can wednesday for mayor's disability council.

thank you. >> secretary: okay. so this meeting is broadcast to the public on sfgov tv. the mayor's disability council holds nine public meetings yearly generally held on the third friday of the month. please call the mayor's office of disability for further accomodation at 4155546789. or mod@sfgov.org. our next regular meeting will be on friday, may 20th, 2022,

from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. >> chairman: i just want to all of the ideas had an issue and to its members. so

. >> secretary: okay. i'll do roll call. [roll call] >> chairman: okay. please move on to item number two of the agenda. >> secretary: okay. so for the agenda, we have item number one which is roll call and welcome. item number two is reading and approval of the agenda item

three is general public comment. item four and item five is an information item. and item seven is a moderated forum which will be presenters from item one and other representatives from other relevant entities. item eight is general public comment. item nine is discussion item for council member comments and announcements, and item ten is adjournment.

>> chairman: are there any other questions or comments about the agenda? >> mr. co-chair, this is deborah caplin from the m.o.d. staff. we just received a note that both katie tang and katie sofis have a hard stop at 3:30 and so i'm wondering if you can entertain moving item four to after the discussion? >> chairman: yes. are there any other questions on that? we will move item number four

up. if i'm hearing none, i will move us along to public comment. are there any public commentors? >> secretary: okay. so for public comment, we welcome the public's participation during public comment periods. so when the opportunity for public comment at the beginning

and at the end of the meeting as well as after specific items on m.d.c. agendas. each comment is limited to three minutes. although comments may be limited to two minutes when there's a long queue of people waiting to make comments. at the end of the comment period, we will move on to the next commenter. if you want the council to respond to your comments following the meeting, please provide your contact information by e-mail message to mdc@sfgov.org. you may also provide additional

comments by e-mail to this address or by calling 4155546789. members of the public can join the meeting as a zoom participant and will be able to make public comment during the public comment period. members of the public can join the webinar by using the link or join using a telephone by dialling (669) 900-6833 and the webinar id which is 85419550368. if you join the webinar using a computer or tablet or smartphone zoom app, you can click on the three horizontal box icon and click on raised hand and click on the raised hand feature to indicate that you want to make public comment and you'll be recognized when it's your turn. you can also use the q&a feature in zoom webinar to be recognized or to make a comment. if you wish to be recognized and type into the q&a box that

you want to make a comment and hit send. you can also type your comment into the q&a box and the clerk will read it for you. if you're joined by phone, dial star nine when you want to be recognized and you will be prompted when it's your turn to make comments. we welcome suggestions about how to make the m.d.c. meetings more accessible. please send an e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org. if you want to access the meeting call (415) 919-9562. or send an e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org. at this time, members of the public may address the council on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council that are not on this meeting agenda. with respect to agenda items,

your opportunity to address the council will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. each member of the public may address the council for up to three minutes. the brown act forbids the council from taking action or discussing any items not appearing on the posted agenda including those items raised at public comment. and i do see that we have multiple members of the public who have indicated they want to make public comment. >> chairman: okay. i just want to remind you that we will drop you if you start to attack people in the

meeting. >> secretary: okay. so our first commenter caller ending in 1003, you've been permitted to unmute. >> caller: good afternoon. my name is william railing. i'm making this comment on behalf of accessible san francisco. accessible san francisco is an unincorporated nonprofit association. i just would like to discuss something that was in the news this week. many of you may also have seen it that the district attorney aof san francisco along with the district attorney of los angeles has filed a lawsuit against a law firm, that is the law firm that has been filing the vast majority of federal a.d.a. lawsuits and federal court locally.

and accessible san francisco was really founded as a reaction to the excessive lawsuits that are filed under the a.d.a. and they should not be necessary. it's a very important right and we wouldn't support at all the right to go to court to enforce a civil rights violation against you. never would we support that to be limited or taken away. that is something many people in the business community have advocated for. at the same time, lawsuits are an incredibly inefficient solution to solving accessibility problems or any other problems for that matter. i'm not a lawyer. i've worked for many years as a paralegal and i have a lot of first-hand knowledge on how both sides typically lose in

litigation. it's just a question of which side loses more. so i appreciate that the later discussion today is going to touch on this problem probably, but i did want to discuss this lawsuit. i did review the lawsuit and as you know, the way this law firm operates is one of their what they call high frequency plaintiffs will visit a number of businesses in a single day and then file suit against the ones that are not in compliance with the a.d.a. and now every lawsuit has to make a factual allegation and show how that factual allegation creates liability. here, the allegation is that the plaintiff never actually visited the business. so, of course, it would be wrong if someone didn't go to a business, but then claimed they went to the business and then sued because they weren't able

to utilize the business. but that's just wrong and if that turns out to be true, then i think the law firm should be liable if not subject to discipline from the state bar. i will leave it to the courts to figure out whether that factual allegation is true or not. i just want to finish by noticing that this lawsuit from the d.a. isn't really going to solve this problem. the problem is the lack of a.d.a. compliance so i'm glad we're going to have this discussion to try to figure out how to bring more of these businesses into compliance so they don't get sued because even if this law firm got shut down the a.d.a. violations are still there and anyone else can come along. so attacking the law firm in the end won't be a solution and i'm really looking forward to having this discussion today in which we try to find solutions to the accessibility violations which are just all over the

city. thank you very much. >> co-chair madrid: are there any other public commenters? >> caller: hi. disabled people in particular face a gross amount of oppression and discrimination partly from this department and from people within this department. and so it's important to record that and to speak up about that.

i could not access this meeting because the agenda posted is a blank document. you click on it and it opens a blank document. the outreach being done to them nonexistent. additionally, this department has a poor track record filing with complaints with the ada and i'm actually impressed. for the first time, they responded to me before the complaint was filed. however, i was also told that my complaint was closed before even discussing with me if the access issues had been resolved

in which case they had not. this particular instance, the sunshine ordinance task force upon receiving an a.d.a. request immediately gave me notice they were cancelling six of my cases which was a complete misrepresentation. these types of things are happening as the previous commenter mentioned. accessibility are all over the city but they're not just businesses, they're within government and it is your job to solve that problem and make sure places are in compliance. it is not our job as the public to volunteer with our disabilities to bring these departments into compliance, including yourselves which are not publishing these meetings accessibly and effectively. additionally, i have mentioned this before, but the mayor's office on disability violated the law by taking over a year to provide me my own records of

disability complaints i have made and i've still not received an apology from the mayor's office of disability even after a unanimous verdict from the sunshine task force 10-0 showed they did break the law. i'm still waiting for that apology. i would appreciate an apology as it's not my job to bring this department into compliance. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comments. are there any other public comments at this time? >> secretary: i see no other public commenters at this time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. we will move on to item number five which is co-chair reports. since the last committee meeting was march 18th, we had on the jfk drive initiative, we

had a meeting with the [ indiscernible ] department the condition that m.d.c. has stated before m.d.c. can support making j.f.k. drive permanently. the m.d.c. has asked for a complete timeframe for those

items. [ indiscernible ] our concern is that there are still some conditions that are not being addressed. we also attended a meeting with [ indiscernible ] to learn about her ideas for increasing access to golden gate park.

