>> welcome to the small business commission meeting on july 25, 2022. the meeting is being called to order at 4:30 p.m. this meeting is held in person at city hall room 400 and broadcast live and available to view on line by calling 415-655-0001. government code 54953e and mayor breed 45 supplemental to february 25, 2022 emergency proclamations it is possible the members may attend remotely. viewed on sfgovtv tv 2. we welcome public participation. there is a opportunity for general public comment at the end of

the meeting and there been a opportunity to comment on each discussion or action item on the agenda. for each item, the commission will take public comment first from people in-person and people attending remotely. members of the public calling in 415-655-0001. the access code is 24827366587. press pound and pound again to be added to the line. when connected you will be muted and listening mode only. when your itedm comes up dial star 3 b to added to the speaker line. if you dial star 3 before public comment is called you will be added to the queue. when you are called for public comment please mute the device you are listening to the meeting on. when it is your time it speak you will be prompted to do so. public comment during the meeting is limited the 3 minutes per speaker and an alarm will sound once the time is finished. speakers are requested but not required to state

their name. sfgovtv please show the small business slide. >> the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinion about policies that effect small businesses in san francisco. the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, particularly at this time you can find us online or via telephone and as always our services are free of charge. beforeetum eat item one is called i like to thank media service and sfgovtv for coordinating the hearing and helping to run the meaning. please callite item 1 >> item 1, roll call. [roll call]

>> president, you have a quorum. >> wonderful. the san francisco small business and office of small business staff acknowledge we are on the seated home land of the ohlone the original inhabitant. the ohlone have never seated lost (inaudible) all people who reside in the traditional territory. as guest we recognize we recognize we benefit from living and working on their home lngd and wish to pay respects of the ohlone community and affirming their sovereign rights as first people. item 2. >> item 2 is downtown economic recovery update. hear

and diss cuss update on the economic recorfcky effort and presenting is katherine daniel with office of economic and work force development. >> hi, kat, how are you? >> very good. thank you for having me here. i'm going to show a presentation to you. so, i am the director of economic recovery and regeneration for the office of economic and work force development and wanted to give you all a update on my team's work and specifically on the economic core recovery fund initiative passed in the latest budget cycle. how we are thinking about economic recovery in the core and initiatives planned for next year. i'll start with

a basic framing that in the emergency that covid was to public health it was a very big economic impact and in some places we are seeing recovery happening really really robustly, even in places where recovery is going pretty well. we are obviously in a very big rebuilding phase and there are other places where economic recovery is lagging or things have really really fundamentally changed for the foreseeable future and so economic recovery is big and really all of the departments in oewd are working on recovery, and really-i mean, also several city departments are working on the recovery. the team i'm leading is focused on one specific element. it is not trying to hold all

of economic recovery for the city. what we are focused on specifically is first tracking the status of recovery in the city so we know and can be the source of truth where they are going well and lagging and where they are different and also those things that are not the purview of any other city department or team in oewd, really trying to wrap our heads around the funomnen and happen there and how to create solutions in order to spur and support the economic recovery in the areas. the biggest example is the economic core, which up to covid was going swimmingly. our economic core was producing the gdp of around equivalent to greece and it didn't need a lot of government

intervention and now because of how different things are, it is a focus for my team and for the city in order to support. so, in my presentation today what i'll talk about first off is what is the economic core, like what are we talking about there. how we are thinking about recovery and some of the initiatives we have planned for the next yearism before i jump into that slide i want to qualify the shift our city and in particular the core is going through is very big and it is unprecedented and it is dynamic. we haven't settled into sort of like steady state and so things are changing rapidly, and things-we dont have a play-book because we haven't seen something like what covid did before, and so with all of that and

for those reasons i really appreciate you all having me here to talk about this and to get your input and perspective on really how to approach this and make sure that as recovery is going forward we have the perspective and the best thinking of everybody impacted and stakeholders because it will take all that to move forward. i will dive in. the first sort of thing, is the economic core doesn't really have a geographic boundary. it is not our downtown. according to our city economist it is the interlocking set of activities that really drive the city economy so what that means is like, it is our offices, it is the office and office worker serving businesses

that surround the offices. it is the hotels and the retail that all together drive about 3 quarters of our city economic activity, and to give you sort of a sense of where it is, on the map the parcels shaded in red are areas with 25 thousand square feet or more of office use, and so you can see that there is no specific district or neighborhood that that falls in, but there is clear concentrations. those together with the sort of supportive eco system, again is driving a lot of our activity and so we use 6 zip codes roughly to define the economic core, and those 6 zip codes were responsible for 69 percent of the city

jobs overall jobs. they employed all most 40 percent of the city's working age residents. they also generated 47 percent of the sales tax and are they are home to 42 percent of our small businesses. defined businesses under 50 employees. and so, if you go to the next slide, what we know and has been a huge topic of conversation, there continues to be a significant loss of people in our economic core and this is largely driven by remote work. so, one thing i would point out in this slide is that while san francisco is sort of-is at the bottom of this trend with about 35 percent of its office workers returning to in-person work on any given week, even

our top metro area, austin is still significantly reduced in terms of the number of people coming into the office, so they only have about 60 percent of the people coming in before the pandemic and that for a lot of reasons is ceend kind of what is responsible for the big shift. even when you you are doing really well you have a lot less people come into the office. for san francisco that is huge, because we had 470 thousand people who worked in san francisco but lived outside of san francisco prior to the pandemic so a very large number of that group is just not coming into office on a day to day basis the way they were before. if you go to the next slide, this is just another slide that is showing the same ing the, but bart ridership to the downtown stations

also dramatically reduced, about 30 percent prior to what it was to the pandemic. and that has big implications for our economy and all the small businesses in the core and actually even beyond into san francisco. the next slide gives us a look at another really important group, which is tourist economy which is doing a lot better in terms of recovery and san francisco is and has been a tourist town. it was a huge part of our economy, tourism was a huge part of our economy and now while recovery is going a lot better, on a weekly average, 15 to 30 percent lower then it was prior to the pandemic. so, net-we are just seeing way fewer people in the core. and the implications for that if you go to the next slide is

that, in terms of the job recovery and economic growth, while our office base industries are doing really well, they added jobs beyond what they had prior to the pandemic, many of the other industries that rely on one way or another on either office workers or tourists or both, they are experiencing job growth on par with the recession so not yet recovered the number of jobs that they had prior to the pandemic and going very slow. and then looking at the next slide, the-what we are seeing in terms of vacancy in the office market is as companies are contracting their footprint, they are letting go of (inaudible) or they are letting go of their leases entirely,

because of -because they are not so dependent on in person reporting we are seeing really large vacancies in the office market and that has big implications for the tax base. it also starts to give us a outline of long-term--the reduced, rb the sort of expectations around reduced volume in the core because while offices-if everything is full and offices are bringing back a third to 50 percent of their people, then it is a third to 50 percent of the people but if the office space is vacant that is no people so we are very focused on back-filling those vacancies and those spaces. and the last slide giving you the summary of the overview of the impact is one of the ways we measure the

impact from the reduction in terms of like total number of people circulating through our core, is on sales tax, which is measure of economic activity so city wide, the city as a whole we still have not recovered about 20percent of our sales tax and many of our neighborhoods are doing a lot better. i think all of our neighborhoods are within 25pert of percent of where they were and 2/3 of the neighborhoods (inaudible) net with very few exceptions. arfbd is down and that reflects a los loss of people circulating through the city and of course in the economic core it is down a lot. it is down between 50-let my say this right. we

recovered between 50 and 77 percent of the sales tax in the different zip codes in the economic core, but it's based on the shading you can see there is still pretty significant losses within the core. and so, like i said at the beginning, all of this together really represents a big shift in our economy and how our economy operates that has implications for the entire city and you can see it most acutely in the core, but it threatens our city's role as a job engine for the city and for the entire region and so, that is why we are very very focused on that area in general and as a city. so, what are we doing or how are we thinking about it? first, it really

is a absence of people that we are focused on, because again, if you look at the office industries in terms of job growth, they are doing fine. it is just that those people are working from home instead of from the offices and that is depressing our economic activity. so, what we are trying to do is really understand where we are going to settle in terms of employees returning to offices, and what we can do to maximize that return. so, while we saw we are to date around between 35 and 40 percent office attendedance in a given week, we don't expect that is going to remain. we dont think we hit the top yet. in speaking with offices and speaking with employers, nobody wants to give up office. this is not like a shift away from office, they need or they say they

need their offices, they need to have employees coming in for on-bording, for culture setting, for collaboration and for a lot of reasons and they are not ready to just like do everything remotely for the rest of time. and, i would also say because this is not been as common a narrative, a lot of employees do not want to work 100 percent from home for the rest of their careers. we are social and people like coming into the office and you know, and so we are-there is a lot of thinking going on on both sides around how offices are going to be used and why people are going to come in, but there is still a very strong interest by everybody in having offices and using them well. and so we are-and this

is unprecedented part. we are trying to understand how exactly this thinking is developing, how people are thinking about going into the office, how people employers are thinking about using the office and we have a couple projects to understand that better and what is going on real time and the trends emerging so that is the economic recovery dash-board which commissioner cartagena was kind enough to give some input on and we are hoping to give you a presentation update on the recovery dash-bord in the not too distant future. we held a forum in april to start a conversation with a lot of these stakeholders in the economic core in order to hear directly from them. thank you commissioner laguana for your participation in that around what they're seeing on the ground, how they are

thinking, the needs, solutions what is working and continue to be a big challenge and lastly we have a covid-downtown covid economic analysis project that is about to kick-off later in august, which should give us real data around what changed during covid. and a survey effort that will ask people in real time about how they are using, how they are bringing people back and how they want to use the core and that's for both employers and for office workers. those three projects together are just us trying to get the best sort of perspective and information around what is happening that we can, but we are also and now in the near term because we cant wait for all of that to conclude before we start acting, also really focused on driving foottraffic

back to the core as quickly and as much as possible and bringing foot traffic to the businesses in particular that have been waiting for 3 years to have their numbers resume. and so-and so, a lot of that is around like for office workers, giving-they have choice now. they dont have an employer saying you better be in the office or you have-wrou will have a performance improvement plan and start going through the processes. they get to choose whether or not they want to be in the office and a lot of that is based on office culture and office dynamics, but we are exploring what the city can do in order to make it downtown and economic core really engaging and compelling place to be so that people are like, i want to go to that amazing happy hour and so i'll gee go to the office and take my meetings and bundle things up so they can and will come

back to the core and groups who never came to the core because they didn't have a core in the economic core so there was no reason to, to give them reasons to. so, that is what a lot of this next year is going to be focused on as we gather the information that hopefully will give us insight into long-term solutions. we started with the just recognizing as shops opened and people came back to the office we needed everything to be clean and safe and people to feel comfortable coming into the office so last year we started the ambassador programs, we started shine on sf that was really all of those were really aimed at clean safe and engaging streets, and this year we are sort of upping the ante to not just requiring and making people feel safe and comfortable but giving them the

hook in order to come back into the core. so, that is the street vibrancy initiative. our vac ant to vibrant initiative which focused on vacant ground floor retail spaces and pop-ups and are then lastly we need to tell people. like, we need to-this is what government is not good at doing, but like, we do all of these things and we never put it out into the world and so it is like a tree falls into the forest and so we have to like have marketing and proactive outreach campaigns for our residents and the residents of the region, but also for visitors who have been hearing and blasted over the last couple years about this narrative on one track about san francisco, which is a true and real challenge, but not the entirety of the city. and so we need to proactively remind people about

everything san francisco is and put it into their heads that this is everything that made us a world class city and a world class tourist destination prior to the pandemic, we still have. and so that will also be a big focus. feel like i talked probably enough and you are ready for questions, so the last slide just gives you a little bit more detail around the street vibrancy campaign which is very focused on public spaces and events and activations from a small medium and large scale. the vacant to vibrant again ground floor pop up and then our marketing campaign to both visitors as well as businesses, again to start to back-fill some of those vacancies. and with that, i'll just open the floor to whatever questions. >> great. thank you so much kat. commissioners,

