present in your life, there is just no meaning to it you know? >> we have artists as black and brown people that are in direct danger of the direct policies of the trump administration and i think how each of the artists has responded so that call is interesting. the common . common >> clerk: sfgov tv is televising the meeting which can be streamed at sfgovtv.org. members of the public who will be calling in, the number is

(415) 655-0001. access code, 24804192839. press pound and then pound again to be added to the line. when your item of interest comes up, dial star three to be added to the speaker line. if you dial star three before public comment is called, you will be added to the queue. when you are called for public comment, please mute the device you are listening to the meeting on. best practices are to call from a quiet location and to speak clearly and slowly and turn down the device you're listening to the meeting on. public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker unless otherwise established by the presiding officer of the meeting. an alarm will sound when speaker's time is finished. sfgov tv please show the office of small business side.

>> president: today, we will talk about things that talk about the economic vitality of the office of small business in san francisco. if you need assistance with small business matters particularly at this time, you can find us online or via telephone and as always, our services are free of charge. i'd like to start by thanking media services and sfgov tv for coordinating the meeting. please call item number one. >> clerk: item number one call to order and roll call. [roll call]

mr. president, you have a quorum. >> president: great. so we will do the v land acknowledgement. the small business and office staff acknowledges we're on the unceded ancestral on the move land of the ramaytush ohlone. as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten

their responsibility as the caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and acknowledging their first sovereign rights as first peoples. please calls first item. >> clerk: this is a discussion item. item number two, honoree program. honoring marco bruno, kristi tung, yongwen wang. and presenting this today is carol chang as case manager. >> thank you mr. president, and

vice president, and commissioners. i'm very happy to be before you. actually, carry, before we start sharing the presentation, it would be great to have marco and kristi and yongwen if you could. if i could have you come up on the screen so the commissioners can see your faces. >> clerk: okay. >> hello. this is kristi tung. marco just mentioned he didn't have audio. we want to thank you guys for this recognition. it was our pleasure -- >> director: kristi, i'm going to pause you for a moment. i want the commissioners to see your face and then we'll get into the formal recognition and then you can say a few words after that. marco, i know you don't have

audio, but do you have visual at all? so i wanted to thank marco bruno who is updating and bringing us into the current configuration for sales force into the lightning small business data collection and management and kristi tung has worked with carol chang on this project. and marco and yongwen have

worked with richard carillo on putting together a database for the legacy business program and for rick to be able to both manage the legacy businesses along with the grant program and be able to integrate those so that we can easily monitor each business and also produce the data. so i'm going to read through the certificate and then turn it over to both carol and rick to say a few words. so i will start off with marco bruno. on this monday, october 25th, 2021, marco. marco developed a lightning database for the small business

assistance allowing the business assistance center to access new features and improvements to better track our interactions with clients in the small business community. marco and his team made major enhancements to the legacy business program database which enabled the office of small business to launch a new website for the legacy business industry. marco and his team designed and implemented a new database for the rent stabilization grant enabling the office of small business to better manage this complex grant program. the small business commission extends its sincerest gratitude to marco bruno and the san francisco small business community. and to kisti tung, the small business commission is proud to

acknowledge kristi tung. she assisted with a lightning interface in the sales foerts. finding solutions to reduce data entry -- finding solutions to reduce data entry and enhancing the user experience so the counselors could focus on supporting existing businesses during these challenging times. kristi imported thousands of interactions with and also made upgrades and improvements. for the office of small business assistance center. so we extend our sincere gratitude to kisti for her efforts and service to the san francisco small business community.

and, for yongwen wang. on this day, the small business commission is proud to acknowledge your contribution that you've made to the san francisco small business community. yongwen made major enhancements which enabled the small business office to launch a new website for the legacy business industry. the database and web silent are seamlessly inner connected, so in addition to the database automatically appear on the website. the legacy business industry website would not have been possible without yongwen's expertise. yongwen. it was a complex endeavor, but yongwen implemented flawlessly. the small business commission extends its sincere gratitude to yongwen for her efforts to

the small business community. i do have one more comment before i turn it over to carol and rick to provide a few comments is i also want to extend my gratitude to linda gurrell for recognizing that it was important for the department of technology to provide services to small departments like ours who have very small budgets to provide the expertise that we got with marco and kristi and yongwen and so i also want to extend my appreciation to her. now i will turn over to carol. >> this is richard for carol if that's okay. >> director: okay. >> carol, do you want to go first? >> no. you can go first. >> okay. good afternoon commissioner,

city staff, members of the public. this is richard carillo. legacy business program manager. i just wanted to say i had the honor of working with marco and yongwen on two legacy data business programs. one was the legacy business database. we've made some major enhancements in order to be able to launch our new industry website and we only had two and a half months from the time we hired a contractor and to a date we wanted to get the website up and running. so there was a lot of complicated things we needed to do. we created a whole new vocation location of the website. we had to make a lot of adjustments to the database so that was in the website and there was just a lot of communication back and forth

between marco and yongwen and the contractor and me to make sure we were all working together. it would not have been able to happen with marco and yongwen and i can't tell you how much we appreciate all the work that you did to get the website up and running. i decided the way to go was to create a database for that and that was very complicated and marco and yongwen helped me with that database and it's very complicated and as an application and up to ten years or more, there's a re-application. there's a c.e.i. adjustment and every year the grant

information has to get entered and the grant name changes and the fiscal year changes and it's very complicated. i didn't think it was possible, but they did it and it's great. we started using it just this fiscal year and i love it and it's made my life so much easier and i don't know how you did it. thank you so much. just appreciate everything you've been doing and it's a real pleasure working with you and i can't tell you how happy i am with the databases. >> thank you, rick. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is carol chang. i'm one of the business case managers for the office of small business. thank you for allowing me to say a few words of appreciation to marco and his team being recognized here today. first off, i want to express my sincere gratitude for marco for his leadership and support on my salesforce projects.

we were able to transition from the salesforce traffic to the lightning interface. we always made sure we had plenty of time to assess products and new features. as always, he's always a pleasure to work with and so i really appreciate he supports small divisions and departments like ours who may not have a resource like a designated salesforce admin, but marco and his team have stepped up to provide that level of support for our office. and i'm grateful for all that they've done for our department and other departments in the city. and for kristi, i cannot honestly say enough about the amazing work that you do. she's just that knowledgeable and i truly appreciate the effort that she put into our projects, learning all the

details on how we use salesforce to track data always making great suggestions on ways to help us track data efficiently so that we can focus our efforts on serving the small business community. so thank you again, kristi, for your continuous support and being such a key role in this partnership we've built. thank you. >> director: and now, kristi, shall i turn it over to you and then yongwen. >> okay. i'll go first. okay. so first of all, we wanted to thank you, commissioners and o.s.b. for working with us and giving us a chance to serve you because we all serve the city and county of san francisco and we are so proud to be able to partner with you guys even

during the pandemic. we're able to work it out and then get things done quickly and thank you, carol, and the team and, of course, regina for all the help. letting us know what is the specification and requirements so we can get things done quickly. so we really appreciate the partnership with your team. thank you very much. >> hi, my name's yongwen from d.t. and kristi actually expressed what the team wanted to express. i really appreciate your office recognizing our work. i'm so glad i have the opportunity to work with the team involving in these programs to enhance the service

of the city and there's a lot of hard work, there's a lot of communication. like always provides us feedback and information on time quickly. it's a real pleasure for me to be involved in such an interesting and challenging application development. thank you. thank you for your department and thank you, rick. >> director: i think marco is not able to join us. he is on, connected somehow, but i don't think he's able to say a few words. >> can i say a few quick words.

