

recovery if we don't provide real resources for families and working parents to take care of kids and not choose between the job and health and well-being of their kids. for me, and the reason i use this as example around economic recovery, i want to look at economic recovery across departments not only the department with economic in its name. that means partnering with the department of children, youth and families. partnering is important. the starting point we have more influence because they are partnering with the city and sfusb is independent of that. my starting point has been to

partner with dcyf and to look at how we can augment around what sfusb can offer before and after care for school age children. we do not have enough capacity currently in the on site after school option at this moment in time for all families who need before and after school care. with the new schedule with the school district we have nor adoption care. we have schools dismissing kiddos early on wednesday. we are looking at other options to add in capacity particularly with rec and park but the child care industry in the city suffered the same challenges with restaurants and lower wageworkers to get enough workers to come back to the jobs

we have. we are focusing to increase capacity both on site as well as capacity off-site to support families with kids and support families who have -- kids that require after care. the second part that we can influence and that is a view for the president of the united states. while cared in april of itself -- child care is a small business industry worth investing in for three reasons. first, provides a service to working families. secondly, people who tend to work in child care industry are women and people of color, by advancing the industry you advance the jobs by advancing

how much we can pay people and solve the capacity issue. third but not last is the owners of child care businesses tend to be women and often women who are people of color. if you can stand up more small businesses and entrepreneurs who wish to not just start a child care facility in their home but why aren't we envisioning getting women beyond just the small child care facility in their home. why shouldn't they be the next larger operator of a child care facility in the city? that is long and short. i want to think about child care as a human right but exciting entrepreneur ship and industry development in san francisco. i am aware we have to solve for the real estate to house

facilities statement. there is a reason we have been constrainted in larger facilities with nowhere to go that is affordable. i bring this from my days running sfmaid. it is a necessary part of what we plan for as city if we have makers and manufacturers provide those jobs. we have to think about affordable child care space as another one of those important needs for the city if we have enough physical capacity to serve the families that want and deserve to be here. does that help? >> that helps a lot. i am on board with all of that. i can't speak for fellow commissioners, but speaking for myself. i agree with everything you have said.

just a hair further. any small business that facilitates other small businesses or facilitates economic activity should be given strong consideration for additional help and as assistance because of the amly fiction that those -- amplifiction they can provide. the government chooses to assist businesses and organizations that in april of their own right are maybe not the most attractive businesses but make so many other things possible by their existence. certainly child care falls squarely in that bucket. i am with you 100%. last comment, question, what

have you. i brought this up with you in the past and brought this up with the commission in the past. my mo for the moment if i will not let a moment go by where i won't remind everybody of this opportunity. the employee retention tax credit which can generate $7,000 in tax credits per employee per quarter in 2021. that is up to $28,000 in tax credit for a small business that was materially impacted by covid. i have suggested to the city and to supervisors and suggested to a number of different folks that it seems to me that this is someplace that the city can really make a big difference in.

i know you heard this, director, i will say it again for the record and anybody listening. getting this tax credit is one of the most complicated things the irs has ever come up with. i am really good at navigating complicated stuff, and about five minutes into it i said there is no f way i will make any sense out of this. i thought i could save the money not having to pay for somebody else to do it. absolutely not. never ever going to happen. i have spoken to other people. one person said i talked to my partner. he has a small business. he spoke to his accountant. the accountant said you can do that it is complicated and hard. you will have find somebody else. i can't do that.

accountants say they can't do this. i feel the opportunity here with respect to what you said. president biden has said we need more people to take advantage of the ertc. so far nationwide we have had 30,000 businesses take advantage of the ertc. by comparison there is 100,000 businesses in san francisco. nationwide we are up to 30,000. in this city alone we should be able to double that number. i think that the city should be finding a way to focus on this opportunity. for myself when we did it, it cost $150 per employee to have the firm that knows how to do this figure this stuff out.

one can imagine we handed out $52 million in loans and grants. there are businesses we can't help. we don't have enough money to help everybody. this seems lightweight where we can help a lot of businesses with a small amount of money. this seems in particular that it would help businesses on an equity level. that is me standing on my soapbox. as i mentioned my mo. every time i get any city official in front of us, you know, remind them that there is this massive opportunity there that it could be something the city does that generates more roi for money spent than anything else we have done for small business. the federal government is encouraging businesses to take advantage of this, but the

hurdle is the complexity. it seems like something the city could help solve. >> now that i am on board i can take action on this. montana since you are on the call, would you take a note and let's caucus tomorrow about who we can start getting to work on this? commissioner, maybe the starting point needs to be like an educational webinar how it works. it reminds me when we started that we had enterprise zones in the city and tax credits. the key to the kingdom you would work with a private firm who would help you deal with all of that and in return they would get a small, you know, something back for their work. it was something that we actively did to help so many businesses attain those tax credits they were eligible for.

one question for follow-up. you found one firm. how many others are there? a set of them working on this now that we could make available to companies to work with? that to me seems like a key. it is complicated. it is like the r&d tax credit. small businesses don't attempt to use it if they technically could. we are going to follow up with an actual next step. we need to think about what that would be and i think to start with it would be fining on you many other firms are out there that we could put together resources and push it out in multiple languages. that would be my other question. maybe we could research this with your help after this. >> of course, i would be delighted to help. you know, to your point, the city's opportunities for

assisting with this, you know, easy point of entry is webinars and education and communication. heavier lift would be rfd of some kind or offering preferred vendors or even subsidized assistance, but anywhere on that continuum that we are would be an improvement. we currently stand and the opportunity seems so big and so massive. i feel like this is really something that the city could actively do that would almost instantly have a massive impact on those businesses. thank you for the attention on that. >> can we go to public comment.