any questions? i'll just call you. commissioner huie. she is struggling to find the button. >> thank you so much kat for your presentation. this is really something that we have been looking forward to. let's see--i dont know if i have a lot of questions so far. some of the things you brought up made me think about ideas for different events and different things. maybe i'll rattle off a couple and maybe a question will form. >> great. i will take those. >> this is a little off subject, but i was recently watching cbs sunday, it is like the feel good human interest stories and they had the whole thing about the public libraries and how they are turned into resource

centers in a lot of different towns. some large cities and small ones. san francisco was highlighted as well as forget what we did really well. we did something really well so highlighted on the story. but it made me think how something as established and traditional and conservative in many ways, like a library full of books was now transformed into tech hubs, tool lending libraries like where you could go borrow making tools or youth programs. there were spaces for dance, for theater for kids to learn music and jam together so it made me think there so much hope for us to reenvision many of our spaces we believe to be such solid institutions to be something very dynamic and exciting and so if

anybody wants to you tube that, that was a good one. that was one idea that i in terms of some of the places we have where many people dont feel privy to yet to be able to open those up for people to feel more welcome in because i think sometimes thinking about the downtown core or economic core, for me living and working in a neighborhood i always felt i dont really fit in there. like that is not my space, that is not the city i understand the city to be and so i think somehow perhaps opening up the culture of downtown to be more inclusive of san franciscans and san francisco i think would be interesting, because we have so many people coming into the region and they have their own ideas and culture and people who live in san francisco have a whole another idea what san francisco means. >> that is really well

taken and a really big outcome of the forum was that--so, the-one thing that the downtown has going for it, it is a central repository for all of these regional transportation and national and global transportation hubs and it has a scale that you just can't replicate in the neighborhood. the neighborhood are much smaller scale and have transportation that serve the neighborhood but not meant to move people at scale but the thing that makes san francisco san francisco and that world class destination is its culture, its community, the creativity and neighborhood and if the downtown core is the place we show case all that makes san francisco so unique, then that just seeds the

transformation that it can-that we can grow into, so it is a place of business and has creativity and business and jobs but really compelling and engaging dynamic place to be and the thing that will do that is our neighborhoods and communities so that is absolutely well-taken. sorry, i get going. not to be insensitive, but in the let no good crisis go to waste, we have a tremendous vacancy rate in the economic core now and we can start to seed programs that give local businesses, local entrepreneurs, industries and shops and businesses that were priced out and not able to access our core a foot

in so it can-they can leverage the economic tonight the core really represents so those are going to be very big priorities for us, and again your ideas about how to do that and how we protect that are very very appreciated. >> thank you. i had a couple more. leading into that further, i think for recovery of hospitality and travel, what i have been noticing is that san francisco has always been a food city. always been a exciting place to try new things but as i travel i notice other cities are also very exciting in the food, but the other piece i have been noticing in addition to food is that people are traveling for truly authentic experiences, and educational

experiences. i was in new york recently and i looked up api owned businesses and i wanted to know like where are these businesses. i recently did a tour in our san francisco downtown area on the african american experience and what did that look like during the gold rush and so i think we have so much to office in turchls of social justice and so many things happened here to make travel recover in a way that is really substantial i think would be really interesting to me if san francisco is saying we have a specific culture, certain values and certain things that make us who we are to kind of speak to the narrative is out there in terms of san francisco has all these things happening to the city right now. do people even care? we do. we care a lot about

people and think to be able to show that within our tourism and hospitality seems like to me something that i would want to invest into. >> thank you. >> the other things are just-thank you so much. >> thank you. >> you can hit it again later if you want to revisit. >> i'll do it like 5 times. >> commissioner ortiz cartagena. >> thank you for the presentation and thank you commissioner huie. i want to reiterate ideas commissioner huie had-this is a opportunity like you said just now. small business you never would have thought we could be downtown and cultural small business bringing san francisco flavor like commissioner huie said, locals and people that come to the city and have people experience what san francisco really is about and at the end of the presentation you said the narrative and media and what are we doing

currently? what is the pr blast? we should do something madison ave style like how las vegas did. something like that, right? san francisco. only in san francisco. something dope. and letting people know that we are not this city the media portrays. you come for food and regionally will segue to my next question. you said people want to work, of course because the food-you are not-east bay dont get up set, you will not get the food you get here in east bay. food and tourism as always been-going to that what is it correlation between the surrounding counties? is the correlation and seeing the trends because we have a huge commuter workforce and how do we take advantage? one thing that popped in my head, the regional mta are working on a

plan to charge commuters to come in. that was prior to the pandemic and now we probably don't want to discourage things like that. just making sure that everybody's on one master plan that nobody is operating in silos to insure things in place or planned prior to the pandemic, maybe we have to wait a long time for that to be implemented. lastly, the latino impact and latin ex impact and undocumented economy how is that reflected and the thriving and future of san francisco, because we contribute a lot. we are the ones that are the dish washers the housekeepers the infrastructure and backbone and you can't quantify it because we are not documented in most cases so just making sure that that is always in our mind as well. but thank you katherine and thank you commissioner huie. that was dope. >> thank you. >> thank you.

commissioner carter. >> that was a great presentation. i think we are headed in a good direction. wondering if we have a timeline for these things? and it is one thing i keep hearing in these meetings as we talk about downtown and it is san francisco culture and i love what my fellow commissioner said, commissioner huie and ortiz about the campaign. like vegas. what happens-i would love to see something like that to really draw in and the marthing marketing of san francisco and culture. what elts else do i have? my train of thought just left me. but yeah, i love to see if we actually have a timeline and also i think it was you who said that, but how are

we showcasing the history of san francisco? everybody that contributed to the city and i know when i traveled some things that i want to look for in the city is the history. specifically for the black community and i think all bipoc communities, is what i fall back on when i think of san francisco. it is so diverse but how are we telling those stories to attract more people to come to san francisco? >> to your question about the timeline, the funding for the economic core recovery initiative, those three, the street vibeerance and vacant to vibeerance and marketing campaign will hopefully be approved by the board finalized and approved tomorrow and we are working on a rfp now that should go out in the near future within a matter of days

or weeks, so we can start to get responses to these areas so we can hit the ground running as soon as we have the funds hit our budget, and so we hope that we would be able to stand up programming in the fall with a contracting and the study, the covid impact analysis study is kicking off in august, and should-we should hopefully have data and the responses to surveys in the late fall for that, and then finally the economic recovery dash-bord is something we have been working on. i spoke with you all i think just about a year ago and that has been-we have been building that over time so we hope that will be something we are ready to put in front of users for user testing

in again in the early fall so that we could make it public once it has been vetted. so, that gives you a sense of timeline. in terms how we are planning showcases-we are certainly requesting and prioritizing responses to our procurement that have a thoughtful and inclusive approach that specifically addresses what came out of this economic forum, which was that like san francisco's core needs to be the place where we showcase our community, the culture and neighborhoods and history and giveathetic san francisco experience so hopefully will get strong responses with that lens. >> great. i think one

last thing, the vacant store fronts downtown, how are we getting that out to the communities before other people come in and take it before the mom and pops are able to? how are we getting that information out that these spaces are available? >> can i talk about what will be in the procurement? okay. our strategy will be described in the procurement. i can get back to you in a matter of days. if not earlier on that. >> great. thank you.

>> to speak generally and information that is publicly-we can share completely publicly, what we are hearing from the stakeholders that we are talking to about the needs in order to facilitate pop ups happening and happening in a equitable way, is there needs to be focus attention on outreach, both to the property owners because there is nobody who is really susing out opportunities with building owners and to potential pop upees whether the businesses, the entrepreneurs, the art organizations et cetera and that we-many of those

entities, particularly the smaller scale sort of more mom and pops need support and going through and getting through the process, so working with landlords on licensing agreements, and on navigating the city permitting process so we are hearing clearly that if we want to make this a opportunity that is available to everyone, that we need focused support in those areas. >> great. vice president zouzounis. >> thank you and that response actually was really helpful. thank you for the presentation and engaging our questions. i think it is just-we have a racial equity evaluation tool that we use. we developed part of the city mandate and as we look at the demographic of businesses that make

up the core, soma, business district, downtown, i work there with my sba role several times a week and a lot of businesses that shuttered are formula retailers and we have a lot of small businesses that have been trucking along, maybe have shuttered and some are just starting to reopen and a lot are from specific demo graphic communities. there is tons of arab and afghan businesses. we have a trade association. i would love to see how the plan is to partner with smaller small business and ethnic trade associations and certain demo graphic communities in rolling out some of that marketing and not just sf travel, not just chamber, because i know in south of market, the merchant groups are getting together and putting a directory of all the businesses. they are coming up with their own ideas

about lunch passports and how to make that a visual presentation of what is available in the neighborhood and i think a lot of those partnerships would go a long way and would also address the issue that we see so many times with oewd outreach of it not getting to who is not already a city partner and rfp recipient. that is one thing. i think also we would all love to see the vacancies for the outreach staff so we can share those with the merchant communities at large that we are all connected to and a timeline on when that hiring would happen would be really great to know as well. and i guess my kind of last question, comment is, in real estate or in the vacancy and real estate

placement work, is that the same-that you are trying for big business to fill office space and maybe bigger commercial lease spaces, is that the same pipeline that are small businesses that are just looking to change their business operation? i know a lot of small businesses that are trying to move from store front to pdr but they want to stay in the city. i know a lot of small businesses that are-weird things are happening with developers downtown and in the core and small businesses are getting caught up with huge sales of buildings they are leasing a space from and people want to retire or want to sell the business or just stay in that lease, about they are-i have been hearing horror stories with businesses being caught with developers telling-getting them into situations with no accountability or third party representing them, the

business. i would just love to understand what we can tell our small business community to expect from the outreach and these resources being put forth, like what do we-how can we make them aware of the outreach coming down or some of the money and focus that may be directly related to them. so that is kind of my question with that pipeline of vacancy support. >> yeah. i mean, i guess-i would say we definitely want to create for the pop up for the vacant to vibrant program, we definitely want to create a outreach strategy and as we are developing that, having groups and commissions like yours look at what that is. say everybody we missed-i think we would build off what we

have. add as much as we can to it and get input from stakeholders who are on the ground and who have the sense of other nodes to get information out and into specific communities that are being left out and under-represented. i think that's probably how i would approach the outreach on the pop up front. as far as the-your question around the business attraction activities, we are doing different kinds of business attraction for different kinds of uses so a lot of the--the office and the upper floors of these giant towers or what not is going to be more focused on your

traditional office tenants, and businesses and entities that can make good use of that space based on how the space is configured is cut up. one thing that we are really interested in exploring as part of the economic analysis in this context where thinks have changed so much, is there a opportunity to bring in different kinds of industries that have not traditionally and historically been part of our office eco system to date. still going into office uses, but just are there different industries we could reach out to and find a strong value proposition in san francisco. in terms of the retail spaces and pdr space and

other things, i think those will be strategies that are specific to those types of uses, but in everything that we are trying to do, we are really trying to just take a fresh look, because things have changed so much, at what is the opportunity, what has changed and what new can come in or you know, not just sort of revert back to our assumptions based on what was prior to the pandemic. that is how i would sort of describe the approach to attraction. in terms of businesses who are facing hardship because of the changing environment, buildings sold and what not, then i think that is probably a largely osd and investigate in neighborhood and liaison and support and legal technical

assistance and the grants those departments or divisions are creating is really geared towards those situations. >> commissioner huie. >> i guess-you know, i feel like through all the conversation i'm realizing and know my fellow commissioners realize this too and we have been talking about it, but we really are kind of on the stage now to champion business and to champion small business. like i think with all these innovative ideas or exciting ideas, i think people are not dpoeing going to try them unless we lower the barriers. unless we make the cost of

doing business accessible for people. i mean the things that-the reasons we are all sitting here and said yes to volunteering our time has been because we want to make it easier for people to start a business, and i think that is really going to be the crux of our recovery efforts because i-especially in the small business communities these are people livelihood and savings. this is not disposable income they are coming to invest in a great idea i had last night at dinner. these are ventures families come together and support. for me it is really important to recognize that you know, it is my you know, i guess duty at this point to really point that out at every moment i can and i think in this moment as we talk about recovery i think it is

