Transcripts For SFGTV Small Business Commission 20240713

Custom to begin and end each meeting by reminding everyone that the office of Small Business is the best place to get your questions answered about doing business in San Francisco. The office of Small Business should be your first stop when you have a question about what to do next. You can find us online or in person here at city hall. Best of all, our services are free of charge. The Small Business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. If you need assistance with Small Business matters, start here at the office of Small Business. The commission is now starting a new tradition of welcoming new businesses that have opened this week. We would like to welcome liberty home supply, old shanghai restaurant, Janitorial Services and kanda yoga school as unone of the many businesses that havy businesses that have opened this week. Okay. I guess we roll call first. Call to order and roll call. Commissioner adams is absent. Commissioner dooley is absent. [roll call] commissioner cartagena is late. Item 2, general Public Comment. Allows members of the public to comment generally on matters that are within the Small Business commissions jurisdiction but not on todays calendar. Are there any members of the public that have comments on anything not related to the agenda . Seeing none, item closed. Item 3, board of supervisors file no. 191150, buildingco, mandatory Disability Access improvements for places of public accommodation, extension of time deadlines. Ordinance amending the Building Code to extend for the time for existing buildings with a place of public accommodation to comply with the requirement to have all primary entries and paths of travel into the building accessible to persons with disabilities or to receive a city determination of equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship, to extend the period for granting extensions from those deadlines and to extend the time for the department of Building Inspections report to the board of supervisors. Discussion and action item. The presenter is tom with the department of building inspection. Come on up. So im senior building inspector with the department of building inspection. I came to answer any questions you have regarding this legislation or any questions about the a. B. E. Program in general. Lets see, i think i have an overhead. Is that showing up . It is. Okay. So this is a Snapshot Report that we did every monday. And it shows the number of forms forms, the category checklist forms, number of technical hardships that are requested, extension forms, just a senate shot of where we are a senate shot of where we are in compliance with the ordinance. As you can see, the total number is 11,977. That would be Property Owners, that might not necessarily meet, they can own more than one property. There could be more than one entrance at the property that would need to be compliant with the ordinance. So that number could actually grow even more. As you can see, that weve had vary in compliance on this. We still have about 6,000 that are potentially noncompliant. So thats one of the reasons why the director of building inspection wanted to push up a final compliance date to september 1, 2020. And all the four categories that we have. Do you have any questions . Commissioner united kingdom. Thank you for coming. I had a question about the people that applied for a reasonable hardship that received unreasonable hardship, is that correct . Thats for a number of in compliance forms, thats the number that said they were going to request an unreasonable hardship how many requested that . I dont have that information off the top of my head do you know what is considered an unreasonable hardship . Unreasonable hardships generally are set on because of cost. So many times youll have steps in front of the Small Business, and the space can be quite small, so to place a ramp that would be compliant with the Building Code would take up so much space inside the tenant space, that it wouldnt really be a viable space for anybody to lease or work out of. I have a question of who makes the determination of whether or not a hardship is considered unreasonable or not. The Building Department, the applicant would come to the Building Department with a Building Permit, and theres a form for unreasonable hardship, and its really based on cost, so they would get an estimate, they would show how much of the space potentially would be taken up by a ramp. And the Building Department would, the plan reviewers would look at it, and if they agreed with it, they would approve it. At that point it needs to go back to the Appeals Commission for ratty for ratification. They still have the opportunity to the Appeals Commission to request an unreasonable hardship. Thank you for answering my questions. I think it would be interesting to know how many people that apply with this specific case of unreasonable hardship actually are granted that. Because i know that most folks wouldnt apply for it if they dont know the process, and it would be interesting to see how many people go through the process and are granted that exception. Weve had, its gone all the way through the appeals last year, we had five out of the 300. Right. That have gone all the way through. So this is showing that when the person did the category checklist, theres a place on there to say, oh, im category 3, i have one step, im going to ask for an unreasonable hardship. So theres a bit of a delay between people coming in and obtaining the permit and then having to go to we are trying to work at that to make it an easier transition for people to do, for us too, what would we consider an unreasonable hardship. I ask this question because i was applying for the same mechanism. I dont know if i met with you. But i met with someone in d. B. I. About it, because the entrance from my Small Business lies in front of a bus stop, and we were thinking about making the corner an entrance and we would have to get hefty upgrades. I was wondering what exceptions were made. We ended up not going with the change, because it would have been too expensive. Right. Another concept in this is technical infeasibility. Thats usually something that is structural in nature. So we have had a lot of, over the years, buildings that have had the second floor tenant space used to be residential, and they turn it into a commercial space, it is a place for public accommodation. Normally in classic San Francisco you have a step or two, a door, a small landing and then the set of stairs going up. When we have that situation, its pretty much technically infeasible to make the vertical access part of it. You have to remember theres varying levels of disability. So you still need to have striping at the stairs for visually impaired, change the hardware where where so you do whatever is readily achieveable. And at the entrance. And then the rest would be basically technical infeasibility, which the Building Department can grant, and it doesnt need to go to the access Appeals Commission for approval. Thank you for answering my question. I appreciate it. Commissioner huie. Hi. How are you . Im wondering what else are you is your department or what else are you planning on doing to try to get to meet this september 1 deadline . In terms of outreach, or what are some of the barriers that people are not in compliance quite yet . Have all these people been reached . We have done a fair amount of outreach over the last couple years with the office of Small Business. And public works, Planning Department, weve sent out fliers, really the last deadline was in december of last year for compliance with just sending in the checklist to get onto identify whether your place of public accommodation and what type of entrance you have, whether you are in compliance, whether you can provide equivalent facilitation, meaning usually its done with the power door operators. Thats why you see those all around town. Where you have a step or multiple steps. When we sent out the last letter of compliance on that, we kind of went away from, hey, we have this program, heres the flier, these are the compliance dates, kind of colored brochure toiletter from the city that looks real official to a letter from the city that looks real official. We got a tremendous response. It was it crashed the voice mail, 3,000 emails. Because they finally read it. And it had the mention of Code Enforcement to it. So thats why we want to kind of dig out of that mess, try to find out who isnt compliant and then start mailing out and more outreach, weve done a few places. I dont know, probably about abt eight, 10 Public Forums and met with architects. I know that the director walked a few of the districts with the supervisors. Do you feel confident about this september 1st . Well, hopefully, we keep reaching out, we keep putting it out there, hopefully i think part of it too is the more people see people complying with it, the more you are going to see people coming in and say, yeah, this is actually happening. Its not going away. And i would also remind everybody, especially all the Small Business people, that accessibility isnt going to go away. The requirements for trying to provide an accessible environment in the build environment for public accommodation is just an ongoing legal obligation that they have. What we are sort of challenged with is were the first city in the u. S. Working to try to because this law is really targeted to the Property Owner, though it does from time to time get passed down to the business tenant. But this is something that were trying, because that obligation exists, whether youre the Property Owner or youre the business tenant, its always living out there as tom said, and its an ongoing obligation. So even if you have a fully accessible restroom, but all of a sudden your tenant, or one of your employees puts the shelf right next to the door, you know, youve now youve now made the restroom potentially inaccessible because the wheelchair may not be able to pull up and open the door to get in or out. So theres always an ongoing obligation. So i think this is our challenge is that, you know, one, its somewhat of a cultural shift to put such an obligation on to the Property Owner. And so, and its also another challenge to sort of figure out if we issue, you know, 6,000 notices of violation, the capability of the department to respond to that. I think what tom said is the last mailing bit went out in, it was november, early november for the december deadline. We started to see an uptick. So i think we are going to probably just have, you know, the information was these are your timelines, and it wasnt this really hard, you know the communication was just this is your obligation, these are your timelines, what have you. So i think its to the departments discretion, but i think probably well have to have some more forceful, you know, language in Upcoming Communications to the Property Owners. Theres also been a little bit of a challenge, too, with for those that do want to work with a certified access specialist in being able to get those scheduled as well to get the checklist in. Commissioner dooley. I want to ask if theres any changes or how it applies to access for businesses in historic districts. I know this the district that i am generally in in north beach, a lot of those folks are very confused, because they are saying one set of criteria that actually violates the historic or landmark prerequisites. There is a historic Building Code, there is a section in it that refers to accessibility. There are allowances for narrow door widths that are under the present code. Theres also a potential of having accessible entrance within the 200 feet of the primary entrance that you could create it as accessible. Its also something that were obviously, we would be working with the Planning Department if theres any type of change to the building entrance. They would probably not want to see any of the Historic Buildings altered in a significant way that would affect that. Again, thats where you would fall back on probably either an unreasonable hardship or technical infeasibility. Okay, because its just we cant undo some entrances that weve created in the past without, you know, destroying the historic nature. So thats why there are these terms in the code and in this ordinance, is because not every entrance is going to become fully accessible. The technical infeasibilities do exist. And unreasonable hardships exist. Okay. Its just trying to do things that is readily achieveable and the ordinance will say, you know, make it accessible or obtain a determination of that unreasonable hardship or technical infeasibility exists. