>> okay. sorry. all right. good morning everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i'm excited to be here at footprint with michael, the owner. with our captain and our

assessor-recorder, the supervisor of the community gordon mar and office of economic and work force development. so many people who work hard to help support our small businesses because we know despite what has happened during the pandemic, so many of our small businesses have been suffering in san francisco. the cost of doing business, the ability to find a storefront and go through the city's bureaucratic process to get open in the first place has changed our city as we know it. often times during the spring time, we're celebrating small businesses in san francisco but we need to do a better job of putting our money where our mouth is when we talk about supporting small businesses. i still go to the same dry cleaner i have been going to since i was a kid. i still go to the same dentist i have been going to since i've

had teeth, i go to the same place to get my nails done when i can afford to get them done. it is an important part of the spirit of san francisco, we love our neighborhood shops and restaurants and businesses and we want to do everything we can to support them and this pandemic has made life very challenging. i remember walking around in the castro, there are a lot of businesses i frequent because they're close to where i live. one day i was walking and i noticed something different. there were a lot of windows that were broken. i was devastated, but i was so angry. i thought now all of the money that they struggle to make during the pandemic is now going into fixing something that they did not do. in fact, in the castro, there was one person who vandalized all five of the windows broken. in chinatown, 20 businesses were

vandalized and thanks the the san francisco police department, that one person that vandalized those 20 businesses has been arrested and is currently being detained in our jails. the fact is, we have to make sure that we are doing everything we can in this city to hold people accountable for the crimes they commit. but we never want those crimes to happen in the first place. if they do, we have to stand by our small businesses. we have to provide the relief and support they need because it's not just about the business owner and their livelihood, it's also their employees who are supporting families themselves. it's a big deal. and so in san francisco, we've tried to be very creative about the programs we have instituted, especially since this pandemic. we have been able to give out a

significant amount of resources for grants, for loans, for facade improvements. for people dealing with challenges. we know that that little bit of money goes a long way. with our sf shines programs and a number of things, we have been able to help support small businesses and in addition to that, just recently the board of supervisors supported an effort to for the next year provide for those who want to open new businesses in san francisco, able to waive a number of city fees that often times are expensive and makes it difficult to open a business. we know we have too many empty store fronts. we have to get rid of the bureaucracy like we did when voters passed prop 8 and small business recovery efforts. we hope businesses notice a difference and just to be clear, for someone who may want to --

i'm sure you have probably heard about this, change a nail shop to an ice cream bar or shop, it shouldn't take two years to do something that simple. we must do better. but a bakery recently was vandalized, pharmacy ramshacked and they faced two cases of vandalism. frank's flowers burned to the ground. all these incredible places that are institutions in our city. i want to thank supervisor mar for working with us to establish this new program, this vandalism relief fund that will provide anywhere from 1-2 thousand dollars to those who need to provide repairs the first their businesses. we allocated a million dollars in the budget to do that because we know there are so many businesses that have experienced this. this is one of so many of the programs that we try to offer to

help support and protect our small businesses. there's not a one size fits all. san francisco is an expensive city, but i'm really proud of the fact that we continue time and time again to look at creative ways to invest in small businesses. they are the driving engine of san francisco. we can't just keep talking about it and adding more layers of bureaucracy to make life difficult for them. we have to make changes to our policies, we have to make changes to our investment. we have to do that because we need to see a change in the city we all know and love, built on the backs of small businesses. i want to thank you all for being here and i'm really excited that footprints is a beneficiary because of the challenges they experienced and i'm looking forward to make sure at least 500 businesses i think will benefit from this program

and hopefully we won't have to use all of it. i want to take this opportunity to introduce our partner in this effort, supervisor gordon mar. (applause) >> thank you mayor breed and everyone for being here for the announcement of the relief grant program. i'm pleased to be here along with mayor breed, office of economic work force development, assessor-recorder and our merchant association to announce this important, very important new program that the city is start together provide economic relief and support to our mom and pop businesses that have been victims during the pandemic. unfortunately that's a lot of businesses throughout the city and particularly in residential neighborhoods. during the pandemic, we have