this is yongwen. marco is a great leader and i'm so happy your office recognized our team's work, but a special needs to mention we are under marco's leadership and there is a lot of complicated situations and he's helping us to make the right decisions and communicate with all parties involved and i want to thank him for his leadership too. >> director: thank you, yongwen. well, thank you, commissioners, and marco, and rick and carol for allowing the department to take this time as part of your meeting to recognize city employees who are providing

great service to your department and helping our efficiency and reporting our ability to be able to report and deliver services to our small businesses and so thank you and if there is any comments or anything that any commissioners want to share, you may do so. otherwise, this will open it up for public comment. >> president laguana: i'll just add all my thoughts. thank you for all your hard work and keeping the wheels spinning. there's certainly been an awful lot of wheels spinning over the last 18 months. vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis:

yeah. i agree. i'm happy that our director recommended this as an item on our agenda so we can have you all before us. thank you so much to our o.s.b. staff and friends in other departments that come in and help make our work possible. i'm really excited about these databases. i want to see them. i want to see you all and what you do in the trenches because it is so important. so thank you again for all your day-to-day work and making us a sustainable force. >> president laguana: absolutely. not seeing any other commissioners lining up, why don't we check in and see if there's any public comment. >> there's no one on the line for public comment. >> president laguana: seeing none. public comment is closed. i will just say one more time, thank you so much for all the

work you do. and we really appreciate you and thank you for making time for us this evening and, marco, hopefully we'll see you next time. so, with that, we will go to the next item. next item, please. >> clerk: item three, first year free update. this is a discussion item. this is a presentation reviewing key policy guidance and updates regarding the first year free program. presenting today we have amanda fried, chief of policy and communications, office of the tax collector. molly cohen assistant director of the policy and communications and the legislative aid to supervisor ronen.

>> president laguana: amanda, i think you're good to go as soon as you're ready to go. we'll need to -- you'll probably need to unmute if you're talking because we can't hear you. >> apologies. for some reason i couldn't unmute when i was sharing my screen. so i'm going to introduce myself and then try to bring that back up again. apologies. sometimes these webex's are funky. my name is amanda fried and i'm joined by amy finer from

supervisor ronen's office and molly cohen. amy, if you are here, i'm happy to give you the floor before i get into the presentation. otherwise, i can jump right in. >> i will be extremely brief. thank you so much, amanda. amy finer here. of course, the treasurer and tax collector's office. we're just so grateful for you having jumped in so fast, so effectively to bring this legislation program to life. we're very optimistic that we're going to hear about amanda's amazing plan that's going to roll out and we are here with you all the way. supervisor ronen introduced this legislation. we worked very closely with all of you to make it come to peru wigs and now we're into the roll-out. we're already starting to talk

to small businesses and organizations that work with small businesses about it and we're excited to continue on that and whatever ideas come out of this group, how best to get the word out and how to promote this, i'm trying to make sure it really brings back small businesses to our commercial corridors. we're excited to work with you. so i will make myself quiet and listen to amanda. thanks so much. >> okay. let's try this again. there we go. thank you, amy. and it's been a pleasure to work with many of you over some weeks and months. commissioner laguana and i were on prevent calls in the pandemic. so amy mentioned back in the spring, supervisor ronen announced the idea for first year free and it was really born from the frustration of small businesses by opening a

business in san francisco and it was expensive and time consuming. obviously i know i don't need to explain that to any of you today, but as we worked with the supervisor and other partners like osb to design first year free, our goal was always to try to make it easy for businesses to open without the huge and often unexpected things that happen today. since that announcement, the program has been approved by the board and the mayor. funding for the program was included as part of the budget this year and i'm very excited to say we are getting really close to launching on november 1st. and so this is just a bit of a quote from supervisor ronen. many of you might remember the story. i think commissioner laguana was actually in it, so hopefully it looks familiar. so what is first year free? the program will waive the cost

of the initial license, first year permit, and business registration fees as well as several other related fees for businesses who qualify. it is a pilot program, so right now we're funded to waive fees for qualifying businesses from november 1st, 2021, to october 31st, 2022, and i'm going to go through eligibility on the next slide. to give you a sense of the scope of the fees that could be waived, we're working with a range of departments including planning, department of building inspection, public works, public utilities commission, department of public health, fire, police, entertainment. the list is long and that is by design and we're really excited that we've been able to sort of ininclude so many departments because we think it will have the most impact on all businesses which was always the point. so a bit about who's eligible.

first year free is both for new businesses and existing businesses that are opening in new qualified locations. so the key here is the dates. the businesses have to start between november 1st, 2021, and october 31st, 2022. they have to be ground floor commercial. they can't be formula retail and they have to be small. and the way that we're defining small is the same way we at the treasurer's office define small in the gross receipts tax in the san francisco gross receipts. for a new business, that's your estimated gross receipts that you put down when you register the business, and for an existing location, the opening location you're actual receipts from filing. again, we really set out to make this as easy as possible for businesses. so i'm happy to say today, there's no paper work or

application for first year free. businesses will get enrolled as they register as a business with the city, something you already have to do. or when they add a new location to their existing business registration. we've built a question for eligibility just into those applications that businesses are already using and if we find that you're eligible as you go through it, we're going to share more information with you at that time and ask you whether or not you'd like to sign up. so, again, enrollment is automatic and it's immediate. so a business can opt in. there are some terms and conditions. so we want to make sure businesses understand what they're signing up for, but once you say, "yep, i want to be in this program," you're going to get an e-mail that you can take with you as you go through your permitting journey with the city. as you decide you want to pull a permit that day, if you're standing in the permit center

and you're like oops, i forgot to register my business and then we'll also mail a letter out so you have another way to show you're part of it. once a business is part of share fee, the fees are waived on the spot. you apply for a permit or you have a fee in front of you. the person you're working with from the city can take a look at the letter you brought to them, the e-mail, or they can look it up on an internal look-up we have for them. so there's no waiting, there's no refunds. it just hopefully magically happens on the spot. sorry. i went a little fast. we want to make sure that we get the word out to businesses.

so we want people who are thinking about opening a business, but may be on the fence. an aspiring entrepreneur, anyone out there to know that this is starting and so we are starting a newsletter. we have a website up. we'll have some social media. we've made flyers. we're working with sfgov tv to make a p.s.a. to send around, a short little video to help to get the word out. the program starts on november 1st, but we don't take time for businesses to start, and so we really want people to sort of build this into their plan for their first year and understand that this is coming and this may benefit them. and let's see. we have more outreach materials. we have flyers. we're getting all of this information translated, it will be something to sell in multiple languages.

we're trying as much as possible to target commercial corridors. so when we send around our media kit, if you think there's another photo that you'd like us to include, it's no problem. just share it with us and we're happy to swap it out for your photo of your choice and make sure everyone realizes this is a program they can benefit from. and lastly, i want to thank the office of small business, economic and workforce development, supervisor ronen's office, a whole host of departments who really kind of worked hard to make sure we meet the november 1st deadline and also make sure you all know i had the joy of presenting to you today, but molly cohen has truly done all of the work and so i want to thank her for figuring out how to get this running in a short amount of time. and i'd love to get any of your

feedback, your questions, anything we can do to make this better. with that, i think i'm finished. >> president laguana: awesome. well, it's a fantastic program. with that, let's listen to what our commissioners have to say. commissioner adams. >> commissioner adams: i agree with you, president laguana. this is an excellent program. if you can get some of this material for me, i know places i can distribute it to throughout the city. >> president laguana: yeah. i think the reaction i'm having is i need to open a business of some kind. >> commissioner adams: i was thinking too, there's like organizations like renaissance and there's mission economics. there's a lot of organizations out there who do help people start their businesses and these people should be targeted with this. >> yeah. we've hopefully captured many of them on our e-mail list. we're waiting for some of these

materials to come back from translation and then we'll send them out. but, yes, we'd love, you know, if you think of any, we're happy to take any of your ideas for who to send this to, who should be on our list. that would be great. >> commissioner adams: i know all of you so i will send that to you. >> president laguana: great. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: thank you, amanda for this. and thank you, supervisor ronen's office, for getting this off the floor. i would love to present this in my next sub committee on small business. all the c.e.o.s across the city and our new technical system. this is awesome and i want to help. so thank you. >> president laguana: great. vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you so much for the presentation and to everyone who contributed on this.