important to just recognize how hard people are working and in order for us to meet them there i think we need to continue to advocate for the cost of business to be much easier and lower. i think about how for years people will move to like brisbane or daly silly to y city to do office administrative elsewhere because it was 20 to 30 percent lower to do business there. that is a good kind of like metric to also kind of look at in terms of what were those things that you know, even talking about accounting business, they probably have all their numbers to look at line items and say where the areas san francisco is not making it and making it easy for people to say yes. because many of those businesses could come back into the city but it needs to be worth it for them. >> that's right. >> it is either

economic worth it or it is a soft worth it, like a cultural worth it and think we need to answer that in a real tangible way. i think about most recently as a good example, our hearing last time on graffiti and how the city is going to be taking care of that for a small business owner. i feel that is a huge win. because it is like, we finally are going to have some actual support and saying we are not going to put you on the hook for it this time. and that's a huge huge deal. so, if we could just do that a few more times and get the cadence of actually taking care of people instead of dinging at every mark, i think we can turn this recovery around. so, i think hopefully closing-wont put my name back up again,

but it is really that i'm going to be committed, i know we are all committed to paving the path for people, so i think the more initiatives that can come this way where you want our input or review and say like what are the real life ramifications of that for somebody, obviously we are here to offer that so thank you very much. >> thank you, i appreciate that. we will need it. >> thank you. commissioner carter. >> i think you spoke on it somewhat but wondering, are there specific industries you guys are going to be targeting for the vacant storefronts? >> for the store fronts for the ground floor? >> yeah, for the vacancies. >> i mean we are seeing what will come through this procurement process and who is-and what ideas are-i think that the amazing thing

at this vantage point is we are at the precipice and had a lot of conversations and conversations about markets and vendor and craft fairs and conversations where we need art and performances, but it is only based on conversations we have been having with the people we have been having conversations with and through this procurement process i'm really hopeful we will get things we have not even considered, and be able to-just have our whole lens expanded in terms of the opportunities. i was reading something as i was looking at case studies on what other places have done and in new york they put in like a huge inflatable bee hive in--not anything you would

ever think about and now all these people are coming and partying, so we don't know what is going to come, so in a sense yes, we have been thinking about experiences that are engaging and that draw people in, make them stay, hopefully make them hungry so they go back out to the restaurants and eat at the restaurants around, but-and we know traditionally that has been arts, that has been culture, all is a lot of interest in retail, entrepreneur markets, but we haven't definitively sort of nailed down exactly what it will be. >> i would just consider the language in things in that. what is it rfq?

>> yeah. >> so that it is culturally sound so that-because that is going to define who it attracts. >> absolutely. >> and another question i have is, how long are we-are you considering the pop up? from my own personal experience i did pop ups. you do a pop up and you are out and it is over and it is people livelihood so i would like us not to really look at it as like i'm not necessarily a fan of pop ups. i think it has isperks, but it is people livelihood so what comes after the pop up, is there anything set in place for that, any resources for the next steps? >> that is a great question and so the way we have been thinking about it and it is around what comes. this could be-i think in the best

case scenario, this could be a opportunity for entrepreneurs to try out the market without risk so able to move into a downtown store front and figure out am i generating enough foot traffic so i can pay the rent that the leasing agent if this is permanent, the property owner and leasing agent would ask of me and i need 3 to 6 to 9 months, whatever it is in order to figure that out at a greatly reduced rate and then i can move into permanent space and again i think there is sort of a inherent hand-off that if we have entity supporting the pop up and temporary basis to then you know, understand with the landlord are you interested or property owners are you interested in this

potentially becoming permanent in the space? if so, what is the rent you would need and all those things so people go in with eyes open and if not, if that space is not going to work out, that the experiment, the market testing the market is a success, then potentially being able to hand small businesses over to brokers or to office-whatever it is in order to help them find a permanent location that is going to work for them. and if they determine this is not the right fit for me, that they can walk away without being locked into a 1 to 5 year lease. so, that is one configuration. i'm open also to the fact that it may be

that you-that we want to have an entity who is doing a longer term sort of inhabitation of a space but bringing programming in on a much more sort of short term basis depending on it scale-while some entrepreneurs might not be in a place where they are ready to do like a 3 to 6 to 9 month trial of a space, that they would want to do like a saturday activation for like several months running or something like that. we want to be as flexible as possible and see where the market settles and what people need and where the market guests are so we can fill those. >> i like that. i think it should be maybe different type of pop ups that is

offered, because for a lot of small businesses it is hard to see what-to have any data in a short period of time to see if it works or not and some people might only want a saturday pop up and some people maybe had a business and want to see if it will work downtown, so i think being flexible will be in good favor. >> great. thank you. director tang. >> thank you so much kat for all your work. i know your job title is really difficult to live up to right now, but i will say we are in really challenging times i want to encourage all the commissioners, this is also the time to be super creative and to think through things that we haven't been able to do before and to please please please talk to your communities, share ideas out with kat or myself.

we are happy to collaborate and i think we will be working hand in hand in terms of trying to get our small business entrepreneurs as well as different diverse communities to be part of this solution for activating our economic core, so want to encourage you beyond this meeting to interact and engage and share your feedback and ideas. >> thank you. kat, i have a couple questions, but before i ask them i want to make one i guess two comments for the benefit of the commission. this is something i talked about with our economist teddy, which is in many ways it is scary-can be deceptively scary or deceptively reassuring that companies are not giving up their space, but are willing to accept having less employees in the same amount of

space. in other words, they are using the space for occasional-what used to be off-site meetings is on-site and what was on-site is home so the net result is a lot less employees in the same amount of surface area and the risk is two fold, not just because so many small businesses downtown and so much of the cultural vitality stemmed and flowed from having all these people come to the city and visit, but there is a secondary risk here, which is to the extent that these offices remain vacant, and one can imagine there may be attrition and occupancy rates as well, but even just less people coming into the buildings. this gives building owners a legal incentive to seek a new property tax assessment at a lower rate based on the number of

people coming in the building. the vast majority of the city's discretionary revenue comes from property taxes, so this is not something that we are going to see in the next 2 or 3 years because proposition 13 sort of insulates us from properties declining below what the current base rate is, which in many cases is ridiculously low, but over time, over say a 4 or 5 year period it could actually represent a pretty significant risk to the city overall budget. the other thing that i wanted to mention with respect to the sales tax revenue is that you mentioned that we recovered about roughly 80 percent of the city wide revenue, however that is pre-pandemic level, but something else to keep in mind there is we had close to 10 percent inflation, so that 80 percent of revenue in

2019 dollars is actually something more like 65 to 70 percent of revenue. just something to keep in mind that if we are paddling thecurrent is still taking down stream so we need to move faster then the current. another idea, you were looking for creative ideas. my goodness we have all these hills and want to make people hungry, should we bring in a army of physical trainers and make them run up and down the hill? i'm speaking to the commission interest here. we have a-a huge not just business opportunity but economic incentive i think for the city i think is where we are headed. because we make everybody so hungry and going up and down the hills. so, but i did have a couple questions i think you called covid impact

report. is that what it was called? >> i the procurement was downtown covid impact analysis and are survey. >> okay, great. i had a question. what data is being collected on that? >> so, we haven't had the kick-off meeting yet. that would be in august and will scope out what it is. i can send you the procurement where we talked about types of data, but it includes changes in jobs per industry and types of businesses per industry. like who won and who lost in covid and how was that distributed over industries and also over business types, so did big business do great and small businesses didn't or--and what was the net sort of change? and then also like, what are the job changes like

the educational requirements around those jobs. those are the types of data that we put out there in terms of being-like the data that we can look back at and then the survey will be collecting data that is forward looking that we dont have good data sets for. >> two thoughts about that. one is, this commission did a survey- >> i know. i read it, a lot. >> i'm actually commissioner huie leads the charge. i'm quite proud of the survey, as i dont think the city has done anything that comprehensive around small business up to this survey. and we are going to be doing it again. do we have eta yet? okay. we dont have a eta yet, but

tbd. but, one thing that came up for me looking at the survey and a question i wish i asked and if you can pencil this in the back in your brain, i have a theory which i have not been able to prove or disprove, that small businesses are more diverse in terms of their employment, particularly with respect to vulnerable communities and historically disadvantaged populations, so when you are looking at the economic recovery of the downtown core, i think you also want to look at the demo graphics of the labor pool that is being impacted either adversely or not so much, because i think that potentially lights another fire under the

importance of small business not just culturally in terms of-we all experience the restaurants we go to, the bars, the night clubs, we dont experience the 22 floor of sales force or the 8 floor of twitter. that doesn't-may contribute a lot to the world in terms of the services they provide, but it it doesn't contribute anything specifically to san francisco or give people a reason to come downtown, particularly if they remain vacant. i think paying attention to the demo grachics of the work force is something that i would encourage to be included in this report. >> absolutely. >> and when it comes time for that kick-off, i would certainly love for the commission to participate in some way. i think that from our experience with the survey and just our direct

experience as business owners we can probably contribute helpful suggestions in terms of what to measure and also importantly where the data comes from, because surveys-one thing surveys struggle is bias towards people who answer surveys and that's something we struggled with as well. another question i--none of that was a question, those were comments. actually there was a question in there. but, this is a question. you talked about outreach as being a opportunity for oewd. something that i have bumped up against recently, particularly and specifically with regards to downtown recovery, how much emphasis is oewd putting on internal outreach and

communications with respect to downtown recovery and tell quhie why i bring this up. a business roontly came across my business, full disclosure, a friend of mine, but they are doing an event space and outdoor movie theater in the cut downtown, and it has been enormously frustrating how difficult it has been for them to get over the finish line to get the final permit approval and this seems to--it is not clear to me-i'm not saying this isn't happening, but it just wasn't necessarily clear to me that all of the city understands the importance of moving forward efficiently on

inspections, on kind in my company we talk fiending a way to say yes because it is so easy to say no and the consequence for saying-there is consequences if you say yes when you are supposed to say no. there is not as much in the way of consequences if you say no when you could have said yes, so one question is whether the city somehow and don't know where exactly this happens, but maybe this is a group thought project. how do you make it so people feel they have permission to say yes? that if they make a mistake they are not going to lose their job or get a black market on their record and the city supports them and to commissioner huie's pont trying to make things easier and faster and any time it is easier and

faster that means cheaper, because time is money. but there seems to be --this happens in every large institution and it is a very human reaction, not pointing fingers at anybody, but it is something that we collectively as leaders have to push hard against, which is it is okay to make mistakes, try to find a way to say yes. don't just click on the no button because some box got checked, problem solved. how do we move past this? and also importantly, how do we understand what the city's priorities are with respect to how we do our individual jobs and that's the part-it want hundred percent clear to me. maybe i didn't get the full picture. it is not like i had the chance to sit and talk with these people a half hour but i

certainly felt like something was happening downtown, bringing people in, that seems important to that economic recovery and i didn't get the same sense of urgency coming back at me in terms of the interaction with staff, whether it was taking 5 days or week to respond to e-mail or not answering all the questions or just like i said reflectively hitting the no button, that seems like a really important culturely-the cultural aspect internally within city departments, very very-i know how hard it is just getting our like dozens of employees on the same page. no idea how to do 37 thousand employees but a big part is internal communication, getting the entire city to understand that activating the downtown core is important to all of our interests no matter what your

interests are with respect to the city, it is important. i dont think-was there a question? what is our internal comp look like was the question? >> i don't know i can speak to that situation specifically. i think what i can offer is that-i mean, streamlining and making as many city processes more efficient, more straight forward, more simple and faster has been a huge priority for mayor breed and for many of offices that-from the department head on down, and it has been a struggle, and it will--that directive i think is beingheard very clearly so things like prop h and

small business recovery act and so i do think that we are making headway and we have a very long way to go. in terms of communicating priorities, i think that is a great question and i think that we can take that back and figure out sort of internally--one thing we struggle is there are so many different priorities and it is very difficult to put down parameters of when this is a situation, this is the priority-and so it does get complicated quickly, but i think that is well taken and we can figure out how can we start to chip away at that nut and figure out how to improve these