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming, tom. I appreciate this. And some of us are still, just, like, learning how this stuff works. So maybe our questions arent necessarily specific to the legislation that were considering. But your information is helping us become a little bit better educated and informed about how the whole process works, which is in an ongoing classroom here, so to speak. So a couple quick questions. It sounds like the 6,000 checklist items is a bit too much for you guys to absorb in the amount of time you have left. So the purpose of the legislation is to buy some time. Im curious, this is about the checklist, right . Primarily, stage 1 . Well, yes, its about the timelines, okay, because when they originally wrote the legislation, they kind of set it up the way we did the soft Story Program where it was kind of phased in, so we would be able to handle the amount of reports coming into us in checklists. Unfortunately that didnt really work out too well because, again, we sent out that last letter that has a bit of a bite to it, and we went out on saturday, and monday morning it was the email box was full. And i mean the voice mailbox was full. So this is just changing basically all the checklists or going to be submit the compliance checklist, you should do it by, you know, on that one day, and thats all the different categories. But the category said difficult to comply with, those numbers, that pushes everybody else out a little bit more. So the challenge for your office isnt necessarily solely the checklist, but each of the steps, theres staff hours. Right. You get the checklist, and you figure out which category youre in, but if youre in category 2, 3 or 4, you may need to get a Building Permit, so then you have to come down to the Building Department to either make a compliant entrance or request unreasonable hardship or technical infeasibility, and then theres the time of acquiring the permits, potentially some of the entrances are going to be difficult to overcome between what the Building Department requirements are and what the public works and the sidewalk is saying, and then if we have historic with the Planning Department, thats why were in a theres a compliance unit that has people in it from all those and Small Business that meets to try to come up with direction for people that was my next question. Does d. B. I. Have stuff that is tasked specifically staff that is tasked specifically with Disability Access . Well, we do have three inspectors that are, myself included. Im in Technical Services, so im definitely the point person for this program. The other two are in plan check, which is a good place to have them, because they can give staff on how the process, the permits when they come in. So, im sorry. Kind of lost my train of thought. Yeah, no, thats fine. So basically three full time and two kind of on the periphery to deal with it . Well, we have theres four clerks but they do other things also. And they are the people who are dealing with the checklists, waiver forms, the different forms coming in to see if they are completed properly and has all the information. So we have four clerks working on that on kind of a rotating basis. We get a lot of questions about it. So i do have another building inspector in Technical Services that answers questions related to it. I gid the majority of the questions about it. On the secretary that access Appeals Commission also. You are wearing multiple hats. I have a lot of hats. [laughter] so somebody submits a compliance checklist, is there an arch turnaround time just for processing that part of it average turnaround time just for processing that part of it . It depends. I would say it would be probably a couple weeks at the most. You know what i mean . It depends on what type of checklist it is. So if they come in and say they are category 1, somebody has gone out there and they say they are fully compliant, well process it. Well process actually all of them. Thats just identifying it, where if it becomes a little more of a process is when the applicants come in with the waiver form, which is hey, i did a permit last year, and i did my entrance then. Im going to refer to this permit saying im compliant. Because then we have to kind of look it up and see if its complete and check the drawings. So i guess so we have 4,400 that have submitted a checklist, 67 that have not submitted a checklist, 6,700, that have not submitted a checklist. I guess if we are pushing this to, what is it, september 1, march, april, may, june, july, august. So basically seven months. So you need to be clear out the 6,700 properties that have not submitted a process, processing about 1,000 a month. Is that plausible . Well do our best. [laughter] well do our best. Unfortunately we didnt get earlier compliance, and its kind of backlogged into the system. So were still kind of digging out from that december. So it is, you know i havent checked on exactly where we are on that. Right. It would imply somewhere around 35 a day,. We should be able to do that, because we have four clerks, but, again, they are doing adus. They are multitasking. Yeah. We keep getting more and more ordinances that have to do with the Building Department. Im just wondering if were just setting up to have this conversation again at a later date. But well put that to the side for now. Quick question, like just out of my own curiosity, not related to legislation at all, once they submitted the checklist, lets say theres a determination that theres a hardship, weve all read in the paper about these lawsuits that some may be legitimate, some might not be legitimate. There seems to be a question sometimes about whether theyre legitimate or not. Is there any point in this process where as far as a Business Owner, you can have some degree of security or certainty that you wont be subject to a lawsuit or you have something that you can wave tha it shows im not an attorney. I know that was one of the reasonings behind this ordinance is to try to cut down on that. I think when you have showed some good faith, and you are working towards it, i think it goes a long way where people i dont think you get as many people wants to try to sue somebody when they see that theres a power door operator there, that theyve switched out the hardware. Right. There are always potential theres always potential for somebody suing you when it comes to accessibility. Sure. But its better than putting your head in the sand and not doing it. And if i could add, so ive attended a couple of the access Appeals Commission hearings. So the access Appeals Commission, because, again, this is the Property Owner, so the access Appeals Commission, even if theres, like, an unreasonable hardship or technical infeasibility, there still is some discussion, i mean as tom said, there might be small, other remediations to do other than a fully accessible entryway, but theres also discussion that the access Appeals Commission is having with the Property Owner about communicate winning their business about equivalent facilitation as well. So a Business Needs to know even its received an unreasonable hardship or technical infeasibility, the occupants should understand, and if they dont, thats always something that we are working on with the office is educating businesses about equivalent facilitation. So if they have a step and is there another if its a hair salon or Something Like that, is there another hair salon that they can refer somebody to thats fully accessible. So thats always an ongoing obligation of the business, and in addition to no matter what the designation is that wants, whether the entryway gets fully accessible or theres a hardship or technical infeasibility, the business still also the business really needs to make sure that the inside of their business is accessible as well. So us as a city, we are offering a subsidized inspection for certified access specialist to come in and assess the interior of the space, because we really want businesses to do that, because, again, as tom said, theres that ongoing obligation, and we have seen some lawsuits where the entryway was accessible and the individual went inside the business. All right. Commissioner huie. Im just wondering, is there a place where businesses can figure out where they are in terms of their status . Because, you know, youve been working on this since 2016. I know that at that point i think our Merchants Association had had several meetings with our members to kind of let them know that this was happening and there were Resources Available to them. And i know many of them kind of at that point maybe applied for the inspection or did something in terms of, like, trying to become compliant or at least getting inspected. But now that its 2020, i forgot what year it is, im wondering is there, like, would that still hold . Do they still have the status they had at that point . Or how do you figure out where youre at at this point as a business . Or a property . Well, generally we prefer people send in an email so we can respond, they get an electronic response saying weve received your checklist. Its really encouple encumbent upon the Property Owner. If its not category one, they have to go to the next step, and the next step would be either potentially if its really minor in nature, hopefully they just fix it and then send in the category one checklist, and then theyre done. But once you start needing to put in power door operators or if you have multiple steps you can request a technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship, you go to the next column, and that is obtaining the Building Permit. And getting that issued and then whatever work is required under that permit gets inspected and at the end of the day, you get a final inspection, you should get a certificate of final completion from the department saying that you have complied with the ordinance. Thats the way to kind of go. So this really, you know so every business should have a certificate of final completion is what you are saying. If they need to get a Building Permit. A point of clarification. So the Property Owner is generally the one who is submitting the checklist, right . So unless the Property Owner says im exercising my lease, and so therefore, business, im making you do this. So i would recommend that the business communicate with the Property Owner to find out the status of where they are with accessible business Entrance Program. And then perhaps ask if they said weve completed it, ask for that documentation. And then for those businesses, when we were doing the efforts pre2016 of encouraging businesses to do the certified access inspection, those inspection reports dont live with d. B. I. They are a document between the inspector and the business. And so that document should be living with the business, and that business should be kind of meeting the recommendations of the certified access specialist. Does that make sense . Because i just want to make sure that that program we are pushing out and getting businesses to do it before this ordinance came into place are two separate things. Okay. I think its just confusing, i guess in terms of what somebody needs to do and what somebody doesnt need to do. So basically if you got a letter, take care of the letter. Is that fair . I dont know. If you are notified by the Building Department that potentially youre a place of public accommodation. You either send in prescreening forms and say am i a place of public accommodation, most likely they are. I mean, when you cant have commercial spaces where its just workers like a factory or warehouse that doesnt have any you know what i mean . A real warehouse warehouse, not a Club Warehouse where anybody can walk in. Or a newer building thats built after Building Permit date of 2002. So we are assuming we got the entrance right on that, because accessibility laws were much stronger then. So i lost my train. So its really encouple on te Property Owner and the business. If im in this category, i dont know, ive talked about it so many times that its clear to me. It becomes hard for me to say well, follow the deadlines, you need to get a Building Permit. If you have an issue with it, you can have the inspection and theyre like what am i supposed to do next . Well, whats the next thing in the column. It talks about getting a Building Permit. So you need to get somebody, depending on what the remediation is, so something really simple like putting in power door operators, you dont need to get an architect or an engineer involved with doing the drawings. You just have the designer do it because you are providing the equivalent to facilitation. But when you go into the technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship, theres a lot more drawings that need to be done and more of an analysis of is it technically infeasible or is it an unreasonable hardship. Thank you. Commissioner dooley. I have walked through a lot of the merchants in my neighborhood, and i do have a couple questions. First of all, we all now know that a lot of these drive by people that want to file suit are doing it on google maps and they are not actually physically there. Im wondering, i think it would be really helpful for those who have gone through this process and perhaps dont need to do something to pull a d. B. I. Permit. Is there a certificate, is there something they could put in the front of their building or their store that shows that they are compliant . Because i know people worry that they might have been told it was infeasible to remove that step in a Historic Building for example, then they dont know what to do. Can i so we did have a discussion with the City Attorney when we were drafting this legislation. And theres challenges around dealing with a certificate. And that may not be fully visible from google, but the most important thing that we can advise businesses, and especially for businesses that own their property and any business is to have that documentation that theyve gone through this process, because really its not, the drive by lawsuits arent about a Building Code. They are about civil rights. And so not doing any remediation is what they are suing businesses on is that youve intentionally violated individual civil rights but not taking any action. So if a business or the business gets the documentation from the Property Owner, then they have the if a suit is filed, then the likelihood is going into mediation, things can be dropped. I cant guarantee