i want to give a shout out to supervisor ronen's office and really understanding the needs that you can, you know, solve for in legislation. so i see that there's been a direct result of working with constituents. so thank you so much. i love that this is setting a precedent for some of the tools with the treasury and tax collector's office that we want to pilot like the direct opt-in and direct opt-out staff. this is really exciting for the governments in general knowing we have the ability to identify certain types of businesses. so that's huge for starting a small business. i will share it with the san francisco district office of

the small business administration because we believe it or not through the course of last year, we've been getting consistent e-mails about sharing a new business. so there's a lot of new businesses, a lot of interest and i'll make sure that office gets that information too. so thank you so much. >> president laguana: thank you. commissioner huie. >> commissioner huie: yes. i just wanted to thank you -- also, thank all of you for this. i didn't know exactly what i wanted to say, but i definitely wanted to agree with all of this work and it's just -- this is actually something that i think kind of resinates oddly with me in a way that i'm super excited to see something really positive for new small businesses, you know. it's like i feel like we've

kind of gotten hit with a lot of different things and i'm super excited to have some good news to share with people and hopefully this will inspire somebody to really go for it and take that leap between concept to actually executing because i love seeing small businesses obviously opening up in our city. so thank you so much for championing this and getting it into fruition so quickly. that's all i have. thank you. >> president laguana: great. commissioner dooley. >> commissioner dooley: i wanted to just add that it's a very exciting program and for me what really stands out is it's pretty simple to understand and it's going to be something that new businesses can, you know, do not need a lot of interpretation on and it's going to give them direct help and that is something that we really need in our area. so thank you so much for

providing that. >> president laguana: thank you. commissioner dickerson. you're on mute, commissioner dickerson. nope. okay. sound's not working i guess. all right. well, you know, i think this is exactly what the city needs right now. this and a whole lot of other things just like this. you know, i think the pandemic has really made it very clear the impact of the small business sector on our economy as a whole that we have become

awakened to the fact that without a small business sector, our economy is less robust and more vulnerable to shock events and other things that are bad for the citizens as a whole and we've lost so many small businesses and we're still losing them at a rapid clip faster than unfortunately than we're making them. faster than we're creating them. so this legislation is critical because it helps unlock hopefully a whole bunch of people out there who are sitting on the sidelines and thinking maybe i can do this and maybe this encourages them to say, you know, all right, let's go for it. let's give it a whirl. and i wanted to amplify what

commissioner dooley said about it being simple and easy to understand. i think we could use a lot more of that in our approach to the small business sector particularly as a whole with some of the land use and planning items and all the different parts that small businesses have to interact with cities. it's at times almost needlessly complex and this is such a wonderfully simple and amazingly sharp and smart program. i can't thank the supervisor enough for pushing it forward. i do want to tell -- say for the benefit of the commissioners that this was actually surprisingly complex to get up off the ground when you think about, you know, these departments still need to show the work that they did for

budgeting and they still need to show the revenue and, okay, how do we, you know, show that the revenue flows through and, you know, i think we basically had to create a payment system within city hall just to make this happen and it was a really big challenge and a big lift. so real big thanks to everybody that worked on this program, amanda, you and your team at t.t.x. and, you know, and all the other folks that intersected with this. i'm sorry i don't remember everybody's names. sometimes there's a lot of people on those calls. but thank you and more of this, please. amy, let your people know. [ laughter ] more. so with that, let's go to

public comment. >> currently, there's no one in line to speak for public comment. >> president laguana: okay. all right. well, um, i don't think unless lawanda suddenly got her sound to work. thank you guys. appreciate you coming in and, of course, we will help you get this message out starting -- i'll start to blast it tomorrow but, i think we really need to do a full court press as november approaches. thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: item four. resolution urging board of supervisors to eliminate deemed approved use ordinance. this is discussion and action.

the commission will discuss the vote on a resolution calling for the elimination of the deemed approved use ordinance. director dick-endrizzi is going to start us off. >> director: thank you, carry, and commissioners. i hope you did take the time to read through the resolution. carry has done an excellent job in laying that out. the facts, the findings particularly that were discovered through the economic mitigation working group that was established by supervisor wallton in response to legislation that affected many of our corner stores and small businesses who sold tobacco products, but they are also businesses that were targeted with this particular ordinance

and i think the facts and findings of why this ordinance came into place sort of really has the evaluation. it's time to have that re-evaluated. so the deemed approveded ordinance just as a reminder is apply to businesses that have off sale alcohol license types 20 and 21. and we as a city directly equated the behaviors of businesses that have these type 20 and 21 licenses that they tend to have higher amounts of litter, graffiti, unruly behavior, disruption of the peace, illegal drug activity,

illegal sales of firearms, public drunkenness, harassment of passer buyers, gambling, prostitution, dealing goods, assaults or batteries on the premises. so that was in the findings and the justification for establishing the deemed approved use ordinances. and that was done in 2006. so it is time for the city. you know, we have strengthened the criteria that goes into the requirements of receiving an alcohol license. not only through the a.b.c., but then there's also a process that certain alcohol licenses need to go through the approval, through the board of supervisors and so many of the conditions that are established in the deemed approved use ordinances are now conditions

in receiving an a.b.c. license. so and i do -- and also highlighted in the ordinance is that there are other municipalities that have deemed approved use ordinances as well and they included bars and restaurants san francisco did not. so there's a disparity in relationship of saying, you know, what businesses, you know, what businesses have good behavior around alcohol and what businesses don't and we do know that there's been, you know, issues around client behavior, customer behavior within our industry. we created an entertainment commission because of issues around customer behavior with

entertainment. so i will, um, i think -- and then also, the last thing just to note is that with the pandemic and with the kind of expansion of some of the a.b.c. allowances for type 41 and type 47 licenses which we are allowing the extension of the sale of alcohol off site into the, you know, into the street through the shared spaces also allowing with the sale of food, the ability for individuals to purchase mixed drinks with those -- with the food items and, again, we're not applying the deemed approved use extension to those sort of off sale privileges. and nor do i want to say that we should be applying it. i think we should say that what

we're looking at and what we're doing and what we're moving towards is saying that, you know, our businesses are good businesses and with this extension through the shared spaces and through the pandemic, we have confidence that they have the ability to be able to manage and control their alcohol sales and the ability for individuals that they sell to. and so therefore, i think if we have confidence in that area, you know, we also have confidence in -- we should have confidence with our type 20 and 21 off sale businesses. so with the economic mitigation working group, right before the pandemic hit, the working group and the commission has received the recommendations from the working group is to definitely

eliminate the fee and potentially the ordinance. then, supervisors held a hearing and from that hearing, it also was determined that, you know, a reconsideration for the ordinance and the fees should be given. so this resolution and then the pandemic hit and so the recommendations from the economic mitigation working group went on pause. but as we are looking, you know, as a result of the pandemic, we are looking at removing redundancies, streamlining, eliminating unnecessary costs for our small businesses and this is one that is one that can easily be done. so the resolution is to follow up with the recommendations of

the economic mitigation working group and to request the board of supervisors which they were getting close to doing was to at least deal with the elimination of the fee, but if not the ordinance. so that resolution is before you. and i think what next, you know, carry did a good amount of drafting or she did the drafting of the resolution and an excellent job. if there's any information you want to add, carry, and i also would allow vice president zouzounis to also say a few words as well. >> no. i think you covered it. so, vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: yeah. great job, carry. really capturing kind of the all the pieces of this policy

initiative. i'm happy to provide any context for some of our newer commissioners. we did start this conversation a long time ago. so i want to just give you some context. this as director mentioned was started in 2006. so at the height of the junction, broken window arrow policy. so not only is it a duplicative code that is now as the director said addressed in a.b.c., alcohol beverage control law and other sfpd codes, it is an equity issue in the sense that it is targeting businesses that serve low-income communities, therefore, targeting low-income communities and our equity

neighborhoods with unnecessary police presence and it's also not equally levied. right. so our restaurant and bars who are now able to sale off sale are not paying the same fees, nor are they subject to the enforcement and in our resolution, one of the whereas clauses that we added was how this precedent was deemed approved even though it hasn't been heard. since 2006, we haven't had any -- we haven't had the compliance hearings that it should of had. it was used and enacted by sfpd as a curfew order on only certain types of businesses which are the same businesses that have e.b.t. licenses and that are in neighborhoods that don't necessarily have bigger food outlets.

