mr. o'brien? >> commissioners, my name is harry o'brien, here on behalf of usf, and we are here to request a for the continuance of this matter. we have had some productive discussions of a settlement with mr. rabbitt as well as other members of the neighborhood. i think we have an agreement in principle, although we need some additional things to be confirmed. richard, if you want to join in that request, and anything that you would like to add, i think it would be to request that you continue this matter for perhaps another month or so and hopefully we can resolve this. >> commissioners, i just wanted to echo what mr. o'brien said. i believe we have an agreement in principle on the settlement, and what we needed is we needed dp debbie to cooperate with us, because it is -- dtw to cooperate with us, because it is contingent upon them as the department that granted the permit to agree. with the terms of the sidewalk issues and the tree issues. one of the things that we would ask the board to consi

mr. o'brien. there are a number of other people who have submitted various types of concerns and thoughts with respect to this case. are they knowledgeable of what is being proposed? >> richard may be a better person to answer that question. the discussions have involved numerous members of the media community. i think everybody else has been an active participant. commissioner fung: in the discussion? ok. same question. >> i would just address that, there are three other neighbors in the immediate neighborhood involved in this, and they can speak in their public comment, but i believe those three neighbors have all been involved in this and are all ok it in principle tonight. obviously, i cannot speak for the broader public interest of everyone in the city of san francisco. vice president garcia: there is a woman who was involved with us, what san francisco, and i don't know she is a neighbor or not. at its sheet involved? >> she has not been involved in the settlement discussions. >> a she invol

mr. president. president o'brien: i'll leave it up to you. i think it would be more effective to hear all of them. supervisor campos: why don't i call upon matt goldberg from the office of labor standards and enforcement. i want to thank them for their objective and unbiased assistance in providing information and facts which is critical when you're drafting a legislation as complicated as this one. so, mr. goldberg. president o'brien: if anyone has any cell phones, if you came late and missed the announcement, please switch them off or put them on vibrate mode. it's not fair to the presenters to have that distraction during the presentation. thank you. >> good evening, mr. president, fellow commissioners. i appreciate the opportunity to share thoughts and perspectives here tonight. as mr. campos said, i am matt goldberg with the office of labor standards enforcement. you may recall i was actually here about five months ago to tell you prospectively about the process we were engaged in to change slightly and streamlinetm employers about their compliance with this ordinance. i am here to tell you,

president o'brien: welcome. >> mr. president, honorable commissioners, good evening. ross mirkarimi, supervisor of district 5. this legislation simply aims to provide opportunity for artists and musicians and for cafes and restaurants where opportunity had not existed before or where there were prohibitions on cafes and restaurants in their inability to be able to afford the limited live performance permits because of how cost prohibitive those permits are. for a number of years, our office, as well as, i believe, many other supervisor offices, have entertained and fielded heavy demand by residents and by merchant owners who would like to see as much of an enterprising attitude in had their particular neighborhoods to allow for cafes and restaurants to be able to afford the permits that otherwise have been very expensive and usually assigned to the cost scale of the much larger venues who can afford them because there's only a one price size that fits all. that price has discriminated against the small business operators which is why we have now advanced this piece of

president o'brien: thank you very much mr. egan. i think at this point we should go first to public comment -- or to commission remarks -- >> commissioner questions first. president o'brien: anybody have any questions at this point? >> for mr. farrell. i just wanted to ask, do you have a feeling of how many companies here in san francisco that are public have left because of their continuing to pay stock options? >> right. i think mr. egan as you mentioned before, i think it's impossible to tell how many of those have left over the past number of years to track them down. what i would tell you in anecdotal evidence in terms of research so what we've all been doing right now is public companies are actively placing head count elsewhere outside of san francisco. is it specifically related to stock options? i think it's more of a cumulative issue about their perception of the overall economic environment in san francisco. but they will actively tell you they're buying office space outside of san francisco and trying to add head count ou