>> no public comment. public comment is closed. thank you for your time. we look forward to working with you going forward. we wish you well. we are here for you. feel free to reach out anytime. it is a delight. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. i look forward to working with all of you. thanks. >> next item, please. >> montana before you sign off can you please pass it back to me. >> we have lost control. >> let me know if you need help on that.

>> next to you is the ball. the little ball next to your name in the participant's column. >> i do not. >> matthew is that something you can assist with, please. >> yes, one second. >> thank you. moving to item 3. this is a presentation of the venue fund update and report.

small business commission will receive a status update on the venue funds, final number of grants awarded and grant fund description. this is a discussion item. this evening presents is richard kurylo of the office of small business. i will turn over. there you go. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, members of the public. richard kurylo, office of small business. today i am presenting on the sf

music and entertainment recovery fund. i will begin with a brief history. the intent of the venue fund is to provide grants to music and entertainment veinies negative impacted by covid-19 by soup supervisors. donations 550received by three donors. the office of small business administered the venue fund and add copted rules in consultation with controller's office and office of workforce development and entertainment. for the legislation we consulted with other agencies and businesses and community organizations representing the interest of venues. stakeholders included venue

alliance and coalition. eligible venues are san francisco businesses that met the follows criteria. principal function provide live entertainment programming by the presence of all following. sound and lighting systems, marketing of specific performance by name and print publications and social media. february 25, 2020 the day the emergency went into place committed to maintain goes with the function to provide live programming not owned or booked by any company who shared the stock on the stock exchange. number five business owner must apply and declare under the

penalty of perjury the grant is based on rent, mortgage, payroll, liability insurance and/or utility costs. venue struggling to pay expenses due to covid-19. venue maintains the lease and will continue to use venue for live entertainment. required documents included floor plans or photographs of the performance and audience. sound and lighting equipment, one month marketing materials at least 16 days during the month or every day it is open to the public. a box office ticket report, agreements or contracts with performers or other documents to maintaining the venue and live entertainment programming. 4. venue fund there were 84 applicants. to review there were 8

application reviewers from various city departments and one to ensure consistency. i was the secondary reviewer and looked at all 84 applications. grant requirements were complicated than originally anticipated. although the requirements were clearly state understand the rules only 18 of 84 applicants correctly submitted the necessary documents as part of the original submissions. both the marketing materials and documents demonstrating commitment to maintaining the venue and live entertainment programs were challenging for applicants. two stakeholders didn't meet the grant requirements with original submissions. therefore applicants were given over two additional months until friday july 30th to complete

applications. it was time intensive for the staff to educate applicants one-on-one about the grant requirements and guide them through the application process. the applicants were all pleased at the end when they found out they were eligible venues. the final numbers 70 of 84 applicants met grant criteria by july 30th deadline and we're declared eligible. it is on the small business website. grants were $35,720 which was 550 divided by 84. 63 applicants have been paid. six applicants still getting set up as suppliers of the city. one applican't is not set as

supplier and will be paid through third-party vendor. of those that did not meet the grant requirements, two applicants responsive. 12 were nonresponsive to the four e-mail messages sent by the office of small business. prior to january 31st, 222. there will be a second round of grants. a grant application period during which businesses apply including new applicants as well as 14 applicants that were not declared eligible venues. venues determined to be eligible will not need to reapply. after january 31st, the office of small business shall use any remaining money to support relocation and re-opening of

eligible venues forced to move due to covid pandemic and/or significant rent increases. rules for phase two are to be determined subject to funding availability. thank you. this concludes my presentation. i am happy to answer any questions. >> richard, have we on the four not responded to e-mails. were there phone numbers or another way to reach them? i am worried that it may have fallen in spam. it seems worth asking about. >> 12 that didn't respond at all. yes, they did receive an e-mail immediately when they submitted applications that said we would be in contact by may 26th by e-mail. even if it was in spam they

should have looked for that as of may 26th. we sent a message before that. may 26th we sent a message to all applicants and followed up in july for those that hadn't completed applications. four times we reached out. [please stand by]

. . . >> they had some employees catch it and other than for the grant, it would have been an existential decision, do we close forever? or how do we handle this? this really helped keep at least that venue alive. >> commissioner adams? >> richard is amazing. i, too, talked to business owners. some of the people had difficulty understanding it, and any time any of them had a question, he'd return the call, the email.

you were there to help them out. it is amazing that six months ago when we had the venue owner, that some already have the checks in hand. i couldn't be more proud of the commission. and we are the ones that put this out there and we are seeing the proof of it. and richard, you are the heart beat of it. so thank you. knock on wood, i think we may have saved our entertainment businesses. thats an it. awe thank you. >> i concur and richard, you're a rock throughout all of this. and you got through this list and in a very unprecedented situation adeptly and here we

are. and now folks have money. and we saved some businesses. and also like to thank director as well. her guidance and input during both the creation of the fund and the administration of the fund were invaluable. >> the one thing that -- this is what i am proud of is we all know how city bureaucracies work and the link length of the way some programs happen. the speed of on this with the board of supervisors and everything is just astounding. it came out of one of our meetings where we had people in trouble. this came through in this quick period of time.

this just blows my mind. >> you are exactly right. i remember joining forces with other commissioners on other commissions and harassing -- not harassing, very gently reminding a few supervisors of how urgent this matter was. and it is good when a plan comes together as they said on the a team. all right. richard, thank you. excellent work. is there any other comment from anyone else? >> commissioner: through the president, if i can make a comment. yes, i want to also thank the commission for their leadership and in creating this fund. and also thank the mayor for

working with the board of supervisors to create the three million allocation. so everyone coming together to support this industry is really terrific. and i want to thank the commission support for knowing that this was going to be a good deal of work and supporting the office and knowing that we were going to have to set aside our work with the legacy business program. and supporting that as well. and i just really want to thank rick. he worked really hard with every single business to help them meet the criteria, so for the 14 that didn't make it through, it's really not for the lack of our office working and communicating with the

businesses. rick's goal was to try to get everybody through this process if they got the information, and he did spend hours sometimes helping businesses look through their marketing material to ensure that they were able to get through and get the money. we want to thank you, rick, for that as well. thank you, commissioners. >> commissioner: great. and a reminder for all of us that this sleepily little advisory commission can certainly do things and make things happen out of thin air even. we don't have to just be reactive. we can be proactive. that's a good success story. there have been others. and there will be more in the future. and we just need to remember that there is always the possibility that we can make something happen. is there any public comment?