so this is definitely a class issue. it's definitely a racial equity issue and i think it's particularly important that we talk about this as criminal justice reform meets small business because it is, you know, trying to address the broken window policies that are low hanging fruit and still on our books and only some types of businesses are subject to them. so nuisance abatement laws became in the public during the george floyd murder. this is a real thing. why are they still reasons for police, you know, to visit businesses and only certain types of businesses.

so i know we didn't capture that as much in the resolution because we wanted to get into, you know, the actual policy areas that we want to reform in this, but we've been up to the rest of -- our commissioners and if this is something the racial equity commission wants to discuss too. but if we want to add an additional cause that does say speak to this as something the d.a. is interested in supporting. this is something that has to do with, you know, reducing the criminalization of low-income communities and communities of color. and i think that that's a really important point to make in this conversation. so whether we want to say that in our recommendation or whether we want to add another whereas, that's up to you all. i just want to make sure you

know that's how we should be talking about this ordinance. >> president laguana: thank you. does anybody else want to add to that? well, i certainly think this is something worth doing. so i guess i'm not supposed to say that yet. let's check in on public comment. >> there's no one on the line for public comment. >> president laguana: okay. seeing none. public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have a motion? >> commissioner adams: i would motion to approve this ordinance. >> president laguana: i'll second. >> clerk: motion to approve the ordinance by commissioner adams. seconded by president laguana.

i'll read the roll. [roll call] all right. the motion passes 7-0. >> president laguana: all right. >> director: and, commissioners, just a note z carry and i will be meeting with supervisor walton's office

to revisit the set of recommendations and the ordinance and the first step is having the ordinance supported and passed by the commission. but it does -- just, you know, it will be submitted to the board of supervisors, but we will still need to put some effort and energy into ensuring there is follow-through with this. so just wanted to make sure that that was brought to your attention as well. and then, carry, our technician, before we move on to the other items asked if you could see about unmuting commissioner dickerson. >> clerk: it looks like she's unmuted on -- no. i cannot. >> director: okay. it does look like -- >> clerk: it looks like you're

unmuted. >> president laguana: i think she's just having sound problems. >> director: okay. all right. thank you and we can move on. >> vice president zouzounis: i have a point of clarification. director, so i know that we just voted on the resolution and we didn't make any recommendations, but is there -- is there certain language that we're going to be using when we share this with other stakeholders like the board and the departments? are we -- like what next step or what notice are we giving them with this resolution? >> director: when you are talking about certain language it's that some of the language

that you -- some of the examples that you provided when you were -- >> vice president zouzounis: i guess, i'm curious, like are we just saying the small business voted on this resolution, here's notice of that or are we urging something next? >> director: well, i mean, the last 'therefore it be resolved' is that the commission is um, basically requesting that the board of supervisors eliminate the deemed approved use ordinance and the fee. that's the last 'therefore' that's the resolve is the commission saying we are requesting the board of supervisors to take this particular action. we will be submitting it with a cover letter. i think, you know, to your

concern, if there is certain ways of addressing this, i mean, we can work on drafting that letter. um, but, you know, it will be -- we will -- the cover letter will have the very specific request. >> vice president zouzounis: okay. >> director: that is in the 'therefore it be resolved' sections of the resolution if that makes sense. >> vice president zouzounis: yeah. i just know that maybe not every supervisor knows that this had a one public safety hearing or something, so i'm just trying to understand like what language will be on our cover letter, but i know that that's safety hearing is mentioned in the -- >> director: right. and we can work with you vice president zouzounis to pull out some of the key highlights of the resolution that you want to have called out in the letter. >> vice president zouzounis: okay. that's exactly what i wanted to understand.

thank you so much everybody and thank you for your leadership on this, director. >> director: all right. so we've called for public comment, right. we can move on to the next item. >> president laguana: yes. >> clerk: okay. item five, resolution making findings to allow teleconferenced meetings under california government code section 54953e. this is a discussion and action item. the commission will discuss and vote on a resolution that is considered or reconsidered the circumstances of the state of emergency and either that the state of emergency continues to directly impact the ability of members to meet safely in person or that the state or local officials continue to impose or recommend measures to promote social distancing. this is the same resolution that we passed i believe at the last meeting and we have to renew every 30 days. so this is sort of procedural at this point. >> president laguana:

commissioner adams. >> commissioner adams: yeah. i see this at a lot of meetings now. the city, i just want to confirm, they're not going to let us meet in person until after the end of the year, is that correct? >> clerk: yes. that's my understanding. >> president laguana: great. any other commissioner questions or comments? is there any public comment? >> there's no one in the queue. >> president laguana: seeing none, public comment is closed. i'll go ahead and make a motion to pass the resolution. >> commissioner adams: i'll second. >> clerk: motion by president laguana, seconded by commissioner adams. [roll call]

>> president laguana: just do a thumbs up or thumbs down. >> clerk: commissioner dooley thumbs up. commissioner dickerson, can you give us a thumbs up? >> commissioner dickerson: yes. >> clerk: i can hear you. okay. commissioner huie. >> commissioner huie: yes. >> clerk: president laguana. >> president laguana: yes. >> clerk: commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: yes. >> clerk: vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: yes. >> clerk: great. the motion passes. >> president laguana: great. next item. >> clerk: item six is approval

of draft meeting minutes. >> president laguana: director, is it possible to pass them all in one fall swoop. >> director: yes. but you need to first ask if any commissioners first have amendments or corrections to the minutes and if there's anyone that needs to be called out. if not, then we can pass them all together, but when we do make the motion, we do need to lift each -- list each of the four dates. >> president laguana: commissioners, are there any amendments or changes or corrections you need to make? seeing none. so let's see -- >> director: then public comment and then motion. >> president laguana: yes. thank you. is there any public comment on the line? >> there's no one on the line for public comment.

>> president laguana: great. so seeing none, i'm going to go ahead and make the motion to pass the minutes starting with october -- including the minutes for october 4th, 2021, april 12th, 2021, april 26, 2021, and may 10th, 2021. >> director: do we have a second for that motion? >> commissioner huie: i second. >> clerk: seconded by commissioner huie. motion to approve minutes from october 4th, april 12th, april 26th, and may 10th of 2021, [roll call]

motion passes 7-0. minutes are approved. item seven, general public comment. this is a discussion item which allows members of the public to comment on matters that are within the small business commission's jurisdiction, but not on today's calendar and suggest new agenda items for the commission's future consideration. >> president laguana: great. is there any member of the public who would like to make comment on any items not on the agenda? >> there's no one on the line for public comment. >> president laguana: seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: item eight, director's report. update on the report of the office of small business and the small business assistance center, department programs, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor, and announcements regarding

small business activities. this is a discussion item. >> director: good evening, commissioners. so i do want to provide you some updates on some programs that have been taking place. the office of economic and workforce development, the workforce division led by josh arse is holding a job fair on november 3rd and that's focused on hospitality and i want to bring this to your attention because while this is for employers that have restaurants and hotels who are able to be at the job fair and it's held at the ferry building from 10:00 to 2:00, what josh and his team have informed me is that they are really wanting to connect with small businesses who have just one or two jobs and if they're able, if there's

space for them, they'll, you know, fit them in, but i also want to begin to connect them with the work force link sf job board. we know that hiring is a challenge for many of our retailers and restaurants. and previously, pre-pandemic, the engagement with the job board and workforce development was really targeting larger employers and not employers that had one or two jobs that they needed to fill. and so they're working to help facilitate and make those connections because there are individuals that they're working with that do need jobs. so really trying to make better those connections to individuals that need jobs and businesses that need to have one or two positions filled.