[ indiscernible ] shareholders focusing on. that is the report and coming to item number four which is presentation by katie tang of san francisco office of economic office of development. and then after that, after public comment, we will senior

planner [ indiscernible ] >> hi, how is everyone. >> i'm sorry. i don't have a web cam, so i'm going to look like i'm looking somewhere else. is somebody else sharing the screen for me? all right. then. great. thank you so much. >> hi, katie, just let me know when you want me to move to the next line. >> okay. . great. sorry. i'm trying to figure out how to move. okay. i think maybe the wrong katie tang is spotlighted. i'm also joined by kate sofis

for the office of economic work force development and so i wanted to first give her an opportunity to address the mayor's disability council and then i will jump into the presentation. >> thank you very much. the office of small business is part of the larger office of economic and work force development and this department's entire mission is to help san franciscans achieve economic sustainability, whether through a job, small business ownership, entrepreneurship and our small businesses constitute the majority of businesses in the city. so it's very important. i also want to say on a personal level, when i took

this position as department head, a little close to a year ago. i came from community myself and it was personal and is personal for me that we look at our community members who identify as having a disability, one or more disabilities at the top of my list of how we think about diversity when we think about building back a diverse equitable city. as we look at the impacts that the pandemic has had on our communities of color, on our youth, on our disability community, we know that this crisis has both stressed those communities much more deeply in terms of health outcomes and are economic than other parts of the business community and other parts of a residential population, but we also know that in the crisis is born

opportunity and an opportunity to really think much more intentionally about what inclusion means as it relates to our disability community. i also want to start by saying my own family is very personal. my younger daughter, my 14-year-old was born with multiple disabilities. she identifies as deaf and hard of hearing and she is amazing and she is my best teacher and for her, i'm very committed in this work that we do across the whole department and i know and i'm echoed by my colleague we are putting our disability community front and center in our economic and how we talk about san francisco and how it is really my privilege to be of service to you.

you're executive director tang who will talk about our efforts right now to try to make progress with the small. >> good afternoon everyone. so with that, next slide, please. so i wanted to go over a couple of things that the office of small business and the office

of economic workforce and development are working on. one is the inspection plan that we have available for small businesses. second is how that dove tails with the accessible business and trends programs, and third are cities sf shines design services program which is run out of director sofis's shop and oewd and our new website for our office of small business and small business commission and lastly we would like to discuss with all of you that we hope to partner with you on. next slide. so in small businesses can get

we have applications right now open right now through june 30th and these are eligible -- the reimbursement is so this is a program that we have timed so that it dove tails. we know one of the first steps so that understanding what small business owners need to do or property owners to address accessibility to understand what improvements are needed. so next slide, please. after this accessibility inspection grant program ends, our office hopes to launch

another grant program in the summer for accessibility improvements and this grant would cover upgrades such as furniture and equipment need today achieve better accessibility. we often hear from small businesses that it is so difficult to even survive in the city and that they don't have enough funding for any upgrades and so this grant program is designed to help people with some of those initial improvements that they need to make for better accessibility for the department of building inspections. our office provides assistance

to small businesses and property owners with ground floor small businesses and advises them on pursuing accessibility improvements or pursuing an inspection at minimum at the very beginning. we also help connect small businesses and property owners to resources such as cast inspectors, legal support or grant programs for accessibility improvements. and we've also begun merchant walks to share resources in person with small businesses. and just this week, my team and i were out on mission street and walk the corridor between 16th street and 26th street, both sides to pass out flyers and explain to small businesses what our accessible entrance program requires and to encourage them that to make accessibility improvements it's not just about avoiding lawsuits. it's also about welcoming as

many people to their business as possible. and we're welcome to do outreach in the corridor that have not yet submitted the checklist that they need to under the accessible business entrance program and generally communicating with small businesses about, again, why it's good for them and the customers to make these upgrades and it's not just out of fear that they do this. next slide. in terms of the sf shines. oewd is offering services to small businesses to help with small store front improvement's. and small businesses can access architectural services. the applications are currently open until all funds are exhausted and this is a great way for small businesses to work with an architect so that they can have designs ready to submit for a permit if needed

to make the accessibility upgrades. and this is a wonderful program that oewd hopes to continue year round so long as we have enough funding. next slide. so in summary, as you can see here, we have tried to overlap as much as our programs as possible so there's always resources right after that, we'll launch an accessibility improvement program running right now until they're exhausted. next slide. i also wanted to share with all

of you that we had this year in february transitioned our website to the sfgov platform which incorporates inclusion standards. and we are very happy that this website transition allows for our information to be shared and access via screen meters and that the digital services team has researched best practices for accessibility so this is. last slide. and so lastly i just wanted to share with you one for

accessibility and inclusion for small businesses. we want to make sure that our small businesses understand that it's not just about the physical accessibility accommodations, but they also need to think about their online presence especially as more and more businesses are moving into that space. and so interconnected to that also is just how do we address nonphysical accessibility accommodations in general for people with a wide range of disabilities and just going beyond what we're currently thinking of in terms of accessibility improvements. so, with that, i conclude the presentation and i know we'll have further discussion after this. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. and now i'm going to open it up to questions from members.

>> member: i wonder if we're holding questions until after presentations today. >> co-chair madrid: okay. [ indiscernible ] >> thank you chair madrid. it's great to be here providing an update on the shared spaces program. the city's director of the shared spaces program and i'm also joined by other members of

the team park lit permits manager gregory slokham municipal transportation agency from the office of economic and workforce development. that does impact shared spaces operator and it does offer an explicit implication for our community persons of

disabilities and the ways that we will be pursuing enforcement and compliance on our sidewalks and in our park lites in order to ensure a.d.a. accessibility for persons with accessibility. we'll focus on today though, following up on the presentation from director tang and director sofis are some of the grant opportunities that we're making available. two shared spaces operators in order to fund capital improvements to shared spaces and so i'll explain it also

includes the parking line to vehicular traffic to allow that part of the road to be temporarily used for recreation for play, for gathering, outdoor dining and other community activities. shared spaces also takes place on parcels along lots for example, surface parking lots and predevelopment sites. director tang just explained some of the grants that the office and workforce developments are made available as well as the accessible

business entrance grant. there is another grant opportunity that is directed at and specifically geared towards helping small businesses achieve accessibility at their outdoor shared spaces sites. these are what are called share spaces compliance grants. the application cycle for these opened in september 2021 and is closing at the end of this month, april 30th, 2022. the applications for shared spaces compliance grants are due. these will help to fund capital improvements, changes to shared spaces facilities on the sidewalks as well as in the curb sidelines or park lits. around dining areas. barricades and the like.

the application is available to shared spaces operators digitally at sfgov/shared-spaces-equity and it's also available in multiple languages including spanish and chinese. to date, between the shared spaces grants program and the sf shines grants program is awarded a million dollars towards shared spaces, many of them park lits and we expect to disburse a million dollars more through up coming cycles. we also want to be very transparent with everyone who is applying or interested in applying for a shared spaces compliance grant. what the city's selection criteria are for making awards. we recognize that there is a

lot of need out there and our resources are limited in the sense that we can't give everyone who has need funding to, you know, reimburse them for all of the costs that they will have, but this will be part of what can offset costs along perhaps alongside the other grant opportunities that director tang talked about earlier. so in deciding where to direct compliance grants to make awards, we look at certain geographies throughout the city and i'm going to talk through some of those criteria. we look at geographies that have been hardest hit by the covid-19 pandemic. neighborhoods and areas that have had the highest case rates and the highest rates of fatality. we're also looking at neighborhoods that the department of public health has indexed as areas of vulnerability. these are neighborhoods with

higher density populations of vulnerable folks. so those are seniors, youth, persons with disabilities, linguistically isolated households and so forth. we're also looking at established cultural districts or cultural districts in the process of formation as well as legacy businesses. the grants also prioritize applicants who earn below -- at or below $2.5 million in their gross receipts in their last report of a year. finally, we also have been recognizing that we want to spread resources around as much as possible. we would prioritize applicants who weren't already receiving other kinds of aid from the city. so on the screen, there's a map

as well as department of public health and areas of vulnerability to give a sense of where geographically in the city awards would be sort of concentrated. the program is committed to to what's shown on screen is an example of what we're calling a

single bill of health. it's basically a single sheet that lists all of the issues, compliance issues be they safety issues or a.d.a. issues that a park lit sponsor may have at their particular site. this cover sheet also explains where more detailed information can be accessed. the design guideline. the dimensioning, diagrams, photographs of ideal conditions in our shared spaces manual. and it also gives a clear deadline for when each of those issues needs to be addressed by. there are many potential types of issues. i can assure the council is classified as an urgent sort of immediate issue to fix. with the board of supervisors

legislated this past march, they actually emphasized this quite pointedly. there are many types of compliance issues or violations that the city will not be charging penalties or punitive fees for. however, a.d.a. is one of the types of compliance issues that departments may charge punitive fines and fees for in order to gain compliance. i should perhaps note that now is a key moment before the pandemic program sunsets in march 2023 for all shared spaces sponsors for our park lit operators to be familiarizing themselves with all of the rules and regulations and make sure that, you know, your operators should be making sure that they're addressing those issues before the pandemic, especially before the pandemic program sunsets in

march 2023 when all of the requirements inclusive of ada emergency access and fire safety rules will be in full effect. i'll just talk a little bit about curb management. we've also received some questions about access to curb side parking for paratransit services, for example, to be able to operate. and there has been some concern also expressed as to the proliferation of park lits around the city which during the pandemic has results in some cases park lits popping up in loading zones, for example, white loading zones, and sometimes in yellow zones. all of these have an impact on how our commercial corridors are functioning in terms of mobility by private vehicle.