internal communication processes. >> certainly i dealt in my own business with the complexities of if then, if that do that. i think when we solve that problem and i know the city does too, but sort of amplifying or echoing back to you is you have to find the 2 or 3 that are sort of like first guiding principals. any time you look at anything. does this help downtown? then i need to-even if i'm supposed to say no, i need to take a second and third and maybe a 4th look how to find a way to say yes so we can move the process along and get that downtown core happening again. we are on the same page. >> it is very well taken. >> last question, how

can the commission in your view-i'm asking you, not as oewd, but as you think about the commission, how can the small business commission help you facilitate these goals? what is something proactively that you think we could do or should be doing that would help further this effort we have been talking about today? >> thank you for the question and the offer that is implied. i think that-really at this point i sort of said before, we are at this precipice where like we have a lot of good information and we are trying to get more. we have a lot of good ideas, but we don't know what is coming and having this

body help us just start to vet what comes and like and filter through, there will be a lot of ideas, a lot of opportunities and a lot of noise, and it is easy to get-to try to do everything for everyone and get very broad so everybody is spinning and nobody is-we are not moving forward so i think having this commission help us really suss out what is real, the real need, the trends, not just anecdotes and one-offs but where there is concentrateed areas where we can focus and move the dial and helping to help us point would be really really valuable, and are then

your help in getting us to cover just so much more ground then we would be able to as a office of however many employees we have, which is a lot but not enough to reach the entire city. >> so, is one practical way that maybe perhaps we could do that--i guess like what from your perspective from the job you do, again not asking you to speak on behalf of all oewd or god forbid the city as a whole but you yourself, on a practical level could--if we were to issue resolutions saying the city should look at this or the city should consider this or the city prioritize that, is that something that is helpful for you internally or is there

something-i mean, setting aside just taking for granted that each of us have different communities that we can go out and are communicate with, let's stipulate that is part of what we do, but in terms of an active role for the commission, is something like resolutions helpful? is that something you can point to and say well- >> i think potentially depending what it is. >> only the good resolutions. >> yes, i think that working in partnership with us to figure out where it is we want to go and potentially supporting that in your official capacity would absolutely be helpful. >> okay. great. that's all i have for you. thank you so much for your time. i hope we didn't keep longer then you were expecting. >> i appreciate so much being here and for all your input and do hope i have written down many things about what i need to follow up with some

of you individually to get ideas and how we can share back some of the outputs of what we are doing the recovery dash-board, the rfp, many many things and so i appreciate your time and hope we will be able to talk and work together. >> before we formally let you go, we have to check in on public comment. any public comment? >> (inaudible) >> if there are public commenters in the room you can come forward. sf gov tv i don't see public comment on line. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. kat, thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> next item. item threez resolution in support thof outer sunset farmer market and mercantile. the commission discuss and possibly take

action on resolution supporting the request to renew street closures for outer sunset farmer's market and mercantile and speaking today we have angie pettit. sunset mercantile. >> hello, my name is angie and i have fun ideas for downtown that spark interesting ideas. i will share them later. but, i am here to speak upon sunset mercantile, which -sorry, sunset mercantile is my business i started in 2014 and it is essentially a pop up festive family friendly market place that features small businesses and in 2020 we launched the outer sunset farmer's market on

37 avenue between ortega and pacheco and it has evolved and grown into a 2 block long farmer's market and mercantile which features the usual farmers market, farmers and produce and food vendors as well as makers and merchants, non profit organizations children activities and live music and become something quite special to the sunset district the community. i'm not quite sure if i just keep speaking. >> please. i think you know i, have occasion to visit the market and was really just blown away by the number of small businesses that have been helped and being helped by what you are doing. i thought one thing that would be very helpful for the commission to

hear is about some of the small businesses and sort of their personal journeys becomes entrepreneurs and how they started and what some of them have gone on to do. >> absolutely. actually have dawn kay with me who is a small business. not sure when most appropriate for him to come up and speak. donte, i can happily let you speak upon the specifics of one of the vendors and love to share a few other stories. essentially just to say a lot of small businesses, a lot of neighbors and community members have dreams of starting businesses and it is hard to do and i think that is what i needed to share with you is it is why i started sunset mercantile. it is very difficult as we know to have brick and mortar and start a business in the city, any city but in san francisco. these converivations really sparked out conver sations

with other moms where we were talking about our kids are in school now for many hours at a time, what to we do with our time? what were you dreaming about doing before you had kids and then talking about some of the dreams so the realty of how to balance that with the shop and still parent and juggle life is very difficult so the concept of business as pop ups is where my passion for having these pop up markets to help people develop those dreams, follow these dreams but be able to do it with a balance in life with whatever else is going on. so that was my thing. in general, there are-we have 70 to a hundred sometimes vendors at the farmer's market on the busiest of day and

dante ball many know is going to speak about what the market means to him. >> commissioner, thank you today for taking some time to hear us. my name is dante ball the owner of gumbo social, also the vice president of the bay view merchant association and can delegate of the council of district merchants. i stand in front of you today a single father of two. business owner and lover of all things business. the market has been incredible experience for me and my family. through this experience i have been able to impact 8 different youth. six ating risk and those 6 look like me. the important thing to that is, we are open and operating for 8 hours on a sunday which gives our youth a place to be that is

safe and have a mentor like myself to look over them, make sure they are handling business which is super important. also had the opportunity through this experience to employ 4 additional adults including myself, so i dont really like to talk about the numbers, i like to talk about the humans that are being impacted. gumbo social being at the market in outer sunset brings a piece of the bay view to the sunset bridging two communities together. i feel that myself and the team and family that is there has given folks from the outer sunset a window in or chance to experience another part of the city that they may not normally get on a sunday. this market it's really about community. it isn't

about me or anyone else, it is about all of us as a whole and we are looking for the opportunity to really remain operating as we are now not to grow anymore but to stay where we are at so we can continue to support the small businesses that are there now. i had a opportunity to watch babies be born. not physically, but- [laughter] we have-i have probably a group of 10 families who come every week. some of those families moved away. new ones have come in, and folks know me by first name. some kids call me uncle, some kids call me mr. gumbo but we are always there with a smile every sunday ready to serve the community and as entrepreneur and myself, serving is literally my only purpose. i just want

to serve people. and so, as i stand in front of you today representing the sunset market, i just ask that we get a opportunity to really express and understand why this market is so special and how it support s so many different people, from youth to adults to folks with barriers. it is a special place. >> dante, thank you so much. we really appreciate everything you had to say. >> thank you so much dante. he's been a very special part of the market. every vendor in the market, we become family. when he speaks to the market being kind of i think he said bigger then him, that is how i feel about this market

is that i might have set the template for it, but the community has really molded it into something, cultivated it into something that is very much the sunset district, but more then just the sunset district i guess it really is just the generic community. like, we've created a sense of community there and become very special. there is a variety of small business owners that during the pandemic obviously they had to close their shops, but because of farmer's market was essential the timing of it was kind of uncanny. we were set to launch i think it was spring of 2020, the pandemic hit and i thought there goes that. i'm not going to be able to start this thing and realized it is a essential business, soelet's go for it and we did. one of the most challenging things of my life i have to say,

but we did it and it was--and businesses got wind of it local brick and mortars closed and foam is a shop on taravel that had to close down. they started a pop up business. the (inaudible) also started a pop up business. establish was a retail store on norega-black bird books. so many brick and mortars joining and thriving. they were still alive and many business owners come to me with stories similar to that, so i know what it minute -meant to them. because we are not shelter in place anymore doesn't mean a outdoor market with this template-this isn't going away. there is a need obviously or we wouldn't have thousands of people coming. we wouldn't

have so many vendors wanting to sign up. there is something really special about this and we just hope to be able to keep the market going, because as the market is bigger then me, bigger then any of the neighbors that this is just something that the community has come out-outpouring letters of support and hope it continues as is, and that's what we are trying to do is just keep the market as it is. >> when i met you, there was i think some questions about the market access to space, because of the school adjacent to the market and there was i

think some comp etition for the use of that road. i think you use it 20 days out of the year or something roughly? so, -whether your market can have access to a small number of days out of the year so i think every sunday mostly during the summer and fall. i know there was a meeting today and it sound like maybe some tentative progress has been made, is that right? >> yeah. i think so. i hope so. we are in the middle of discussions. there has been progress made and the

permit is extended to try to work out the school needs for that block when they have special events. some of the concerns are noise from the event when there is events in the chapel that is mid-block. we are talking through different solutions and trying to work that out right now. what i come to realize again back to this market just being bigger then me and bigger then si is that the-a lot of-we all had to make a lot of sacrifices with the pandemic and the way things are in life right now, so saint ignaceous had things the same

for decades now and we evolved out of a need within the community, and we've developed there. we've popped up there. it is still very pop upy, temporary but every sunday the community now looks forward to a two block long farmers market. they have events coming back up which they used to have that are starting to happen again and so i think the concern is that this is the way things were and it is always a quite street during those events and i feel -i try to look and listen to all sides of the fence and keep the peace, but the thousands of people that have written letters and thousands of people i know are feeling this squeeze and understanding their needs

for running their businesses or mental health of connecting with others, which has been immense. i haven't gone into that but the-see letters they are touching and moving of what this idea of bringing the community together and letting them connect and be heard. not isolated. what that means to the human, the needs, that is just bigger then-i'm looking at the big picture and recognize a lot of people had to sacrifice since the pandemic and a lot have to sacrifice now. the world is whirling so crazily we are all making sacrifices and i'm feeling that we are things, times changed. world evolved and moved forward. i

don't feel the farmers market should change. i think that-i know we are trying to find solutions, but what is the bigger picture and why are we needing to pull back something that is grown to be something so amazing for so many and i don't think i'm communicating that proper because it has been a really long day and it is a challenging situation, but that's what i bring to the commission is that this is really important not just to me. it is really important to a whole lot of small businesses and the community on the whole and that's why i keep stepping up and stepping forward on this even though i

understand si points of view and concerns. they are very valid, but i have to say, this is just bigger then all of that. >> i will open up to commissioner questions and comments, please stay. commissioner dickerson. >> i did not expect this, but i want to share just a short story with you. this touched home for me, i tell

you why. unless you understand the impact of farmer market in these type of community settings, my dad who passed away about a year ago, his most favorite thing in the world to do was to go to his farmer's market. my dad was known at this farmer's market by ever vendor because he made it a point even if he just spent a dollar, they knew him as mr. benny, and he loved the farmer's market so much he would make us come, not make, but said you need to come over here with me to the farmer's market. i need to introduce you to-she just had a baby and they just got married and he knew every story of everyone.