>> there is no public comment. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. next item please. item number four, director. >> yes, my mouse was not cooperating with me. item number 4, presentation and update on disability access and small business. the small business commission will receive an update on current regulatory programs and recent activities regarding disability access and small businesses. i am going to share my screen and provide -- power point. let's see.

all right, commissioners. so there has been a fair number of lawsuits that have been issued as of recently with the concentration of businesses being, many businesses in chinatown receiving them. and of course, it's an unfortunate timing. it's never good timing, but it is an unfortunate timing in relationship to the economic crisis that we've been in and businesses working to recover. excuse me.

so i want to just provide a quick overview as we are -- as for the last, i would say, commission's 20 years that they have had to revisit this matter time and time again. the first official set of small business commissioners also worked to work with small businesses to address helping businesses comply with our accessibility requirements, understanding the various laws, and of course, with the goal to uphold the civil rights of individuals with disabilities, and at the same time, also protecting them from lawsuits. it is the responsibility under title iii of the federal americans with disabilities act, both the property owner and the

tenant are responsible to ensure that the business t physical space where a business that is a place of public accommodation, that that space is accessible to all individuals. property owners through lease, through their leases, generally assign the responsibility of meeting accessibility standards to the business or leasee. and it's often confused because of this that the property owner is released of their obligation, and this has been thought of through decades, and we as a society have sort of talked about in it that way in that it is the business owner's responsibility, not a joint responsibility between the property owner and the business. what is confusing is the final

arbitrator is the civil courts in whether a business or property has met standards, not the california building code. the california building code is intended to provide some support in helping businesses and property owners achieve as much compliance as possible. litigants over the last five years are now suing both the business and the property owner. 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and maybe even 10 years ago, we were seeing that the lawsuits were predominantly being issued to the business, and now many litigants are issuing it to both the business and the property owner because the property owner generally has deeper financial pockets. why are the civil litigants

successful is because taking no action actually equals violation of an individual's civil rights. it's important to note that through both the federal ada, there is the readily achievable component for small businesses, and there's also the technically infeasible. and we do have situations, particularly in san francisco, with our old buildings, and being on hills that sometimes full accessibility predominantly at the entryway may not be achievable, but as the business and as the property owner, one has an obligation to do as much as one can and demonstrating that action that you worked to do as much as you can is showing that you were not trying to intentionally violate an individual's civil rights.

a reminder of what a place of public accommodation is, and that is a place of lodging -- not going to go into great detail, but the majority are businesses that are in our neighborhood commercial districts, retail, places where food and beverage is consumed, theater, concert halls, bakery, hardware stores, and, you know,, banks, day care center, gym, health spas, things of that sort. i want to provide an overview of support, education, and local laws that have transpired in the last 10 years. so in 2011, the office of small business launched an education

program that includes and we have this information on our website. a list of the federal and state laws. there is a certified access specialist inspection program created by the state and this program brings together and certified results and able to assess the site at both in relationship to the federal ada requirement and the california building code. and provide overviews to why it is important to do so and i'll be going into a little bit more of the benefits of why it's important to have an inspection. an overview of what to look for in a casp inspector and what to look at in the list. we have a list of inspectors to ensure that they are inspector

who is will work with small businesses based upon their need. not all certified inspectors in an area. some are government related. some only go the work for their architectural firm, and so don't do individual inspections for a business. then we want to make sure that businesses and property owners are aware there are federal annual tax credits and deductions that can be taken. at the time the opportunity loan fund had a loan for ada compliance that this was for businesses that did the inspections and hadn't been sued. and the san francisco bar association has an initial 30-minute consultation of $35 for businesses that may have sued or may have received a

letter need assistance and guidance in how to respond to that. in 2013 former small business commissioner and former supervisor david chiu created chapter 38 which is the for landlords to disclose requirements for businesses about accessibility and it created what is known as the disability obligation notice. the notice needs to be provided to the tenant either a new tenant or renewing a lease, for a space so that it's 7500 square feet or less. as to whether the business has received the casp inspection and

may or may not meet the accessibility requirement and therefore, should do their due diligence. in addition, it required the landlord to also provide each tenant at the time of lease and lease renewal with a brochure that lives on the office of small business website that we have translated into a total of eight different languages including english around some of the key things to look for in a location regarding accessibility and the importance of getting a casp inspection and i'll be showing you in just a moment. and then in 2016 the state followed our example and required landlords to also in their leases provide disclosure requirements as to whether or

not the space has been inspected by casp or a casp report for a lease premise and common areas as to whether they have had the casp and to share it. and that the property owner cannot prohibit the business from engaging in a casp inspection. and so this slide and the next slide is pretty intensive brochure. but it provides all the key necessary information. some of the key guides of what are some of the low barrier issues that we see that businesses sometimes receive a lawsuit on. so which is the top column here or the top row. i have been in numerous restaurants where the restaurant when it opened had a fully

accessible restroom and over time shelving is put next to the doorway. a garbage can goes between the toilet and the sink, and therefore, creates a barrier. so this is a good reminder of some of the low barrier issues that can be or need to be -- can be easily remediated. then in 2016 then supervisor tang created legislation for the accessible entrance program. it is under the charge of department of building inspection. it administers and manages the program, but does in it collaboration with the planning department and public work. and then our office is part of the support team to help businesses that may be required