it. But its about documenting that you are taking every effort that you possibly can to uphold an individual civil rights by accessing your goods and services is essentially. So this is the complexity around this is that the Building Code does some of this. But as long as theres the civil realm, its always up to an individual wanting to do some kind of interpretation around that. Okay. Thank you. I see that jen low from the Supervisors Office wanted popped in. I didnt know if you popped in for a particular reason. I didnt know if there was something you wanted to add or say. Okay. Thank you, commissioners for hearing this item today. I think we have gone over just how complex this situation is, and we are looking to you for your guidance in how we can better support Small Businesses. It is complicated, and i think this predates our involvement, i think former supervisor katie tang worked closely with this body, the office of Small Business and the office of building inspection to incentivize the owners to add adhere to this program. The last thing we want to do is prolong this, but we do recognize its an important issue, its a sensitive one, and we are hoping if theres things we can do better to try to get folks to actually come in and voluntarily comply, please let us know and maybe we can also work with the office of Small Business on any additional amendments, i mean, one of the things we didnt put into a legislation, but i think we would entertain with the department of building inspection is maybe regular updates so we are not waiting for the entire duration of the deadline to hear back and say you know what, only x amount of businesses actually followed through, and then we are at the same place as we were at this point, which is to look for an extension. And so thats what i want to recognize. And we really appreciate any feedback that you have and are looking forward to working with in seeing that we get Property Owners to try to comply. Or if theres any barriers we can see if theres ways we can resolve them. Thank you. Thank you, jen. Thats a really interesting question, tom, or suggestion, which is im wondering, does the d. B. I. Problem process, im assuming you are interacting with soninlaw sort with sof computer system. Is there a process that somebody going through this process can log on and see where they are, soandso has signed off on it, that sort of thing . There is a way once you file for a Building Permit. So once a Building Permit is filed, you have the permit number, you can go in and see t status of it, you can see where it is and plan review. Most of these permits should be issued over the counter. So there shouldnt be really a long plan review part to it. So then you can see that the permits been issued, what status it is. So you come in, you file. Theres a filed status, and then theres approved status and then the issued would be weve issued the permit and then when it goes to complete status, it means that that permit is complete. We are requesting everybody who is coming in to apply for the successful business Entrance Program that thats the first item they put on their scope of work. So when the clerk gets it, types it in, then you always have a scope of Work Associated with the permit number. So you can track it that way. Im not sure i dont think there really is a way to say, hey, did i send in my compliance checklist, but already know that, because, you know, the odd thing about that, though, is sometimes, again, well have the owner of the property send in the checklist and then theyll turn around and hand the remediation over to the tenant, saying, okay, this is what the checklist says, you need to go down and get a Building Permit, its in your lease to do it. And that happens. And i just, again, to interject, because we worked so closely, and i do really want to express my appreciation with tom, because rita on our staff manages working with the Small Businesses through this and with the Grant Program. So d. B. I. Is good at any time that they see that the Property Owner has delegated the remediation or checklist submittal to doing referrals to our office, so that rita can help them. We have some grants that are there to help them cover some costs for architects, architectural drawings, power door operators and paying for the inspection for the a. B. E. That comes out of the Disability Access fund thats that 4 that you pay with your business registration. So we do have support for Small Businesses that are required by the Property Owner to comply. And tom and rita have a really they are talking multiple times in the week about how to help the business get through it. Thank you. And i definitely get a lot of people coming in before they lease a space, and theyll start asking me questions about it. And thats one of the things that you dont see. You see potential problems and this and that, but theres also much more heightened awareness about accessibility, about the entrance, about these issues prior to people signing leases. I get a lot of questions about that. One of my first questions, did you sign a lease yet, okay . Until you figure out, and i refer to the office of Small Business to give them information about their responsibilities under the ada and just make sure that they know what theyre signing. Thank you commissioner yekutiel. I think as someone who just recently went through the permit plan check process, i think the reason a lot of people are not submitting their checklists, at least Business Owners themselves is fear, fear that they may not be in compliance, and its going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars. You hear about stories, and commissioner julie was telling me about one where businesses are being shuddered because they cant afford the requirements. You hear Horror Stories about people that cant afford, they are barely breaking even or in the red, all of a sudden they my neighbor next door said he has to put in a 10,000 door. So the good news is d. B. I. Is in communication with o. S. B. About resources that are available. I would love to think about how we can get the word out to Small Businesses that there is a fund for improvements. I think that will quell some of the fear. Maybe getting that work out there more. I think the reason theres such a backlog is people are afraid. They are afraid they might need to do something, and the city is going to make them do something, and they are not going to be able to afford it. So if theres a way we can collectively wrap around these businesses and let them know that we have their back, i think it would get people to fill out their checklists in advance of the deadline. I try to communicate that to people, and i started off in plan check, the people i always wanted to help the most, Small Business people coming in. I remember you. You have a lot of irish things in your office. Dont you have a lot of irish cookies in your office . You give cookies to all the Small Business owners. No, thats not me. [laughter] uhoh, tom. I think tom, what hes driving at is you mentioned a letter with bite that dramatically increased the number of people that were responding. I dont know, because i havent seen the letter, but does it include any mention of this Grant Program in the letter itself . Yeah, we didnt mention that, because we didnt want its a limited fund, in my understanding. Ill let her answer that. Ill answer that because. Because this is a law for the Property Owners. And Property Owners, the value of property right now. So we dont want to that bite was to say you Property Owner, you need to do this. We want to be careful of not trying to give them an out of doing what theyre responsible for doing bypassing on that obligation to the business. So. Do you wait until the business comes to you . Yeah. And weve been weve done weve met with many of the Merchants Associations, worked with the council of district merchants to make sure they are aware that this support is there for them. And another thing, just in the messaging to Small Businesses and to Property Owners, a lawsuit is far more expensive. And thats actually what will shudder the doors. Because oftentimes they go after the Property Owner, and then the Property Owner comes back and says, you know, you business, you are going to pay for my attorneys fees, they have to pay for their attorneys fees and the litigants attorneys fees. So a 10,000 power door, while its a bit of a bite, and we have that Grant Program, and hopefully we can help out with that, but its much less than a 50,000 lawsuit. So the way the law is written in the california laws are written, its very rare unless you show the documentation that you have that youve done youve researched and done work to mitigate the accessibility issues, then generally the litigant always wins. Thank you. Any other commissioner comments . Tom, thank you very much for coming. We appreciate working so closely with the office of Small Business. Do we have any Public Comment on this item . Seeing none, comments closed. Next item. Its an action item. Shoot, thats right. Do we have a motion . I make a motion to i guess approve or approve the extension of the deadlines for Building Code, the mandatory Disability Access improvements. Second it. Motion to support the legislation as written seconded by commissioner laguana. Roll call vote. Commissioner adams is absent. [roll call vote] motion passes 50 with two absent. All right. Item 4, presentation on the fiscal year 19 20 and 20 21 mandated proposed office of Small Business budget cut and update on the Business Assistance center, Client Service numbers, discussion item thank you tom, thank you, jen. Thank you. Commissioners, you have a powerpoint and for members of the public, theres some on the table. If its easier for you to read through the departments budget, i do have this, its broken up in the powerpoint, so you are welcome to take one of these if you want it. So. Before you begin, just to set the stage for our fellow commissioners, so we are going to be going over the budget. The goal here is to get an understanding of what the budget is and what were spending the money on and how the money is spent. At this meeting, our goal is not to make suggestions about how the money could be spent differently. This is educational and informational for us at this stage. Thank you. So director of the office of Small Business, im going to walk through to help give a little bit of framework and then definitely want to have this as an opportunity to really get a thorough understanding of the existing budget. We will not be talking about making, dealing with next years budget. Thats upcoming. At a future meeting. So just to review the departments chart, so at the top of the departments chart is the Small Business commission. And then underneath that is the director, and then underneath that is staff. Youll see a dotted line headed over to oawd. So how budgets work for small departments like ours, we are put into a Larger Department that is of similar in nature in terms of scope. And so oawd is the one thats most alignedd with our work. This is so that we can have shared resources for human resource, financial support, other things such as that. So often when were talking about the budget and our budget when we are coming to budget time, its our budget gets presented along with oewds. So underneath the director is there are five positions. There are five positions. And so if first one is the policy analyst and commission secretary, which is dominica, and i have a line going up to you, so that is a position that works with me but also directly with you. Then there is the Legacy Business Program with the registry and Historic Preservation grants. Thats a program that works with me but also directly with you since it is the commission that approves what businesses go on the registry. And when we have to work on preservation budgets and program, the programs rules and regulations, it is the commission that makes those determinations. Then we have the Small Business Assistance Center and the Small Business and actually i want to go back to a couple things. With the Small Business commission, the Small Business commission was a commission that was created in the year 2000. But then a ballot measure was put forward, and the voters approved it as a Charter Commission in 2003. The Legacy Business Program originally was an ordinance but a ballot measure was put in place to establish the legacy business preservation fund. The Small Business Assistance Center came about, and the creation of that office, which created a more full office before it was just a Commission Director and the commission secretary, was created through a ballot measure in 2007, approved by the voters and opened in may of 2008. So theres much of the kind of remind that the creation of our office and the work that you do has been affirmed much by the voters. Then we have two other case managers. They share the case manager carol cheng, that is shared with martha yanez, so newsletters. The business portal used to be managed by the commission of technology but has now come back to the office of Small Business where we are managing the content, and caron does the data. And then theres the case manager, hea who also helps with or manages the a. B. E. Grant program as we just talked about and does some support work with rick on writing up the press releases for the Legacy Business Program. So what i do want to highlight here is that pretty much nearly all staff sort of have dual responsibilities, and especially for the case managers getting some of these things completed, having c aron pulling data, we need extended periods of time, because the first and foremost priority for me with the Business Assistance center is servicing the individuals that walk in for assistance and wanting to get information about starting a business. So any questions about the Business Organization chart or the office Organization Chart . Is this the entire staff . There is one more individual, walter, who is working under a trainee position, but its not an official position within i mean its not an established position within the office. And does the budget for the o. S. B. That comes directly out of the oewds budget or it is its own separate line item . It is its somewhat a little bit of both. One, theres specific funding that is always dedicated to the office. Its talked about often in relationship to both. But the commission has the the commission is the entity that has the authority to approve the budget. And from there, if theres any reason, you know, to make changes to the budget, then its a conversation both with the mayors Budget Office and joaquin torres, working closely with him. Got it. Thank you. So i think you probably heard that over the next couple of years, theres going to be a pretty significant budget deficit. So the Mayors Office asked each of the departments to plan for potential Budget Reductions. But just so you are aware, fiscal year, next fiscal year, our fiscal years begin july 1 and june 30. So next fiscal year, citywide, theres a potential budget, they are projecting a 270. 