Extremely hard. Just a little bit of recap over the last few weeks, the city and the mayor have deferred some of the Business Registration fees. And they deferred them until september. That adds up to about 49 million in cash flow to the city of San Francisco. Several fees that apply to storefront businesses have also been deferred until september, helping to preserve another 14 million in cash flow. I want to be very clear that the mayor is clear about this, we are going to be looking at a significant deficit in the city of San Francisco, the bay area, the state of california, and so were talking about a Million Dollars out from the city that we wont have in revenue. We will have to all pitch in. Well all have to figure out how we save and go back to San Francisco in an even better way. If we want to Start Talking about recovery tomorrow, weve got to start planning it today. Im happy and delighted to tell you that the Recovery Task force kicked off last friday. It is about an 80person Task Force Led by myself, carmen chu, Jose Gonzales and rudy representing labor. 80 seems like a lot of people, but when you look at all of the different sectors and industries and nonprofits, it is a good representation of a lot of people who have shared interests. Again, were going to have to all Work Together. It is not just one industry here in San Francisco that is better than another. I want to also mention that were going to have to rely on our Public Health department to lay out new guidelines. We are essentially reinventing ourselves in a great way, bringing in technology that might be able to help us in a better way and create a better San Francisco. I want to touch on three points, though, if i can, pretty briefly. This is one where probably from a commerce perspective it doesnt emerlogicalseem logical. The Public School system and private School System implementing guidelines to get kids and teachers safely back into the school affects the whole area. Not until moms and dads feel safe, do we get a full workforce. It is important because a busy downtown San Francisco supports so many businesses as you know. All of the sandwiches get bought and kids get picked up at lunch, and it is important that somewhere e that wehave a busy. The second main point i want to make is Small Businesses will need to pivot. Well have to reinvent ourselves, get creative, and were going to have to be entrepreneurial problemsolvers that we naturally are. There is no greater test than this one to figure out how it will be different. Restaurants may have to change their seating arrangements, going town to not a full house. Here in San Francisco and los angeles, it is very difficult to make money without a fullseated restaurant. And were going to have to figure that out. That means takeout and maybe retail inside of a restaurant. Maybe other clothing produced by someone related to the restaurant, creating a lifestyle. All of the pivots are going to require us, the city, government, and private sector to be flexible with our permitting process. To look at permit streamlining, to allow change of use permits to occur. Maybe temporarily, just as we get back up, and then we can tighten them back up, but we need to be in this all together and be flexible. The third thing i want to mention is Public Health. The mayor has disown such done agreat job in listenig to Public Health. And well rely on them to tell us what is best practices. I hope the departments listen to Small Business, and Small Business actually steps up and says, you know what . No one knows how to run this nightclub better than we do, and here are some suggestions we think we can voluntarily put down, something we can live with financially, operationally. We look at the changes and the way theyre going to occur, theyre very much operational. There is one piece that has been floated around, and that is an idea of a certifcate of healthy places, voluntary standization, much like standization standardization, much as a food place has to have a safe handling permit. I, again, wanted to stress that creativity and ingenuity will get us largely out of this. And what will set one business apart from another is how safe and clean it is. If we can do that independently and collectively, San Francisco can be a better city. So ill stop there. Mayor all righ all right. Thank you, rodney. Commissioner huey, if you want to get some remarks, and then we can go right into the question and answer. Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, for logging in today. My name is cynthia huey, and im a Small Business owner in the city. And most recently, as a commissioner on the Small Business commission. I just really want to express how grateful i am to be a san franciscan right now. I was just outside on saturday, singing with my neighbors, and it was an amazing feeling. So im incredibly appreciative of show everyone in our communities have come together to fight for and support the health of all san franciscans. You know, just a quick story i wanted to share. I was recently in a west portal merg merchants meeting, with mayor breed as well you probably had no idea i was there. I was watching you during a meeting, and i could see you in your little zoom box, typing away. And i was just floored that this is our mayor. This is our mayor. You were in the chat to try to answer everybodys questions and connecting people. And i was so proud of the fact that i live in a city where our mayor just digs in and is doing the work. And so i just wanted to say from the very bottom of my heart, thank you so much for trying to help us all through this. It is an incredibly challenging situation, time. I cant even imagine, but i know were going to all get through this. And i believe in your leadership, and i really thank you. Mayor thank you, commissioner. So, i think, also, all of us have all of the programs and things memorized right now, all of the wonderful grants we can apply for and all of the loans and all of the Different Things that i think have been mentioned already, but i also wanted to highlight the work of the office of Small Businesses. Theyve been fielding hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and emails every week, trying to get Business Owners connected with resources, and really doing a lot of oneonone counselling. So i wanted to thank them. And thanking everybody on the panel. Rodney, your