you know, we do have the jobs now program, but there isn't really a way right now for employers to connect with employees. you know, the employee is the employee applying at jobs and there are job applicants, and the business is able to benefit from that. but a business can't just go and directly connect with the jobs now program and say i have the job, please send applicants to me. so, you know, that's something that we can focus on to help better connect because it's been very much a topic of discussion. both facebook, twitter, you know, our retail businesses and our restaurants particularly in our neighborhood commercial corridors are having a hard time finding individuals to

work. in addition, i will follow up with you to send you the individual in oewd who can help connect with the workforce link sf job board so we can share that out through the business community. and then, also, i wanted to bring to your attention that the jewish vocational service is providing outreach to provide low cost services for their book keeping and account needs. they are doing hands-on job training. these are new bookkeepers that have gone through the job training, come from underserved communities and so it's a good partnership for our really small businesses who don't have the financial capacity to be able to pay, you know, a more

experienced bookkeeper and it's not free, but it's affordable and then, of course, the jewish vocational services is working alongside with these bookkeepers to assist as part of their job training. i don't know at this point if they're able to provide services in others have bookkeeper services that can provide services in spanish or chinese or other languages. but i will also send you information on that as well and find out. and then in terms of our venues, the california venues grant program, their website launched and come this friday, october 29th, applications will be available statewide for independent live event venues and the application will be

open from october 29th through november 19th. grants are awarded -- grants that will be awarded under this program will be done in the amount equal to or to the lesser of $250,000 which is it's dependent upon your gross revenue for 2019. so that's exciting news for our entertainment venues that there is more revenue coming for them as well. then in regards to the sf venue fund, you know, at the beginning of in preparation for us, the office of small business, you know, issuing -- administering and issuing the venue fund here in san francisco. we had some discussions with gift sf and the ability to set

up a donations page that could go to the venue fund. i just want to let you know that that is live now and is working. rick is working with ben van houten in oewd and dillon rice in the entertainment commission to connect with the venue folks to see how they might want to utilize this opportunity to do one kind of last push to get some additional funding as we need to distribute the last amount of funding from that original $3 million. and that will take place during the month of january. and then, one thing i do want to bring to your attention about the san francisco our venue fund and the way that the legislation was written is that if there are any remaining funds in this account after

january 31st, 2022, the office of small business shall use the money to fund in the fund to support the relocation and re-opening of eligible businesses. and so one thing i want to be mindful of is that because this is legislation, this is now written into the administrative code as part of the fund. if there is a need to have funds to go for relocation and re-opening, it may be a good time to reassess with the sponsor about amending the legislation otherwise, it will be encumbent upon the department to periodically check in because this is a fund account that is now established to the office of small business

and, each year the commission's going to need to make some determination as to whether you're going to be requesting funds for the fund program and i think that now that we're further in the pandemic with the city's funding and the federal funding, the concerns about needing to relocate and really deal with re-opening may not be there to the degree that they were when the legislation was drafted. so this may be something that the commission will be -- rick will be working with stakeholders along with ben van houten and dillon rice to get their response to this, but i wanted to bring it to your attention because the challenge of having an established fund that was created by legislation and is there and it is part of

our administrative code means that we need to know exactly what we are going to be doing with it year by year. and so if we don't -- i guess what i'm just saying, if we don't really need it, do we need to continue to have it on our books or on our books in the manner of which it's currently written? and then as far as an update on some of the legislation, so the legislation that for the local business enterprise legislation that you heard a couple meetings ago, that has now passed out of the rules committee. the legislation regarding laundry mats passed out of planning commission and it's also passed out of the land use committee today.

the legislation passed by supervisor stefani passed out of the committee. and the last, there's a couple resolutions that will be forwarded to the budget and finance committee. and there's a possibility because the board of supervisors resolution, usually when they're introduced, they're heard at the next following meeting, be you these are going to be forwarded to the budget and finance commission and so there's a possible that they may come to the commission. and one of them is to support -- one of them is to do a

temporary fee waiver for the sidewalk sales during the holiday season. so this is something that the office of small business and the commission used to sponsor as part of small business week in may. so supervisor stefani is sponsoring that for the holiday season. and then also waiving the banner fee so that we can have shop and stein and the 49 banners throughout the city reminding our city residents to shop small and shop local. and then, legislatively, supervisor mandelman has introduced legislation for amending the planning code to conditionally permit bars in

the castro neighborhood commercial district. i think there was perhaps a cap and so there was a need to make some amendments to the castro neighborhood commercial district around permitting more bars. and then, supervisor haney introduced a resolution last week. it's going to be heard tomorrow about supporting notice and compliance opportunities for small businesses facing lawsuits or violations in relation to the americans with disability act. our office wasn't consulted so carry set up a meeting for us to get a little more information on this so that we understand it and ensure that it is also something that is supportive of our individuals while we also want to be

supportive of our small businesses who are incurring the lawsuits, we also don't want to forget we are ensuring our civil rights as well. and i think legislatively, those are the key updates that i want to provide you. and then in terms of the office of small business, we're beginning the interviews for the two positions that will be specifically trained and be able to service at the permit center. we don't know yet whether it will be both or one, but they will be trained to provide a level of assistance. it's a little more hands-on and the ability to track the business from start to finish

once they begin the permitting process and to work at the permit center and to work with the permit center staff in addition to the agencies that are there to assist our small businesses. and then, the job posting for the ad back for the legacy business position has been posted as well and i do hope that we will get the neighborhood anchoring -- the neighborhood anchoring business position posted within the next month. so that's still working its way through the department of human resources. and i think that that is all that i have for you for tonight. but actually one more thing to

add, the arable equity special committee will be meeting on wednesday. so and we are now getting those regularly scheduled. so vice president zouzounis will be able to provide -- now start providing doing committee reports for you after this coming wednesday. with that, i'll take any questions if you have any. >> president laguana: great. any questions from our commissioners? commissioner huie? >> commissioner huie: i was just wondering if you could maybe -- i caught only kind of -- for some reason, i couldn't hear the whole piece on the legislation by supervisor

mandelman on the situation. >> director: that was supervisor haney who introduced -- it's a resolution. >> commissioner huie: okay. >> director: i'll forward you the resolution and because of being off, i haven't read it in great detail. it is a creating or requesting our federal electives to give consideration around noticing that it's similar to the state. so i'm not clear as to what is being referenced in the state and i don't know, carry, if you recall if there's something, if there is a law that supervisor haney specifically is

referencing. yeah. and why i say it's a concern is because under the federal a.d.a., the noticing requirements is not there. like to put the burden on the individual with a disability to identify to the business that they may be out of compliance, the federal government, you know, has clearly stated that the burden is not on the individual with a disability. so, you know, it's always a challenge when you're only taking a look at the law through serial litigants as opposed to actual individuals with disabilities and who the law has really intended to protect and the civil rights to protect and so i don't want to speak too much more about it without, you know, having really gotten a thorough

briefing from supervisor haney's office. if you would like to attend that meeting, commissioner huie, then we can forward that to you so that you can be part of it as well. >> commissioner huie: sure. i'd be happy to attend if you send me the information. thank you. >> president laguana: okay. no other questions. i'll just add in passing that certainly in the disabled community, they also feel even the serial litigants can sometimes have a genuine legitimate purpose in helping create a negative consequence to not being ada compliant.