o'brien: thank you. thank you to all the presenters. thank you supervisor campos. at this stage, we will go to general public comment. clearly, there are a lot of us here this evening. >> mr. president, a point of clarification generally. do commissioners asked their questions of the presenting supervisor or any of the panel? president o'brien: before we go to public comment. thank you for that. i apologize. commissioner yee riley: you mentioned that your department determines whether employers should be on the healthy san francisco. how'd you decide that? >> employers fill out a form. we ask the employer for the address of the employee, the name of the employee, telephone number, their date of birth, and if that employer has health insurance. we ask that information because help the san francisco -- healthy san francisco is designed for individuals who are uninsured, who lived in san francisco, and who are between 18 and 64. there are many individuals who work in san francisco who do not live in san francisco. many of those employers would not be eligible. in addition, because healthy san francisco is for individuals who are not insured, there are employers who use it to

president o'brien: any further questions from commissioners? i would like to ask a couple of questions myself. mr. goldberg, if i could ask you a couple of questions, and supervisor campos. maybe the question might be more directed to you. it seems to me from what i have heard tonight, which i must confess is purely educational -- i have tried to read some of it in education -- in preparation, but am trying to get most of my learning from testimony. is it fair to summarize our big problems are house some questionable employers are behaving in terms of implementing this program, what that offer, the spirit of the law, so to speak, and the other being that some people, some employers, are not giving this money back to the poor are back to the employee? would it be fair to summarize the problems we are trying to tackle with this legislation as the way that some employers are implementing it and the fact that sometimes this money goes back to the employer? would it be fair to say the goal of the legislation is to make sure the money never goes back to the employer? >> yes. i think that despite a lot

o'brien: thank you. we have one more speaker before we go to the general public comment. mr. black? >> commissioners, rob black. thank you for the opportunity to speak today. you have heard from the proponents of this ordinance that businesses are not complying with the spirit of the law by allowing for unused moneys to return to the employer, that because only 20% of health reimbursement account expenditures are used that the employer must be violating the intent of the law, that employers are restricting benefit packages with the intent of making them difficult to use, the example primarily around reimbursement of insurance premiums. i want to talk about those three issues. we believe the intent of the law was not to enforce employers to spend money on a. the intent was to reduce the number of people who received primary care from a emergency rooms and to provide low income people with health access. we believe that was the intent of help the san francisco. the expenditure requirement was to put the burden on employers to help make that process happened. we believe reimbursement a

o'brien: o.k. we have a number of presenters tonight beginning, of course, with supervisor campos. welcome. supervisor campos: thank you very much, mr. president, and i want to thank the members of the small business commission for giving me the opportunity to be here today. i'm very proud to speak to you about this piece of legislation and before i begin, let me thank my fellow members of the board of supervisors for their co-sponsorship of this legislation, board president david chiu, supervisor avalos, ross mirkarimi, jane kim, thank you for their sponsorship. we are here today to talk about a very modest piece of legislation that essentially tries to make sure that in the course of implementing the very ground-breaking universal healthcare legislation that we indeed live up to the original intent and spirit of that legislation. i'm proud to say that i come before you with a full support of the father of universal healthcare in san francisco, then supervisor, now assembly member tom omyiano because this is a common sensicle piece of legislation that is essentially trying to address an unintended consequence, a loophole that was u

mr. egan is doing a study right now that will be available in a number of weeks. it is a little bit of a time step process at this point. president o'brien: would there be a serious impact on the world if we were to wait and give that the time to come back and -- and deliberate on this at that time when we have a more full picture of everything as opposed to voting on something with kind of half of the picture? >> i will leave it to your good zpwraces but i don't believe so, no. president o'brien: we won't have the snime >> you will have the time. >> point of clarification, supervisor farrell and your legislation may not be heard in committee until before or after our next commission meeting -- >> it will likely be before -- be heard before, in all honesty. president o'brien: i -- >> i don't think these are exclusive. these are mott mutually exclusive pieces of legislation. they are quite different. supervisor mirkarimi's is very targeted. i think -- if anything that we do to promote businesses of any size in san francisco is good for our small businesses, and particularly these young entrepreneurial -- you know, very interesting and peo