expertise today, and also leading us into the recovery. And joaquin, i dont know how you do this. Youre in every single meeting, and somehow youre in 20 places at once, but thank you very much. So at this point, lets i just want to move into the questions, if thats okay with everyone here . Yes. Great. Just to give everyone some context about the questions, the vast majority of people who are c. P. For todays talk are also c. P. d with a question. And these are questions that have been asked over and over again. Starting with joaquin, what is the status of the citys grants and funding programs for Small Businesses impacted by covid . Yes, thank you very much for the question. As the mayor said, for up to date realtime information, please go to oewd. Org, and click on covid covid19, and it will list all of the Resources Available, and what is implemen complementary from the state and local levels, ready to reach out with you online, connect with you on the phone to guide you through the process and help you navigate this very difficult time. In addition to that, also private Resources Available, newlyannounced grants that are accessible to you. Please do frequently visit that site. Its where we try to put everything we have available. We started out with a Million Dollars before we had the shelter in place, to support Small Businesses with grants, up to 10,000. Since that time we have doubled that grant pool so we could serve over 200 businesses through that effort, with grants up to 10,000. We also heard that some of the resources were not reaching some of the soul proprietors. And well be publicizing that on our website. We have a little over 127 grants from that first allocation. And secondly, the mayor introduced the gift to s. F. Fund here in San Francisco, so we could coordinate, and, mayor, thank you so much for the leadership there. So we will have private Resources Available to support us with a loan program, a zero percent interest program. We have a partner surntlcurrently that accepted applications. We received over 4,000 businesses who submitted that application. We want to reinforce that the resources we have able right now, from a citys perspective, are greatly exceeded by the demand. Which is why it is so important that today, if folks have not been aware im sure everybody is in the Small Business community thae federal sba program those applications opened up this morning at 7 30 a. M again, go to our website for more information there. Where you can learn about additional partners, Financial Institutions, who can also help you in getting those applications filled out. Why is that important . Because many banks are only working with their clients, and prioritizing them on a first come, first serve basis. There are billions of dollars being held for other smaller lenders, other Smaller Banks and cdcdfis, and making sure thethat the public knows they are there. Please do take the initiative right now, reach out to our hotline, as you mentioned, cynthia, and get realtime information from us, with any questions you may have, you will get a response and talk to a person when you reach out to us. So i think ill leave it with that. As a final piece, the mayor also introduced a Neighborhood Mini Grant Program on friday afternoon. It is also meant as another fill the gap in some of the most underserved neighborhoods. Given the fact we do have a financial crisis, we wanted to make sure were finding those resources as we have them available, and delivering them where they are needed, again, focusing on those who may not be able to access other resources in other ways. And also ensuring that women entrepreneurs, from a citywide perspective, had access to those grants as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. So many of the fees and fines that Small Businesses have been experiencing have been deferred now, i think, until september, is what you mentioned . Are there longterm plans for Small Businesses to be able to navigate those fees beyond that . Since many of us were already struggling to pay those before this. Mayor definitely. Thank you, cynthia, for the question. That is one of the areas that im laserfocused on. Because the fact is some of the businesses that are being required to close under our ordinance are not generating any revenue. And the fact that we would expect businesses to pay these fees during times that theyre not even open and able to generate revenue is not right. So we are working to figure out how we can deal with the fees overall, and what it would mean to reduce, or to eliminate, certain fees for a time period, or what have you. We are definitely looking into that because as what was said by rodney, what weve seen, were talking about somewhere around 49 million. The city is facing a significant budget deficit, but we also cant balance our budget on the backs of businesses that wont be able to reopen if we continue to burden them with even more city fees. So that is something that were definitely focused on. It is something that i care about. I care about dealing with that, to try to remove that barrier. But i also want to be clear i think, first of all, we have so many businesses that are going to be struggling even after we begin to reopen. There are businesses that are having challenges now. Theyre going to have challenges after this. But then there might be businesses that are okay. And we want to make sure that those businesses that are okay, that they continue to pay what they owe, if they can afford to do so. Because there are going to be a lot of businesses that cant. We want to be fair because this impacts all of us. When the city is not able to generate sufficient revenue, it makes it more difficult for us to provide more resources to those businesses that are struggling the most. In fact, we mentioned gifts to s. F. , where im actually raising private dollars to support Small Businesses. There are only three categories in our give to s. F. Program, and one is food insecurity, one is for housing and to help with people that might be facing eviction, and the most important category here is Small Businesses, and making sure that we have more resources. We need to maximize the amount of resources were able to provide in order to help carry businesses that need it the most through this pandemic. So it is definitely something that im committed to addressing. And