seen a surge in vandalism and burglaries, in particular targeting neighborhood businesses in our neighborhoods. here in the sunset district, there's been dozens of businesses that are victims. mr. bread bakery, sugar and water dessert cafe were all burglarized and we have seen it play out in other areas. on irving many businesses have been hit. and then most recently and i think it has gotten some attention, frank's florist, 87-year-old historic business not only burglarized but burned

out last week. i want to really thank michael, the owner of footprint shoe store here for first suggesting the creation of the program. i remember when i came to visit michael, after footprint was broken into it and his efforts to recover. michael mentioned that it would be helpful to owners like him who have suffered these losses to have a little bit of financial support from the city in their recovery. and whether it is to repair the broken windows or damage to the storefront, to pay their insurance deductible or to beef up security system, to prevent -- to hopefully prevent crime impacting them in the future. from that conversation i had with michael back in february, i started working with my staff

and colleagues on the board and in june, i proposed $1 million to provide a fund for small businesses and i want to thank mayor breed for working with my office over the past three months to create this program. i know, you know, we are hopefully going to be able to provide support to at least 500 businesses through this program. but the need is even greater and we're going to look at how we can expand the pot. in the budget, i think there's an additional -- some additional funds in this year's budget that we can used to expand the pot if there is a great demand for the program, which i think there will be. beyond that, this is just providing relief to the businesses and supporting them in their recovery. but we really need to look at how we can prevent the steps the

cities can take. i know mayor breed and chief scott in the police department and -- good folks here at this station are committed to as well. i'm going to hold a hearing mid october in the public safety neighborhood committee as to what we can do as a city to address crime in our commercial corridors and ensure safety for businesses and residents. that will be an opportunity to really look at how we can prevent this type of crime from happening in the future. today we are here to announce the launch of the important new program and i want to introduce sunset native who took over this footprint shoe store from the previous owners just before the pandemic kicked in. i want to thank michael for keeping this important business

going in the neighborhood and serving the community and for suggesting that we create the store front relief program. thank you. (applause) >> it's an honor to be here and i want to thank supervisor mar, mayor breed for taking time and putting this program and their entire teams and everybody behind the scenes, putting this grant together so small businesses can come out of this. i want to thank the station after our store got vandalized, the captain reached out personally and was along my side to get through the insurance handling process. he and his team were there for us. thank you. the pandemic has been for me, never knew what a pandemic was.

when i took over the business i was excited to start and two weeks later we were told we had to close. i think something that is positive that has come out of the pandemic is community. i think without the pandemic, this never would have happened. i definitely see this is a positive to come out of covid-19 and i look forward to continue to engage with the city to help small businesses. i grew up just a few blocks from this store. i shop and eat at all of the neighborhood stores and it is very sad to see them struggling. but i do believe if we come together, with the help of the grant for the stores that got vandalized, we'll be able to come out stronger and united as a whole together. i want to introduce people to come up. grace?

(applause) >> hi, i am with carolyn lin -- carlin company hair studio. i just want to take a moment to thank supervisor mar for helping push through the relief bill and mayor breed for signing the bill and pushing it through. it is very much needed. we have been in much -- had many challenges, the construction and pandemic and now crime. it is good to have relief and help from the city in these very hard times. just want to thank you supervisor mar and mayor breed. and i guess i'm the last speaker, we're all available for questions if you have questions for the speakers.

