Transcripts For SFGTV Historic Preservation Commission 42016 20160429

Click on watch tvgov tv2. Members of the public please take this opportunity to silence your phones and other electronic devices. Public comment during the meeting is limited to 3 minutes per speaker unless otherwise established by the officer of the meeting. Completion of a speaker card, while ouptional, will help ensure proper spelling of speakers names in the minutes of the meet. Additionally there is a signin sheet for those who would like to be added to our mailing list. Stgovtv, can you please show the slide . And there it is. As is our new custom we begin and end each Small Business commission with a reminder that the office of Small Business is the only place to start your new business if San Francisco and the best place to get answers about doing business in San Francisco. The office of Small Business is the citys Central Point of information, assistance and referrals for entrepreneurs and Small Businesses in San Francisco. We provide free one on one assistance to help each client achieve their business goals and needs. Our Services Include a checklist of required registration, license and zoning requirements. We can connect you with Resource Partners who can connect you to access to legal, finance and Technical Support and other forms of assistance. The office of Small Business is here to support you through the many stages of your business. You can stop by our office here at city hall on the ground floor, room 110, monday through friday 8 00 to 5 00, call or better yet visit us online at business portal. Sfgov. Org. We provide services in english, chinese and spanish. So if you need assistance with Small Business, start here. All right, here we go. Okay, item no. 1, call to order and roll call. Commissioner steven adams, here. Commissioner kathleen dooley, here. Commissioner mark dwight, here, commissioner william cartagena, here. Commissioner toursarkissian, here. Commissioner irene riley, here. Commissioner zouzounis, here. Mr. President , you have a quorum. Great, item no. 2, general Public Comment. At this point we open it up for general Public Comment on anything that is not on our agenda today, if anybody has any comments on anything thats not on our ayen today please let us know. Scott. Scott, halpin insurance, i dont think this is directly on the agenda but you are going to be talking about Mission Street, the problems for the mer xhapbts extend well beyond Mission Street as you well know. Be it north street, be it geary, i think the time has come that i would like to see the commission advocate to get a Small Business neighborhood person on the mta and weve been talking about this and i think the time has come. Okay, thank you for that. Are there any other members of the public who would like to comment on anything not on our agenda today . Hello, welcome. Eileen bogan, resident of park district, i am requesting there be a informational hearing here at the commission by muni Forward Management on the proposed taravel rapid project. Ill stop there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other members of the public . Henry. Good afternoon, commissioners, henry canavitch, member of the merchant coalition. Eileen bogan theres been a lot of work done by mta including caravel, geary, columbus, polk, van ness, lombard, just all over the place. This has quite an impact on Small Business. One thing the mta seems to have neglected to do is an economic study on how its affecting Small Business. I think we need to bring them over here and listen to what they are planning to do because from what we can see from other folks here from mission will be telling you more about it, but it deficient flitly is affecting Small Business negatively. I think we should have somebody from Small Business on the mta commission, so i would urge you to please tell them that we need to have someone from Small Business to be on their committee. If were going to Small Business is affected by public transport. So once again will you please ask if we can have the Small Business speak for us Small Business. Thank you. Do we have any other members of the public who wish to speak on anything that is not on our agenda today . Hello. Good afternoon, commissioners, i actually just wanted to bring up one matter. I dont believe i brought it up to this board yet, i brought it up a couple of times to the mta board, but we have a real problem with lack of notice before any work is done, not only by the mta but dpw, planning is also they are also kind of wear of this. I just want to have it on the Public Record that i brought it up because its really negatively affecting the businesses. I have no way of knowing or preparing ahead of time when all of a sudden they come to work and, wow, theres no parking, they are taking down trees, you know, what happened here is what were getting. I walked up and down van ness pretty much the entire length on saturday and i talked to businesses on van ness and i noticed no notice whatsoever about all these major plans that are happening for van ness. So it just made me realize once again that this needs to be brought up before all the boards and all the commissions. We really need to be concerned about the lack of notice. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Do we have any other member s of the public that would like to comment on anything thats not on our agenda today . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. On to the next item 3, please. Item no. 3, approval of the april 11, 2016 regular meeting minutes. We have a motion . I motion to approve the minutes from april 11. Second . I second. All right. All in favor . Aye. Any opposed . Okay, were good. On to item no. 4. Item no. 4, presentation and update on the San Francisco Small Business portal. The presenter will be jason hemerling, senior manager at sf business portal. Hi, jean. Good afternoon, commissioners, president dwight. I will just be doing a quick introduce and jason hemerling who has been working tirelessly on the business portal project in the last two years with me will do the rest of the presentation. So its been a while since weve been here to give you an update. The business portal is alive and well and we are very close to launching the next phase of new functionality on the business portal. So today we will take you back a little bit and remind you where we came from, show you a little bit about some of the new functionality, unfortunately we dont have a live demo so were going to show you some screen shots of whats to come and also tell you a little more about the next steps, where we are going within the next fiscal year and our eventual plans. I do want to quickly introduce jason. Hes been with the city for the last two years and again we call ourselves a very small team, we often work as if we were a start up within government because we have to wear so many hats. So over the last two years, we did have a third member of our team but weve been short staffed over the last 11 months so its just been the two of us and jason has really gone above and beyond and out of his way to produce and deliver this amazing product for Small Businesses. So he often doesnt get enough credit and i get to go out there and do all these fun and glamourous presentations so i wanted to bring him today to introduce him to all of you so you know hes the other face behind the business portal. Without further ado, jason will take over from here. Welcome, jason, welcome to the glamour of presentations. Thank you, thank you, glad to be here. Sfgtv, could you please queue up the presentation . I am of course jason hemerling and im going to go going over the things jane mentioned. This is sort of what tasked us for the business portal. All of these lines represent the crisscross lines and processes that go on within the city for registering your business and getting your license. So its important to look back on that and look and remind us its not just the technology were adding to this, its also solving the processes in the meantime. Here is a prior version of that. This actually came out of the research we had done with tomorrow partners and this sort of showed the journey of a Business Owner when starting a business or continuing with additional licenses. This customers journey you can see in the beginning and the end is very easy, very pleasant, those are the fun times when you are building your idea, but in the middle you hit that loop, thats where the difficulty really lies. Showcasing here, this is our home page. We have that on the carousel for those of you who have not been on the business portal. Thats casa sanchez and their delicious chips behind them. We have created a number of steps, even though this is a very nonlinear process weve bun everything we can to show the incremental steps required for most businesses. This here applies to roughly all businesses in San Francisco and the number of steps if you dont have to complete you still want to take a look at and see if they apply to your business. We have also set up treasurer and Tax Collector recently so you can register your business aupb lane and here is one of the more visited pages on the San Francisco business portal currently, i am sure it will stay that way in the future when the next releases. This is the permit locator. There are roughly 428 forms affiliated with this permit locator. As you can see on the left side there are a number of filters that apply to different business types so you can click those off and they will return the permits you need for specific business parts. If you scroll down you can see its also broken down by agency, as well as whether its city, state or federal. There are multiple ways to locate that through our permit locator here. So moving on id like to show what were going to be launching here in the very near feature. Were in the testing phase right now. Once thats completed if there are no changes we will be launching with the next couple slides im showing. The biggest change is the user authenticated profiles. These will allow you to come to the business portal, create a permit, access those at any time as well as submit those permits online. So the online permit form submission has been very minimal within most cities in america thus far and this is a huge step toward that so Business Owners wont have to go in the actual business, they can begin this process online at home. Id like to add too we are using salesforce dot com as the back end of this. Its a local company so you are likely familiar with that. This here shows what the my folder feature is. Once you have logged in you can see it says welcome, of course thats janes account right there for her future Small Business. There is the my folder where you can store the permits and licenses, as well as my files where you can store Additional Information thats required to go with the permits and licenses when they are submitted such as copies of a drivers license, your Business Registration certificate, perhaps plans you have drawn up for your business and just below that is the my checklist function. In this profile there are already two permits that are saved and the icons on the right show whether or not you can view them or delete them or upload them, aka submit online. Moving on to the next stage you can see there is actually a permit for housing submitted online. Everything was done on that page. They were able to upline the file then submit and it will tell you once its submited so you dont have duplicate submissions and you know when it was due to an email sent directly to your email address. Here is a really nice feature we thought through and got some feedback from users and this is where you can create your own checklist for starting your own Small Business. There are two ways to do this, either add additional line items or go back to uer starter kits which apply and import all the items from that and they come across as shorter and more usable lines. So you can actually keep track of the status for each one of those tasks. Moving into our analytics, we have almost 18,000 pages viewed per month and 4,000 users. We still are primarily a web application. I know that a lot of them are moving to mobile, but given the sort of important nature and how timeintensive it is to actually complete