this is where im going to count on the Business Community as i try to propose legislative changes through the process. Were going to need people to be supportive of that. Because it is really going to be its going to hit our budget hard, but i think the benefits of supporting our Small Businesses outweigh the need for us to collect these fees from our already suffering businesses. Thank you very much. This question, i think rodney would be the person to direct this to. Along with the fines and fees, i think one of the things top of mind for Small Businesses is also commercial rent. So what programs are there, or what types of resources do you have to help some of our Small Business owners with, to negotiate rent changes, rent relief, with their commercial landlords . Thats a good question and it is a tough one because at the moment, there is not necessarily any relief for landlords. In San Francisco, a very old city, many of our landlords are Small Businesses, too. They have mortgages, insurance, and their own obligations. So i think the battle is they want to not have vacancies. I dont know any land owner who wants to have a vacancy. If youre a tenant with a Small Business, you should begin a dialogue with your landlord, if possible, to see if there is any kind of deferment. I stress to you they are also under the same pressures, with mortgages and such. But there are private arrangements, and those kinds of conversations would be very helpful. Okay. Thank you. Mayor breed, many Small Business owners have not even heard back from the sba jet o yet on their loans. Do have you an update on the federal Assistance Program . I know this morning there was new funding added to that, but do you know anything beyond, or how the city can help advocate some of the Small Business owners who havent even had a chance to mayor yeah. And joaquin can provide some insight into that. His office is working on trying to get access to that. Absolutely. That is one of the biggest questions for us, in terms of where is accessibility happening. Almost immediately we were on the phone with Financial Institutions when we were getting questions across the city about what does this Program Look Like . Everything was rolling out so quickly, everyone was scrambling to understand even their own lenders, who they had a relationship with, would provide them guidance or even a response. What were monitoring very closely now, both treasury sisnaros and the recorder, cameron chu, reached out to the Financial Institutions to ask, how are you communicating with your clients . What is the process by which you will be processing applications . What is important to know right now, is based on those conversations, the mayor asked us to make sure we were submitting those concerns from the general politics to the speakers office, part of our federal advocacy. Thats why we saw this funding that was reserved specifically for smaller lenders, so folks had many outlets to access though federal relief funds at the same time. So as we see that program roll out today, well be monitoring it in realtime to find out what the responses are like. The Silver Lining for us that were seeing right now, but well still be watching closely, is the fact that there are those dollars that are held for smaller institutions, and we can see what relief is provided to the Small Business owners that take that path, as they begin to work with their financial clients, the large banks and the sba around their own applications. I do encourage every Small Business owner that has an application to reach out to their lender with some followup questions, in terms what have will their process be . Well also be feeding that back on our website at well. Well have that additional information, too. But were looking forward to monitoring this and seeing how this new version of p. P. P. Is going to be administered, and what well need to provide. And just a followup question about the p. P. P. How will Small Businesses reach the levels so that were eligible to receive those loans from the federal government . Mayor and i will say that one of the reasons why i created the economic Recovery Task force is so that when were able to provide a window of opportunity for a particular industry to open, we want to make sure that before that happens they know what the requirements are going to be. And so that they can get ready. So on day one, they know what to expect. We have been talking to the speaker about that particular requirement because when you think about it, with restaurants, if were going to be looking at reopening restaurants and changing their capacity, then there is no way that theyre going to not only be able to afford to bring back all of their employees, but the likelihood that they will even be able to afford their rent and other expenses is going to be really, really challenging. And so i think that part of our goal with the economic Recovery Task force is to look at ways, working with the department of Public Health, to provide guidance for these industries, to help people to get ready, so on day one they know what theyre going to be able to do. But the speaker has been absolutely incredible, and is aware that this could potentially be a challenge in light of the need to impose new restrictions on businesses that may make it difficult for them to be able to bring back their employees. The other thing that the economic Recovery Task force will do is also look at ways to ensure that our workforce adapts to what our new normal is. We have folks from the academic world who many of our institutions were asking them to look at their classes and what they have available, in order to retrain people for maybe a new opportunity that they may not have thought was possible. Because theyre not able to return to their job. And so were looking at other industries. Were looking at how many contact tracers were going to need, because until a vaccine is found, there is a need to identify when someone has a virus, who have they been in contact with . Not just in their immediate family at home, but others in other parts of the community, along with more testing. This is going to be necessary for us to open and to remain open so that we dont see a significant surge in the number of cases. So its going to take a major effort to start thinking differently about things wont necessarily go back to the