miss gwen kaplan, come on up. >> gwen cap lynn, north business district business association. so hello, commissioners, and i just wanted to thank you for serving and representing the small business community. it means a lot to everyone. the thing i want to talk about is the possibility of a small business summit or a small business conference, and i'm very much in favor of this. as a matter of fact, the last small business conference that was held in san francisco, i was the president of the commission. and i have to say, it was a big success. it fit our agenda, it brought a lot of attention to our business, our problems, our challenges, and the things we can do particularly to get the attention of the department heads, and the mayor and the mayor's staff. so that is what i am here to talk about in public comments. >> okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> do we have any other members of the public that would like to comment about something that is not on today's agenda? welcome. >> well, i'm getting some smiles. that's a good start. thank you very much. thank you. thank

. >> next, gwen kaplan followed by baird fong. >> thank you, commissioners. ace mailing was founded in 1978 by my mother and i, and we were in the first group in 1984 to be certified a woman owned business. i just want to say to commissioner ortiz, i agree with every sipping will thing you said. you did encapsulate everything i wanted to say. it's very hard to imagine as a past president for eight years of the small business commission here that this has not been brought before us until now, so i agree with everyone who is very upset and concerned about that, and i want to say that being an l.b.e. was very important to our business. we were a w.b.e., and a couple of years after we had won a small contract from the city, dianne feinstein about present -- did present us with the woman entrepreneur of the year award. so it makes sense for a small business to be able to do business for the sense, so i would like to thank you, commissioner ortiz, and thank you, commissioner dwight, for saying how could this happen to be at this point without having had the small b