but certainly it starts to feel really weird. we have been targeted by serial litigants before and it starts to feel really weird when you start to question whether anybody actually even came which was a question we had in our case. like there should be some legitimate at a minimum of legitimate visits. so i think it's interesting legislation and lots of work that needs to be done around that. i guess we should check on public comment. is there any public comment on the director's report. >> there's no one on the line for public comment. >> president laguana: all right. next item, these. >> clerk: item nine, commissioner discussion and new business. allows president and 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.

allows commissioners to introduce new agenda items for future consideration by the commission. this is a discussion item. >> president laguana: great. are there any new business items from our commissioners? so i have one that i want to bring up which is that the state small business office has an rfp for county agencies for $2,500 grants for microbusinesses. i've just learned that san francisco's not registered yet. and this is something that we'll need to pursue because we're eligible for $1.1 million microgrants for microbusinesses. that's something we'll want to keep an eye on.

i also want to bring everybody up to speed on the latest developments on the employee retention tax credit. to continue to get the word out. i've now bumped into businesses who have spoken to no less than three different c.p.a.s who said that they could help them and then after they get into it, the c.p.a. says, it's too complicated, i'm sorry, i don't want to do this anymore. so, you know, it's really looking like a frustrating problem. i was talking to one business owner. she says honestly, i'm just tired, i don't think i'm going to even try doing it. and i said, wait a second, don't you have like 10 employees? and she said, yes, and i said that's like $330,000. i think you've got to keep trying. so at any rate, i've been

working with oewd. we're going to do another round of trying to get the word out and, you know, i certainly hope to at some point find some ability to fund a pilot program to help, you know, particularly our businesses, our vulnerable neighborhoods who are going to be the last to hear about this, the last to get the kind of technical assistance that they need and the last to, you know, i mean, this business owner i was speaking to, you know, she's pretty sophisticated, she's been doing it for a long time and she can't seem to figure out how to navigate it. i can't imagine what it would be like for somebody who english isn't their first language or doesn't have the kind of resources this person does. so this remains something that i think the commission should

be focused on and we should be working hard to make sure that everybody in the small business community understands how big the possibility and opportunity is and we need to find really what i'm looking for now are c.p.a.s and accountants that will help these small businesses apply for it and get this employee retention tax credit. we are hearing of a number of different firms that are charging a percentage based approach, not just the one that you and i spoke with about, cynthia, but -- or commissioner huie, but there's actually quite a few out there. but some are modest amounts, 5%. some are significantly more, 15%, but these are just outrageous sums of money for the amount of work that's being asked to do and, to me, it

really feels predatory. so this is something i think is really important. we do have another two and a half years or so to make a difference because you have three years to file an amended return. so this is -- i'd put this in the category of long project, big project, but i would like to see every single business that qualifies in san francisco apply for it and get this credit. it's just too big otherwise and i don't see anything else that the city can do that would make a material difference in that e $637 million of back rent and so i think this could really help businesses with their back rent and we need to be aggressive about making sure hour local businesses apply for it.

so that's my exciting update. who doesn't love hearing about tax credits? >> commissioner huie: i'm not getting called on yet, but i put myself up on the thing. >> president laguana: i'm sorry. i didn't -- you were under the director's report. i thought it was still the same one. commissioner huie, i apologize. >> commissioner huie: no. that's okay. i actually feel strongly about this as well and so i kind of wanted to just -- i don't know if this is appropriate, but maybe without speaking to you directly outside of this, but like, you know, i'm happy to offer my help as however i can to try to like identify, build, figure out like if there's a way to -- how just the

resources and the networks kind of more -- it's a bubble to the top so that people know where to go to be able to get help when their own accountants are maybe not able to do it or their own, you know, professionals aren't able to do it or if there's a way to supplement the professional's knowledge to be able to provide this for people. >> president laguana: so the san francisco chamber of commerce has identified three firms and they offer a lot of multi-language support and you can find a link to those firms pretty quickly by going to oewd.org/etrc and there's a whole page that's up there but kind of towards the bottom, they have a link to the sf

chamber of commerce and -- it looks like the link is broken. i'm just trying to do this. all right. i have to send ben or dillon or somebody an e-mail about this. but the chamber has identified three officials. yeah. it's also at the top and that link does work. and those are b.o.l. global, and sp meyer and there's a lot of language between the three firms. so hopefully they can help, you know, fill in some of the holes. and i did send these three firms over to the lady that i was speaking with. but i think we need more firms particularly local firms i think would be really well received and we could lift them or promote them. so we just need to figure out

who's actually capable of doing it and able to do it for reasonable rates. >> commissioner huie: is there a report that you're able to pull to find out the utilization of it? >> president laguana: no. the irs -- i think as of may this year, we had 33,000 businesses nationwide apply for this. so it's a really minuscule number. i mean, we have 50,000 businesses with employees in san francisco alone. so 33,000 is nothing. and you may recall from the survey we did that less than 5% of those businesses had said that they had applied or considered applying for the employee retention tax credit. so as far as i'm concerned, i pretty much just assumed businesses had not applied

unless they tell me otherwise. it's a pretty safe bet. 95% chance they have not applieded. >> commissioner huie: well, i'm happy to put some energy, some more energy towards it. so, yes. >> president laguana: that would be very welcomed and i'm happy to connect with the folkses at oewd that have been working on this as well. it's definitely been kind of an all-hands-on-deck endeavor and, you know, pretty soon here, i'm going to be sending an e-mail to the supervisors and really grinding on them to help get the word out to their constituents. i want to wait because there's a couple balls in the air in terms of how the city's approaching this. so i kind of want to see how -- let the dust settle before i

figure out the optimal way to proceed. >> commissioner huie: okay. should i go with my report? >> president laguana: please. >> commissioner huie: sure. i just have a few things. one was -- i had that question in regards to shared spaces. i had somebody ask me about a shared space that has been abandoned. so meaning the restaurant had gone out of business and now the shared space was just kind of empty. they had called d.p.w. to see if they could clear -- if they could be the ones to maintain or clear the shared space of the debris that had collected over time, but they reported that d.p.w. was not taking responsibility for that. and so it was unclear at that point who the responsibility was to take care of it after the business who had initially

invested in it went under. and so this was kind of like one of these canary in the coal mine situations where i think for -- it brought up some questions in terms of whose responsibility is this? should a restaurant or business go out of business. and also then further down the line, who gets to reap the benefits of it after? a lot of these, i don't know if these questions have already been answered and so i'm kind of posing this to you, president laguana, and the shared spaces people. >> president laguana: yeah. well, actually, your e-mail was stuck in my draft and i just hit send. i'll just repeat what i said in my e-mail. the permit and the structure on

the permit belonged to the business. so it's the business that has the permit, not the landlord. if the business abandons the permit or abandons the structure and doesn't clean it up, then it would fall on the building owner to clean it up and get rid of it. and if it costs the building owner money in excess of whatever deposit they had, then they have a claim against that business owner, it might not be a very valuable claim if the business is wiped out, if the business owner disappeared. that's part of being a business owner. sometimes you get stuck with the bill. ultimately, if there's no business left to pursue and there's nobody, you know, they've completely abandoned the structure, then it would be the building owner's responsibility in the end to

get it straightened out, get compliant with the city. in terms of the benefit, it's much like, if there is a perceived benefit from the structure once they've left, i don't imagine it would be any different than if a business left restaurant equipment inside a business after leaving. you know, usually and commissioner adams can probably speak to this even better than i can because this is part of what he does, but usually when you leave stuff behind, after a certain period of time, it becomes the owner's property effectively. and, again, if they incur a cost dealing with that property, then they have a right of action against the previous leaseholder. but other than that, it's basically theirs. >> commissioner huie: so is

the permit transferable to next business? >> president laguana: in the absence of -- if the business owner is no longer around, then the permit effectively becomes the building owner's until a new business moves in there. obviously, if a building owner is not operating the business then it's just a structure. but the permit belongs to the business who has the ground floor retail space. >> commissioner huie: so then if it's empty then, then say if the building owner decides to just keep the structure up hoping that it will just be included in the next lease or whatever it is, during that interim period, they are responsible for maintenance just as they would the regular