so the high level message is that over the course of this next year of the pandemic program sunsets and we transition into a codified version of the program, our municipal transportation agency as well as the department of public works planning, the mayor's office of disability is working to rebalance the allocation and use of curbs in our commercial corridors to optimize them for current conditions. so often times that means restoring yellow zones or sometimes consolidating them so that they are located in an optimal position on the block. all shared spaces that popped up in transit boarding areas during the pandemic were transit lines were suspended will also be removed as transit

resumes those transit boarding areas will be restored and indeed m.t.a. has been working with sponsors since the fall to do that for lines that have already -- transit lines that have already come back online. so all of that curb management work and rebalancing curb pertains to yellow light and blue zones. so i'm going to stop here. we did prepare more material that gets it to kind of the specifics of the different regulations associated with accessibility at park lits so we can refer back to those during the discussion if that supports some of the points of discussion. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. and i just want to ask people

if you forgot to mention your name, please say your name and where you're from. okay. now, i'm going to move to questions. helen, do you have a question? >> member: yes. thank you, alex. and thank you all for the very thoughtful and detailed presentation. please know it's appreciated. and i also want to thank director sofis for her thoughtful presentation. i am also a mother of a young daughter with multiple and severe disabilities including a wheelchair. she's wheelchair dependent. it gets a couple things i'm

impressed and appreciative offered to small business owners and i'm assuming building owners it's very impressive. and i'm curious, the city's giving out over a million dollars in one of the programs that robin mentioned. my first question and it's one of two and i'm not sure who could answer it, but how many small businesses in the city own their store front or their property? does anybody know that? because i feel like there's a distinction between small business owner and building owner and that's a big distinction and while we all have sympathy or empathy for struggling small businesses, i

think there's less patience and understanding for a property owner who's resistant or maybe antagonistic even to making their property more accessible? does anybody have the numbers or who are we looking at really? >> hi, helen. we don't have the numbers. it changes constantly and it's also very difficult to track that. i will say anecdotedly i look to see whether a business is also the same as the property owner, in most cases, they don't own their own property. so anecdotedly speaking based on my outreach, that's what i

can share with you. i will say that when we go and talk to the small business owners, we tell them that, you know, even though you might think that the property owner should make these improvements, really, it's to your benefit that you make the improvements because you are the place of public accomodation, right. and, again, for you to be able to welcome all customers, all types of customers and, again, under federal state laws, they're the ones who are also the ones responsible and can be on the hook for any complaints or lawsuits because they are renting a place of public accomodation that something that would remind them of. so, yes, we totally understand that there may be some challenges in terms of trying to talk to the property owners getting in touch with them, convincing them that they should make this investment, but we also take that opportunity then to remind the business that it is also their responsibility as well. but we as a city are here to

try to help support them in this effort. >> member: yeah. thank you for that. because i wonder beyond anecdotedly if your office can collect that information because i wonder if all this work would be more effective if we're targeting building owners and so they have tried their

for i think that you're trying to address. >> member: that's very good to hear. one of your programs is that you can solicit an inspection by the city and just the language, i'd be surprised, you know, how many businesses want to solicit any kind of inspection, you know, without any incentive or knowing more about it just from that fear factor of just the word inspection from the city, you know, probably puts a lot of people off. no matter what the good intention is behind it. thank you for the information and i'm glad these can be levied for the a.d.a. violation. and my last point is just a reminder, you know, things like curb cut-outs on the sidewalks.

these are a benefit for more people than just kids and adults in wheelchairs like my daughter, right. they benefit people with pushing strollers, pushing shopping carts, people using crutches, moving furniture from an apartment or a home. like if we can somehow also frame these accessible building improvements as being more for the benefit of the entire city community and for all of us and framing it less as this fight between the disability community who may arguably always be saying, hey, like, you know, advocating for itself

and a struggling small business community just coming out of covid may be if we can frame it with a broader appeal to these improvements and accessibility being in the best interest of all of us. we might also find more cooperation and success in making these changes. thank you all for your good work. i appreciate it and please know personally, my family appreciates these improvements. >> co-chair madrid: thank you, helen. are there any other members who have questions at this time?

[ indiscernible ] >> member: thank you, alex. good afternoon, presenters. i want to thank you for your presentation. i'll make it short and sweet because helen kind of emphasized some of the issues going on, but what i think is important in regards to the outreach that the disability community along with the small business worked together in partnership however we decide to do this. so it is as helen mentioned, so it's not -- i mean, the complaints come in, we want to identify those complaints, make the entrances to small businesses accessible when needed, but i want to keep a positive environment so when a small busies someone with a disability that wants to shop in their neighborhood that oh, god, someone is not coming here

to complain or to sue me. so they understand that we want to work together. it's not adverse alenvironment. i think it would be beneficial to continue that. with regards to the accessibility grants. i understand to kind of address these things as they come up with much of your time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. are there any other members.

we'll go to the staff. are there any staff members that have questions? >> hi everybody.' this is nicole speaking. i want to thank all of our presenters for being here for these questions and discussions that will follow this. i'm wondering in advance of that is if you might speak a little bit and what has the reception been like and maybe talk about where the biggest spaces for improvement making

our community aware of all of the grants and what they would be eligible to take advantage of. whoever wants to go first? >> katie from the office of small business. i would say tagging along with the accessible business entrance program and doing in conjunction with that has provided a great opportunity to provide additional education around this and it's not just a city requirement, but reminding businesses that this is good for your business and it's something that you should be doing for the greater good, again, the greater community. i will say that in my interactions with small businesses, unfortunately, the tone has been that there's a lot of fear out there because of the lawsuits, and because of everything that's in the news. we've been trying to reassure them that really, this

shouldn't come from a place of fear, but these are things that you should do or else people can't access your businesses. and so what i found is that a lot of the businesses, they aren't familiar with the federal and local laws. they are actually in compliance. and so a lot of it is actually just informing them about a.d.a. regulations. this is a place where we certainly could use your help as well. another place where we could use your help is that a lot of businesses just don't understand what, you know, what it means to be say accessible through their online platform. i can't even say that i'm an expert myself. and so it would be really helpful for all of you to shed light on what it is that is needed from people with a wide range of disabilities and how

to provide these accommodations say if a business decides that they also want to sell goods or services through our website. or other ideas for how to make their space more accessible that may not involve significant capital improvements. that is where they struggle financially and why they have these grant programs in the first place is some of them, they're just struggling to survive and so if we can be empathetic in that way and understand, but how can we then partner with them to say well, here's actually a cost effective solution that allows you to also serve people with disabilities that may not involve you needing to, you know, tear down your building and redo everything. so those are some areas where i could see some help and where some of those biggest challenges have been. >> and before we go to robin and the shared spaces team to address that question, are you