to meet this obligation at the request of their property owner. i do want to note that because this legislation is designed to the department and because the department of building inspection is the enforcement entity, the department of building inspection enforces code compliance to the property and not to the individual business. similar to the soft story program. so there are four different categories and four different steps to meeting compliance. category one is an entryway that is in compliance and that can be demonstrated recent building permits category two, no step but there's barriers, so this category we've seen many of the remediation through installing

power doors. category three, one step with other barriers and category four is one or more steps and potentially other barriers. and step one is compliance. step one is to obviously determine the eligibility and type of category one is in. step two is to consult with the casp inspector or design professional to survey the entryway and then to complete a checklist and submit that to department of building inspection. and then to file an application for building permit by the legislative deadline and obtain building permits by the legislate ifr deadline. i do want to just make a note here that if you are talking to

property owners, my recommendation would be that they have a casp inspector comply or not comply but to do the survey and submit the checklist and that makes the recommendation of what type of remediations are needed, again, because having a casp inspection and report can aid should the property owner receive a lawsuit. so the casp -- oh t one thing i did want to say is that -- let me just go back. step one and step two. >> these two steps should have been completed by december 1, 2019. because of covid, things are in

compliance with the program and has been on pause and there is the discussion about extending out the timeline for property owners to meet step three and step four. so the benefits of a certified access inspection is the casp accessibility strnsd wand that inspection and word and these legal benefits are a request to an early evaluation conference, receiver a 90-day stay of court proceeding, reduce minimum statutory damages from the california unra act to $1,000 from $4,000 if found to be in violation of construction related accessibility requirements. and are and are required to

inspect been 64 days. there may be additional ben t phis for small -- benefit for small, qualified businesses as well. this being said is it is still, i would say, the businesses are still very fearful of engaging in this process. which is one of the reasons why i am going through this slide in its entirety is it is important we get all of our businesses to do and to do casp inspections. it is the least expensive way in which to ensure compliance, and also to demonstrate that we as a city or an upholding with rights.

the casp inspection does not need to comply with all construction related areas and there is readily achievable, technically infeasible. if a business determines that some of the recommendations are not readily achievement, then readily achievable is in relationship to the cost and they should definitely document why they are making that determination. the certified access specialist does not make the determination to whether something is readily achievable, but the business does need to if they cannot remediate the recommended construction related -- remediate the barriers that the disability barriers that have been identified by the casp based uponst co.

and the property owner must be inspected for properties to get the benefit they need and they need to be inspected before a claim is filed. and making progress on the violations according to scheduled improvements and this will help reduce or eliminate businesses liability. and the same goes for property owners as well. casp inspections and report cans cost anywhere from 1,000 to $3,000 on average, of course, we're talking about small businesses. not large businesses and our small businesses and the cost barriers placed on the amount and different types of businesses have more areas that a casp inspector need to measure, look at, to ensure that the businesses is business

reminder, right, tabbed cost of a casp inspection can be off yet through annual tax deductions and codes that the deduction tax credit can be applied to. and then our messaging as you are leaders and champions and for small businesses, we also, san francisco is a city that champions civil rights of everyone including individuals with disabilities. but our program, chapter 38 accessible business program are two legal programs under the decity. those are designed to help the property owner and the business navigate the complex tis of dealing with compliance.

to help message that that is there to support our businesses in addition to supporting individuals with civil rights. a business opened up with a fully accessible bathroom. or they have a lower counter area that they start to use for displace and nos longer accessible for individuals with disabilities. and then there is the disability

access fund which is $4 collected but business registration until december 30, 2023. those fund are held in the disability access fund which are assigned to the office of small business. in previous years we helped pay for casp inspections. that program ended due to the end of the contract and covid, so we will be relaunching a grant program to help casp inspections and maybe with construction related improvement. and lastly, i do want to say is one area i did not identify is the next area we need to work on educating our businesses is to

ensure that the websites are ada accessible as well. we don't have that information on our website. and this will be something that we will be working on over the next couple of months. including i think it will be great to advocate to have, require companies that provide product both pos systems or websites that businesses usually sort of take off the shelf, so to speak to ensure those entities are making their products ada accessible, and it is noted so that businesses can easily identify that when they're either purchasing a product both through pos or

developing their website. again, we are not repeating the situation that we have had before. we had the certified access specialist. many businesses did not know who to turn to to get guidance, son and the state created the certified access inspection program. so with that, i'm happy to take any questions from you if there's anything that you need to clarification on. we will be as an office having a point person for the accessible entrance program in our offers and has been on dsw assignment for the last six months and is returning this week. and so we'll be re-engaging with updating our website, providing more service, and we'll begin to

look at other ways that we can train our economic development organizations to help at every touch point, help businesses understand the importance of making their business compliant. we do when we're consulting with businesses and the business assistance center when businesses are talking about signing a lease. we encourage them to -- we give them the brochure and encourage them to do the visual check. if they think there may be barriers, we encourage them to hire a casp inspector on an hourly basis to give them an assessment to what it might take to remediate the barriers so that they can really assess whether that property or that commercial space is an affordable -- not so much -- i don't want to say affordable,

but whether there's going to be more cost in their tenant improvement to i a achieve compliance. with that, commissioners, thank you for your time and i am happy to take any question. >> great. commissioner dooley. >> a that you can. and i just want to thank you regina for bringing this up again. as all the many years that i have been working on this project, i's always something that need to be brought up again and again, especially in terms of business owners who english is not their second language. that is a huge issue. we just need to continue as we have over the years concentrating on helping these businesses to not have problem,

some unscrupulous people that go through a neighborhood and sue everything they can find and cause a great amount of stress. i wanted to ask, however, do we have any new statistics on who are the people who are filing lawsuits? is it like in the past where one person, one lawyer, whatever, would represent multiple, multiple cases in a neighborhood? has that changed at all? >> it has varied from time to time. the first time for me dealing with this back in 2009, 2010. into 11-12, that was the predominant legal representative was thomas frankovich. then there have been individuals that work independently on their

own. it does look like this time around it is a particular law firm that is working similarly. they all have different ways of dealing with lawsuit, but similar in relation to thomas frankovich where it is a law firm working with different individuals. u don't have a full t canning at this time of the recent number of lawsuits, but in talking with the bar association, the sf bar, that it does seem to be that it is right now one predominant law firm. >> great. are you done, commissioner dooley? okay. commissioner cartana?