>> i saw that the release was saying that grants aren't to cover stolen goods or shared spaces. >> for -- this is a vandalism relief fund. it is for, sadly, people who have been victims. there are specific requirements we have. for example, if you have been vandalized, we would ask that you report it to the police. so we want to make sure there's a police report and receipts for the expenses. and if you are a victim of graffiti for example, all 311 to report it and as long as we have receipts, we can provide the relief. today we brought the checks for footprints, not just the

vandalism relief fund for what he had to deal with but also sf shines and the less questions you ask, the more time we can spend shopping to spend more money in his good store. christian? >> i'm not sure if it's for the mayor or supervisor, are we talking broken grass, graffiti you talked about. what does it cover? and does it work in conjunction with broken glass? >> just to be clear, it is any vandalism related to anything you would need to make a police report for the vandalism on your store and it could include graffiti and often times people don't leslie make police reports for graffiti but if you have been vandalized and something needs to be fixed because of the vandalism, that is what it

encompasses. the money from the broken windows fund can be used as a tool as well. so for example, say if you had a broken window and then you also as a result have desire to put in cameras and other systems the enhance and protect your store, there's possible support through these various programs to do that with a cap on the idea that we provide. the vandalism relief fund is capped at $2,000 at this time. >> can we have an idea of what is going on? [indiscernible] is it one person or -- >> captain, do you want to talk about that today? >> so we made an arrest recently and it was a series of vandalisms occurring in the

chinatown business corridors and it was occurring up and down ocean avenue. so, from the investigation in that arrest, what we were able to learn was it was basically one person that was responsible for upwards of 30 or 40 incidents. in that case, we do know based on interviewing that person, too, that it was prejudice based. there was vandalism involved but it was driven by prejudice and again, 30-40 incidents is quite a lot of incidents. and across multiple police districts. hopefully that arrest in and of itself will reduce a lot of these incidents. >> feel free to shop if you want. thank you for being here.

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>> everything is done in-house.

i think it is done. i have always been passionate about gelato. every single slaver has its own recipe. we have our own -- we move on from there. so you have every time a unique experience because that slaver is the flavored we want to make. union street is unique because of the neighbors and the location itself. the people that live around here i love to see when the street is full of people. it is a little bit of italy that is happening around you can walk around and enjoy shopping with gelato in your hand. this is the move we are happy to provide to the people. i always love union street because it's not like another commercial street where you have big chains.

here you have the neighbors. there is a lot of stories and the neighborhoods are essential. people have -- they enjoy having their daily or weekly gelato. i love this street itself. >> we created a move of an area where we will be visiting. we want to make sure that the area has the gelato that you like. what we give back as a shop owner is creating an ambient lifestyle. if you do it in your area and if you like it, then you can do it on the streets you like.

valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. the first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the mission neighborhood extending from market to mission street. >> it is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours.

>> from 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. the mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m.t.a. to put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [♪♪♪] >> valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in san francisco. it has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. we promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. valencia is our mission -- fits our mission perfectly. our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes.

whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. >> i have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. during that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. >> we have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. one of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. >> the most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. >> we kept all the passengers -- the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see

out here. >> most people aren't actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. >> half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6:00 p.m., so could be used for five-minute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. >> the five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. >> one of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. >> we worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. >> on this lot, there are a few schools. all these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. to address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings -- railings that channel -- channeled a designated crossing

plane. >> we had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons? >> i do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. >> we have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the right-of-way so they can cross the roadway. this is probably one of the most unique features. >> during the planning phase, the m.t.a. came out with three alternatives for the long term project. one is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. a two-way bikeway. the third option is a center running two-way bikeway, c. would have the two bike lanes running down the center with

protection on either side. >> earlier, there weren't any enter lane designs in san francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for san francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesn't exist already. >> with all three concepts for valencia's long-term improvement , there's a number of trade-offs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. when he think about extending this pilot or this still -- this design, there's a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. >> the pilot is great. it is a no-brainer. it is also a teaser for us. once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. >> what we're trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. the pilot project is one of our first major improvements. we will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out

here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. this fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. by spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about long-term improvements. >> i appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the community workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. >> we want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. there's a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. we will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [♪♪♪.

>>. [rollcall] metal chair, you have a quorum. >> chair: great.