finding that when you do to approach the businesses and explain that the city is there to help, that there's opens to utilizing these grants or do you feel like the lack of information that people feel like they have is a barrier to them adapting the opportunity to use the money? >> i think when we do our outreach, i've found that the best reception is when we are offering a service to help them. when i've done outreach and i haven't, i'm not there to also offer say a grant or anything else, any other assistance, they don't quite want to engage as much, but if there's actually an opportunity to get funding or reimbursement for something, then they may engage more. so i think that that has been

helpful, but we won't always. there might be times we talk to small businesses and we may not have a grant program running. so, anyway, our goal is to always pair our outreach. >> if i may just to amplify, we always have to have the kav caveat but i can also say this department and this mayor is very committed to make sure we find and i think it's an important recognition not only that we have these physical changes and now that we have shared spaces, that really in my view is also included in the premises of how a business thinks about accessibility. i actually think because people are so focused on shared spaces

right now, these businesses who have them are actually going to get an acknowledge indication. so i think that the shared spaces, the need for people to get those spaces legitimized is going to in and of itself is another opportunity to educate a subset of businesses. i do want to amplify that on the digital accessibility i think it's a very big field of businesses that will be impacted. i know myself that i am barely scratching the surface of my own understanding of what those issues are and will need to be mitigated. so i do think that is absolutely the next frontier and it's here. it's here now. and, again, not that you want to wait until you have lawsuits and fire people to do something, but, you know, in the news certainly, we saw

whole foods with wineries have a.d.a. lawsuits and wanted a particular winery that probably has some of the best accessibility and he is one of the folks struggling with the digital access. so i think that's a theme that's going to come back rapidly and we definitely will want some partnership to try to figure that one out. >> you absolutely have m.o.d.'s commitment in helping get the assistance out and whatever we can do to save that. we're happy to do that, so thank you very much. >> and, robin, i'm wondering if you might be able to speak a little bit to the kind of outreach that your program has been doing to advance the grants. >> you know, i also want to acknowledge gratitude to the

team the course development and the office of small business and the director sofis's staff has been proactive about collaborating on outreach. so a lot of the techniques that director tang and director sofis talked about are doing hand in and rhand so we're making the fullest use of the communications channels that we have. education around accessibility for shared spaces is a very multi-layered and multi-pronged strategy. there is of course informing folks about the grants and there's also the education about what is an acceptable condition and, you know, what is an unacceptable condition especially with regards to, you know, impairments to access. so there are a number of digital following on this theme of digital accessibility.

there are digital tools. the program has a bi-weekly letter that we send out and anyone who's interested in receiving news or interested in shared spaces can receive that newsletter. anyone can sign up at sfgov/shared spaces. currently, this season, especially following on the board of supervisors ordinance that they passed last march in full public education mode. so the office of economic work force development ben houghton is scheduling us with a series of town halls. so sort of digital events like

that will also be presenting to some groups like community benefit districts, business improvement districts. merchants association. those are key opportunities for us with imagery, you know, with other technical information to educate small business operators about what looks good and what looks bad. what's accessible and what isn't accessible. so a huge thanks to ben for supporting that outreach. of there's social media as well. we're really experimenting with how we can leverage social media and educate folks about what it looks like to have a shared space. finally i'd say there are all these kind of like digital platforms, but one of the most impactful ways we can deseminate information is through our actual on-site work. and so the team at public works

as well as the fire department and m.t.a., we have a joint task force that goes out into the field every week and works with -- starting with the most complex sites, the sites that have you might say the most intense number of violations, the most hazardous, but our teams go out there to speak with business owners, you know, with restaurant managers with staff about how to address the issues that have been identified at their site. a lot of times, that is a simple as reconfiguring your movable furnishings on your sidewalk. so we're maintaining a 6' minimum wide clear path of travel for passers by and persons with disabilities, you know, moving your diverters. of course, sometimes, it also will entail, bringing a park lit into a compliance of a.d.a.

will entail more physical interventions which is what these grants are available to offset costs for. so really there's a number of ways. we are trying every single channel we have at our disposal to educate. and we're also in all of these interactions reminding small business operators in san francisco that it's also part of their responsibility as community members as business owners to seek the information. you shouldn't have to get a notice or someone shouldn't have to call 311 in order for you to -- you know, it really is the responsibility, the initiative of the business owner is a huge part in compliance and consistency across the population. so a few other things too i think we're trying but that's kind of the general outline of what we're attending so far. >> thank you, i appreciate everybody outlining our

outreach efforts so far. and the design guidelines and advocacy around inspection. and i think where we are now is we're really at a critical point where i'm glad we're doing the outreach. i think that as much that we can also think about how we can incorporate the real world experiences of people with disabilities as a way to help people understand why it's important in the spirit of collaboration in addition to peoples' ability to file litigation should they choose and it is their right to do that. i think several times in this meeting that we really prefer that we work with our disability community and as a member of the disability

community myself, i really want to emphasize the importance of people will start to learn and understand when it becomes personal for them in a different kind of way and the best way to do that can be through hearing about the experiences of people with disabilities and i think generally people with disabilities do want to help solve these issues and work together. i know we're working towards that, so i just want to emphasize that those personal stories can hold a lot of power especially for the individual businesses. and i will stop there and you have my thanks once again for being here this afternoon and i'll turn it back over to alex. alex, i believe you're muted,

sir. >> co-chair madrid: sorry about that. i was saying that i wanted to call for more public comment at the end. so please hold tight and we will get back to you as soon as we can. i just have a question. a couple of questions came to mind. one is that you came to us a couple of months ago, how many

considered us in compliance? that's one. and the second thing is how many businesses are still [ indiscernible ] on employment or having a pushback to become accessibility and that's for you and for director tang and director sofis. of course, public accommodations has a whole range of things for people with disabilities and even

nondisabled people. so can you tell us some of the things because i want to know beside. accessibility are more interested in seeing about the plastic straw initiative than the city has implemented a couple weeks ago and i experienced some things that most [ indiscernible ] doesn't know that they are

required to [ indiscernible ] a plastic straw if someone requested it. can you just talk about that and how do you best mitigate how though educate the public and this mobility and, of course -- and the last question i have is that a million dollars is not enough for hundreds of businesses around the city. so do we have any

[ indiscernible ] if we have this problem, is that effective or not? >> director tang, i think i can take a first crack at the first question. >> sure. go for it. >> thank you, chair madrid. i'm sure director tang will have more to add on the third one. i can answer the question about how many park lits have accessibility issues or respond to the question. the other question about how many have come into compliance, and a little bit on the funding, the ongoing funding question. so the response to your first question, how many park lits have an accessibility issue, i actually don't have that statistic at my finger tips right now. what i can assure you and the rest of the council is that the

department of public works and other parts of this city do undertake proactive inspections of our commercial corridors to know when park lits or, you know, sidewalk, shared spaces don't meet, you know, the requirements. also, another form of information that helps us or input that helps us understand the larger picture of compliance across the population, but at this time, i don't have that. i can perhaps follow up with director bohn and we can get that out. how many of those have been abated question, we do track this and we have reported those statistics do you in the past at the time. so i apologize that we didn't have it this go around. what i can say also, though, is

that for the most part, the business operators that we come into contact with, they really want to be good neighbors. they really want to be good community members. they want to serve everyone in the community and so we do get positive response, you know, to especially with the revised manner and method in which we're doing the public education and conducting noticing. so, of course, there is stress on the part of the business owners when modification or abating issues requires capital expense. there's no hiding that. so that is a dimension that folks are feeling and is a dynamic that we're all trying to work with. with regard to the $1 million in funding, yes, so we are -- we're constantly hoping and

pursuing additions to our grant resources. director sofis talked about this a little bit. both she and mayor breed are very committed to accessibility and small business assistance together. so i think we very much hope and i think should expect to see some form of continued assistance that would support these. director tang also noted in the presentation that she gave that there are different programs and different sources and we're trying as a city team as much as possible to overlap those so that at any given time, there is some resource that small business operators can access to offset, again, not all of the costs, but, you know, some of the expenses and liabilities related to bringing premises into a.d.a. compliance. >> co-chair madrid: thank you.