>> thank you for this information. i am in the weeds right now. and i am not providing this information as mandated. it is crazy out there. and if you could send me this presentation and also if we could coordinate the neighborhood organizations. and maybe do a webinar, it is very important. right now with the commercial moratorium eviction, all the associations are renegotiating and that has to go hand in hand and most landlords are not providing this. it is very important to small businesses and keep us up to date on any other information because it is trushl to small businesses. >> will do. >> great. commissioner dickerson? >> director, i appreciate this

because when i started my renovations in 2017, there's a question coming out of this as well because when i started my project, and we were going over the scope of work and things that were needed, there was right in the time i was starting construction, there were new requirements that had come out. any renovations that came through that was not ada it was mandatory that you needed to have the ada to even get the permit. and i am sure the suits are from businesses that have not done upgrades on the buildings or current renovation, but for those who are getting into the new buildings, isn't it required -- and i'm ignorant of it.

isn't there a requirement now that in order for you to rent a commercial space that the owner of the property are the response response snbl and this is where i guess the line was a little gray because for me i was receiving grant punning and with oewd and to be like, nope, you can't do this without the ada and that required more funding. i understand because it was an expensive part of my project. it actually put me on the borderline and 3/4 of an inch. down to the hairline. and i say all that so say, at no

time there something already written or a policy that is a requirement upon property owners to take on that responsibility before they can rent a commercial space? >> i wish there was. so there is requirement with the building code and and make the entryway accessible. and the encouragement to be with encouragement for property owners to take that action, particularly if this space is is vacant to do it in a soft story

retrofit, but again, because of california state law around where we can get into the middle of the landlord and tenant lease, so part of the reason is to mandate that discussion. that said, because you were a recipient for sf shines grant program. it is utilizing city funding to help you with your tenant improvement requires the grant program to make the entryway accessible. and now, i don't know if there

was discussion as you moved in to say you were going to be getting the support from the sf shine and if there was a way for you to be able to utilize that to negotiate with the property owner to say, look, this is a benefit that you're going to derive from me coming into your space. so how about helping out with that? and that is our goal is to identify and looking at the space to engage in that conversation. there is one other element under the california building code, there is this thing that is a threshold and a dollar amount and could be $150,000 right now,

could be a little more or a little less. it goes up every year. if you are doing tenant improvements under the valuation threshold, you do not need to make the space fully requirement. you need to spend an additional 20%. that is kind of a readily achievable concept. if your tenant improvements are over the valuation threshold, you need to make the space 100% compliant. that is kind of separate from your particular situation because you were part of sf shine. and to make the industry way compliant. the challenge of us not being

able to say to the property owner and to do anything construction related and one particular business that did get sued and worked with an architect to change the store front and the property owner would not give her permission to do so. so which is part of the intent with the ada with significant barriers and redo the slope and if you are installing the power door, that is about $5,000, but the slope into the business needs to be at a certain grade.

into the sidewalk is expensive to do. so while we can't absolutely mandate the property owner to comply with the accessible entrance program, our messages should always be to encourage the property owner to do that. that we as a city, the civil rights of all individuals is really important. and we want them to be a participant in that. and this actually is them taking responsibility for it helps them should, one, particularly if you can't remediate the situation 100% because it may be technically infeasible, that will always be visible there. but a determination has been

made and it protects them. you can never rest assured that somebody miekt not slip in your store or business. that may happen. this is the best means for dealing with a potential lawsuit down the road. i know that was sort of long winded. i heap to that answered some of your question. >> are you good, commissioner dickerson? >> commissioner: i am not sure if i need to make this statement because if i am not mistaken the funding came through oewd just for clarification, but more importantly, i was under the

impression that there was some type of policy or regulation or some type of governing of the responsibility. and the same thing and the owner would not give permission to do so and therefore, and that needs to change without a doubt. thank you. commissioner dooley. why is the building different

from the ad snashgs >> the federal ada when it was designed and created there is code requirement, but it is predominantly a civil compliance determined through civil litigation. the california building code, the california building code and why i say they are not necessarily aligned is because the california building code doesn't enforce the ada and doesn't guarantee with the ada

and many businesses were doing the tenant improvement didn't deal with the entryway. under the federal ada, one of the first -- there is what they call the path to travel. one of the first requirements is to deal with the entryway into the business. but often because of the cost of remediating an entryway in san francisco, on a hill, or you have steps or you have some of the second story businesses, you open the door and you walk up a set of stair. it is generally technically infeasible to install an elevator in some of those buildings. so those, i am not sure if i am exactly answering your question.