building. >> president laguana: that's correct. and if they were noncompliance on maintenance, then they can be cited, you know, the shared spaces program could pull the permit, order the structure to be removed, you know, that's the right way to interface with that i believe is through 311 if there's say like something that's representing a safety hazard of some kind or, you know, if they're not cleaning up their graffiti or, you know, i'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but they still have to maintain the structure even if the business is gone and now it just becomes the building owner's responsibility. >> director: through the president and commissioners, i think that this is something that's going to be extraordinarily important for

you to monitor. and i, you know, flagged this for robin. you know, i mean, this is part of the messy, sort of like the messy middle of the transition. right. going from -- you know, businesses that put them up hoping that it would help them survive they & they left and left the structure. the way that commissioner -- i mean commissioner laguana's talking about, the property owner's responsibility is important to monitor because there will be property owners who might take advantage of those structures being left and maintaining them themselves potentially maintaining themselves and then part of utilizing it as a means of charging more for rent because the structure is here which

then doesn't allow another existing business to maybe put up a shared space because that space is there. right. because there's only going to be a limited number of shared spaces that can be on a block. so it is something i think how -- if a shared space is abandoned by a business, how this, you know, this evolves and, you know, gets dealt with i think is going to be something particularly from an equity kind of perspective of who's really going to derive that benefit from that existing shared space. you know, if a business closes and immediately somebody moves in and they want to take over that permit, that's one thing. but if the space is every empty for six months and the property owner doesn't take it down and

is sort of utilizing that shared spaces existing to try to attract and increase the rent for another business to come in, that's not what the intent of the program is. and nor does it then allow as i said another business that might want to put up a shared space but can't because that one is still there, their ability to be able to take advantage of the program. >> president laguana: director, sorry. if i may, do we know or have you heard of instances of people being refused a permit for a shared space because other shared spaces were up in the area and do we -- if the answer to that is yes, do we know how that is being determined? i haven't seen this level of granularity in planning detail yet. >> director: i mean, i would

say that, you know, moving forward, there's a lot of discussion about balancing the curve. >> president laguana: yeah. i've heard that. >> director: right. for deliveries, for various other things. so one -- i am saying this -- i'm just saying that you may want to monitor how this is being implemented and worked in these different situations and how they're being dealt with. >> president laguana: i didn't know if you were referring to a specific situation. >> director: no. i'm not referring to a specific situation, but it is one that needs to be -- that consideration should definitely be understood that is a potential consideration. right. so um. >> commissioner huie: i think this is good to maybe bring up to robin and his team about

like data gathering in terms of shared spaces. like what are some of the important metrics that we need to kind of keep an eye on in order to kind of understand. because i think that's a good point in that, you know, is there almost like a weightless type of, you know, situation? are there people who would like or because of business turnover, are there new businesses that would like a shared space, but because of it, you know, like, i think keeping in general an eye on the situation and understanding what some of the areas of concern might be could maybe be well-monitored if we actually have a conversation with him about what are some of these -- like how many businesses are leaving or are shutting down

even though they have a shared space? what happens to that shared space? i think those are fair questions for us to understand. >> president laguana: you know, i'll say this, at this point, you know, i mentioned the business i was talking to about the e.r.t.c., they were actually cleaning graffiti off their shared space when i was talking to them. and they were saying the minute they're allowed to go back full boor indoors, they're going to be dismantling their shared space. so i'm curious to see, you know, that part that director dick-endrizzi alluded to, certainly, we've heard that planning intends to do some kind of weighing and balancing of how many shared spaces will be on a block and how much space will there be for parking and how much for e-delivery and

e-commerce and that sort of thing, but what i haven't seen at all is how they plan to calculate that and, you know, i don't know, like when i go through the city, i can only think of a couple neighborhoods that seem to achieve the level of density that it seems like it would trigger that level of concern. like castro, north beach, maybe one or two other places, you know, the marina along chestnut. but otherwise it's -- i don't know, it seems like probably not likely that we're going to be -- maybe i'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like we're going to be bumping up against that ceiling threshold outside of those high density shared spaces areas. so now the question is how is the department going to look at it and how are they going to space this out?

and there's still a very active discussion about even just the required space between them and required space for access and all these different questions. so i think the first question is how's the department going to manage the block? and then once we get that question answered, then we can look at the secondary question of how do we manage the rights? but i take the point that in hypothetically, yes, in a high density area, somebody else could be like wait a second, i want to open. i'm kind of inclined to think that planning would take that into consideration, but maybe not. >> director: i mean, and to your point, commissioner laguana, i mean, we're still in that transition phase of those, you know, i mean, i think -- i

too also anticipate that there will be businesses that decide that they're going to shut down their shared space because of just the management and cost of it when they're able to fully return. so, you know, i think over time, it's really, you know, the businesses were still in that transition of going from the temporary permit to the more permanent permit structure. so, you know, perhaps three months into it, you might have robin come and give you a presentation in terms of like how many businesses chose not to renew their permits and have they then -- did they proactively take them down? you know, how many were abandoned? what happened to them?

you know, how are they dealing with the curb side management, all of that? i think it's just, as we get closer and closer to returning to normal operation, and then those who are going to decide retaining those. i don't think we know fully how things are going to flush out. so -- >> president laguana: that's right. >> director: but i think if there are concerns as president laguana said around the cleanliness of an booned shared space, then 311 is the best thing to do for now because then that gets reports. those reports will go directly to robin and the shared space program. >> commissioner huie: okay.

and is there like in the package or application, is it detailed like what president laguana stated like in terms of who's responsibility it is, you know, at each point? okay. >> president laguana: i think i'm also just kind of quoting common law. that's why i was kind of deferring to commissioner adams because i know that's -- property management is what you do, right? >> commissioner adams: yep. >> president laguana: i have that right, right. like if you leave your stuff there, it becomes the building owner's? >> commissioner adams: yep. >> commissioner huie: i mean, i think i just wanted something easy to point to and say here's the answer to this. it makes sense to me, i just

want to make sure it's clear. >> director: and understand that kind of as detailed as president laguana outlined it, that's moving forward to the more permanent structure. it may not have been as detailed in the covid temporary response, so but any city program that, you know, where we're permitting and allowing the use of sort of the public right of way is going to be very detailed about responsibility. so just know that. but, you know, was it that detailed in the beginning? it may not have been. i don't know for sure. and, carry, were you going to add something? >> clerk: yeah. i was going to say there's a park lit business owner manual on the shared spaces website that has a little section about

your responsibility and the business owner's responsibility that has a set of options to remove the park lites. i'm not sure any businesses are dealing specifically what you were talking about but there's a couple little updated resources. >> commissioner huie: okay. great. thank you. the second piece i was going to talk about was the a.d.a. lawsuits again. so i know chinatown is already in the works of dealing with them and now clement street and i think filmore and then i know also like in the south bay people, you know, so it's continuing, it's still happening. and i was kind of giving some thoughts as to what we could do to support small businesses during this time and i feel like, you know, and i kind of just wanted to bounce this idea

off of like -- off of all of you, the commission to see like, you know, there's multiple things happening at the same time. people have this like very emotional response to being kind of preyed upon and if we take that away, the ultimate goal of this is to move our city, move our businesses towards more accessible, you know, being more accessible spaces. right. and so it's kind of like how do we get towards that end goal while not, you know, leaving our businesses super vulnerable, you know, in the ways that they are right now. and i was thinking that maybe one thing we could do is try to create more resources for small business owners so that when

they are served a notice, they're not terrified and that there are, you know, kind of, you know, there's just some understanding of like, okay what the whole thing needs because i feel like i'm having the same conversation a thousand times over and over again and we always go through same thing. and everybody is always like oh, my gosh, this is the first kind of tough and even though there was an e-mail thread a year ago or two years ago, it didn't involve your particular business. it's kind of like where can we kind of consolidate some information and, you know, can we put together our -- can we support putting together some workshops or i know we have

them within different neighborhoods, but can we kind of get something where we're not recreating this tool kit constantly of what to do, what a cast inspector does. what you do to show good faith. like all these kind of steps that you can do. is there a way that we can get some cross pollination like for all of these things and not have to do it all the time over and over again and freak out every few months. i mean, that's kind of like looking at it in terms of how to support small business owners and then there is the whole other discussion that maybe supervisor haney is looking towards like in terms of not leaving our businesses as vulnerable as they are. so i think there are multi-, you know -- >> director: yeah. having dealt with this now for like -- i mean, since i came in