>> thank you, robin. and i'll try to also address some of the multiple questions. so in terms of the range of compliance, you know, our possible business entrance program is probably the first time the city has undertaken something a bit more stringent than our federal and state laws and so this is really the first time that we're able to document whether businesses are compliant with their front entrances. however, as you know, during the pandemic and as i've been doing these merchant walks, there are so many vacancies. so at any given time, you know, it's really hard to see and understand how many businesses are compliant or not because so many have shut down and we don't know whether they're going to be open or not. and aside from that, the city's program focuses on the entrance as sort of the first but there are other improvements that's

very hard to track so unfortunately we don't have specific numbers on those, but, again, regardless, we're continuing our outreach to the small business community. in terms of funding, i would say that the $1 million that has been referenced probably more associated with shared spaces. i want to say that we invest well over that in terms of trying to support our accessibility community and the small business community. and also, i mean, i alluded to this, but in terms of the pandemic, you know, the broader perspective that we have as the office of economic and work force development and office of small business is that these businesses are just struggling so much to whether pre-pandemic to survive or then throughout the pandemic to hang on to whatever it is that they had left, and to add on top of that

other requirements they need, it is really challenging and we try to tell businesses about too many different regulations. so you mentioned the plastic straw ban. when we layer on all these different requirements, it's very difficult for them to hear it. they're so busy running their business. and so i find that even when we're doing outreach, we have to focus on one topic at a time or, else, they're just running the register or they're trying to cook food. it's really difficult as a small business owner. you are subject to so many different rules and sectors. everything and not just the city but also sometimes the state and federal. so i just want to put that into perspective is that we are really here to help them survive and thrive in the city and on top of that, asking them to do other things to support a variety of communities. and so for the plastic straw issue, you know, full

transparency, i was working on that and because i worked with the mayor's office on disabilities, we had carved out the exception that you can provide plastic straws for people who request them if they have a disability because these businesses have so many different requirements layered on them. i'm not surprised maybe we're not aware. exception that they're supposed to comply. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for that. so for a person with

disabilities, i understand that basically, [ indiscernible ] forced with covid and running a business. right. so i totally understand that this is to we need to understand the whole feature that this is -- this comes with having a business.

right. so i think what we're about to [ indiscernible ] i think it's good to remind businesses and members of having a education to businesses on how or what is public implementation. because i think some businesses don't even know what is public implementation is and especially for those people that i -- that old tradition

businesses that have been in business a long time that rules change and things change. so i think it's good to remind folks an education is the key from the city and [ indiscernible ] so to educate the public. with that, i think we are again, i just wanted to thank you for coming and with that,

we are moving on to item four. at this time, i want to invite folks who haven't introduced themselves, please, raise your hand and [ indiscernible ] and to the staff. hi. go ahead. you're muted.

>> yeah. i'm joining via phone. is that working? >> co-chair madrid: yes. >> great so much and thanks for hosting this. it's been really enlightening. i use she/her pronouns and i serve the [ indiscernible ] program here at the department of environment. and alex and i and debbie have met most recently on the straw issue and pointing out the opportunity to continue communicating about the accessibility opportunity for businesses. so that's most recently. i connected to the issue more broadly. i support our businesses on compliance with the programs and policies. so through separation and many of our ordinances just because of the impact it has on our litter and our discard. so we look forward to -- we're continuing to collaborate most recently several supervisors are interested in tax lean

plastics and single use litters and so we want to make sure we stay? touch to avoid any undue implications or effect from businesses and continue to invite alex or any other members of the public to share businesses that might need a reminder because there's a lot of requirements. we do have millimeter multi-lingual staff in house. we're doing work through our small businesses most recently, they are visiting large commercial corridors and offering our disposable program we're calling. so buying businesses and really just handing them up to $400 worth of tumblers, cutlery to replace single-use. and to keep those on hands if a customer still needs a plastic cutlery but try to improve the

cost of small businesses and they've been loving it so we want to promote that. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. and i saw and to this. >> hi there. i'm peter dehas, the founder and executive director of the san francisco disability business lines. we represent small business owners here in the bay area as well as entrepreneurs and really push for inclusion and equity as it relates to individuals who own a small business and as we know as director sofis said, there have been business owners impacted

with disabilities themselves and i would just like to add that 31 years after the a.d.a. was signed into law, now's really the time to make the city more accessible place and most of the time the accommodations necessary are simpler than people might imagine and representing small business owners i know that there are obviously times where there are limits to what businesses can spend, but i'd be happy to discuss with some of the things we've come in contact with. we have a partnership currently to make websites more accessible and in particular, they're giving opportunities for businesses to get involved with their software.

is it perfect? no. but it's a step in the right direction. we also have a partnership with ava to provide captioning for events, but we're really excited to be here and it's nice to hear what everybody has to say and i want to add that providing accessible business for individuals with disabilities is good business and a diversifying business because as we know the disability community is one of the largest markets in the world. i think it's the third largest market in the world and people with disabilities have money to spend and they want to be apart of business and spend their money. so thanks for having me here today. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. did you want to say anything,

greg? >> good afternoon. my name's gregory slocam. i am the commercial permit manager. so i work with a lot of public works programs like food trucks, shared spaces which is why i'm here today. temporary occupancy permits which often are for staging in the public right of way and other permits you may or may not be familiar with. my team will work with shared spaces permit applicants to review applications and ensure that accessibility is demonstrated therein as we seek to make this part of our longer term environment here in san francisco.

to follow up on complaints and . >> co-chair madrid: thank you. are there any other people from the city department that you need to introduce yourself puck comment. to take this opportunity from public comment at this time.

>> secretary: if you would like to make public comment, you can do so in the zoom platform. if you're joining by phone, you can dial star nine when you want to be recognized and you'll be prompt when had it's your turn to make comments. you can also use the q&a feature in zoom to be recognized or to make a comment. viewers to be recognized type in the q&a box and if you want to leave your comment, you can put it in the q&a box to be read by the clerk. i do see members of the public that have indicated they want to make public comment at this time. one moment. okay. anon, you've been permitted to

unmute. >> co-chair madrid: you've been permitted to unmute. >> secretary: anon, you've been permitted to unmute you can start by dialling star 6.

>> why don't we move on to the next person and we'll come back in a few minutes. >> secretary: okay. and then right now i don't see other people with their hands raised, but i do see -- there we go. there's another member of the public. let me. caller ending in 1003, you've been permitted to unmute. >> hi. sorry i was using my voice dictation software to type an e-mail. thank you for letting me have a chance to speak on this item, i've been waiting over an hour and a half to speak on this item. i don't understand why public comment is given such a low priority in these meetings saved to the very last when those of us in extreme pain have to wait and endure these

extremely long presentations. i do appreciate the presentations and the information being shared, but human rights commission for example let's the public speak after presentations and that sure would help us to be able to participate in this meeting which as i previously noted did not have the agenda on the website and only has myself as the public comment, maybe one other person. the public is not prioritized at these meetings. i want to emphasize that people talking to these small businesses go with a disabled person when they do that. katie tang says they're doing merchant walks. these businesses react very differently and with much hostility when they even see a person in a wheelchair. many of these businesses i do not agree with that they want to include everyone. many of them do not. they have no interest in including the disabled, we

account for less than 6% of the population of san francisco and now over 60% of the homeless population due to biggotry and discrimination and lack of opportunities in the work force. these issues are exacerbated by the mayor's disability council and the mayor's office of disability. due to these issues and the systemic biggotry in our communities, businesses treat me like garbage. they really hate to see me try to enter and they will use various means of harassment and intimidation should i try to stick up for my rights. unfortunately, all of the enforcement falls on disabled people even to make a complaint and that means we will be further demonized and hated by local businesses. more over, the accessibility is far worse in neighborhoods of color and especially neighborhoods with a lower income bracket. when i go to wealthier

neighborhoods, access is greatly improved, i sure would like to see an equal distribution of these grants and services to all small businesses and i would like to say i really feel for small businesses right now. i know they're going through a very hard time and i do agree that with helen's comments very much so. i think she had wonderful things to say that these improvements help everyone, but we must first as robert says change the old attitudes and encourage disabled inclusion in our communities and i appreciate the conversations being had here today. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comments. are there any further public comments at this time? >> secretary: yes. caller ending in 1003, you've been permitted to unmute. >> caller: hi, again.