but -- >> an i'll jump in real quick. perhaps this may help. ada is considered the bare minimum in california building code was an attempt to expand upon that or i shouldn't say attempt. it was legislation that expands upon bare minnium and introduces higher level of requirements and standards and goes into more specificity about a number of different things in different areas and tackles them the moment the building is designed and created. some of the hope that the legislation was to stop its before they game problems. that is my take on it. >> you are saying the building

code is stricter than ada. so i am just wondering -- sorry, director may disagree with me. >> no, no. so i agree with you and definitely in new building code standards. where it gets tricky is existing. so the whole issue around the valuation threshold in terms of the building code is not going to stop you doing building improvements and the requirement under the california building code is that the minimum is you spend an additional 20%. they are not going to stop you from making the business fully compliant, be u they can't say to a small business that if the

tenant improvement is $50,000 if you are a retail business, and $50 that you have to spend an additional 20% and i ament not good at math. >> $3,000. >> and then if remediating the entryway is a $60,000 -- if that's what it costs, then under the california building code, they can't mandate that you remediate that. they can if the g.i. is over the valuation threshold. and if a bid for some of our businesses have been in the space stations for decades, we

can't make them do it. generally things are trigered when building permits are pulled. the creation is to get more entryways into compliance. two, helping the property owners whose entryways can't come into full compliance for numerous reasons. be able to have that designation. and therefore, is something defensible. the property owner is taking action to make sure the location is compliant as possible. there are numerous steps that business cans take. i have monitored a few of property owners through the access and visual striping,

handrails and other things that can be installed. portable ramps and things that can be used to bring and make the entryway more accessible. >> okay. helpful. is there a fast track for people who are needing to get work done now because of either litigation or threat of litigation or just somebody who now has been made aware of this and to be able to do the permitting and things needed? >> the first thing is to wait.

litigation is always out there since the ada was passed. it is unfortunate that there is an uptick in the request and the need and request for information about casp inspections when the thought of hearing lawsuits are happening. which is why it's good to just always remind businesses if they haven't done a cast inspection they need to do it. and particularly -- so your question in terms of fast track, the first fast track is to get a casp inspection. and then from there work to make sure that you're following. and working on the remediation recommendations and demonstrate that you have it and are working on it and a lawsuit appears. the legal benefits that were identified earlier and the

business can use. and if the business is sued, then they can still get a casp inspection and report. remediates the barriers immediately. i don't know if that will be a benefit. that would have to be discussed with a legal entity. if those barriers were already difined and established before the lawsuit, i don't know how much legal protection that would provide after you have received a suit. it could be something that could be negotiated on.

a lawyer would need to work with the plaintiff on. >> are there any opportunities to -- i understand that we definitely don't want to violate civil rights and we definitely want the improvements done in our city for accessened as well as all of us and the visitors. >> i guess what many small business owners feel from conversation and is d coming about in a predatory way.

people feel victimized. i feel like they care deeply with the customers around them. and the community around them. so i want to encourage everyone to be as compliant as possible and as open as possible. how do you carry both of those kind of things? how do we advocate for our community and not having the same conversation every couple of years when this kind of comes sup my question. i think i love to give my small owner and community the benefit of the doubt that they are always working hard at taking care of people. i am just wondering how do we

keep them safe as well as making sure that our city is accessible? >> there's multiple things. one is i heard many businesses that may have half an inch or an inch to the step. and oh, my customer, i am able to help them in with the wheelchair. i'm able to help them in. they never complain, right? that's not the point. the point is f about equal access. so you need to, one, always shift the casp inspection and with the report and following through on the recommendations

is demonstrating that you ware about your customers. and i would say from the serial litigant standpoint, if every property owner has good -- would comply with the accessible business entrance program, if every business had a casp inspection, then that would say to those that are looking to san francisco as an opportunity to make money, they're not going to make money here. that word will get out. which is why it's really important to really say that our programs are designed to help you and it doesn't do an absolute protection. just like somebody can pretend they slipped in your store and sue you for physical damages or

what have you. knowing that we can't make every entreeway accessible, fully accessible, but having done either casp inspection or working with the abe, demonstrates that you have taken every step possible to make your business accessible. and again, just to e reiterate because of federal law, because of the california unra act, they are able to be successful in their litigation when businesses or property owners are not taking any steps to make their entryway accessible because then they can say, this law has been around and no action means you are intentionally violating an individual's civil rights by no action. i hope that, you know -- it's

not often that the messages that business want to hear and turn o the litigant, but not doing the casp inspection, don't be fearful of it. just means that another and another. you want here 20 years ago, but other commissioners who were there and very involved in the business community have been working on this issue. if we can get every business to do a casp inspection and every property owner to comply with the ab, we a place of public accommodation, that is the best message to send to the serial litigants. >> commissioner: thank you very much. >> president: thank you. commissioner -- vice president zouzounis. >> commissioner: thank you. thank you, director, for the in-depth presentation.

i know you have a lot of knowledge here because of how long it's been going on. i have one suggestion, a comment, but first, my question is, what are the next steps in working with the district attorney's office around this? since i know that they addressed it directly. >> director: the district attorney's office has not reached out to our office. i've let them know that our programs and work that we have been doing, but they have not reached out to our office. so at this point, any work together on this is not taking place together at this time. >> commissioner: okay. and i know it's so prevalent that there may not be a trend one way or another which types

of businesses are experiencing the lawsuits in particular, but if there is data on that or at least maybe through just who you can subtract from who's filling out the inspections, i would like to know if it's coordinated with other types of licenses. i know that a lot of regulatory licensed businesses have experienced these types of lawsuits in other forms, like, for vitamin supplements that have a competitor product that hired company to be, oh, they are not f.d.a. approved. and then they send a predatory letter. this happens in other areas beyond just the ada laws. so federal laws, there's definitely a correspondence with federal laws and these types of litigation. so i'm just curious if we can

identify if there are certain sectors that are maybe have their doors open to the public for longer hours? or are in certain neighborhoods? i would love to try to see if there is a trend. and then solutions based on thinking how can our trade associations or our rfp recipients incorporate this into kind of here is a compliance manual. all the things that you need to hit for these licenses for code and if we can just -- i know that's something that as a trade association i am part of is working on. and even making info graphics around it. so i would just love to think about how we can make that more of a universal template if we get something related to regulatory licenses and compliance. i think that would be a great

tool kit. >> thank you. >> president: okay. >> just to your point in terms of seeing if they are targeting, you would say they're targeting -- the general targets in restaurants are often a higher number of businesses that are targeted. they need to make their restrooms accessible, not standard retail. that is not required by law to make the restrooms accessible. so it's where there might be in terms of the serial litigants, it is where they are able to have the ability to identify more areas where there possibility of infractions. >> commissioner: thank you. >> president: great.