these activities its primarily done online. And the number of tablets is even smaller than that. Id like to point out down at the bottom the number of 465 for the office of Small Business. Those are the number of cases that have been established. One of the reasons we went with salesforce as the back end is so we can use crn as a functionality. This is augments an inperson portal. You can submit it and it immediately hits the salesforce account. These are some of the present awards. We were nominated for a webbie last year, we were recently entered in the white house start up in a day competition, which came with a 50,000 prize, of course including the Harvard Community School Center award. So the next steps. We of course are going to continue with profit streamlining as thats going to be what will allow us to realize greater efficiencies, not just stacking technologies that are broken. Technology enhancements we have coming up will be web forms, where you can fill out a limited amount of information and that information will populate all your online forms, as well as docusign and optimizing and maintaining the portal after the next fiscal year. Some other projects we are working on or advising on include the Mayors Office of housing portal which has very similar technology, the oebw portal, the films portal and advising on other projects within the city that are related. Heres a list of our supporters and with that id like to answer any questions. That is great. Commissioner adams. What a great job, jane, yourself, this is, weve seen this from the beginning here and i know a few of us kathleen and irene and william were all here at the very beginning of this. This is something that came out of this commission and its doing very well. Jane, i couldnt be more proud of you for what youve done here and your team. This is great. Especially the new online permits through the city treasurers office, people love that. Thats why its popular. Its their deadline now. Great job on that. Great job. So i gather now you will be going through a process of bringing a lot of these forms online and so how do you get the various departments to do that . That was a little bit of a challenge or more of a concern. Because weve been working with them for the process mapping for the controllers ofrs its been easier than we anticipated it was going to be because we already established that relationship. We are very plaintiffs exhibitible in exactly how that permit form, if they have some strict requirement about the signature, if its digital or wet, it can do either of those things. There are still a number of forms that cannot but were well over half. How many forms total do you think you have to get online to complete the process. Two hundred for the city. And how many have you done . 1 fortd. Commissioners, any other questions . Well open this up for Public Comment. Do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item . Scott howe, i want to he applaud you for doing this. I was on the commission about 30 years ago and thats when we started work on this project. Its good to see things are developing, it took00 while. They had to invent the internet, scott. Anyone else from the public . Henry. Hi, folks, henry. I think its marvelous what you are doing. We do have access to do the forms online. One for housing, apendages and so forth, you can also fill out online. Some forms from planning you can fill out online. This makes it so much more easy, the problem is you cant save them. You can print them but once you try to save them, it disappears. Not all of them, but otherwise its fabulous, lets get all of them done like that including building per mitds. Thanks, henry. Any other members of the public like to comment on this item . One more coming up. I just had one question for you. One of the issues that a lot of Small Businesses are dealing with is zoning and use issues and were particularly concerned with a lot of pdrs and at least explain what the use is in the zoning. Just as a point of clarification, your comments need to be addressed to the commission. Oh, im sorry. Thats okay. Follow up with a question to jason. That was my only question was whether or not there was any consideration of zoning or use changes. Were losing a lot of spaces. Thank you very much. Any other member s of the public like to comment on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioners, any other comments or questions . Yeah, i had a question about timeline of due dates for different permits or submitals, if he just search for whats relevant to your business will come up when they are due or if theres kind of a standard timeline for each permit when each thing is due. That actually varies by department. We have a section on the home page of the business portal that shows important dates and announcements and if you were to go to the individual permit page you would be able to see the timeline for that. Weve listed that on each individual permit page. In terms of it, we dont currently have anything that lets everyone know exactly what permits have those dates and timelines. Thank you. Youre welcome. I guess while were at it, if there is a change of use, would that be your purview or thats really something the Planning Department is going to. We started off, of course, by getting the low hanging fruit and getting those permits online first and then moved on to the more difficult ones to map out the process and making sure it does in fact save time for the applicant. The planning forms you are talking about are the end, those are the most complex and those are the ones well likely be tackling as we get the last few online. Commissioner dooley. I kind of wanted to tag on to that too. I certainly see on a daily basis one of the biggest question marks for people wanting to start businesses is, is it allowed zoning wise or use wise. Certainly i would have that as a priority moving forward certainly that it can be referred immediately. Time after time we see folks who want to open something and its not allowed and wed like to direct them in the right direction for finding an appropriate space. Absolutely. Jane is pointing out that it is listed in