this is william railing speaking for accessible san francisco an incorporated nonprofit association. thank you for this presentation. there's certainly much to applaud in the city's efforts, but still some concerns regarding the implementation. in the big picture as the covid restrictions have eased and virtually all restaurants if not all are at full capacity inside, it's now less and less defensible for any of them to discriminate regarding the additional spaces that the city has provided on the exterior. so i think the question is where the rubber meets the road as they say is unfortunately, there are restaurant locations where it is difficult or impossible for them to expand

the exterior without violating state accessibility law and the question is what do you do in that situation? do you say, look, we sympathize with you? i think, you know, it's heart breaking, but would we allow a business to violate civil rights in order to stay in business and the answer's no. there's no other civil right that we would let a business violate to stay in business and so why should the civil right of accessibility be a second class civil right. and that is a difficult conversation. i appreciate that. now, i would like to say thank you to katie tang if she's still here. i know some of you are aware of this, but i think some of you may not be. katie tang was instrumental in creating the accessible business program and implementing it. it's a great program. it's unique in the whole state.

what the city did was layer on a stricter level of requirements for accessibility on top of the statewide california building code requirements. and the philosophy of the a.b.e. is really clever if we can get customers with disabilities in the door, that's an important first step toward the rest of the business being made accessible. and i do think and i applaud the desire to come up with educational and public service announcements that can help educate businesses. you know, after 30 years of a.d.a. and 40 years of california building code accessibility requirements which are as strict or stricter, how much longer are we going to accept the excuse. oh, i had no idea. it's getting a little absurd. with that said, i would like to

suggest to positive communications, one would be public service announcements or, you know, advertisements featuring people with disabilities. accessibility is the law. you know, and another would be featuring testimonials from business owners about how increasing their accessibility has improved their business and as council members pointed out, it's not just for people with disabilities. many businesses have found improving their accessibilities, improves their business. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your public comment. are there any other public commenters? do we have a something on questions and answers?

>> secretary: i see no other public commenters at this time. >> co-chair madrid: do we have anything on questions and answers? >> secretary: the things that were in the question and answer have been addressed. >> yeah. no more public comment. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. so, with that, we are moving to the next item. i want to ask these questions to start us out and think about some hoping that we have a question or i want to start on

this question that money that we have that people can to make businesses accessible, how can we assure that we're doing it. >> so through the chair, i do want to let you know that three of our presenters have to part at 3:00 today, so maybe start with those folks that will need to -- that have another -- >> co-chair madrid: sure.

thank you. okay. back to my question. i just want to make sure that this initiative of funding that we have. how do we ensure that funding. i indicate [ indiscernible ] and not just, oh, i'm needs accessible because this and that. and to make sure that this time that what the money is for. director tang and director sofis, some members you can just start questions that under

hesitation and not of information from businesses are so large and things like that. >> sure. so thank you for your question. one of the key ways we're doing this outreach is frankly really hard work to walk along the corridors and visit physically these business owners face to face and talk to them and share with suppliers. we cannot rely on posting information on a website or on social media and expecting people to read this information or even a newsletter because many of these small business owners are so busy, they don't have time to read that information. just to be candid, a lot of times what we need to do and

what we have been doing is going face to face walking and talking to business owners and catching them when they just have a few minutes to chat with us about what it is that we're trying to share with them. >> co-chair madrid: okay. thank you. and i think we have some questions prepared [ indiscernible ] accessible to people with disabilities and i want to thank you for your comments. the second question we have is

this in front of you, what articles that need to be addressed such as assistant to register and responding to individual requests for accessible amenities to consumers with disabilities or with making a small business accessible. >> so on that note, i would say that i think director sofis and i mentioned earlier, but really what we can benefit from is a partnership with all of you and that technical assistance and guidance for businesses on what it is exactly being needed to do to make their services more

accessible whether it's online or in person. the other thing is funding which is what we have been trying to do through these grant programs and follow professional design services program. that is a gap and then in terms of information sharing, educational, that's where we do our merchant walks and try to get that information out to people in ways that we think will actually reach them. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. i'm sure on this issue [ indiscernible ] >> yes, chair madrid. i think since you will part of what we're trying to emphasize in our public education and communication efforts are clear

examples of how a site can meet the accessibility requirements, with regard to your second question earlier, i think, you know, while it's not the method that the city relies on, citizens submitted complaints and requests through 311 are really important source for us to reference and to follow up on. so any time something is submitted to 311 whether it is a concern about a potential accessibility issue or lack of accessible or equivalent facility, for example, could be many other issues, it triggers a formal process that the city has to investigate and follow up on. so i think, you know, we don't want to rely on solely on

citizen-submitted complaints and concerns, but that does remain a certain source of information. it requires the city to undertake a product protocol to follow up. so i'm trying to think as well, i think there are two parts to the second question and maybe i only

>> -- so that the businesses have a guiding hand on them all at once at opposed to multiple fragments with the city. one thing that's nice about the shared spaces program is that my division was previously responsible for administering the cafe tables and chairs program which has been around upwards of a decade, maybe even two. but for some sense of scale, we had about maybe 400 to 500 permitees in that program, and that's easily a fraction of the number of businesses that we've had participate in shared spaces, however, our preexisting expertise in

determining a best path of travel, best practices and clearances, has also assisted us in clearing businesses. one thing that my team is going to be responsible for is plan checking, so in the pandemic iteration of this program, there wasn't a lot of plan checking ensuring accessibility on this site. moving ahead, what we've done is taken the cafe tables and chairs and repurposed them for this program. the cafe tables and chairs program, what it required them to do and in this program, is demonstrate accessible seating and an accessible path of travel, so i think you're going to see more hands on as we move forward in what constitutes

accessibility, and then, we're also going to continue to be responding to complaints, doing the neighborhood walk. so you're going to have the pencil pushers on my team that are reviewing and sending out plans and saying hey, this will make it more accessible, and then, you're going to have people on-site looking at site conditioning and acting accordingly. we're always seeking to do a better job, so if there's suggestions we can practically implement, we're all ears. we love partnering with the community there, and thank you. >> thank you. >> i like the idea of having more distinct platform.

i know the office of small business currently has resources for businesses. i think continues to try to drive-byses to those resources, expanding on those resources, right lane -- having some of the resources, understanding that people with disabilities want to spend their money in these businesses, so i like the idea of maybe individuals with disabilities visiting businesses, as well. people with disabilities getting more involved with the process and getting the word out there, and maybe trying to change the narrative.

these laws have been intact in 30 years, so if businesses haven't changed and property owners haven't changed to businesses, it's time. it's time to do it for the right reasons, and i think we need to start thinking about how we change our narrative around access, as well. >> thank you. >> thank you, chad. i just thought i'd comment on what peter laid out, and also comment on what peter said before coming to the city and speaking out about local

manufacturing in s.f. made. what strikes me is we are not alone in a city that's been compliance based, and we are trying to comply and how can i not get in trouble. it's good for members of the community who may not have a disability but would benefit in ways for their product and services. we have 92,000 small businesses across the city, and part of what i have seen in my previous experience prior to the city and that i believe is an

incredibly important part of our community, merchant districts, community benefit districts, for sure, but every community benefit organization that oewd partners with, entrepreneurship training, we at oewd can do a better job connecting us and we can do a better job helping small businesses. that's one piece, and the other, and maybe i'm going to sort of lift this back to this body. could we add a campaign, a social media campaign, open san francisco, something positive,

something that's a complement to the stick, right? we need credible action that's being taken if a business is open and it's not helping out. but also, in the news, a business that's made amazing effort. wouldn't that be great? could we take over banners across the city get more word out about the positivity behind all of this, because again, i sort of think about these numbers, 92,000 small businesses and digital access and we're going to have to change the game of how we get the word out. it's -- you know, everything we

do to do merchant walks and get to businesses one-on-one, i think we have to keep doing and then some, but it's going to take more than that to get the kind of systems change that i think we're all looking for, but hopefully working with the mayor's office on disability we can get it all up and running and working together. but that's my idea, is to standup a positive p.r. campaign about open up san francisco's small businesses for greater accessibility to everyone. thank you. >> [indiscernible] i just want to pose a question to ken.