8 million deficit. And then for the following year, in 21 22, a projection of 419. 5 million deficit. And some of the reasons for these are our revenues are slowing down in terms of our revenue incomes. And but then we are having rising costs that are outpacing the revenues. And some of those key costs that are outpacing the revenues are in the category areas of salaries, benefit and employee pensions. So the Mayors Office asked each of the departments to propose the 3. 5 or 7 percent over the next two years from the general dollars, and our department is predominantly general funded except for the accessibility entrance, the Disability Access grants. So the next slide has the overall departments budgets for this year and then next year, and ive shown you next year just so you can get an idea what what we are having to plan for the budget cuts. So of the general fund dollars that we are to be working on your proposed cuts, you will see in the line item that says general funds supports subject to budget cuts. So 1,000,221, so a 3. 5 budget cut reduction is 43,970. Saying that, you know, going into 21 2 theres not much of a change of our budget, then a seven Budget Reduction would be 87,940. So the next two slides, and i cant show them, so well just start off with the first section that is subject to the area of budget cuts. So right now for 19 20, our salaries and fringe benefits, and this does include a position that is funded through the Legacy Business Program in Small Business Development Center to do Business Technical assistance with to do Technical Assistance for legacy businesses, and its housed in the Small Business Development Center. So salaries and fringe benefit, the total is 1 million essentially. Nonpersonnel services is 45,918, and thats kind of our operational, that is our operational extenses. Its expenses. Sales force, which we do our client tracking in, interpreters, translation. Any of our materials need to be translated into spanish, chinese and to go our copy machine, we a high volume of copying because of the Business Assistance center, printing, training and if we have any contracting for professional services. Materials and supplies is, thats 7,000, and thats office supplies, office equipment, technology equipment, so it is from that budget that your tablets will be coming from sfgov tv, it is budgeted though we dont necessarily use all of this budget, but its budgeted at 37,000. So that we can air our meetings, and which is more and more commissions are going in that direction for good governments and transparency, and since many of our constituents work, this way they are able to see a meeting, they can either watch it live or watch it later. And then overhead is what we pay in rent, phones, shared services, with oewd around hr finance and contract assistance. So im going to stop there. And this is all general funded. So just open to any open up any questions. I have a quick question about the chart again. So i went to the Small Business Assistance Center when i wanted to open up my Small Business, and i think i met with martha, actually, and i remember it very clearly, and she was extremely helpful, and he have amazing people working in osb. How active is the Assistance Center . How many Small Businesses have you seen in the last year . How long are the wait times . How busy are the folks at the front line, would you say . Very busy, and inn creasing, and ill get increasing, and ill get into those numbers in a little bit. Great. Thanks. So no other questions . Ill move on. So for the legacy business preservation fund, and this does not include staff salary, so this is just for the two Grant Programs. So we have a committed Million Dollars year after year for that Grant Program. So that is to be shared by the rent stabilization grant and the Business Assistance grant. The commission was earlier in the year. So i dont think commissioner laguana and yekutiel were on the board but the full funding of that grant over this Business Assistance grant because it has a stronger effect for longterm stability for businesses, which is one of the, not the key intent, but a key intent of the Legacy Business Program. Ill just add to that briefly, i spoke to a Business Owner who said that grant was critical and played a large role in them being able to stay in their business in west portal. So this year, the 1 million would not did not cover the full grant full grant obligation for the rent stabilization grant but not with the Business Assistance grant. And so im just going to drop down, so im just going to leave it at that for now. And that will be a future that will be a potential future discussion that staff will be meeting to have in terms of the Grant Programs and potential funding in relationship to them. Regina, does the commission have the ability to allocate how much of the resources goes to Business Assistance versus rent stabilization . Like for instance if the commission decided we say we are not going to fund the Business Assistance part of the program anymore, and we are going to focus solely on rent stabilization . Yes. The commission can direct staff on how to allocate those resources. Okay. Yes. Thank you. And then operational cost, theres 20,400 thats there to help do translation, again, any materials that we produce have to be translated, marketing, promotional materials, the plaques, the certificates. So i think rick had mentioned a couple meetings back, we are finalizing, we have selected a vendor to help produce the plaques. We are finalizing the contract, and we hope to start issues those within two to three months. So those, the legacy business and the operational cost, again, are general funded. And so that brings our general fund, our total General Fund Budget to 2,221,422. The next is the Disability Access fund. This is the state requiring all municipalities to add a fee to all business registration. Well, for us its a business registration. Municipalities that dont have it collect it through building fees. So this is not general funded. It has its own allocation. So theres two components to the Disability Access obligations, and one is to fund any city officials that want to become certified access specialists, so we work with the Mayors Office on disability, public works, department of building inspection, and Mayors Office of housing. And so far, the Mayors Office of housing and the Mayors Office on disability have requested utilizeation of those funds to train certified access specialists. And thats, i think, at this point, its probably around 6,000. So its minimal. Commissioner yekutiel thank you, mr. President. I heard that a large chunk of the legacy Business Fund is going to a small number of large nonprofits. Is that true . With large employee bases . For the Business Assistance grant and for the Business Assistance grant, i wouldnt say a large chunk, but large nonprofits do the nonprofits that are really exercising the Business Assistance grant are larger nonprofits roughly of the Million Dollars you had to allocate, how much went to nonprofits versus forprofit businesses . Well, its about the same as the average of nonprofits which is about seven to ten percent so around 70,000 to 100,000 . Well, actually the Business Assistance grant isnt funded fully at a Million Dollars. So im trying to figure out, of the money we allocated in the last fiscal year, how much of that money went to nonprofits and how much went to places that cant get grants, for instance, like a business . I should have had the legacy Business Report here with me. Its up online. And ill get back to you with those specifics. And we have our new grant cycle. What i will so thats, you know, an important thats been sort of an important discussion that we have had internally about the allocation of the dollars around the Business Assistance grants. Do you think that nonprofits should have access to that money . We have had many discussions legally with the City Attorney about who can access and who cant, and based upon the voters in proposition j, we cannot restrict in that manner. Thanks. Appreciate it. Let me ask a couple quick related questions. So theres a Million Dollar grant, does that come with a commitment to funding in future years . It is it renewed every year or when they sign up, like were committed to the next two, three, four years . Well, the way the Grant Program is designed, so the way the Grant Program is written is that its all subject, our ability to fund any of the grants are subject to whats been allocated into those Grant Programs. So if theres a severe economic crisis, the city can say we are not going to fund that fund. So if theres no money in that pot, in the Historic Preservation fund, then we dont issue any grants. And prior to commissioner yekutiel, commission sharkey and huie, we have had extensive discussions with the commission about the ballooning obligation, potential ballooning obligation, especially around the Business Assistance grant. So with the rent stabilization grant, when a Property Owner applies for the grant, they can apply for it either up to ten years or lets say theres three years left in a lease and they extend it out for seven years, and they can apply for seven years. We are not the way the proposition j was written, again, is how much funding is there and so it will be allocated proportionally, though, with the rent stabilization grant, we are to do our best to fully fund the earlier grants before we take on new grants. So we will be having future discussions, because in the next year to two, we will be meeting, if we are to fund new grants, new rent stabilization grants, then we will be exceeding the 1 million. But thats a future discussion to have. So that introduces another question. So last year we had the 500,000 add back. When theres more money to distribute, i assume theres more administrative workload on o. S. B. Staff. Was that fair to say . Not necessarily more money. So if its the rent stabilization grant, if more money gets allocated, thats a Pretty Simple grant to administer, and not much time. Thats involved with it. Its the Business Assistance grant that is more administratively cumbersome, because we have to work with each business that applies and work on their calculations of their equivalent fulltime employees and make sure that thats accurate in terms of what theyre reporting. So as we add more businesses to the registry, more businesses can apply for that grant. And it has been the case. So that our obligations, the number of applications have gone up each year. So the amount of time administering that grant then just grows as well. So the Legacy Business Program, none of the money earmarked for the legacy business goes towards staff salaries, correct . Out of this million, no. Correct. Right. So that has to come out of the o. S. B. Budget. So if the Legacy Business Program introduces more administrative overhead, that correspondingly reduces the amount of staff time thats available to help folks coming into the Business Assistance center or the other services that o. S. B. Provides . No. Right now if the program grows, then what it does mean is that the processing of the registry applicants. Takes longer. Yeah. So businesses are waiting in the queue longer and longer to get on to the registry. I cant redirect any of the Business Assistance i mean, rita does help with the press releases and does do some social media posting after the meetings when youve placed businesses on the registry, but thats all i can afford in terms of having another staff help. Thank you. And then to highlight that last year the Mayors Office not the Mayors Office, the board of supervisors provided the office with an add back of 500,000 to be put towards the Business Assistance Grant Program for legacy businesses. And so in doing so, that allowed that Grant Program to fund 350 per f. T. E. And just to take a moment to talk about sort of the budget process, so the first stage is me coming to you if theres to talk about next years budget, have some discussion, get your approval, working with joaquin and the Mayors Office through the budget phase and then after the mayor submits the