any other questions from commissioners or comments? okay. is there any public comment? >> there is one person in the queue. >> president: i'm sorry. did you say there is one person in the queue? yes. please proceed, caller. >> caller: commissioners, my name is francisco depasta and i have been listening to the deliberations. first and foremost, the planning department needs to do a better job. secondly, though not mentioned an ada representative that works for the city. and whoever this person is should have been present

virtually at this meeting. so you are all talking about an issue where two out of three of these guys who live outside the city come into our city and abuse the system. and collect and make a lot of money. thousands of cases. and not only that, they go to other states and in the wheelchairs and this is wrong. so we can call them serial whatever, but these are criminals. and we don't have to tolerate that nonsense. when you go to chinatown, and

you see most of the stores, some are 80, 90 years old, they are part of what comes with the territory. and i'm not saying that we have to break laws and i am not saying we have to break law, but we have to accommodate. some of you all don't have what they call cultural competence. you are looking at, how the white man makes his rules and everybody has to follow it. that's garbage. i say this because that i was at the presidio and the program manager for ada and manage we are disabilities act and i would have 90 businesses in the city free of charge. you all have a representative in city hall missing in action.

have a very corrupt department of building inspection. and so and these commissioner who is belong to the small business commission, should write a letter to that representative, to the building the department of building inspection, and create a solution and stop giving two or three people who live outside the city coming to our city and terrorize us. with their wheelchair. they are criminals. thank you very much. >> president: thank you, caller. are there any other callers on the line? >> there is no other callers. >> president: public comment is closed. is there anymore commissioner comments?

seeing none, next item please. >> thank you, commissioners. next item is general public comment. >> is there anybody who would like to make comment on any item on the agenda? >> there is no one in the queue. >> public comment is closed. item six. is the director's report, update on the office of small business and small business assistance center, department programs, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor and announcements regarding small business activities. i'm going to keep this relatively brief. so i think the key items and

much has been on our focus and attention recently has been dealing with retaking a look at the accessibility program and providing support for businesses, particularly in chinatown, that are impacted. and completing the venue fund and now beginning to take a look at restarting our legacy businesses and getting the applications through. and designing the grant program that came through the add back program. and so those are some of the core things that we have been looking to take a look at. the board of supervisors is on recess for the full month of august, so there will be no new legislation, but a reminder that

at our next commission meeting on the 23rd which will be carrie's first commission meeting, we will be hearing legislation from supervisor stefani dealing with the sign and awning permits. this is legislation that is coming as a result that there have been individuals that have been going out and looking at signs and awnings and filing complaints with the planning department for those that are out of compliance. we had been hearing from om businesses about why is the planning department doing inspections at this particular time? they are compelled to respond to

complaints filed. so nowed this legislation is in place, we will provide a little bit of reprieve and i will be drafting up the legislative review for you prior to that. lastly i had noted that there might be the likelihood that the commission can in mid september start having the meetings back in room 400 and being able to meeting in person with the seven of you together, but because of the delta virus, that is now been pushed out to at least the beginning of october. for the month of september, we will be having our meetings

virtually. with that, that ends my commissioner report. my director report. >> president: okay. >> can i ask a question? when we return to city hall for our meetings, do we know what time they will be? will they still be at 4:30 or i am hoping they will be back at 5:30? do we know that yet? >> president: commissioner, sure, i'll answer that. commissioner dooley, that is an excellent question. and people people go back to jobs and a conversation with the director about what the ideal time would be. i think the move to move it up a

bit was because our hearings were longer during the pandemic. and it was getting very hard to stay awake when it was pushing north of 10:00. and also it made it easier for constituents to participate because it was all online. and i think i am very curious to see how in-person is going to work and whether there will still be an opportunity for people to participate via call in and zoom and that sort of thing and in general. and find a way to make that continue and i heard and as far as any concerns.

and people people get off work and don't have to leave work early. i feel like, though, previously it's almost impossible to remember back to our pre-pandemic times. wasn't one of our meetings at -- during the day? am i mis-remembering that? was it always at 5:30? >> the second meeting of the month was at 2:00 in the afternoon. >> president: that's right. >> if i could add a little bit of clarity to this, when dominica was here, we did take a look, and it looks as though the 4:30 time even returning back to in-person on monday, and i will recheck this was available.

previously the 5:30 time and the second monday of the month was not available due to another commission having the meeting at that time. but that looks like it's changed. so i'll revisit that but the intention was to have the commission have the meetings at 4:30 and i will tell you why in just a minute. both mondays of the month. if we do want to revisit this, we will need to change our rules of order. we changed our rules of order to move the meeting time to 4:30 and i think we had some discussion about that this would keep the 4:30 time once we returned to in-person meetings. again, it is to your decision.

we will need to change our orders to reflect that. otherwise we will have have to as long the as the rule of order reflect that and you want a 5:30 meeting time, those willing designated as special meetings. i don't know if you remember that, but dominica before we changed our rules of order, she had to cancel the 5:30 meeting and call the 4:30 meeting a special meeting. so it's a technicality, but one i want you to be aware of that it isn't just as easy as saying, oh, let's start at 5:30. >> president: let me put this out here. i had a big problem with the 2:00 meeting because it came in the middle of a monday, which for me is the busiest day of the week. that was a huge challenge to have to get down to city hall because invariably you had to leave by 12:30 or 1:00. you had to start getting ready

and all of that. and it was hard to run a business and be there at 2:00. i think for myself and i am interested in what the other commissioners think and tend to agree with commissioner dooley that after business hours would be at least from my perspective a little bit more preferable with the hope that the meetings would not be terrifically long. sort of an unusual situation during the height of the pandemic. i'm not opposed to changing the rules of order. however, the director brings up a good point which is we are not the only ones with a say in room