mr. extrovert. and immediately i was in support of farmer's marth market and what they bring and when you talk about being bigger, it is a community that people just apt to go-they do with church and do with any other community outreach and i wasn't expecting donte who is a deer friend of my husband and i who i are will travel anywhere to eat his gumbo. [laughter] and he knows it. i will not let him give it to me. it make as passion for what you are doing greater but i just want to say, i understand the importance and why you are fighting for this, and

the description that it is hard to describe a love and what is built in those type of communities. it is hard to describe it because you are talking about something that is very soulful, deep rooted because anticipate and look forward coming and making the human connection, which is more important then the dollar that dante was talking about or number dante was talking about. i wanted to come on here and say thank you so much for not being afraid of showing your emotion and passion behind what you so passionately love and the work you are doing it is a labor of love. not enough money to pay for what you do. i think it goes unseen and you are definitely unsung. i want to say thank you, because it is because of people like you that my dad had so much

peace and anticipate to go to his community so i want to say thank you for the work that is unsung. but just know that it is dear to many of us and can speak on behalf of the commission so thank you and i'm here for whatever and come-(inaudible) i didn't know you were there. i'm going! thank you. thank you. >> thank you commissioner dickerson. i really appreciate that. >> thank you. commissioner huie. >> thank you so much for coming today. and thank you commissioner dickerson for sharing that story. i love when we become humans and i know -your story was touching, thank you. i go to the mercantile quite often because i do love it so much. i love

that you have a great mix of like everything there and the vibe there is so positive and so wonderful. it is really a highlight for our family to be able to go. and you know, i understand how it feels to try to bring a market into a space. that was something we did on clameant street many years ago and at that point it was unheard of to shut down a commercial corridor and bring in a farmer market. but we somehow navigated it and we navigated it through much of the communication that you are going through right now and compromise and also understanding that at the end it is really about building community. living in

the city is one thing i love to see more of is for us to come together to find compromise and not feel it is a zero sum game where you win and i lose and we

go home and somebody feels bad. it doesn't have to be like that. we can grow stuff here, but it is positive and reframe to make it positive for everyone. thinking about the youth who are working in the market. that is a opportunity to have like families be able to come spend time. there is opportunities. so, i mean--i'm happy to champion your market. you somehow have the secret sauce i need to talk to you about, but thank you for doing all that you have, and i just implore or community

members to really think differently. this is a time for us to be like thinking about stuff together. this is a conversation we are going to have to have as a city in terms of what do we do with our public space. what do our public spaces look like? we only have so much space. we are going to be in community with one another and what will that look like? so, i mean i think this is just another example of where we have to have that conversation and it has to be-i'm demanding that it be collaborative. thank you. >> can i speak to that for a second? just to say that we do-we staff-quite a staff been able to grow with this. there's a variety-most of our helpers are all young students from the neighborhood. kids we know. my kids went to

preschool together, so yeah, we do staff a lot of locals through this event. i think we have all most 20-18 people total and the other piece i just wanted to speak to is the idea that these events all my events, i think the secret sauce is that it boils out of the community in which it starts. i'm a sunsetter so it is really easy. katie tang helped me get sunset mercantile going way back when so started out of a need-supervisor mar stepped up and helped push the farmer's market in the community. not push it but gave me the tools to do it and here we have a farmer's market now and it is again something that developed out of the community, soall my

evepts focus on local business around the brick and mortar. i think i'm degressing but i wanted to point that out. i'm babbling. go ahead. give it back to you. >> those are all important things to say. commissioner carter. >> want to say thank you angie for building community because i think that is what farmer's markets do. when you guys first started somebody on your team reached out to me, and- >> i think it was me. >> you said we already have another gumbo person.

[laughter] so, i appreciate that though to be inclusive and diverse in the market and sunset, that is one of my missions is to push diversity all across san francisco and so i have been following you guys and it looks like a great market. i'm a big farmer's market fan. it is what me and my daughter love to do also. i'm like a-so i plan to make my way over there so i will say, i definitely support the market. >> thank you. >> great. angie, what you have done has started a small business to help small businesses. and you have done it-- >> sorry. i'm a

little anxious up here, sorry. go ahead. >> you're fine. i dont know if you notice there isn't a lot of people here in the room. [laughter] just us. you have started a small business to help small businesses and i can't imagine a small business commission that wouldn't aggressively speak up in defense of and in support of a business like yours that has brought so much joy and so much community that exlempifys what i think the city should be focusing on and prioritizing with respect to its land use policies with respect to how it

approaches bureaucracy. with respect how it approaches resolving disputes. we need to lift up the people that are trying to get started on a journey towards financial independence. we like to complain about big tech. we like to complain about big companies and yet we somehow failed to support the smallest. how are we going to get diverse and robust city wide economic climate if we cant fiend it in ourselves to find 20 days available out of 365 for a business that supports 70 to a hundred small businesses? dante, what you said about living to

serve, that resonates, i can tell you it resonates with every single person that sits up on this dais. and i include director tang. because all of us, we never would have succeeded or thrived in our businesses without that mindset. and that mindset of service is in my to my way of thinking, that is the most noble mindset that any person can have. that is what we should all be apiring to have. we should all be aspiring to serve the people that live around us, the community around us to serve our fellow human beings and help each other. and so when i heard about how you were struggling on what i thought was just a very modest ask. to my way of thinking on

a publicly owned street, a piece of public land each of us in the city have a stake in, the ask that you were making on behalf of the hundreds of business owners and the potentially thousands of family members and employees and community members, it was such a small ask, and so i advice this commission at our last hearing we would be considering resolution in support. we prepared that resolution in support. based on some of the information that you provided today i think we have to make one or two tiny amendments just so the resolution is concurrent with the current state of affairs, but i mean, out of all the things this commission does, if we are not here for

you, if we are not here for you dante, then honesty what the fuck are we doing here? that is how i feel about it. >> thank you. thank you. >> so, before we do amendments, do we have to take public comment or do amendments before public comment? i always forget which-- >> i think-i guess either, but you may want to do amendments before you make a motion. >> if we take public comment we want to take public comment on the final amended. we prepared a resolution or commission secretary carrie-i will mangle your last name because i never say it. did i mangle it? >> yes.

>> okay. secretary carrie, put a lot of work into this resolution. t it is in section 3 in your book and commissioners if you can take a look at that. the two amendments that i have are in the first paragraph whereas the outer sunset farmer market mercantile that we strike outer sunset mercantile and just say sunset mercantile which i think captures all the market and also the underlying business, and is simpler and easier to read too. it is quite a few less words. the other single word that i would strike, the final whereas, sunset marken tile tried unsuccessfully to offer solutions that support the needs of the academic institution in the market. i would amend we strike

unsuccessfully because it sounds like they may be having some success so st. reads sunset murken trial has tried to offer solution that support the needs of the academic solution in the market which remains tree. with that, commissioners if you have any other amendments you like to make or corrections-- >> (inaudible) >> we have a date here that a permit is expired august 13. >> the permit would be expiring august 13. i have to say, i am not-i think we are a little on-hold right now. we did have a meeting this morning at 11. we have another meeting tomorrow, and we are right in the middle of things. >> the permit has not been-expiration date is not formally extended? >> i don't know. i don't think so. >> i think you would know if you had. >> i feel like i would

have gotten e-mail. i would hope so. i think we are still in discussions. >> i think we are good on the date. commissioners-commissio ner ortiz cartagena. >> i just want to go on record just tying into the previous presentation. this public street owned by san franciscans used to not generate no revenue. if you give us a ball park how much sales you do the tax rate that goes to the previous presenter. that is sales tax we didn't have off the public land and commodity so i want people to have that-you generate revenue and all the great stuff and gumbo, cold hard cash, right? >> right. that is a good- >> that was asset with a expiration. every day we are not getting money, that is it.

you got 20days and got revenue out of nothing. when i come from we love that hustle. i want to say that on the record. >> i just want to add to my previous amendment, anywhere it says outer sunset farmer's market mercantile will now say sunset mercantile because there is a couple different places. okay. commissioners, anything else? alright. is there any public comment? >> there are four- >> motions come after public comment. >> there are four callers on the line. >> wonderful. callers, please proceed. >> hi. good afternoon everyone. can you hear me? >> we sure can. please proceed. >> thank you. my name is (inaudible) and i own and operate baby and boy

pastries and the vendor that heather and i spoke with that was mentioned in her column. i'm also dante neighbor at the market where we create gumbo for my banana bred. i want to say thank you very much to the panel for understanding our plight and for the aggressive support that you are giving the farmer market. thank you to angie for meeting with everyone and making sure that our situation is being heard. i just wanted to say that this-the issue right now that impact my little business-we are literally a mom and pop shop, but i live in south san francisco, i registered my business in san francisco for the farmer's market so in terms of tax revenue, i mean, i do my fair share and make sure that i do pay my dues and give

it to the city as the city allows me to hold business within its perimeter. so, i just wanted to say that this market has set a bar. we tried we actually participated in two other markets and none have come up to the standard that an gie set. (inaudible) sense of community she fostered through how she has gone through with the vendors making sure we are all heard and that the community knows each and every one of us. i myself-my son just got married for instance and the sense of community that has already come in the two years that we've been part of this is that like dante come over, justin

congratulations on your marriage because justin my son just married last month still comes and support and sells with my husband myself at our little booth, so-and then my daughter, who also actually happens to be a alumni (inaudible) i am alumni (inaudible) but i do not agree with what they are doing now with this market. yesterday this elderly gentleman in trench coat came by my booth. he was in his 80's in and a walker and introduced and said if my parent were alive they would turn in their grave. he happenings to be one of the biggest donors of (inaudible) he said his parents name appear at the entrance of the school. i said thank you so

much and he goes, i read about you and i wanted to see where is this (inaudible) and so i came over here and wanted to say i support you and that i do not agree with what father er reaves is doing- >> thank you. sorry, thank you so much. we have three minutes per caller. next caller, please. >> this is (inaudible) how are you doing today? >> we are good. >> thank you for giving the opportunity to speak. my wife and i started sunset grocers in the sunset district and want to speak on behalf of the market and what it has done for us. from day 1 believed in our business before we even believe in what it would be. we were hesitant to join the market but when we did from day 1 july 5 we realized what was happening.

the sense of community. several businesses there popping up were restaurants that closed down. purveyors to restaurants that closed down. many workers were server (inaudible) currently we have 6 employees that we employ and many have second jobs. we pop up every sunday at the farmer's market and dont is a brick and mortar so sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 37 avenue, we provide the best cup of coffee you will have that day on sunday. and it st. the consistency of the market being every sun day that people know this is our sunday avent. it allowed our business to grow and allowed to have employees to help them pay a decent wage to help them pay their bills, pay their rent,

whatever it may be. my wife and i, we have 3 children, a family business, a 6, 4 and 2 month old and we cherish the sunday farmer's market and what it brings to the community. several neighbors you see (inaudible) we see people having babies, kids growing up, kids playing. it has been a blessing to be a part of it and all from the sake of just serving coffee from our standpoinlt. for success of the business goes well beyond-- it is more in the market. it is just one of many that speak on it and so proud to be here to speak and give our statement as sunset grocers a very community centered coffee company works enthe sunset and proud to be a part of it. thank you for the support you are showing angie, the market and understanding the importance of what a farmer market brings to the community

consistently on a sunday basis. >> thank you for calling in. next caller, please. >> hello [difficulty hearing speaker] say thank you for the office of (inaudible) to supporting us, and also thank you for angie to run this farmer's market. this farmer's market is (inaudible) it is a truly community based farmer's market. it has longer hours and it has all most-hundred vendors and they all come in from the bay area and bigger then the bay area. the farmer's market is

becoming a landmark right now for people that are coming to san francisco. (inaudible) attraction. very important for us to keep this farmer's market going, and especially during the-right now we have taravel-there is some improvement and that (inaudible) the farmer's market located in a (inaudible) so people really can

enjoy going there (inaudible) for the community to have their every sunday gathering place. that is all i want to say. thank you. >> thank you. next caller. >> hello. my name is matthew jones. i run a bake shop at the outer sunset farmer's market mercantile. i have been baking actually in the outer sunset for 10 years at this point. i was a baker at a small restaurant called (inaudible) and because of the pandemic it was-had to close, and this actually gave me a opportunity to brarch out of my own, start my small business and support my family, wife and two your old twin

boys. we live in the outer sunset and because of my time spent baking here already and developing community it was a natural transition to be able to continue to sell to the 10s of thousands of people who live out here. it has been truly incredible going from the small restaurant space, knowing the customers coming in, the kids running in. i know what (inaudible) expanding out to be able to sell to a greater amount of people at this point, because of angie and because of the farmer's market, and as you know the food service industry was hit so hard by the pandemic, it is difficult for me to imagine how i would have been able to support moy wife

and children without angie and the market hard work so i'm so appreciative of the city originally granting the permit and making this available and the continued support from you and hopefully the other elments of the city to allow small businesses like mine to thrive and to provide the community with healthy delicious nutritious bred and continue to support my family and live in the sunset. that is all i have to say. thaupg. thank you. >> any other public comment? >> there are no other commenters. >> public comment is closed. i will make a observation for kat daniels. if you are looking to find a way to make the city funding we should hold more hearings on the farmer's market. i am now

starving. [laughter] commission, i'm going to move that we approve the resolution that was drafted with the amendments that we made earlier. somebody who would like to make a second? >> i'm second. >> motion by president and second by commissioner dickerson. [roll call] >> motion passes. >> angie, thank you. donte, thank you. thank you for everything you do, thank you for everything the community does. least we could do is give you unanimous support. >> i appreciate that and on behalf of the vendors

we appreciate your time. >> this resolution will be forwarded to the board of supervisors and of course it is public so you are welcome to share with who ever you feel you need to share it with to show you have support from the small business community as well. >> thank you so much everybody. have a good night. nerks next item please. >> item 4 adoption of office of small business small business commission goals priorities for 2022-23. discussion and action. a copy in your folder under item-under the 4th tab. >> commissioners this was the output of the meeting that we had at our retreat. when was that, a month ago?