ken, [indiscernible] safety and accessibility together. before you can answer that question, i'll go over to [indiscernible]. >> hi. i just wanted to point out that the community disability advocates, which is a group of disabled leaders from different advocacy agencies is very interested in putting together an antiablism campaign, so you might be interested in hearing

about that in another meeting, but that would go with some of the director's ideas. that's all i have for now. >> thank you. going back to ken, did you have the question? >> who was your question for? >> my question was for ken. >> could you repeat it? >> yes, i'll repeat the

question. the question i have is what's the relationship between safety and accessibility? can they be adjusted together? >> well, this is a slight relationship between safety and accessibility. the fire department's main focus is accessibility and beyond. we're looking in reverse, to be able to gain access to the building to connect with people. a lot of the gaps that you see in shared spaces allow us to get from the street to the sidewalk. i'm not sure how they interact with spacing, but it does open

things up, and it does not allow the shared spaces business owners to close it. it's more open because of our rooftop visuals, because we have to be able to see from the street, so i believe it would actually aid in that. things are open of actually taking equipment ladders, personnel, hose, from the truck to the building, and in addition, it would be keep things clear from overhead instructions. >> i'm sorry, alex. i was just going to add to fire marshal's comments that as we were developing and continue to enforce and move forward with the design guidelines for the shared spaces program, the mayor's office of disability,

the department of public works, the fire department, we work together to make sure the regulations that we all have aren't in contact with each other and provide as much access as possible. it's a very intentional effort that we made in this to make sure we provide safety and accessibility without violating regulation. >> [indiscernible] of course i would assume some businesses

have push backs. what do you guys do when businesses [indiscernible] when they have not been complying? what happens when a business says they're not going to do it? >> how do we gain compliance with fire safety? >> yes. >> so as was just mentioned, we are working as a task force with m.t.a., d.p.w., and the

fire department, and provide this sheet of all corrections. some are immediate. some items can be out -- or will be out in 2023. the fire department, we have a way to issue violations to be able to document, and then, we have reinspection fees. [indiscernible] so we can make them aware of the problem, what the problem is, how fast they'll need to fix it. if they choose to ignore, we can move to other measures, including the business owner and up to the building owner would be invited down, and if

it got to the point, as you stated, they just don't want to comply, we can issue an order of abatement through the city assessor's office. >> thank you. thank you for that. [indiscernible]. >> people have already talked about this somewhat, and we are getting people asked us how long this is going to last because they need to go, so i just want to point out our time constraints. >> i think this discussion is done, so i just want to say

thank you to all the presenters [indiscernible] so thank you very much for coming, and i hope that [indiscernible] and going forward, working together. thank you for coming, and i hope we'll work together soon. with that, i'm going to close this discussion. thank you very much. so we are moving to item number -- >> i think a break would be a

good idea. >> i think we're going to have a five-minute break. thank you, and see you guys in five minutes.

>> now we are moving to item

number 4, which is report from the mayor's office on disability. >> okay. great. i'm just going to pull up my notes here, and then, i will go to it. okay. so this is the april report to mayor's disability council from the mayor's office of disability. i just want to point out that we publish this report in full on the mayor's disability council webpage, and it's also sent out as part of the follow-up reminder on the following meeting, so there's lots of different ways to

access the report. for the full report, which i do recommend you review, there are all sorts of hyperlinks and other information that you can address, but for today, i'd like to highlight a few things. first of all, just a follow up to the discussion we had. i'd really like to encourage the council to really follow up and through the ideas that were addressed today to engage and promote disability access in our city, to really think about the things that you would like to directly follow up on, and which of you would like to get behind that and really help make that happen because i do think there was some good ideas, with your energy and support, could go a long way,

so i just wanted to say that. towards my report itself, i'm going to focus on the local and state legislation that's happened and is happening since the last report, so the first update is about jfk drive access per the local legislation. so jfk currently has two pieces of legislation under consideration. the first, we've heard in this meeting. you'll recall we had the expensive participation and public comment on the golden gate park access and safety program which has the referral number 220261. that is the legislation that's sponsored by the mayor's office as well as supervisor preston, melgar, and haney.

around the sfmta staff report, director, or cochair madrid mentions that the cochairs did meet with leadership to discuss their resolution, and so that was covered. i do want to emphasize that m.o.d. has urged our colleagues in recreation and parks and m.t.a. to provide golden gate parks accessibility legislation on a timeline, which was mentioned earlier also by alex, and so this work is currently in progress. in response to this legislation, since our last meeting, there's now another piece of legislation related to this which amends the recommendation in that report. that referral number is 220339,

and that -- this legislation is sponsored by supervisor chan and supervisor walton that's under land use and transportation 30-day rule. what that means is there's been a motion to schedule a joint meeting with the board of supervisors and the county transportation authority to hear this item which amends the legislation and makes certain street segments one way and establishes bicycle lanes and improves access to golden gate park. the public agenda for this meeting hasn't been set yet, so the date and time is subject to change, but per the motion in the april 5 board of supervisors meeting, it was recommended for april 26, so

this month, as 9:00 in the morning, for those of you that are interested. as soon as we receive the formal meeting notice, we will make sure that that's posted on the mayor's office of disability distribution list, and we will post-it on our website, as well. the other legislation that we've heard today from shared spaces has passed around the limit of fines of shared spaces violations, meaning it passed, and that accessibility continues to be prioritized. we've heard that mentioned today. i wanted to mention a couple of things related to state legislation next. i mentioned last month that the virtual public meeting legislation, which is assembly bill 361, was approved by the governor, and this allows for the continued provision of public meetings and the

suspension of some of the requirements of the brown act while we have a declared emergency. locally, the client association of disability advocates or cada are asking for a stay of the emergency order, so the cada agency is scheduled to meet with the mayor's office for for -- office later this month with some suggestions, so i really urge everyone to provide input as access to our meeting has

been really enhanced by virtual access and electronic access. another one is still under consideration, senate bill 1376, and it is still in consideration through the california public utilities commission and are currently focused on outreach to the disability community and the obligations that the t.n.c.s have to provide effective outreach, so that is a really important tandem to what we talked about today. really wanted to mention that. also, there is another assembly bill, 336, which has to do with speed endorsement. this was endorsed and advanced through vision zero and would

allow for a state mechanism to have some more provisions on how we think about speed enforcement and fatalities. i know there's been some discussion on vision zero in the past, so i just want to emphasize that again. next, i want to move to some community resources. i wanted to remind folks that in terms of the covid response and the disability community, the department of public health and c.d.c. recommends that you have a third booster four month -- a fourth booster four

months after your third booster, and this includes anyone over 60, anyone with health conditions, or anyone immunocompromised, so really, consult with your health professional to get more information on it. or you can also visit the sfdph website, which is at you can call the covid resource center at 628-652-2700, and at-home vaccination also remains available, and to set that up, call the covid resource center.