400 and if somebody else has it and it's in conflict, that is a complicating factor. >> commissioner, i did do a quick look at the calendar for room 400 and at least through the end of the year, we are definitely scheduled for the evening meetings for both mondays. so again, it is to your decision if you want to start at 5:30 and return back to the normal time. then it's just a technical -- it's just a procedural thing in terms of changing the rules of order. >> president: why don't i just quickly poll everybody that's here. since we're here. >> we could don't that here technically. you have to -- it would have to be agendaized. >> that is right. >> perhaps what i should do,

commissioner, is you're certainly welcome to individually send your feedback to me. please take the time to individually send your feedback in terms of your thoughts on what start time. as commissioner adams says, we can't take a poll. >> president: can we put it on the agenda to discuss it? this seems like something that could be a five or 10 minute conversation. >> we certainly can, yes. >> president: okay. and then commissioner ortiz-cartagena, we still are about to purchase the ablets instead of -- purchase the tablets instead of the paper binders and didn't because of the pandemic, so i just want to make sure you know that i still have that online to do list.

>> president: i am sitting on a pile of used tablets from my employees and so tempted to offer to donate them. so first of all, we have plenty of time until september. so director, vice president zouzounis, let's figure out the optimal time to put this on the agenda to have a conversation. maybe on a meeting that doesn't have much planned. i don't recall what our short-term plans are for agendas. this seems like something we could have a quick conversation about and develop some consensus and come with a meeting time that works for everybody or at least almost everybody. >> all right. we already asked for public

comment, correct? >> president: i don't think we did. are we on director's report still? >> we are still on director's report. maybe we do need to ask for public comment. >> i think we should one more time. matthew, is there any public commenters on the line? >> there is currently no one if the queue. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item number 7 is, commissioner discussion and new business items. this allows the president, vice president, and commissioners to report on recent small business activities, make announcements that are of interest to the small business community, and make inquiries of staff to allow commissioners to introduce new agenda item for future consideration we the small business commission. this is a discussion item, mr. president. >> president: okay. commissioner, is there any new news? any new items? anything you want to share? anything you want to talk about?

>> commissioner: what did you do this week? miriam? >> commissioner: honestly, i never report everything because it is a lot in terms of technical support, right now follow-ups around calrecycle and communication to three tailors that are needing to be notified that they no longer have to take cans and bottles is part of what i have been working on. and trying to work with city departments to also put other contacts on their distribution, so if there's a district merchant group or a trade group related to that sector, that can be a secondary or more

preferable resource for getting information. or trying to work on that. and if i think of anything else that's relevant, i'll chime in again. >> president: okay. sorry. i had to put somebody on the spot. this is a fun game. commissioner adams? what have you been up to? >> commissioner: i just called for an event called lazy bear for 2,000 people. it was a vaccine required event. everything was outdoors. we raised a lot of money for nonprofits. >> that is fantastic. lover that. commissioner ortiz-cartagena, you turned your camera on. maybe that was a mistake. i know you have been up to a lot.

>> commissioner: for me in committee work and the commercial unemployment and i'm just in the weeds right now. but that's really about negotiating leases on the spending and the commercial moratorium extension and just doing strategy with the neighborhoods. and where we have global sf and look past the pandemic to revitalize the corridors and investment and using mother nature. this is an opportunity to pay off. that's what i've been doing. >> president: okay. that is great. i'm not going to call on everybody else unless you want to be called on, and matt, i am just picking people randomly. see, commissioner heely, there we dpo. it seems unfair to call everybody in. commissioner dickerson already

told me she wasn't feeling too great. i didn't want to single anybody out. go ahead. commissioner hewitt. >> well, i wasn't sure what to share because i also feel like i just kind of keep doing all of this stuff. and it's like i don't know what is exciting for anyone to hear about. but one of the cool things that i did do was this weekend the saturday i private tour of the angel island museum. angel island was renovated years ago to show an areas where people were detain and needed information and now recently they finished the work. they are working on with what used to be the hospital. it's got meeting rooms and it

has a kitchen and exhibits about immigration and brings it up into the present and highlights some amazing work. there was one group highlighted on one of the board or exhibits where people check into the desert to leave water for people who are currently crossing. so that we don't experience anymore deaths from dehydration. so i love that there they're really bringing these historical things up to the present tense because it is all still happening and relevant to the public. i took this slow boat to go there and moves 45 minutes in the choppiest water, but there is an easier way and to have a board retreat or an organization kind of thing.

i feel like having an event that is rooted in the historical and relevant space. so a gift from the steady and wanted to share that highlight. i made it through and i didn't get sick. so great. >> i love that idea. director, can we do a retreat at angel island? is there any reason why we couldn't? >> the most likely reason is because your retreat has to be open to public to be able to attend. so -- >> can i bring the laptop and recording gear and -- >> you people can come. there is a ferry from tiberon. >> yes. and likely means that -- anyway,

i think it's an interesting idea. but logistics of dealing with making it accessible for the public both financially and everything. >> president: all right. nothing fun can happen. >> i like what this brings up, commissioner hewitt, and perhaps other more easily accessible places that would work for a retreat. i think this is solid suggestion. glad you brought it up. i want to note for the record that both of the remaining commissioners have put their name up to also share their news reports which will mean this will be the first time that i can recall having 100% participation because obviously i will have to share some kind of news and report. commissioner, did you have more? i didn't want to cut you off. >> i was going to offe