same. But i think that there is an adjustment that we can make, if were prepared to make it, and our economic Recovery Task force is going to play an Important Role in helping us do that. And im going to continue to advocate not just the speaker, but our senators as well, we have a great relationship with Kamala Harris and other. We have con tact contact with te mayors about what adjustments need to be made because well all be in the same boat. Im going to kind of backtrack a little bit into a question that was asked many times. Many Small Business owners are reporting seeing an increase intents and street, unsheltered homelessness in commercial corridors and other in other words. In otheother neighborhoods. Whao help the homeless, who are at a greater risk of contracting coronavirus . Mayor if you own a business, you know the challenges of homelessness dont go away because there is a pandemic. In fact, theyve been worse for us. Although weve been able to get close to a thousand people into hotel rooms, the ability to address homeless in the age of social distancing has been so difficult. And so what youre seeing is we are ramping up our hotels, but we also have to have staff and meals and cleaning and services and management of these hotels to ensure that staff and the folks who work there are safe, but also the people who are located in those hotel rooms are safe as well. It is a massive undertaking, requiring a significant increase in our capacity. And it is really taxing on our workforce. And when i say our workforce, is no it is not just people in the city and nonprofits, all of the employees that are disaster workers weve had to retrain librarians and rec and park staff and other people who have not hired to do these jobs, to work with this population in these capacities. We are not going to be able to place our entire Homeless Population into hotel rooms. But what were trying to do is get creative around how were able to provide them help and to find safe locations where we can divert the tents off of the sidewalks, off of the streets into larger areas and larger parking lots. Specifically were looking at Everett Middle School as an option, and were working with supervisor mandelman on that. And were looking at other locations in the bay view. We have trailers that we received from the state and that we also purchased, that we plan to place at pier 92, to move people out of tents and into the shelters, people who are residents of the bay view. Were trying to get creative to try to get as many people off the streets as we possibly can. It is challenging and will continue to be challenging. But were going to continue to do the very best that we can. And i cannot, you know, commit to seeing this major change around the removal of tents if we dont have places for people to go. We have to make sure that we have restrooms, wash stations, and other things when we take responsibility for any of the folks that are housed intents at this time. Were going to continue to get creative and provide informal locations and work with the department of Public Health and the department of homelessness to do just that. And i will say, as much as weve been able to do, not only providing meals to our shelters, meals to these hotels, and meals to people who are in tents, and cleaning services and other support, it continues to be a challenge to ramp up to the number of staffing that we need in order to meet what we see a significant population of Homeless People in our city. Just to kind of Start Talking a little bit more to talk a little bit more about recovery and reopening, what do you think will the new standards look for operating a business in this city . We have different types of needs for different highcontact industries, such as restaurants, hair and nail salons, like you had mentioned, dental offices, things like that. What are your thoughts on that . Mayor so im glad you asked that question, because, again, part of our goal with our economic Recovery Task force with a lot of the different industries, we want to Work Together to provide those guidelines. So, for example, most of what we see happening with the department of Public Health and the decisions that are being made are centered around what we need to do to protect Public Health. So it focuses on trying to keep people apart from one another in order to avoid getting the virus. And what were experiencing with our economy, and what were seeing with the numbers, they have real concerns about opening up too fast because we still see the number of hospitalizations have gone up. We still see, every day, an increase number in the number of people who are positive for covid19, and weve had 23 deaths, over 1400 cases, and about 85 people who are hospitalized. So they are not comfortable we are out of the woods because those numbers continue to rise you say flattening the curve, but it is pretty flat, relative to most other major cities, but it has not dropped. And what weve done today, for example, in extending the stayathome order for an additional month, during that time or goal is to not sit around and wait until direction is given from the department of Public Health. We are going to provide the guidance for how we can get back to opening up some of our businesses. So, for example, just think about it, the restaurants have delivery and pickup services. We have nonessential businesses that possibly, with the right kinds of guidelines, could potentially be open for the same pickup and Delivery Services as well. The place where i buy my candles, you know, where they have, you know, all these knickknacks and things that i like to buy. Why not make sure that those Small Businesses that serve our communities have the pickup and dropoff service. And what we have to do, and what im hoping or economic Recovery Task force will do with these various industries, are what are some new guidelines for various industries . Because im not going to wait around for the department of Public Health to say, okay, yes, it is okay to open our hair salons and our barber shops. What i want to do is get ready for that and provide for them the suggested guidelines, get them to agree and to allow some of these places to start to reopen. Because thats where we are now. We have to start working on this now. So, for example, if we set up guidelines today, that three weeks from now, or four weeks from