budget to the board of supervisors, the board of supervisors then, their budget and legislative analyst takes a look at each department and looks for budget cuts in each department to recommend to the board of supervisors so the board of supervisors has the authority to also make budget cuts. And from these budget cuts creates the pool of money for the add back dollars. Commissioner dooley. Do you have the information on among the legacy businesses that have received either Business Assistance or rent stabilization . How many have applied for renewal, and how many just did it as a onetime thing, like they needed a new awning or Something Like that. Its a rough number. Just give us a general sense. I would say i would say for those that applied for the Business Assistance grant and then renewed, i would say 85 percent renew. And what i will say is also for the very Small Businesses, it may have one or two employees, we tend to see those are ones that are not applying for the Business Assistance grant. Does the commission have the authority to make adjustments to the rules regarding, say, how many years you can or how many renewals you can apply for . Im just thinking about this from an equity perspective, you know, can the funds be distributed to those that really need it versus those that have simply mastered the system . So we cannot, and therefore some earlier discussions with the commission is but we will likely not do this for this coming fiscal year, but the only way we could administer a Grant Program that provides either limitations or some other sort of qualifications, we would have to establish a new Grant Program. We cant modify this existing one, because of it being created by the voters. And that i will tell you, was through months and months of work with the City Attorneys office. Okay. You may have answered this question just now, but im going to raise it slightly differently, random chance that im onto something. Is there a possibility that every year the clock the board is wiped completely clean, and no particular preference is given to renewals over new applications . Or is that already what happens . So for both grants, so for the rent stabilization grant, the Property Owner has to reply every year. They dont just automatically get the grant. They have to remediation aapply every year same for the Business Assistance grant, they have to reapply every year. So they have just as much chance as a renewal applicant . Yes. So with the Business Assistant grant, well, for the rent stabilization grant, im going to say thats the only one where where if there isnt money left in the rent stabilization grant, because thats so by renewals and news, if there isnt then we can say there is no money. Though there is sort of this also fallback where if a business is in crisis and theres a lot of pressure, we could go to the board of supervisors to ask for a accept lamental to add money a supplemental to add money, and thats only for the rent stabilization grant. For the Business Assistance grant, the application period is between july 1 and september 30, so whatever number of businesses apply and then the number of s. T. E. S in there, whatever pot of money is, and whatever amount of money is put into the Business Assistance Grant Program, then gets distributed based upon f. T. E. So i remember this conversation from last year. I was here for some of this. So f. T. E. S are limited to 100 or less, correct . Correct. And theres, again, this is probably the question you just answered two questions ago, but theres no opportunity to sort of change the number of f. T. E. S, say, for instance, we couldnt set a limit at 20, or could we . Not through this particular Grant Program all right. So we couldnt say it applies only to microbusinesses, per se, it has to apply to all businesses with up to 100f. T. E. S, and we cant make any changes to how, for instance, im imagining a round robin approach to allocation, where each business gets one f. T. E. And then we go back again, its business by business, theres no way to sort of equitably distribute the f. T. E. S so its not being consumed by a fairly small number of businesses while theres other smaller businesses that arent getting anything because i mean, would it be possible to switch to do you know what i mean by a round robin approach . I do. And under a newlydesigned program, we could consider that. So the way the program is set is that the money is distributed be number of f. T. E. S total. And then so, like, the 500,000 created the ability by the total number of f. T. E. S we were able to allocate 350 per f. T. E. , so if a business had 50 employees, it was 350 times 50. So, again, the City Attorneys interpretation has been of the Grant Program because it was voter, that we have to be very we have to just stick with what is there. Right. Under. If we did want to redesign the program, what would the process be to make that happen . Would that require a ballot measure or no . Most Grant Programs, like with oewd has a lot of new Grant Programs, its really designed sort of what is the program you want to design and then kind of whats the funding that we want to be there. What do we hope to achieve, what do we want to do . As a commission we could potentially design a new program, submit that to the supervisors, the mayor . We would probably we would work with, first work with the Mayors Office. Okay. Thats an interesting question possibly for us to consider during the retreat. Commissionerly doey. After all the years of discussing this, i was always under the impression that the people who had received grants previously, the Previous Year, had precedent in if they replied, they were ahead of anyone new applying. Am i wrong now . Thats only with the rent stabilization grant, not with the Business Assistance grant. So but it is true with the rent stabilization, anyone who got it once is jumped ahead of the queue to get it again rather than being on equal footing with everyone who applies . Yes. There is the way its written is that those that were previously funded in the Previous Year have priority. Does it seem to me like [off mic] yes. It sounds like thats something we should really consider redesigning. Am i wrong . Isnt that part of the the voters are we allowed to do any changes in that area . Or does it have to be a whole new thing . It would have to be a whole new thing. Well, we can do a whole new thing. Yeah. Well do this and then a whole new program yeah, do all of it. Okay. [laughs] fun discussion for us to have. Well have to figure out what our priorities are. This is foremost on ricks and my mind about how we want to find a way to sort of meet the voters intent, but the voters didnt quite understand the program, the Grant Program that they were approving. And so its hard to believe the voters intended to award just a couple random businesses this permagrant at the expense of all the other businesses applying. And given how long this Grant Program lasts and how many years it extends out, it seems to me that it would be worth our time, granted i dont know how much time we are talking about yet, but that would be what we would have to have a conversation about. But it seems to me that we should if in any way possible, revisit the program and design it to be what i think seems equitable to all of us. It should be everyone who applies has an equal chance. It shouldnt be this permanent bestowment upon the lucky few who navigated the system and now all roads are blocked to everybody else. That seems wrong to me. Yes, and i think part of our early discussions with, i mean, that the commission had, predominantly with the Business Assistance grant is that those who were fortunate, no one sort of worked any system, but those who were fortunate to be nominated at the beginning of the program are more likely receiving the full benefits of the program. And so how do we design something so that ten years from now, 25 years from now, those who are coming on to the registry are able to derive some benefit. And thats not to say that we might also want to reevaluate some other programs that we think that arent necessarily designed in this particular way can derive equal benefit. Last question, are you aware of any other government body administering a similar Legacy Business Program . Is there any sort of established best practices or other Grant Programs that you have encountered that perhaps we can learn something from . Were generally advising new municipalities. Okay so advising them on the complications around what we experience with this particular so we have a unique opportunity to establish best new practices for the country going forward. I love it. We do. Great. So next slide, commissioner yekutiel, i just, i have taken our Business Case numbers, our Client Service numbers, and i will be issuing you a very sort of plain document. Weve closed out the fiscal year 18 19. So well give you a lot of the Demographic Data of what we collect for the Client Services. But just to let you know, over the last i mean, i took since 2016, but weve been substantially increasing our numbers. And in the first six months, its also increasing as well. Weve definitely seen an uptick in businesses coming to the Assistance Center being now in the same side of the tax and Treasurers Office where businesses do their business registration. We were just across rotunda, somehow not having to walk across the rotunda has brought more individuals to the office, which is a good thing. So that we are able to help provide businesses sort of on the right footing of how to engage with the city, because we are 60 percent of who we work with are businesses in their preprestartup phase. So these are just some demographics, these are some of the numbers. This includes our walkins, emails and phone calls. It does not include our martha teaches the class is he s. B. A. Every month on starting a business at the Renaissance Center once a quarter. So it doesnt include those numbers. And then i think this is where i probably plug come to mannys on the 11th to lead a session on how to start a Small Business. Excellent. Thats something that needs to be brought up during new business. Ill point out it means that 15 businesses per business day, give or take, are coming into your office. Quick question. Perhaps we dont collect this data at all, but what Demographic Data do we collect about the people starting businesses . We collect by district. We collect by language. We track it by, yeah, language. We also sign up with language lines. So we are able to conduct services in english, spanish and chinese. But we have the language fine in case theres another type of language that it would be helpful to have that assistance. So language and then we have ethnicity as well. And we might be collecting by gender. [off mic] and then we collect by sector what they are coming in for. The naicis. Yes. And are they in their prestartup, there are businesses that come in that are asking information, and they are ready to get their business open, and so for those predominantly in the food business, and we make a direct connection to katie in oewd so that commissioner yekutiel worked with katie. So for those businesses, then really when they are really ready, to make sure that that process, because it is a very permit and application complex process. So we do direct handoffs, and then we also have businesses that they want to have theyre having a business formation change, whether they do or if they are closing their business. So we categorize them at whatever stage they are in, coming and accessing information. And do you have a sense of what those demographics for the people taking advantage of the Business Assistance center, how that stacks up against the demographics of business registry . Do we collect the same information for all business registrations or just whats in the Assistance Center . Just within the Business Assistance center. I mean, the business formation is tracked by the Treasurers Office. And also employee size, because we have the payroll, but that is not publicfacing information. So surely we collect, i mean, at least ethnicity when somebody starts a business, do we not . Its voluntary. I see its voluntary. But we ask we have it there and ask them, and we tell them that it helps us. No, i meant at the treasurer no. Nothing at all . Not even gender. I guess what im driving at is its been my observation, and certainly seems to be backed up but what you have said to me in the past, that the Business Assistance center is extraordinarily helpful as just sort of an equity issue, its perhaps as relative to the Business Community as a whole, disproportionately maybe disproportionately is the wrong word, but is taken advantage of by recent immigrants, english as a second language or maybe not even english as a language, and so its a tool for that really addresses equity, and its one of the few tools we have thats sort of specifically addressing some of those equity issues with relation to Small Business. So it seems like thats something perhaps we need to highlight, i guess, is, you know, i know every time i walk in, i dont feel like im looking at some young tech startup trying to figure out the business process. I feel like im seeing im not sure what im seeing actually. Thats why i was asking the questions. It seems like its a really important tool for equity. It is a very Important Service that the city is providing in relationship to wanting to deliver on our equity constituents. And we can have further, more detailed conversation about that and have a full presentation just on ill be sending out to you what we