the zoning section and we reinforce that in planning and a number of other directions including the starter kits for the businesses and were also working with the departments and they are do ago much better job now, we are emphasizing that everywhere we can on the business portal. Commissioner riley. I want to congratulate you. Thank you for all your work, this is really important. One question was about new licenses or new, like theres a new temporary alcohol permit available which i havent seen a lot of exposure about, stuff like that, like for new licenses that come up on the home page like this is now available to you or this is a change in this licensing. So is there kind of a news feed of updated. Yes, absolutely. We are working with some departments and of course regina at the office of Small Business to get the most relevant information up there in a timely manner but we are very open to anyone who knows of other information they think may be relevant. If i could add just a point of clarification, up until this new feature gets launched the portal was just a place for you to go to, it didnt really capture anybodys data or information to be able then to feedback out information. So as jason has identified on the home page there is a section for news and announcements and were trying to work very carefully from regulation that you here to key it up and then make sure when it passes it gets on the portal as a news and announcement, but eye convenient eventually with the new feature there will be the ability to also capture individuals information to be able to communicate to as well as the clients that come into our office. But i think in terms of, in terms of sort of a broader ability to send out announcements there is i think a better job that we at the city can do and ways perhaps this commission can find ways to do it. Supervisor farrell has reintroduced his neighborhood notification legislation which should be coming to you i think early june but well get that out to you and maybe we can have a broader discussion with him through that legislation. If i might add to that, one of the great things about us now having to use the authenticator profiles is were starting to collect data instead of it just being a site you can go to to get information, we can push information. The tool that weve decided to use has something in it called chatter and what that does is allow you to subscribe to different groups and if you are in that group, anything they push out will go to them. In that way its sort of like social media like facebook. If they want to have interaction with planning or whatever, then they can subscribe to planning and planning will be responsible for putting the information out. Jason, you did a great job today, thank you very much. Thanks, keep up the good work. All right, next item, please. Item no. 5, presentation from the Mission Business community on the 14 Mission Rapid project. The presentation will be by memorandum bers and Business Owners of the Mission Business community. Okay, whos starting off our presentation today . Good afternoon, commissioners. Welcome. Thank you for having us here. Gracias, william, for setting this up for us. I think this is a very important issue for us in the Mission District. As you know, the mission has been developing a lot of development, a lot of fires, policerelated shootings. Community and the Small Business community is very stressed right now, a lot of trauma because of all the changes and living in fear of being displaced from their business, from rents increasing and then having to leave, theres a lot happening in the Mission District. With this project that recently was rolled out by sfmta regarding the busses on Mission Street has caused additional street to our businesses along Mission Street. As you know, Mission Street rivaled Market Street once upon a time with its theaters, large restaurants, lots of parking at one time, and events. The miracle mile was from 16th to 24th street. So its a hub, a regional hub. Its also now a latino hub for events, you know, for the bay area and for people who have been moved out to come in to get services or parts, they cant find in other neighborhoods or parts of the bay area. So we have to see that as a regional location and how all that connects to Mission Street and whats going through Mission Street and impacts not just the mission but the whole city. One of the things weve been seeing, and i talk to a lot of the merchants from 24th to 25th, about 75 percent of them, each one of them said that they have lost some business because of these changes along Mission Street and also its making them harder to conduct business. You know, ups deliveries, Federal Express wasnt considered. Deliveries for their merchandise or for folks who dont have commercial trucks, you know, are having to find another place to park and then walk, you know, we have a lot of Small Businesses, mom and pop businesses, that dont have a lot of employees so they have one or two people working in these stores and sometimes they have their children dropped off after school to wait in the store until they all go home. So all these Different Things that are happening are making it really really tough for merchants to exist on Mission Street. And the underlying feeling of all of them is that its a way of removing whats left of all these latino businesses along business street which are very small mom and pop kind of businesses. So we need to look at this as a, look at it through a cultural lens for us and were suggesting a social economic report to be done in that area to see how it really works with the latino market. Because its very different from other corridors so we have to look at it very individually and not very cookie cutter. I think this project is really focused just on the busses, which is great, but it really needs to incorporate all the Different Things that are happening on Mission Street that make this a very vibrant corridor. It has been sustained by that for a lot of years. There was two incidents, there was an elderly that was hit on 30th and mission not too long ago. The car that hit her said they were confused, they werent