roughly. month ago. a fun meeting. right now i'm thinking about the food we had at the meeting. you missed out on the food but you had bigger problems at the time. the food was really good. >> i think from (inaudible) >> i actually did not tell you that. as a legal matter i did not tell you that. i just would have said some local market. it was--so, is there-i believe the director forwarded this to all of you prior to this meeting. everybody had a chansh to look at this

and reflect upon it. if there are any corrections or amendments that you want to make you can certainly do so at this time. if not, then this is a action item? >> yes. >> i think we are just voting to approve what we agreed upon at that meeting. commissioner huie. >> i just had one question i guess. in term s of all the numbers on here, are they-i should have asked this before, but-how are they in relation to the current numbers? is there growth? >> thank you for the question commissioner huie. for example if you look under column one provide a thousand small businesses with one on one general technical assistance. this is derived from

looking at the data base where we track the number of clients we serve each year, so we also wanted to make sure these are reasonable but also provides us with goals to hit. in terms of some of the other efforts that perhaps we were not tracking as closely or will improve given new staffing coming into our office due to the budget approval, so for example helping businesses filling grond floor commercial vacancies. that is something that is newer, but we provided a stretch goal that we think could be trackable to achieve. we are lining with the data sets we do have or think will be achievable and under column 2, identify 5 code changes or process improvements that would be most effective in

streamlining the permitting process. even one process change could be a whole huge lift or could be a small change so we figure we would put 5 but we aspire to do as many changes we can to make the permit processes easier for businesses. >> one thing i would add quickly to what director tang said, this document that we are looking at is a blended strategic goals of office of small business and (inaudible) in some cases you see specifics that obviously the commission doesn't interact with. the commission priorities which we all talked about in the meeting is the column on the far left but the 1, 2 and 3 details under that are the strategic goals for the office of small business.

>> this is teed off oewd performance metric tracking so where there might be higher numbers for the department we have a subset specifically dealing with small businesses so everything is in alignment with the department plan as well. >> that makes sense. and will we getting updates or how often will we get updates? >> we hope to provide progress updates and we can schedule quarterly updates. if you want more frequently we can do that but quarterly will give good data sets. >> it will be exciting. thank you so much. >> commissioner carter. >> i think i just have a question regarding the outreach for bipoc businesses.

i wonder if you looking at the data, like it is easy to group all the bipoc businesses together but different communities have different needs so wondering how you are addressing that and also if there is any support for like lease negotiations, but is there any support for contract negotiations? things of that nature. >> yes. going to the first question about outreach to bipoc businesses. we are work with the data team at oewd to standardize how we ask questions and capturing demo graphic data and hopefully the consistency across the department will help better track what-if we are actually reaching the community we set out to reach and see where there might be gaps as well. open to feedback about the specific needs within

the subcommunities. in terms of the second question around businesses needed help with contract, that would be housed under technical assistance and so we just call technical assistance broadly, but we work with community partners and advires through the small business developer center on a range of needs including contract negotiation, which also includes lease negotiations, and even business development, business planning, accounting, marketing, et cetera. >> thank you preparing this and working so hard to put our conversations into

concise form. i kind of just wanted to give a little like high level feedback as someone i guess who is senior now on the policy body. we are unsuch a different place of-then we were i guess when i started on this commission and so it was kind of a little harder for me to interpret this as our goal as a commission because we used to talk high level. we used to talk on a policy level and now we are in a time of hands on recovery and so i think our orientation and goal as a body are a little different and so i just wanted to set the stage because that understanding has helped me understand where we play a role in implementation and recovery phase that we are in, and i really love

that we are becoming more intimate with the metric of the office. i think that is really important to understand how our base is being served and all of the work that we are and city are putting on our office and how we can help them be accountable to that, so i think that is the moment we are in, but it does scare me a little because our body used to be always looking out for policy that was going to come down from the board or mayor we have to (inaudible) so i just want to make sure that like we are prepared and aware of any policies we might need to respond to as a body and wanted to bring that part of this conversation since some may be more tuned into

supervisoral agendas or what not and to make sure that we also have a bullet point on here that makes-keeps us er accountable but how to make sure we maintain our priorities as a policy body in the case the supervisors decide recovery is over and start making new fees and new laws, which i feel like that is the shoe that will drop at least small businesses have been scared about that from the get-go. they were like the city will need to make up the money somehow we have been losing. when is the shoe going to drop? i wanted to put it out there that some of the things that i would like us to maybe consider as commission-maybe parcel out, this first column seems like

more commission priorities/direction to the office of small business. i want to make sure we also have like our priorities as a policy body, when we are dealing with the city and anything that might be coming down the line and i just wanted to name that. i dont have any like specific laws that i know are coming down the pipeline but know we talked about business mitigation and fee streamlining before the pandemic happened and we were leading the way on that as a body and so i dont want to lose that because that is a policy directive that we really haven't fallowed through on. i think-i see there is identify code changes and improvements and that is some of the prop h stuff we can all be paying attention to, but i just want to make sure we have policy priorities as a commission as well and

that we are not-because we are not staff. there is only so much we can do on this list. most of this-i wish we could help you guys more, but our role is a policy body, so i just wanted to just understand like am i the only one thinking like this or-feedback everybody has. >> first of all, i hear that. you are right. here is how i interpret it and maybe this helps, maybe it doesn't. but, i'm putting the document against the meeting i was in and how i interpret it. first i would say the commission by charter has to respond

to any legislation that effects small business. i dont know that in my mind that is not like a strategic goal, that is a fiduciary responsibility that we have under charter. in other words, i wouldn't say it is a goal of mine to do the job we are mandated to do, so that's how i interpret that part of it. the other part of it which you bring up which i think is important and maybe this document kind of-just with how it is portrayed and again like, they were i think trying to show how these different priorities are both blended, and interdependent, both the goals of the office of small business and commission that oversee the office of small business. we obviously share a lot of priorities, but they have specific things they have to do, which we dont do and we have things that we get to do that they don't do.

for example, they are going to be providing technical assistance on one to one basis, we are fompt but we are championing positive messaging but running a business in san francisco where that is not something that is in terms externally is not something that falls under the office of small business purview. maybe that isn't the best example but there are other examples. >> i agree. >> the way i read this document is the 1, 2, and 3, the buckets at the top, those are the priorities that we all seem to have the most consensus about and roughly-i wouldn't say one is more important then the other, but they are the top 3 priorities the commission identified which is support small business retention and growth, which attract new businesses by making it easier and faster to open in

san francisco, which i think speaks to that streamlining aspect you were talking about with the mitigation and that working group and some of the policy aspects of this. and three restoring economic vibrancy in neighborhood corridors and downtown core and that is for as we talked about in the meeting talked about the dependency on all the businesses in the city having the down town core be vibrant and active. the far left column i see is little more granular detail on some specific things that we all talked about. whether it was simplifying the application process and billing processes, or as we put at the top because i know since the top concern for the commission

focus on outreach to bipoc businesses and entrepreneurs. i think to my way of thinking what you are talking about is incapsulated in the document but if you feel an additional bullet point should be in there saying- >> i guess i'm not having a problem with any of the content. this is not what i'm saying. >> sure. >> we are not the ones executing the bullet points so that is our staff, so- >> we are executing. everything in the column on the left are commission priorities and everything in the row at the top, those are also commission priorities. >> i'm simply just trying to make sure we have tangible direction and the body

has a dist inth role. that is all i'm trying to bring the conversation around, because this is the first time our commission has had this much like tangible work to do, because we are in a completely different place then just talking about policy and abstract like we used to. i'm just trying to make sure we have our marching orders and we have a policy orientation because we are a policy body. we are not just a merchant walk club. like, we can go on merchant walks and talk about public safety but this body has a particular role, and i'm just making sure we are not overseeing tasks otthe are at the office.

>> is there specific language you like to see? >> i just wanted to start the conversation. not trying to be a stick in the mud. >> no. look, this is- >> i know i had this conversation with the director but i did feel this was something i wanted to pose to the commission because my honest feeling is we all have pet projects we are involved in, and i want to see more unity. i want to see like us-these are our policy goals or united policy goals and i don't feel that right now so i feel like that is maybe where we talk about our commission priorities on the high policy level and not just the bullet point implementation level. >> i notice director tang had-okay. >> i guess i'm

wondering-in our subcommittee for the racial equity subcommittee we did put together guidelines as to how-think about policy with racial equity. would that be something you are kind of like thinking about in terms of creating a framework for the commission to kind of use as we look at legislation and start--and analyze it? >> i mean, i think we completed that task for racial equity. we have the framework. i'm less thinking about framework and more like what are some of the policy goals that are not just in the implementation phase. >> what is the policy goal- >> sorry, clearly this is like just me, so-- >> no. >> i think-

>> can i chime in here? what i'm understanding is, i am actually the eldest commissioner here. [laughter] so, but yes, we always were in a reactive position and what i understand what you are saying commissioner zouzounis is what is our policy goals maybe bring forth proactively policy to the board of supervisors and bodies and are do it collectively and united like maybe set 3, 4 policies we want to initiate and set forth to have city wide impact. that is how i'm understanding. >> that is right. >> i think i see potentially the mismatch here. >> because we are not just like the boss. that's director's role. we have a different

role. >> so,, there are two different buckets. sorry, i should probably talk into the mic. so, there is strategy, which is how are we going to take the hill, what are the priorities for taking the hill, and then there is execution. this is the hill we are going to take. these are the people that will take it. i think if i understood your summary of what you said correctly and tell me if i'm saying it correctly to you, you are looking for specific policy recommendations that this body would advocate for? >> i just don't see like-it is okay. i don't have anything else to say. i don't

really know how to clarify anymore. >> i guess-i just want to make sure that we are not leaving something on- >> it is not just me. i'm not trying to like thwart a process as a individual. i'm trying to really feel like we are a united policy or we don't have to be united, we can debate stuff, but saying, as a policy body, we i think we should have on our priorities some policy areas, and these are incredble, everything our office is doing, like this is-we are in a real ly great place and more then work to do, not trying to add more work and direction to staff, just trying to make sure we still play our role while it is being implemented.