again, that's 628-652-2700. next, i'd like to announce that the city and county of san francisco will be holding a career resource fair open to the public and free on saturday, april 23, at -- from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., which is located at 350 mcallister street. it's open to all job seekers from all backgrounds who are interested in pursuing a career with the city in health care, public safety, construction, the a.c.e. program that this council has heard about that will be present as part of this, which is an initiative to hire folks with disabilities into city positions. if you're interested in this event, you can register at --

it's hosted by the department of human resources, and you can register at sfdhr.org/career-events, and you can also request reasonable accommodations for this event by contacting dhr-diversity recruitment at sfgov.org. we did put out an announcement about this yesterday to the m.o.d. distribution, but it'll be posted to the website, as well. i just wanted to emphasize other items for future m.d.c. hearing considerations that are time sensitive or still in progress. one is in in addition to what you've already heard about jfk drive. just want to reiterate again that there's still a lot of public interest on what will

happen post pandemic around circulation and with our other closed or slow street areas, especially the great highway, and other slow streets. when state and local emergency orders are lifted, it would be possible that some of these would be under consideration for permanent city, so i would just encourage the council to stay engaged with that. as you know, we've had a lot of comments on streets issues throughout the pandemic. again, hybrid meeting, public participation, we'd encourage you to stay involved with that as that is another virtual meeting, and the way that the city provides them may shift after the emergency order is

lifted, so that's why i mentioned it as a time sensitive one. also, i mentioned this last month, but i'll mention it again. the survey is underway, and the city will be required to respond on their compliance or transition plan for city compliance, so i urge you to get more detail about that plan. we've had some success in training and providing what we hope is a better experience for our summer together after school programs and summer camp resources, so you may want to consider hearing about that. and finally, last thing i'll mention is on monday, the mayor's office on disability

has been asked to report to give an update to the civil grand jury. the civil grand jury approaches department occasionally and asks for updates and questions of concern, and i'll just mention that some of the most critical questions that the civil grand jury would like to mow snow about has to do with access to our streets and sidewalks and parking -- would like to know about has to do with access to our streets and sidewalks and parking and all of that, as well, so i'll be happy to see how that presentation goes at the next meeting. and with that, that concludes my report for today. i just want to remind folks

that if you are not on our distribution list and would like to receive our e-mails or information about when these legislative items or items of public interest come about, you can contact us at mod@sfgov.org or call 415-554-6789, or you can also visit our home page, which right now is at sfgov.org/mod. thanks a lot for your attention. thank you for that.

we are moving to [indiscernible] at this time. >> clerk: okay. just a reminder to the public, you can make public comment by clicking on the raise hand icon. if you are calling in, press star, nine, or you can enter in

the chat. and at this time, we have commenters in the queue. >> hi. this is william raling. over the last couple of years, i think you all know that i'm very supportive of the work of the mayor's disability council and staff. i think that staff's done a great job throughout covid, and so if i say something that is -- you know, might seem a little critical, i just wanted to make it clear that, you know, that i really intend this to be constructive criticism, and i -- i sincerely hope it'll be taken that way because i know that each of the individual members of the council really support participation of the public and the council activities and

discussion, and i know staff really supports it, as well. so i'm trying to figure out what has gone wrong, and i think they're -- well, here's what i think right now. there's an obligation to meet both the statewide brown act requirements and then locally the sunshine ordinance, and i think there are some mistakes perhaps being made both in the agendizing of the meetings and in the public comment procedure during the meetings, and so i -- i hope that staff can reach out internally to whatever compliance resources there are to see if the manner and the timing of the agendizing that has been happening is sufficient, and then, i think the tape itself of this meeting provides a basis for someone to evaluate whether the brown act and the

sunshine ordinance are being complied with. i'll just point out that this committee went through agenda item 4, 5, 6, and 7, right, totaling perhaps 2.5 hours of hearing and took public comment once. the brown act -- i'm more familiar with the state requirement than the local ordinance -- requires that public comment be taken on every agenda item, and it's not happening, right? so -- and i think you're seeing the effects of that in terms of the limited public participation. i think someone mentioned that earlier as a public comment. we live in a big city, and there's thousands of people

with disabilities, and i think that should be a requirement to participate. i think people are being discouraged to participate by the lack of opportunities and feeling like their contributions are not valued. it would have been very helpful to participate in both 6 and 7 in particular, but there was one opportunity. the fire marshal is here, and that is a rare opportunity. they're extremely busy, and fire marshals don't often understand how important their work is for people with disabilities. egress in a fire and panic is crucial. who gets out last? so i feel it's regrettable that the public was not able to speak on that item. okay. i mean this constructively. this is a great committee council and doing great work

and great staff, and i look forward to continuing to participate myself in the future. thank you. >> thank you for your comment. >> clerk: okay. the next public commenter, gene, you've been permitted to unmute. >> can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> i'm an 81-year-old senior. i've been a resident of san francisco for over 50 years. i'm home bound, and one of my disabilities is macular degeneration. i've never commented before, but in the future, i'll be extremely interested in agenda

items because of my vision. i did have a question about laguna honda. i just heard that medicare or medicaid stopped their funding for laguna honda, and i want to know if there's any role that the mayor's office on disability has in laguna honda. as a low-income senior, i'm very concerned with what goes on at laguna honda. >> thank you for your question. if you don't mind providing us with your information, we'll get that information and get back to you. >> alex, through the chair, may i just say, there's two ways to do that.

you can e-mail, if you have access to e-mail, mod@sfgov.org, or you can call 415-554-6789. >> thank you. and with that, i'm going to move to the next item, council member comments and announcements. >> clerk: are we done with public comment? >> i didn't hear that. >> do we have any other public comments at this time? >> clerk: i do not see any other public comments at this time. >> thank you. item 9, which is council member

comments and announcements. >> yes. since the last -- pardon my voice. since the last meeting, m.d.c. received 30 -- over 300 e-mails, and they appeared to all have been saved on a template. they're about the jfk drive issue. the general template reads as follows: i support maintaining jfk drive in golden gate drive as a permanent pedestrian

promenade. car-free jfk is popular with people from all neighborhoods as a safe destination and active transportation corridor in our park. after nearly two years of public process and the new improvements to the shuttle and a.d.a. accessible parking, it will become even more inclusive destination and amenity for all san franciscans. it's time for the board of supervisors to vote on the future of car-free jfk. please vote to make jfk permanently car free for a better future for our city.

this is the only communication that follows this template. >> debbie, can you please state how many e-mails m.d.c. received? >> over 300. i don't know the exact number, but it's over 300. >> for car-free jfk? >> yes. >> thank you. with that, we'll move into council member comments and announcements. are there any council members who have any comments or announcements at this time? >> one announcement from staff

is that you may have noticed this, but there is now an mdc@sfgov.org mailbox, so this really doesn't affect m.d.c. members directly, but those who wish to send correspondence by e-mail to m.d.c. will now be able to directly address their e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org. . >> thank you for announcing that, debbie. would you mind putting that in an e-mail that we can push out to our distribution list so that people are aware? >> sure. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. if there's no more

announcements, i just want to say thank you for everything. i want to say thank you for my fellow council members, and especially i want to say thank you to the m.o.d. staff for helping us in putting this together and forming the agenda, so with that, i want to wish everyone happy easter, and we will see you this time again

on may 20 at 1:00 to 4:00, and with that, we will adjourn the meeting. >> thank you, everyone. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> bye.

the tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors, merchants, workers and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. the tenderloin initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services and increase investments in the

neighborhood. as city and community-based partners, we work daily to make these changes a reality. we invite you to the tenderloin history, inclusivity make this neighborhood special. >> we're all citizens of san francisco and we deserve food, water, shelter, all of those things that any system would. >> what i find the most fulfilling about being in the tenderloin is that it's really basically a big family here and i love working and living here. >> [speaking foreign language] >> my hopes and dreams for the tenderloin are what any other community organizer would want for their community, safe,

clean streets for everyone and good operating conditions for small businesses. >> everything in the tenderloin is very good. the food is very good. if you go to any restaurant in san francisco, you will feel like oh, wow, the food is great. the people are nice. >> it is a place where it embraces all walks of life and different cultures. so this is the soul of the tenderloin. it's really welcoming. the. >> the tenderloin is so full of color and so full of people. so with all of us being together and making it feel very safe is challenging, but we are working on it and we are getting there. >> joined by