-- since the office of small business opened, this has been, i mean, the commission when it first started in 2000, there were lawsuits. and, again, grants were provided and commissioners went door to door to businesses and, you know, so, i mean, the complexity is enormous in relationship to some of this. i think where i get at is where i'm coming from is where, you know, we've gone -- we've done informational workshops in all the merchant corridors, the majority of the merchant corridors at least once if not two to three times about the benefits of getting a cast inspection. [please stand by]

class you hire some and i guess i just really, where do we get businesses to have this on their mind as much as they are cognizant about who are their customers, you know. howthey serve their customers, maybe how they their customers . the whole customer experience and really knowingthey need to get that consideration . that's just how they treat somebody that walks through the door. and again, training their employees to maintain that environment as well . so i ... there's the existing businesses and one of the

things that i'm beginning to have a discussion with the neighborhood, it may not happen this grant cycle but the next is to mandateany of our renaissance center , mehta, like casino. any of the technical service providers who provide technical assistance to small businesses that we mandate that they do education. a part of accessibility you know, just like preparing to handle your books and all of that that there's accessibility and it's going to be particularly important because websites are now the new frontier again. and so sort of focusing,

there's the abilityto try to get businesses at the very beginning tounderstand this and adopt this into their business practice . at the beginning stages . but for businesses ... i think it's like we haveinformation . we advise businesses when we have our ada as part of our business advice when they come into the businesses but i guess i still need to maybe better understand businesses in terms of, i revisited hate street districts. and evans said yes, wehave regina here four years ago informing us about all this .

so where is that gap and when people are receiving this information why aren't they actingon it ? and i think thereis the larger issue . rihanna and i had a meeting with one of thealameda county supervisors looking at our program that we have . and trying to figure out what they cando to replicate that . so the lawsuits are happening allover the bay area .and perhaps we need to work more collectively countywide on helping do more education but is there something we can do countywide.

maybe look at ... i don't want to say legal approaches but i'm sort of repeating myself. i'm just now after doing this the number of years and providing workshops and information , granted not every business attends those workshops and what have you so you don't get all of them but when the information is being provided and businesses aren't acting onit, what's that gap ? why? you know? >> as a business owner i feel like one of the gaps is that generally you don't have the luxury of a lot of time on your plate so you are just tending

to things as they happen and as things come up into your face every day. it's kind of like there's this situation, i have to take care of this and when you're a newer business you're attending to things in your immediate concern and if you thk probably fair amount of newer businesses that have only been open the past three years, two years but i think there's turnover in businesses as well so it's kind of like there isn't this passing on information i think that older businesses are kind of passing on the same information. it's when i see emails. i see the same merchants who some of them they went through it and they got through it in whatever fashion and they don't

necessarily alwaysrespond and say i did ask y and z . maybe if you do these things you'll be okay to have the thing. there is like a formal way of giving, passing on knowledge and it's also kind of like i think that a lot of businesses are thinking about this. even if you put it straight in their face because it hasn't happened to them yet. when it happensthe biggest deal and that's the thing for a lot of business concepts .i remember when i first started a business and i started understanding the idea of cash flow, i didn't understand the ideacash flow i have cash and i said how that happened ? i think different things you can understand different things until it happens you don't feel

this is something ihave to take care of now . and i think for us as commission since we understand that shooting alittle bit , maybe we can help figure out how to make the information. it feels like you're right. ifeel like we're shouting at the top of our lungs . we just talked about the ert tax credit and it's all these things. who tried to give people information proactively but sometimes it doesn't hit until there's some sort of immediate need .so i don't know if that's addressing but i think it is placing that we need to change that narrative about who

we are in terms of san francisco andwe're a welcoming city , maybe part of that narrative means we are also accessible and we need to figure out how to incentivize that. because i do think that accessibility is animportant aspect in all our businesses . and what does that mean? maybe that's a larger discussion about public messaging and how we can promote this as a positive part ofour city . that is pretty much it for me. thank you for your patience. >> president: vice president zouzounis.

>> vicepresident: i think just to finish that thought director , i think you're pushing the city in a regular or annual requirements for compliance. it's a great step. i don't remember if they said it would be sent out but if it's the same time the licensing details, that makes a lotof sense to me. everything you have to do is on file . but i'm happy to support all the next steps you have with the city and that area, director. i wanted to mention a couple of things to follow up withthe city administrator's office .

they want to get information about a protigi program for local business enterprise contracting with the city so i hope that's something that we can all share as commissioners . they are trying to solicit small businesses outside of traditional contracting. sorry, construction space so i think that will be on us to help the next trade associations that aren't in professional services and i'm really proud of the administrative process for all involved . i had a question about utility companies. i know at the beginning of the shutdown some of our utility providers were doing just

payments owed bybusinesses . i've seen a couple of collections on thisstuff . so i'd be curious if there's anyupdates in that area . we can provide easy access to our small businesses who are facing compounded taxes like utilities. get on a payment plan or some kind of forces around thatour utility providers might be able to provide . maybe we can figure out that information already exists and how we can better support small businesses dealing with back

bills . >> which utility companies are youspecifically thinking about ? >> i've definitely seen some of the notices to businesses. pnc is another one. >> we will look into ecology and crv.

>> president: is there anything else you want to cover? if you are done, vice presiden zouzounis . >> vice president: yes. >> president: no apologies necessary. okay. i think that brings us to the end of new business. is there any publiccomment on new business ? >> clerk: there is no one in the line for comment. >> president: public comment disclosed. next item please. >> clerk: please show the office ofsmall businessline, item 10, adjournment . this is an action item .>> president: we end with a reminder that the small-business commission is the official public forum to place your opinions and concerns that affect the

economic mentality of small businesses in san francisco and the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doingbusiness in san francisco during the local emergencies . if you need assistance continue to reach out to the office of small business .>> clerk: is there a motion to adjourn. >> so moved. >> president: seconded. >> clerk: seconded by president laguana. i will call goal. [roll call vote] >> motion passes 7 to 0.

meeting is adjourned 6:40 6 pm. >> good nighteverybody . >> once i got the hang of it a little bit, you know, like the first time, i never left the court. i just fell in love with it and any opportunity i had to get out there, you know, they didn't have to ask twice. you can always find me on the court. [♪♪♪]

>> we have been able to participate in 12 athletics wheelchairs. they provide what is an expensive tool to facilitate basketball specifically. behind me are the amazing golden state road warriors, which are one of the most competitive adaptive basketball teams in the state led by its captain, chuck hill, who was a national paralympic and, and is now an assistant coach on the national big team. >> it is great to have this opportunity here in san francisco. we are the main hub of the bay area, which, you know, we should definitely have resources here. now that that is happening, you know, i i'm looking forward to that growing and spreading and

helping spread the word that needs -- that these people are here for everyone. i think it is important for people with disabilities, as well as able-bodied, to be able to see and to try different sports, and to appreciate trying different things. >> people can come and check out this chairs and use them. but then also friday evening, from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., it will be wheelchair basketball we will make sure it is available, and that way people can no that people will be coming to play at the same time. >> we offer a wide variety of adaptive and inclusion programming, but this is the first time we have had our own equipment. [♪♪♪]