>> commissioner carter, please. >> i think you are in the right direction. i just found out we can do policy, so i'm the newby here but think we should think about 3 policies this body should come up with. i'm a big fan of policy. that how stuff is written in stone to get done and if that is what we are here to do, i think that is what we should do. >> so, we--we can't really make policy. we can recommend policy. we can advocate for policy. we can suggest that the board of supervisor does not adopt policy. we can issue resolution encouraging different policy but we can't make policy. i am hundred percent supportive of

identifying 3 policies we like to see. i think that is great. i think that is worthy of an examination of what we think those top three policies might be. i guess like, what i want to make sure that --commissioner zouzounis said, i want to make sure i'm not leaving off the table that should be on the table. >> again, i was trying to like just have a conversation. (inaudible) bringing back to what i want cht this is literally just me providing my perspective of someone who has been on this body 7 years, and this is like-this was a learning curve for me to digest because i like we

really were not this close to office operations in the past. we did kind of just stay in our policy realm and so i'm just trying to make sure as we are in the moment of hands-on implementation of big laws, ballot measures, emergency procedures, whatever, that we just don't lose our mandate of us as a policy body too. >> so, the way that-i dont know- >> we don't have to keep going in circles. i'm fine. i wanted to raise it and see if there was discussion. >> i support it and think we should discuss that on the next meeting and think about that. what those three policies that we support would look like. >> totally comfortable having that conversation. i

think--we would need a way to gather those policy proposals and ideas so it is probably actually i imagine a longer process then just-yeah. then just next meeting. i just want to manage everybody's ecpectation because we want a way to gather input and assess what ideas can we all get behind, what ideas can we got get-how we prioritize and triage that. and then i'm totally comfortable putting out a resolution saying these are the top three opportunities policy wise that this commission has identified and please if any legislators would like to pick this

up-we have done similar things in the past so we just need to come up with a process to solicit the ideas from all of us. maybe next meeting we could talk about what that process to solicit ideas are and how we might compile and bring those ideas in. not hundred percent sure that that's getting to what you were talking about miriam and i know you dont want to keep bringing it back to you, but i'm really wanting to be make sure i'm capturing or make sure we are collectively capturing- >> i just wanted to have a conversation, that's all. >> okay. >> it sounds like acknowledgment of what our original intention is for the commission. being able to differentiate between what will be regulated by the office of small business as opposed to what the small business commission is supposed

to be doing. it is just to bring definition so it doesn't get lost in our meetings and making sure that we are focusing only on what we can do and not what the office of small business is doing. >> it is like renewing your vows. you are still married. >> yeah. i understand the conversation. i don'ts think it is so much about it detail, i think it is just defining okay, let's remember why we are here. >> right. so, the way i interpret this and just not suggesting this is how any of you should interpret this but the three most important bucket s here for this commission are the buckets 1, 2, 3 not all the stuff that is underneath them which is for the office of small business, but in terms of this commission priorities, it is the bolded sentence

in 1, 2 and 3 and that is how i interpret this. you are welcome to interpret in whatever way it makes sense to you. >> i hear what you are saying. i hear the broad scope of what is being said, just in perspective of i think this is all being altered or changed and feels different because we are in a recovery mode and so it just feels different. it doesn't feel the same that it just feels like it may feel like a little tug of war and so just understanding a little bit about personalties. miriam is like-look, we are this and this and this and we want to make sure that we know that we dont want-we are having to go in this direction we just don't want to lose sight of what we

can do. that's what i heard. >> yeah. and ypt to make sure that we are all unified. like miriam said, it should be free to debate and disagree on topics, but we should i think we should all try to be on the same page, which is why i'm- >> collective priorities. that are not just about getting on the staff or one on ones they have to do. >> right. right. >> president, i would like to hear director tang to line in to real us-- >> thank you. thank you so much. i really appreciate this conversation and i think the left hand column around commission priorities again if that is not fully capturing discused at the retreat as the main policy priorities, please let me know because we can change that. the idea of the left column was your top policy

goals you can all unit around. the second thing i want to provide more context. maybe you haven't seen the level of detail before in terms of metric and things we are measuring and we have been called out for that. the controller office opponented out we haven't performance effort and strategic plan so why you haven't seen something like this before and we are trying to respond to that call-out from the controller office and so we engage in this whole department wide exercise to get oewd goals and how we measure it, has to be feasible but yet a reach goal and then how does the goals fit into that. part of this is also transparency for you all as the body that oversees our office so you know what we are working on and for us to get feedback from you as are we on the right track, is this what you think we should be working on or focus on other areas.

and so, that's why i structured this way. and then so again, this hasn't existed before so love to be able to have this is really the baseline to measure against. one thing i can do is to include the mission of the small business commission on here. i think i included the mission of the office but i should add the commission mission on there to bring it back to reminding everyone that you are a policy body and also add even though it isn't in the piece of paper, i think as president laguana said i didn't feel it was necessary to reiterate what is in the charter for the commission goals, sorry the commission responsibilities. we do track legislation every single week, we do try to point them out to, especially in the briefings with each of you, so we are definitely not neglecting that part of our responsibilities. we heavily track. we also and want to remind the commission you have done amazing job being

proactive with policy so for example, the graffiti pilot abatement legislation that is about to be adopted by the board tomorrow, that is something that this commission reacted to a piece of policy presented to you, didn't agree with it and worked with another supervisor to actually come up with a pilot program that helps businesses in a really new unique way. so, that is a great example of being proactive on policy where maybe you didn't expect you wanted to irk with on graffiti but something came along and turned it into something really positive so that is one example. i can think of a couple more but i'll share in the director's report. it could be in the office we work with clients all the time, entrepreneur trying to start business. we uncover issues and discover things really difficult in the permitting journey and that turns into potential legislation we proactively seek a sponsor for and see if we can make

legislative change to improve the process for permitting. those are all examples that continue and dont want to say in the background. they continue to be the day to day work but not on the piece of paper because things might come up but they all fit into a framework of how do we streamline the permitting process, how do we lower fees, how do we make it easier for businesses to grow and expand our just start in san francisco. hopefully that provides a little more context for all of this, and again i would say in the left hand commission priorities column, if there is a policy goal we dident capture from the retreat or from your collective discussion we are happy to add that in. and last point on the third column, i would like to amend to say instead of downtown core, to economic core. >> yeah. so, i have a

recommendation. i think is great to include the commission mission and great to include to remind anybody that comes across about the commission policy responsibilities to vice president zouzounis point. and then let me make one other suggestion. sort of a blended suggestion. under commission priorities, i would put i put a bracket above 1, 2 and 3 or

something that indicate this is office of small business strategic goals so we delineate between what is the commission priorities and goals and office of small business goals and that we have identified the 3-as we spoke about it during the meeting the reoccurring themes that came up as strategic goal for the commission. we are showing alignment between the 3 strategic goals the commission identified and the strategic or the actual output of the office of small business. the actual metric are supporting each of those 3 goals the commission--it may seem silly to relist them twice, but actually i don't think it is silly because i think it makes it clearer that the commission has set strategic goals and the

office of small business through their responsibilities as facilitating the strategic goals and the only question in my mind, i don't mean to diminish in any way the commission priorities that are already there or make them seem like they are less then, and one other suggestion that i would make is, i appreciate commissioner huie i think it was you that reminded me about the output of the equity group. equity working group that in those commission priorities we should include incorporating the findings of the equity working group into the commission's work. >> in case people are confused what we keep referring to, it is in your folder the last page before item 2 so everybody

knows what we are talking about when we say the evaluation tool. but yes. happy to incorporate. >> did you follow along what i was saying and all that make sense to you? >> it did and there is a video of what you said too so i will rewatch that. >> also have a cell phone and you can call me. i just want to check in with you. >> like i said, this is not miriam, this is for just wanting to talk with my fellow commissioners. >> i'm not--i'm not blowing smoke up your butt, i'm genuinely interested how we fulfill this missing element and hoping what i articulated gets us closer to what you were- >> i had no expectations from the conversations (inaudible)

and where we are at now. >> i think any time a commissioners has a feeling it is important and i want to make sure that we respect not just that feeling but that we like talk about it and we have consensus on it. so, i thrown an idea out there. is that generally agreeable with all of you? is there any feeling that that's not right or that this- >> for me i think we need to think a little more about the priorities as the commission. in my head i'm thinking i dont see anything as far as actually growing small businesses, sales, or anything like that.

>> under 1, support small business retention. >> if i understood that correctly, that is priorities of oewd and not the- >> sorry, what i'm suggesting, these three goals and when we were in the meeting this is what the commission identified in these gray buckets here as the commission's goals and so this doument is a little confusing because osb is saying this is how we are incorporating those goals that the commission-what i'm suggesting, recognizing the document is a little confusing how this is laid out, pursuant to the very valid in my view comments that you made, which is why i'm trying to address it. what i'm proposing commissioner carter is that we take each of these three buckets that i'm pointing to, and we also list them under commission priorities, because these were the priorities the commission talked about at the

retreat and by doing so i think then we have a document that is a little clearer and easier to understand what is the commission's priorities and what was the actual output of the meeting the retreat where we determined what those priorities were going to be. that work? okay. alright. if i sound a little overly--it is because it is reflecting what this entire commission is setting as our priorities and as our agendas and to me it is really important we are on the same page and aligned and that we can all get behind it and feel strongly about it. if not, then we need to talk about it more or we need to do whatever it we need to do, but i think we are there. it is just a question of how we display those priorities. okay. >> can i make one

recommendation? so, we i think gathered or taken notes on your comments so you can continue the item to the next meeting. you don't need to adopt it today so we can share the vision and that way perhaps if we present it differently that can-you don't need to vote on it today. >> i think that's advise seable at this point. >> i really don't want to make more work for you. i was not--trying to do that. >> it is not work because if you have that--let me put it this way, it is the work. this is the work we do. and you are arkticulating something- >> i just wanted to clarity where do i play a role in all this? i am not in the office. >> right. right. i got it. >> that's the only reason i wanted to voice this so we have our marching orders.

>> one last suggestion i make is put this on two different pages. where so it is really clear what is the commission's possibility and priorities and office of small business commission and to the extent that they are the same then that just shows we are all in sync. as we should be. yes, commissioner huie. >> i like to offer if you were to keep it on one page, that perhaps with commissioner priorities continuing to stay in the same place you do 1, 2 and 3 going down and the information across so it is like a materic in a way to sort the information. >> spoken from a better designerism i appreciate that. >> good suggestion. let's connect off-line and talk about whether we want a

matrix or two page s for clarity sake but cool continuing this to the next meeting. i'll move to continue. do i do that? does that take a vote to continue? >> i think so, sure. >> doesn't hurt. i move to continue. >> second. >> motion by president laguana, seconded by commissioner zouzounis. [roll call] motion passes. >> great. next item, please. shoot. public-we were supposed to take public-- >> there are no commenters. >> alright. public

comment was closed. let's go back in time, let's pretend i said that and then we voted. i dont think anybody will call us on it. next item. >> item 5 approval of draft meeting minutes. action item. >> i move that we approve the draft meeting minutes. >> you want to do public comment? >> yeah. are there any comments-commissioner comments on the draft meeting minutes? i don't see any. any public comment? nope, don't see those either. seeing none, public comment closed. move we adopt the draft meeting minutes. >> i second it. >> motion by president lagoons and seconded by commissioner (inaudible) [roll call] motion passes.

>> okay. next item. >> item 6. general public comment. discussion item. >> any members of the public who like to make comments on items not on the agenda? >> there are none. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item 7, director's report. >> good evening commissioners. one thing i want to share update given the comments made to us at the last commission meeting regarding the employing retention tax credit. we built that into our staff advisement regularly. we have made improvement to the home page if you go to the sf.gov you see the information with a new updated website and there is also video on that. just wanted to share that we are embedding that to the work in the office. on the legislative front, so wanted to share that as i mentioned

tomorrow full board of supervisors is the graffiti abatement pilot program legislation that all you worked on alongside us and supervisor melgar's office so up for final vote tomorrow so excited about that. and also at the commission something that we were tracking as well with the third party food delivery service legislation also full board for final reading tomorrow. and there was also a pending legal settlement between door dash and grub hub with the city and county of san francisco. those are two pieces of legislation just want to call out for your attention. the other one we are working on and (inaudible) from the office hew-we have been looking inhouse at application fees and processes for small businesses and so for our own legacy business program we are running, we notice there is a $50 application

fee for applicants which doesn't quite make sense to us but it was in proposition j when the program was created by voters, but luckily we are able to work with the board to make the change to eliminate the $50 application fee and then also alongside that i want to thank rick and michelle from the team for looking at the legacy business application and trying to simplify what that form asks in terms of questions for our communities. so, that is just one example of how we are also trying to look inward to figure where to cut cost and reduce the level of comlexty. i also want to share that our office this week on wednesday will join the shared spaces team to continue to do outreach this time in north beach so continuing to work with small businesses to help them understand how to comply with the shared spaces requirements ahead of time-ahead of

april 2023. so, those are my updates and we'll also get to work on refining the strategic goals and priorities for the commission and office. thank you. >> thank you. love to hear about getting rid of the fees for legacy business. that was silliness to be honest. we probably spent more money collecting the fee then-50 fee. good job, rick. okay. is there any-commissioner comment on the director's report? none. any public comment? >> none. >> seeing none, public comment closed. next item. >> item 8, commissioner comments and questions and new business. >> okay. commissioners? commissioner carter. turn your mic on. >> i'm sleepy now.