call our dashboard. So last years dashboard on the clients served, and we can have a more thorough discussion on that, either at a Commission Meeting or at the retreat. Great and then lastly, the mayor has set some Budget Priorities. And so aligning our budget with her Budget Priorities as we move forward into the next four years of dealing with budget. Sorry, one second. Commissioner, did you have a comment . I was just curious as to what percentage of businesses that are formed in San Francisco actually come through the Business Assistance center. I cant answer that question. I would its hard, because even for us, we still have a hard time sort of dealing with the tracing of being able to trace a business when they come in, because many times they are coming in as an individual, and by the time they start their business, they may be an entity. So i think like commissioner sharky wants to start off the meeting highlighting new businesses, so just even pulling the number of new business registrations in the month of january, that was a little over 1,000. But a lot of those are transportation, real estate, technologybased. And so theres 1,000 in the month of january, and we see 3,000 in a year, then its a small percentage. And its something that not that small, 25 percent. But if we are talking about, if its 1,000 each month, then thats 12 25 percent. You are really good at math. I am i am not good at math off the top of my head. So i would say maybe we could facilitate more, because there have been times, especially when weve had to reduce budget, we deuce stab because of the budget situation, our numbers go down, so it is really it is a number of individuals being able to service we could service more, and we could also probably do satellite hours out in different neighborhoods from time to time to be able to reach the districts that are further away from city hall. So just to sort of begin to frame some context of what well be looking at for Budget Priorities in the future, is these are the four key Budget Priorities for the mayor is clean and safe streets, healthy and vibrant neighborhoods, and so ive put under there, the Business Assistance center and policy, so as legislation comes before the commission, you can think about how does this legislation affect healthy and vibrant neighborhoods. Accountable government, again, thats a policy to work with, and, again, through the legislation. And then equitable outcomes, that is with our Business Assistance center, and thats also a lens the commission can start utilizing as it is reviewing policy is what are the equitable implications for businesses in the legislation that is coming before you. So that concludes my budget report, and any additional questions at all . Thank you, regina. That was excellent. And super educational. Do we have any Public Comment on the directors report . Seeing none, comments closed. Next item. Item five, approval of draft meeting minutes, action item. Draft minutes from january january 27. Who was were all of us present . Does anybody have to recuse themselves . Okay. Do we have a motion . I move. Ill second. Motion by commissionerly doey to approve the minutes commissionerly doey to approve the minutes. The motion passes 50 with two absent. Item 6, directors report, update and report on the office of Small Business and Small Business Assistance Center, department programs, hearings scheduled before the commission, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor and announcements regarding Small Business activities. I want to start off my report congratulating congratulating commissioner zouzounis for her reappointment. Will you please let dominica know if you are not going to be here march . We want to schedule photos. I will not be here on march 9. I will be in london. Then we cant do it, director. Youre an essential piece. Well, theres pictures that we take of you on the d. A. S. And all of that. On the dais and all of that. Next we wanted to take an opportunity to review the hearing on the delivery act virtual kitchen thats scheduled for february 26. So dominica has been doing a lot of work with this, commissioner sharky has been providing some guidance as well. So i would like to just turn it over to you, dominica to give a quick framework. Or would you like me to . Do you need a copy . Yeah, i dont have one. I have one right here. Thank you. The meeting on delivery virtual kitchen on the office of Small Business commission requested in december is set for wednesday, february 26 of this year in city hall, room 408. It will be held from 1 00 to 4 00 p. M. , and will have a hard stop at 4 00 p. M. , so the duration is three hours. Essentially the scope will be to better understand how virtual kitchens and delivery platforms currently and locally regulated and to provide restaurant and the Retail Community an opportunity to share what their experience in working with virtual kitchens or delivery platforms has been like and to also gain a better understanding of virtual kitchen and other deliveryfocused models. With that being said, the goal of the meeting, as i understand it from your perspective is to gather meaningful feedback from the Small Business community and stakeholders regarding impact that Delivery Companies are having and to prose initial recommendations. So the tentative agenda for the three hours that youll have will involve presentations from departments. Right now its the department of Public Health and the s. F. Planning department who we are still waiting on confirmation that they will be in attendance. And well have presentations from the Business Community as well. And there will be approximately 30 minutes for you to provide to ask questions, Public Comment will be limited to 60 minutes given the time frame we are working with and for commissioner deliberation, youll have 45 minutes. For other presentation, i think i spoke with you about this regina, i think during our call, we were thinking we were going to be short on time. But theres a possibility that the new executive director for the g. R. A. Is also a Restaurant Owner, so she could wear both hats as both an operator and spokesperson on behalf of the gra. Perhaps for other presentation, we should consider inviting one or representative of the delivery services, whether its is that why they are not represented, because of time . Yeah, its just are they interested in participating in this . I think so do we need an hour of Public Comment . I mean, i just have to say, it seems like a missed opportunity if the company themselves want to be represented, and were saying no because of time. I agree. I think when we were originally talking about it, we were concerned that for one, these companies would have the opportunity to speak during Public Comment, so its about whether or not we are earmarking five minutes in the schedule for them when what were really wanting to hear is how this affects the Business Community and not necessarily how this affects the tech community. But do we know they are coming to Public Comment . No. So what im suggesting is that we do invite them to if any of them the other question was theres i think three major, four major services, and theres no natural industry spokesperson the way we have with the g. G. R. A. So who do we invite, how do we establish but i do think it would be helpful to have them come and answer questions as well as, you know i wasnt a part of the deliberations so forgive me for trying to insert myself at the 11th hour. You are welcome to. But having said that, it is important to hear on the Public Record how this is affecting Small Businesses, and also this is probably going to be our opportunity to suggest, emphasize and maybe interact in a substantive way with the businesses that are affecting our community. So my strong opinion is that it is a missed opportunity to not at least have their ear while we are all here. I agree, and that is why i suggested to regina that we should reconsider that decision. But i completely support what you are saying. Youre right. Just to be clear, they are interested, they want to come . I do think so. I cannot definitively say that they want to speak publicly. But we can well invite that, i mean in terms of a presentation, they might make Public Comment. I know that some have are going through some changes, so they want to be more quiet about, you know, about things. But new york, we can follow the we can do a couple things. We can follow the new york model and ask for written give them a list of questions and a written response. I think what would be good for me to hear from as you in the businesses of there has been contact with door dash, post mates and brief kitchens, and those contacts have denied in relationship not to our hearing but to supervisor safais hearing. So i think it would be good for us to hear from you what you think might be a good first for us to reach out to, entity to ask for a presentation. Well, i dont see the issue with asking supervisor safai if he would be willing to share those contacts with us, and if there are other organizations like uber eats or grub hub, we should make our own contact. No, theyve contacted us. Those same people . Yes. Those three is byes have contacted, because we were listed in supervisor safais. So we have contact, and we can work to get contact with other entities. Im just asking if theres a specific one of those that you would prioritize doing a presentation or first over another or else we i think im the only Restaurant Owner sitting here, and if youll give me 24 hours, i could do a quick stop pal of Restaurant Owners in my district which see a huge volume of this and figure out which would be the ones best represented. I could do that easily. Great. And commissioner, just to reassure you, to whatever extent you may have some concern, understandably, perhaps you may have some. Commissioner ortiz was the one who sort of initiated this. And then as part of the agenda planning, both i and commissioner had to coordinate with commissioner ortiz, that was three, we couldnt have four. Im not offended or anything. Im glad were all open to this, because i do think it honestly doesnt reflect well on us as a body. I think it reflects better on us to have them there. It makes the whole endeavor, the threehour endeavor, be, i think it could be a lot more productive. So im more than happy to help at this 11th hour to see if we can get voices in the room. Its not the 11th hour. We have three weeks, two weeks. And your input, particularly your public input as the only Restaurant Owner on the commission is very much strongly considered and desired thank you, commissioner. Yeah. Can i ask when the this date was decided . I will not be able to attend. I have to work. I cant not work. I have my work from 2 till 11 on we see wednesdays. We are limited by the availability of hearing rooms, and i think the commission wanted to post this before supervisor safais meeting. So im just letting you know i wont be present, and im extremely disappointed. Im sorry to hear that. Can i get an understanding of what supervisor safais hearing is about . Are we having the same meeting twice . Or what is we havent had an official meeting with supervisor safais staff to discuss what exactly the ask is for his hearing. We know that the office of Small Business has been invited to present on this. I know that the office of labor standards and enforcement has been asked to present, and i believe s. F. Planning is also asked to present. So it seems like the presentations at that hearing will be focused on report backs from various city departments. So this is kind of like the information gathering to be able to create the content for that . Right. And i just also, you know, there may be followup with more departments from our initial hearing as well, so that doesnt mean that this is the one and only, and we can continue, because, you know, what we hope to get out of this from you is a good, solid direction and sort of input in terms of what we can report to supervisor safais office, but you may determine that you still want a few followup presentations before we solidify before you solidify any official recommendation. So this is, you know, dont think that everything has to be accomplished with this hearing, we are trying to just sort of maximize and get, like, the most important bit of information. And dominica has been following what new york has been doing, so we can ask for written for departments that cant be there, ask for written answers to questions ahead of time for you to take into consideration ahead of the hearing. Thank you for all the hard work you are putting into this. I know its a lot. I was going to say the same thing, thank you very much. That was a lot of reading for me that really framed a lot of this issue. So thank you very much. It was super helpful. So i think one thing too that we may want to think about as we are planning the agenda of the commission is sorry you have to get up in it. We need a longer microphone for you. Just go for it. I like the relaxed, lean back approach. Thats not good for the public to hear what you have to say. Maybe theyre lucky for it. So one thing i would encourage the commission to think about, something ive been giving some thought to is the sequence of testimony, because that will you know, and again, going back to when we were weighing how to who to invite and what is the criteria, what we were trying to be careful to do is be sure that we had sufficient time for our questions and also im imagining that this will be a wellattended meeting. So thats why left a lot of room there for Public Comment, because theres i imagine, folks that want to talk about their personal experiences. But going back to what i was saying, we may want to think about the sequence of the agenda in terms of the presentations, for instance, do we want to have the individual restaurants present first and then conclude with the departments or do we want to start with the departments . [off mic] oh, sorry no, its okay. The point is if you want to ask informed questions, sometimes after people make their presentations, then they leave. Would the department, in this, if the department of planning went first, would they stick around until the very okay. So then, all right. Scratch that. Go ahead. Do you know what the department of Public Health and s. F. Planning has been asked to present . Like are there specific questions that we ask them . Or are we just saying we are having this hearing, you have five minutes . I can send you what i sent them. I described the genesis of the request, and i included some more general questions with regard to how theyre currently permitting the policy and department of Public Health policy, virtual kitchen specifically. And so im sure that youll have more specific questions once you hear their presentation. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Anything more on kitchens . The one thing that we may also have to send you some of the permitting process to read through. So im just to add more reading, both for restaurants and for local food just so that you have where we see potential discrepancies in the permitting process. And then also the Golden Gate Restaurant Association did have a hearing with supervisor fewer, focusing on the citys regulations, so well send a link to that hearing. It was a fairly long hearing. But due to a lot of Public Comment. But, again, sort of taking into context, you know, theres two pressures happening with our foodrelated businesses in relationship to that, and thats the external pressures from these from the private entities and the pressures from city government. Is it helpful for us to let our communities know that this hearing is happening . Yes. Yeah. I think we definitely should. Sure. I mean, i just wanted to kind of put it out there, i guess that maybe as commissioners we should let our communities know. So even if they dont want to provide Public Comment, to be a part of this discussion at this juncture because its already happening. And they can provide Public Comment in written form ahead of the meeting. That would be great. Are we allowed to create like a Facebook Event for Something Like that . Yes. We can say we are having a hearing on it through our office. And i know it sounds super millennial of me, but for some people, social media is how they are figuring out how they spend their time. Im wanting the z version, i want the instart in insta sto. I think theres nothing preventing you fromming frommins saving as a commissioner we are looking forward to this hearing. I know youre probably very comfortable creating Facebook Events, so if you would do us the honor of creating one, i think that would be create. Can we check in with the they attorney and just around communication rules and who can create what event on behalf of the commission . Like we have an official facebook account. But this is open to the public, any member of the public can create an event about anything they want to. Thats true but its probably stronger to come from o. S. B. And add us as cohost. There might be specific rules. I have to cross check that before anything happens. And to add to her, i have seen other commissioners post and tweet about things that are coming up at their hearings, but then i think also whats, like, if theres conversation happening, then does that conversation somehow need to be linked with the Public Record conversation that happens . Look, let me if you are determined to investigate, i wont get in your way, but this is a public meeting. Theres nothing wrong. Theres not any coordination happening. Theres not any discussion of agenda items. Theres nothing wrong with letting the public know, as just a citizen, that, hey, theres going to be this meeting. And we are blessed on this commission to have somebody thats very skilled at creating events. I would if you are really having red alarms going off. I am. We have an ethics department, we have a City Attorney. This is the first time during my tenure that this has been a suggestion so i would rather do the right thing first and just verify that its okay. Then lets do this, if we are going to do that, lets get the City Attorney to weigh in on whether any commissioner. Well coordinate offline about what the actual question is. But lets just get it clear and simple. Because it is a major goal of mine, high top priority to increase communication. Definitely. I dont want to get but there are rules in the city, there are laws and state laws so lets make sure we are in compliance with all of it. And i think to dominicas point, if you are posting something factual, thats hard pressed but likely okay but we will confirm, but you have to make sure that you are not doing anything other than saying we are having this hearing, and we want to hear from the public, but you are not expressing any opinion. For what its worth, i think its more appropriate for o. S. B. To put this out, because then it seems like its yekutiels hearing and its not and i think the question is important when asked, we should know the legalese about it, but o. S. B. Should be the one pushing the share button. Its not mannys event. It gets into complicated things. We are all on the same page here. Anything else . No. I think that thats it. Thank you. I think the intent is just to start, again, early discussion so thats beginning to frame so that you have as much preparation time, and if theres anything else you may need from us in doing so. We have one piece of legislation that has been referred to the Commission Regarding the planning code for the bayview industrial triangle cannabis restricted use district. Thats the only legislation i know thats coming up in the next couple months. Also so i did for this last time, so just supervisor safai has a hearing similar on the topic, and then also due to oh, i did not add the use hearing, which is the 27th, which is a hearing on the deemed approved use, which is something that has been developed out of the tobacco economic Mitigation Working Group supervisor fewer has taken the lead on that with supervisor waltons office, and so dominica has been working with the two offices on prepping for the deemed use. And then supervisor mar has so thats that one, excuse me, and so supervisor mar has called for request for a hearing to apply the same kind of concept of deemed approved use to follow up on the report. Its a followup on the b. L. A. Report around tobacco permits. Whats bb. L. A. . Its the budget and legislative analyst office, and its a followup on a report that was issued in 2017 on alcohol. And its how much it cost the city to address incidents of alcoholrelated incidents. Oh, i i know what this is about. There are recommendations that they are following up on to see whether and how those recommendations have been implemented. This is scheduled for the 27th . We dont know when its scheduled. So the one thats on here, the hearing on restricted restrictions and challenges facing Small Business, this is the one, this hearing is developed out of the economic Mitigation Working Group. And then supervisor mar is also called for request of a hearing that as she said, is coming from the b. L. A. Report. But it sort of has an overlay with the deemed approved use. When it says scheduled for 2 27en, what is that referring to . That is the deemed approved use. It is scheduled for a hearing february 27. At the board . Well, the committee of the board. The Public Safety Neighborhood Services committee. So is this something that we want to weigh in before the 27th . I know this is important to commissioner zouzounis, and she has to leave. Thats why im asking. I can check with her. Its something that o. S. B. Has been asked to present on. I mean we could, you know, the presentation that would be given at the committee, we can provide a presentation to you at the 24th meeting. Well, lets put a pin in that. I want to check with Vice President zouzounis and see where shes at on this. And this falls part of one of the objectives out of the tobacco economic Mitigation Group is to sort of, so make some recommendations around streamlining or removal of permit fees or reduction of permit fees. So this particular, the deemed approved is falling in that category of potentially making a recommendation of dealing with this fee. And so i think it might be good for the commission to kind of, if you are not familiar with this fee, which is just applied to businesses with off sale liquor licenses types one and two, i mean 20 and 21, excuse me. At least it might be good to get an education on it, that information. Great. Is that it for directors report . Thats it. Between now and the next meeting, ill be working with president laguana about looking at dates and times for retreat. And so sounds fun. I think it will be. Resort town. So not that kind of retreat . Okay. I was thinking kawaii. So just probably next week, ill be reaching out to you after we have our weekly check in on friday. So, to schedule time. All right . Looking forward to that. Any further commissioner comment on the directors report . Is there any Public Comment on the commissioners report . Seeing none, comments closed. Next item. Item 7, commissioners reports, allows president , Vice President and commissioners to report on recent Small Business activities and make announcements that are of interest to the Small Business community. Discussion item. Do we have any commissioner reports . Commissioner yekutiel. I have four quick ones. One that with the San Francisco treasurer department, to talk about a unified portal for businesses to pay all their fees that they owe to the city. It was a really awesome meeting, and the person i met with is going to take my idea up the chain and see if its doable. Also right now there are three numbers you need to use to even log in to the treasurers portal and considering how one might make that easier as well as facilitating outreach to Small Businesses when they have a bill thats coming up. Right now all the outreach is on paper, but if it was moved to email, it might save the city money and help businesses that dont always read all their snail mail. Another thing is a lot of people probably heard the chair of m. T. A. Said he wanted valencia to be carfree very quickly. Im on the valencia Merchants Association and facilitated a meeting between the Bicycle Coalition and the merchants and they are going to be speaking to the merchants at the next Merchants Association meeting so im excited about that as well as s fm ta. Im on the construction Mitigation Working Group. I wanted to take a second to make it clear publicly to all those who own Small Businesses on 16th street that the 16th street Improvement Project is coming very quickly, the city is currently choosing its general contractor, and its going to be a big project, and anyone thats interested, any Small Business owner in particular, thats interested in being part of the working group thats going to advise oawd and sfmta to let them know or let me know because im part of that group. The last thing is on the 11th im hosting an event with osb and oewd on how to smart a Small Business. Its martha from the Small Business Assistance Center and katie from oewd for anyone interested in starting a Small Business. The unified portal, thats amazing progress. If theres anything the commission can do to help or if theres an opportunity for us to get involved, please let us know. I think that would be a huge asset to the Small Business community to just consolidate, streamline and get the communication paperless if we can. Yeah, i mean so one is making it easier for people to pay their bills, and one is how that communication goes out, and you know, im going to take the Treasurers Office at their word that they are going to look into it and see what is doable, and when they come back to me and let me know why its not feasible, ill let you know why its not. Or if they say they can do it, then we can all celebrate together. Okay. Awesome. I went to the gross receipts tax presentation by the city controller and tax office. City controller and then the city chief economist. Right, ted. Yes. Super interesting. They are making so what they are trying to do is consolidate a lot of input from the Business Community about making changes and updates to the gross receipts tax, so the gross receipts tax replaced what we used to have, was intended to replace what we used to have which is called the payroll tax. The hope was the gross receipts tax would replace the payroll tax completely there are still some folks paying payroll taxes. Theres been a number of different issues. The gross receipts tax as it is currently implemented has creatm only in a room that was probably too small for this hearing and i was too late to get a seat so i was standing the whole time. But pretty much everybody in the Business Community that i could think of were all there very engaged. [please stand by] there was other commentary about different aspects of how that impacts smal small busines. It is really on us to pay close attention to what is happening here, and i think we have a responsibility to be deeply engaged especially given how quickly it is going to be moving. That is my report on that. Any other commissioner