now, this is what a beauty salon needs to be doing in order to get open, then they can get prepared for that. And they can start booking appointments and working with their costumers. If they can only have one person in the shop at a time what does that mean . Im not suggesting that that is going to happen, because part of it is contingent upon what happens with our numbers. What happens with the number of people who are infected. And so we are open to suggestions from our Business Community. If you have a unique business and you dont necessarily interact with the public, but you have items that you sell and your not online, but there is a way you could provide pickup and delivery, what does that look like . I think we have to start having those discussions now, so that we can get people ready. If theyre going to need to wear gloves and masks when theyre doing certain services, we need to get people ready so they have the supplies that they need. That is a continued conversation im hoping we will focus this additional month of may on those kinds of solutions because when we reopen, it will not be business as usual. Things are going to be a lot different, especially in light of not having a vaccine. There are going to be some challenges with largescale events. There are going to be challenges with nightclubs, with hair and nail salons, but it doesnt mean that we should not look at ways we can reopen and make sure that were practicing certain techniques or requirements that will help limit the number of people that would be infected. This is our last question, maybe for rodney. How can Small Businesses and Small Business owners be leaders in the Recovery Efforts . Yeah. I think the mayor spoke well about creativity and ingenuity. We want everyone to figure out what they want to do next and how their business is going to shift. I will share that there is one website, where there is a Public Survey put out by the Recovery Task force. 1San Francisco. Org francisco. Org covid19 recovery. We want to have more students foopportunities for pee to give structure. Hopefully well have a playbook. There will not be an exact plan, but a whole list of plays that we can put into play, that she can pull from that will have a matrix of. As this changes, it is very different in fact, maybe an earthquake recovery would be somewhat easier than this recovery because it may have some start and stops. Well try to have as much information with regard to making opportunities from the public. Thank you. I wanted to thank everybody for being on this panel today and sharing advice, encouragement, all of these things, for all of us because we need it right now. Mayor breed, would you like to close this off today . Mayor yeah. First of all, thank you, commissioner huey, for your work with this. You mentioned in the beginning that you had a number of people who registered and provided questions. So i want to ask you to make sure that joaquin gets that list with the questions, and he and his team will respond to those questions to try to do what we can to make sure that we are answering them. You can also email joaquin or email me at mayorlondonbreed mayorlondonbreed sfgof. O rg. It is better if you reach out to me by email, not on social media because im not allowed to get on official media because my staff, they are trying to they wont let me do stuff. [laughter] if you respond to me, well get back to you as quickly as we can with your questions. Joaquin and his team have been great with providing resources for Small Businesses. Im on the phone regularly, not only trying to raise private dollars to support our Small Businesses, but also trying to redirect funds and figuring out creative ways to support our Small Business community. I also just want to repeat one of the things ive said. As we start to propose policies that can help our Small Business community, were going to really need the Small Business community to rally around those policies because we know that its a matter of whether or not you will be able to even reopen as we start to open our doors here in the city again. So it is important that we hear from you, that you, of course, are paying attention to what is happening around the policy discussions, that youre contacting your board of supervisors and making clear to them what is important to you. Again, i know it is a real struggle. It is a real struggle. And what we want to do is make sure that we are helping to meet the needs of people who need help now. And we want to get to people, and we want to be as supportive as we possibly canment and we can. And we know that we are all going through it, whether it is our business or in our personal lives, as all of us are required to stay at home. I just really want to express my appreciation to so many people in this city who have just followed the orders and have put us in a situation where our numbers, in comparison to other major cities, are absolutely remarkable. Were not out of the woods yet. We cant let up just yet, but what we can do is start to look at creative ways to get back on our feet again, to get back to opening businesses or industries with certain guidelines that are approved by the Public Health department. Thats really where i want to get to. So send us your suggestions. Send us your comments. Send us your love. No complaints, please, because laughing you can send complaints, im just kidding. Send us emails with what you suggest that we do to help make things better for you because we really are in this together. And it is going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of patience to get through it. We appreciate you all being with us today. And hang in there. And, you know, make sure that you do everything you can to bring our businesses back to our city. And im going to do everything i can from the Mayors Office to support you in doing that. Thank you. Thank you, mayor breed. Good morning, everyone. The meeting with come to orthopedic. This is is the april 29, 2020, regular budget and finance committee. At this time, i will be calling the budget committee. Im chair of the budget and finance committee and joined by supervisor raphael mandelman. inaudible . Welcome, president yee. I would like to thank sf gov tv and if other supervisors have joined us, supervisors, if i have not mentioned your name, please introduce yourself. This is catherine stephanie