wednesday july 27, san francisco african american reparations advisory committee, cultural justice, ypd and sf black wall street will host a listening session about employment and economic opportunities for san francisco diverse black communities and you can find that information on-should be on sf black wall street website as well as social media. but yeah, any support that you guys can give me to share in this information session will be great, particularly for economic opportunities. >> do you happen to know what time or where we go? >> i'll share the registration information, but it is at 6 p.m., 6 to 7:30 july 27 and i

believe it is like a (inaudible) i'll share the information and get it out. that's all i have. >> adding to my calendar now. commissioner huie. >> i just wanted to bring the survey back to life in the conversation. i think the survey is i think pretty much ready to go, so i think the next question is, when do we want to launch it, and i think the timing will depend on your schedules we are hoping we all push it out to the networks as commissioners. i think last time we had a really nice response so we are hoping to at

least match that response and i believe there is still-they are going to come back and do more interviews or still working on doing interviews with small business owners, so i think my-i think from the last conversations it seems perhaps mid-august is a good time hoping people are back in town and ready to talk to your networks with it. >> would we do the last time a 6 to 8 week period? >> i'm thinking close to like 6 weeks would be a good timeframe for it to be open. and last time what we did for the survey was just to kind of like bring it up to all of our community leaders that we know of and e-mail them and it is geing going to be a easy link and last time had a qr

link for different-there are links for different languages. some like to walk the neighborhood and talk to people, potentially i would say neighborhoods that are not well connected through e-mail. those neighborhoods probably require somebody to walk into each shop or each restaurant or whatever, brick and mortar. so it was easier to kind of have a qr code so people could use it. that is pretty much the ask for the survey is we all reach out to everybody and it is a good excuse to talk to people. does anybody have any input in terms of timing? we are thinking maybe august 15 or so, and then 6 weeks for it to be

opened. >> sounds about right. should capture most people. >> okay. we'll get back to dr. chaudry. >> great. anybody else? okay. i don't have updates today, so is there any- >> there is one public commenters. >> okay, great. public commenters, please proceed. >> my name is fran cisco decosta and my question to the small business commission is, how do you all propose to have the small businesses with the upcoming infrastructure bill? >> technically we are not allowed to interact with public comment, but i'll ask

you to repeat the question because i had a hard time understanding the question. >> very soon we will have to be dealing with [audio cut out]

>> any further pubic all comment? >> there are none. public comment is closed. small business commission has no ability to interact with federal legislation or state legislation. that is by charter. we can only interact with city legislation. also, public comment has to be on the agend a item and in this case the agenda itedm is commissioner comments and questions which restrict our ability to comment on it. next

item. adjournment >> please show the office of small business slide. item 9, adjournment. >> we will end with reminder the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinion and concerns about policies that effect the economic vitality of small business in san francisco and the office of small is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters continue to reach outto the office of

>> everything we do in the tenderloin, we urban outfit. here, this gives us an opportunity to collaborate with other agencies and we become familiar with how other agencies operate and allow us to be more flexible and get better at what we depo in the line of work in this task. >> sometimes you go down and it's hard to get up. so we see ourselves as providing an opportunity for the unhoused to get up. and so i really believe that when they come here and they've said it, this right here is absolutely needed. you can't ask for nothing better. >> the tenderloin is the stuff that ain't on the list of remedies, liked the spiritual connection to recovery and why would i? why would i recover? what have i got to live for? things like that. and sharing the stories. like i was homeless and just the team. and some people need that extra

connection on why they can change their life or how they could. >> we have a lot of guests that will come in and say i would like -- you know, i need help with shelter, food, and primary care doctor. and so here, that's three rooms down the hall. so if you book them, they get all of their needs taken care of in one go. this is an opportunity for us here in the tenderloin to come together, try out these ideas to see if we can put -- get -- connect people to services in a >> i don't think you need to be an expert to look around and see the increasing frequency of fires throughout california. they are continuing at an ever-increasing rate every summer, and as we all know, the drought continues and huge shortages of water right now.

i don't think you have to be an expert to see the impact. when people create greenhouse gases, we are doing so by different activities like burning fossil fuels and letting off carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we also do this with food waste. when we waste solid food and leave it in the landfill, it puts methane gas into the atmosphere and that accelerates the rate at which we are warming our planet and makes all the effects of climate change worse. the good news is there are a lot of things that you can be doing, particularly composting and the added benefit is when the compost is actually applied to the soil, it has the ability to reverse climate change by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil and the t radios. and there is huge amount of science that is breaking right now around that.

>> in the early 90s, san francisco hired some engineers to analyze the material san francisco was sending to landfill. they did a waste characterization study, and that showed that most of the material san francisco was sending to landfill could be composted. it was things like food scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells and sticks and leaves from gardening. together re-ecology in san francisco started this curbside composting program and we were the first city in the country to collect food scraps separately from other trash and turn them into compost. it turns out it was one of the best things we ever did. it kept 2.5 million tons of material out of the landfill, produced a beautiful nutrient rich compost that has gone on to hundreds of farms, orchards and vineyards. so in that way you can manage your food scraps and produce far less methane. that is part of the solution.

that gives people hope that we're doing something to slow down climate change. >> i have been into organic farming my whole life. when we started planting trees, it was natural to have compost from re-ecology. compost is how i work and the soil biology or the microbes feed the plant and our job as regenerative farmers is to feed the microbes with compost and they will feed the plant. it is very much like in business where you say take care of your employees and your employees will take carolinas of your customers. the same thing. take care of the soil microbes and soil life and that will feed and take care of the plants. >> they love compost because it is a nutrient rich soil amendment. it is food for the soil. that is photosynthesis. pulling carbon from the atmosphere. pushing it back into the soil where it belongs. and the roots exude carbon into

the soil. you are helping turn a farm into a carbon sink. it is an international model. delegations from 135 countries have come to study this program. and it actually helped inspire a new law in california, senate bill 1383. which requires cities in california to reduce the amount of compostable materials they send to landfills by 75% by 2025. and san francisco helped inspire this and this is a nation-leading policy. >> because we have such an immature relationship with nature and the natural cycles and the carbon cycles, government does have to step in and protect the commons, which is soil, ocean, foryes, sir, and so forth. -- forest, and so fors. we know that our largest corporations are a significant percentage of carbon emission, and that the corporate community has significant role to play in

reducing carbon emissions. unfortunately, we have no idea and no requirement that they disclose anything about the carbon footprint, the core operation and sp360 stands for the basic notion that large corporations should be transparent about the carbon footprint. it makes all the sense in the world and very common sense but is controversial. any time you are proposing a policy that is going to make real change and that will change behavior because we know that when corporations have to disclose and be transparent and have that kind of accountability, there is going to be opposition. >> we have to provide technical assistance to comply with the state legislation sb1383 which requires them to have a food donation program. we keep the edible food local. and we are not composting it because we don't want to compost edible food. we want that food to get eaten

within san francisco and feed folks in need. it is very unique in san francisco we have such a broad and expansive education program for the city. but also that we have partners in government and nonprofit that are dedicated to this work. at san francisco unified school district, we have a sustainability office and educators throughout the science department that are building it into the curriculum. making it easy for teachers to teach about this. we work together to build a pipeline for students so that when they are really young in pre-k, they are just learning about the awe and wonder and beauty of nature and they are connecting to animals and things they would naturally find love and affinity towards. as they get older, concepts that keep them engaged like society and people and economics. >> california is experiencing many years of drought.

dry periods. that is really hard on farms and is really challenging. compost helps farms get through these difficult times. how is that? compost is a natural sponge that attracts and retains water. and so when we put compost around the roots of plants, it holds any moisture there from rainfall or irrigation. it helps farms make that corner and that helps them grow for food. you can grow 30% more food in times of drought in you farm naturally with compost. farms and cities in california are very hip now to this fact that creating compost, providing compost to farms helps communities survive and get through those dry periods. >> here is the thing. soil health, climate health, human health, one conversation. if we grow our food differently, we can capture all that excess carbon in the atmosphere and

store it in unlimited quantities in the soil, that will create nutrient dense foods that will take care of most of our civilized diseases. so it's one conversation. people have to understand that they are nature. they can't separate. we started prowling the high plains in the 1870s and by the 1930s, 60 year, we turned it into a dust bowl. that is what ignorance looks like when you don't pay attention to nature. nature bats last. so people have to wake up. wake up. compost. >> it is really easy to get frustrated because we have this belief that you have to be completely sustainable 24/7 in all aspects of your life. it is not about being perfect. it is about making a change here, a change there in your life. maybe saying, you know what? i don't have to drive to that particular place today. today i am going to take the bus or i'm going to walk. it is about having us is

stainable in mind. that is -- it is about having sustainability in mind. that is how we move the dial. you don't have to be perfect all the time. >> san francisco has been and will continue to be one of the greener cities because there are communities who care about protecting a special ecosystem and habitat. thinking about the history of the ohlone and the native and indigenous people who are stewards of this land from that history to now with the ambitious climate action plan we just passed and the goals we have, i think we have a dedicated group of people who see the importance of this place. and who put effort into building an infrastructure that actually makes it possible. >> we have a long history starting with the gold rush and the anti-war activism and that is also part of the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s. and of course, earth day in 1970 which is huge. and i feel very privileged to work for the city because we are

on such a forefront of environmental issues, and we get calls from all over the world really to get information. how do cities create waste programs like they do in san francisco. we are looking into the few which you are and we want innovation. we want solutions.

>> my name is andrea, i work as

a coordinator for the city attorney's office in san francisco. a lot of it is working with the public and trying to address their public records request and trying to get the information for their office. i double majored in political science and always tried to combine both of those majors. i ended up doing a combination of doing a lot of communication for government. i thought it would connect both of my studies and what was i was interested in and show case some of the work that government is doing. >> i work for the transportation agency known as muni and i'm a senior work supervisor. >> i first started as a non-profit and came to san francisco and

started to work and i realized i needed to work with people. this opportunity came up by way of an executive fellowship. they had a program at mta to work in workforce development type project and i definitely jumped on that. i didn't know this was something that i wanted to do. all i knew is that i wanted to help people and i wanted to empower others. >> the environment that i grew up that a lot of women were just stay-at-home moms. it wasn't that they didn't have work, but it was cheaper to stay home and watch the kids instead of paying pricey day care centers. >> my mom came from el salvador during the civil war. she worked very hard. when she came here and limited

in english, she had to do a service job. when i was born and she had other kids, it was difficult for her to work because it was more expensive for her to be able to continue to work in a job that didn't pay well instead of staying at home and being able to take care of us. >> there isn't much support or advocacy for black women to come in and help them do their jobs. there also aren't very many role models and it can be very intimidating and sometimes you feel uncomfortable and unsure of yourself and those are the reasons exactly why you need to do it. when i first had the opportunity, i thought that's not for me. my previous role was a project manager for a biotech start up. i thought how do i go from technology to working in government. thinking i didn't know about my

skills, how am i going to fit in and doing that kind of work. thinking you have to know everything is not what people expect have you, but they expect you to ask questions when you don't know and that's important. >> my mom was diagnosed with cancer. that was really difficult. she encouraged me to go to school because in case anything happened i would be able to protect myself. i wanted to be in oncology. i thought going to school it would set me for the trajectory and prepare me for my life. >> we need the hardships to some of the things that are going to ultimately be your strength in the future. there is no way to map that out and no way to tell those things. you have to do things on your own and you have to

experience and figure out life. >> you don't have to know what you are going to do for the rest of your life when you are in college or high school because there are so many things to do. i would encourage you to try to do everything that you are remotely interested. it's the best time to do it. being a young woman with so many opportunities, just go for it and try everything.

>> you know, i remember when i was a teenager, they did i think it was on the grammys, boss scags narrated the san francisco scene and they did a spot on it and how it's evolved and convergence of multi culture and the emergence of gay community, lgbtq, it was not even called that then. >> so like any good listening back then, i pl