comments . Seeing none, any Public Comment . Public comment is closed. New business. New agenda items for future consideration by the mission. Do we have any new items . I have just a couple of different things. One, i wanted to highlight an email that i received from the california schools and local Community Funding act . Did you guys see that . It is like. Let me see. Sorry, i didnt really come it is something they are trying to get some support around this terms of increasing lets see. I think it is some revision around prop 13, and so and around commercial and industri industrial. While the commission cant weigh in on it, you know, well, it is more because it is a ballot measure, but it hasnt qualified yet, but there are numerous attempts right now. There has been numerous attempts to make amendments to prop 13 so the commission can receive an informational briefing, but somewhat interesting is that this is also potentially taking a look at eliminating the unsecured property tax for Small Businesses. You know, there could be a cost benefit, you know, or could be some sort of unknown issues in terms of the commercial and Industrial Properties and what that may mean. Presumably this would be a November Ballot measure. If it qualifies. I didnt do a very good job but i want to put it out there on the radar. I didnt know about it. I appreciate you bringing it up. I dont know what. I guess the question would be as commissioners do you want an early briefing or wait until it qualifies . I would say lets wait until it qualifies before we commit any resources to it, and then by that point we will have had our retreat and our planning meetings, and then we as body will develop consensus about what our priorities will be for the next year. Then we will see where that fits in our priority list. The other piece i wanted to bring up was i think in the Richmond District where my business is there is a place or sons belly that has been struggling to get the permits they need to be able to, you know, i guess serve and to be open. Extend their hours, right, yeah. You know, i wanted to bring that up in the meeting today and see, you know, i dont know how we can go about supporting businesses like this, what our general thoughts are about it, and also. They are undergoing discretionary review. That is something allowed to happen, but i dont want to put words in your mouth, and i dont want to create undue work when we have a lot on our plate. I think it might be an good time to look how the discretionary review is being used, whether it is used in the way it was intended to be used and what opportunities we might have as a commission to recommend its revision because orso ns belly is held up being discretionary review process, and some might say in an unfair way. A concern was that some of the complaints were about times when the restaurant wasnt even open, and it is maddening with as difficult as it is to operate a Small Business in San Francisco that complaints that are sort of patently fraudulent on their face can tie up a business. I think we absolutely should be taking a look at what assistance we can provide. Perhaps, you know, it seems to me from listening to you guys that structurally i think we need a 60,000foot view look at the entire framework that surrounds the Small Business life cycle as it intersects with the city and maybe that is a big huge project, but it seems to me that, you know, something is fundamentally broken there and needs to be addressed. I would like to know. In our neighborhoods what we are talking to people about our businesses. Everyone is that is so great, im so glad you are here. We love Small Businesses. There is a lot of, you know, i dont know, i have been getting that i am so glad you are here, but then i also get the flip side with the Merchants Association getting messages about these merchants arent doing this. They are too loud and there is trash everywhere. You get this like, i dont know, to your face Everybody Loves having you there. On the back end you get a lot of push back about you doing business because with the trash situation we literally, i think our merchants do a good job of keeping things contained. We are a windy city. We have people who enjoy knocking offer a trash can or 10, you know, there are factors here that to me i would like to kind of see some, i would like to see numbers and data in terms of how much a healthy vital or vibrant Small Business corridor can really impact the community, and i want to be able to say to people, look, we do these things for the community. We have been doing, you know, x, y, z, we are creating a huge benefit for our communities. Not just in the and eckdottal anecdote. I dont know if that makes sense. I would like to kind of as this time goes on to really dive deeper into the positive impacts we are providing for the city because i feel like we have so many barriers and things to kind of overcome even today. This may be off subject, but even, you know, earlier today talking about having to just go through the checklist. I mean when you are already full as it is every single day to go through another checklist, i think, is a whole other barrier. If people understood, maybe it is the Financial Impact of things, you know, what we bring into a community. I think that might help a little bit. I think what is particularly frustrating is when a business like orson belly is broadly supported by the community. 99. 99 and it is just one person or one or two people that can really have a bad effect on the business and by extension the community that does support them. There needs a rebalancing there, certainly there should be an opportunity for community input. It shouldnt be a hecklers veto where one person unhappy dictates for the rest of the community. Have we done a meeting to bring in folks from planning to talk about the dr process . How many businesses are getting it, how is it delaying, what neighborhoods are possessing the most drs, what businesses are receiving them . No, the commission hasnt had that. It is a live wire . It is a live wire. I think i have i think maybe around 2010 the planning defendant was going Planning Department was taking a look to see if there were reforms and it didnt go anywhere or minor reforms were made so that certainly, you know, like a new business request is to receive a presentation on what is a dr process and get data and numbers on it. You know, if that is of interest to the commission. Certainly there is the d4 and d11. This is fairly incremental and not really addressing the meat of the issue, but it helps in d4 and d11 they dont have to do neighborhood notifications if the use is permitted. That removes the opportunity for the heckler to, you know, gum up the works or doesnt create and invite an invitation for them to do so. I would definitely support trying to get us as commissioners representing the Small Businesses an opportunity to be better informed about the discretionary review process and how it me be utilized to slow or stop Small Businesses from making it work. Orsons belly, i used to go there all of the time. My x lived over there. I would talk to the owners. They had a foot traffic problem. They put their heart and soul in the part. The numbers wore not working. They finally are cutting a break and cant expand hours to take advantage of the opportunity to stay in business. It is a perfect example how we should help Small Businesses flourish. There might be processes making it unnecessarily hard. I would support bringing them in to talk about drs if that is something you want, inthree comr hughie. I dont know what that involves but i would like to take a look at that process. By extension with the commission informed this is a good any to kind of work with the council of district merchants so businesses because i think sometimes businesses feel like they are out on their own and, you know, are connecting with our office or owd to see if there is support to lend to understand how to get through the process, you know, filling out forms, what to respond, what to address, knowing how the Planning Department and the Planning Commission think so and what the rules and regulations are, but it might be good to also i am very much a proponent on educating the council of district merchants to be there as sort of the first line of buffer to help these businesses. I think that is really good. I recently just went to my Merchants Association meeting to introduce myself as a commissioner, and that was actually really interesting because it brought to light that i would have actually not really known what a commissioner did or what we do as a body had i not joined the commission. I think to be able to kind of be in a community and say this is what we do, it opened a lot of eyes, and i think it gave people a sense of there is somebody who is like representing our interests, and as legislation is written and brought up. I think just doing that like even talking to the council and other bodies about what we do i think is really important. Right. Absolutely. Anything else . I think that is pretty much all i wanted. I wanted to go back to the point of data finding and fact finding. You know, i guess that was something of personal curiosity. How much do we know in terms of when about the Small Businesses and i guess sorry i should have prepared for what i was going to say. Not a play, there is not lines. Just say what you are thinking. I just wanted to know more about Small Businesses and how many, you know, Small Businesses are slated for, you know, i am going to hold back on my comment actually and try to work without it. Can i ask a data question . When looking at the data, we can look at sales tax data, revenue data, but also do we i mean is there any other type of data of interest in terms of new development, new housing, new, you know, things that sort of are future focus and not immediately happening now . Something that always comes up certainly in my business. I dont know if it is a problem for your business, when you talk about housing, i have lost employees left and right because i cant afford to live here. That is certainly something that impacts and i mean what data do we have around that . Anything . I dont know, i am thinking because, you know, we worked with supervisor tangs office on homesf designed to bring out into the avenue more development which then would bring nor individuals which then could help generate more business. I guess i am sort of thinking are there other metrics, not only like things that help bring vibrancy, because it can be ground for commercial with that or other types of spaces being developed with that that aids in the vibrancy of the commercial corridors. That is one of the things were were talking about during the ghost kitchens. That is a parallel concern. If somebody opens a ghost kitchen and the public cant access it, what does that mean for the foot traffic of the surroundenning businesses . Surrounding businesses . I think given the impact and strength of commercial corridors as it reflects on the Small Business community as a whole, so many businesses are deepen debt on the commercial corridors, i think, you know, we should it would be great to have a more detailed datadriven approach to what actually increases that vibrancy in those corridors, and i think housing is part of that, you know, planning regulations around what goes into and around the corridors, i think, is part of that. I wonder if that is periodically you generate reports. Is that something stuff out there that oawd has . I imagine since the building housing is definitely a priority for the city that there is some sort there may be some existing analysis in relationship to this, i mean, because a lot of discussion around homesf was taking single story commercial spaces and building them up so i will explore that in terms of what exists. I think you should. We should gather what information is out there and then you can present it to us and add to our collective information about what actually motivates, invi invigorates our corridors. One piece of new business. A couple Small Businesses to adjourn the meeting in honor of. Do i do it now. Then on new business do we have new comments . Do we have any comments from members of the public . Comments are closed. Next item. Sfgovtv please show the office of Small Business slide. Am i supposed to read something here . Where is the part i read . Goodbye. This is our custom to begin and end each Small Business Commission Meeting with a reminder the office of Small Business is the only place to start your new business in San Francisco and the best place to get answers to your questions about doing business in San Francisco. It should be your first stop with a question about what to do next, you can find us online or in person here at city hall. Best of all, all of our services are free of charge. We are the official public forum to voice opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitally of malbusiness in San Francisco. Item 9 adjournment. Action item. I would like to adjourn in honor of five businesses that have closed or announced closing since did last. In the 400 block of castro and the burger joint. Second. All in favor to adjourn the meeting in memorial of the businesses on the list. Aye. Meeting is adjourned at 8 15 p. M. The meeting will come to order, welcome to the february 13th meeting of the neighborhood and services committee. Our clerk is john carroll and i want to thank matt ignao and corwin cooley. Please ensure youve silenced your phones. Any documents to be included as part of the file should be included to the clerk. It