sure which way to go. This morning we had a major accident on 23rd and mission, a car flipped over, were still getting details of that incident. So theres a lot of things that have been happening. You know, one thing that i witnessed, ive seen lot of cars going through like actually city cars driving through not making the lights, dpw and uber and lyft double parking. I gt a car and we drove through it and it was very apparent it was a sdig zigzag effect through Mission Street. It was very apparent it was an effort to get cars going through the east side and there was no left turns all along valencia street so all the cars are being thrown on the other side. We realized it was a zigzag, went down chaved, went up 26th and again we have to turn right on 24th street and it just kept going all the way down so its difficult to get through. If you dont know exactly where you are going its very confusing, you wont come back or you will take a longer time going to those businesses. We did see a lot of cars double parked because of one lane going north. We went around these cars across the double lane 3 times towards incoming traffic. So thats very dangerous. So theres a lot of things that we need to do to improve this project, make sure that it works for everyone, for the bed pedestrians, to make sure this Mission Street is sustainable and stays as a major commercial through way. A lot of people go downtown and the other one is of course people come not guilty to get services that were moved out from the mission. Thats all i have right now. Im sure theres a lot of other folks who have experiences about whats happening, Business Owners and some commercial groups also. Thank you. Commissioner adams, do you have a question . Eric is head of the Merchant Association over there and you do a great job, eric, and i have a lot of admiration for you and im happy you are coming to us today because im down on mission, it caught me by surprise. And i have a question. How much outreach was there from mta before this happened . Because i was there one week and then the next week i was there and they are laying the inaudible down the street. And i have a business on Mission Street and we didnt hear a word what was going on. Did you get any heads up on this . Yeah, i actually went to some of the meetings early on when they were rolling this out so we did talk about that, making sure that all the businesses were outreached to, you know, in different languages all along Mission Street. We asked them to provide flyers to every single business in the area and any other way that they used to communicate and of course a lot of businesses they did not hear about it, they didnt receive any notice, things of that nature. We put out some word to all of our merchants in the area. But i think people also felt that it wasnt completely explained correctly, basically thinking its just red lanes and nothing about the turns in the area. Right. So it wasnt very clear what was happening and for us, too, who were there in the process it wasnt too clear about where the turns were going to be and where the no left turns were going to be. My second question is what would you like to see us do as a commission to help you out . Because its definitely affecting Small Businesses. Thats all we have all over there, especially with those turn lanes. Oh my god. So what would you like to see us do to help you out . I think one of the things i think we need to do is form a well, for you guys is to be very engaged, to be very involved in the process, to have a representative at some of the meetings and attend the Community Meetings. A lot of our Small Businesses cant attend these meetings because they are very busy. Engaging with us, engaging with sfmta, making sure the Business Community is represented and making sure all their concerns are taken into consideration. Thank you. If you had the best of all possible worlds, what would it look like if you could ask, i want to change it this way, what would it look like tomorrow if you could snap your fingers and say, would you put it back the way it was, would you make some modification to what has been done . Im just curious. Right now weve asked for some changes, immediate changes, to stop the negative impacts right now. We need changes done right away and then also looking at it down the line in a bigger way, you know, making it, you know, looking at it again through this cultural lens for Mission Street, promoting Mission Street in a certain way and also doing things that represent the local community. You know we talked about these crosswalks like they have in south america and europe at 16th street and on 24th street where everybody can walk at one time, you know, things of that nature. We even talked about changing the colors of those, the red carpet, you know, for the neighborhood it represents a gang color. So its not very positive for us in the neighborhood so making them, like, a pattern like they have in the alleyways where they are brick, so things of that nature that really represent the community and also making sure theres a bottom up process, not top down. You know, again, its too cookie cutter. We just cant think what works here is going to work somewhere else. Every corridor is very different, the way people shop, the way people get there. For me and from talking to some folks, the Mission Businesses in the community really come together to create its own plan, making sure all these things work together. Were not saying to stop this right now, remove it all, but were saying it really needs to improve and it really needs the voice of the community to be leading it and to creating its own process and its own vision. Okay, and do you feel that you have engagement with mta on this at this point in time . Yeah, weve started the conversation through david coppolas office, what can be changed, what cant be changed. We started those conversations. Again, we do want to take it bigger. We want to be sure the vision of the community, we can just make some adjustments and that may or may not alleviate the problem. So we want to take it further. Theres a lot of Different Things happening, a lot of development coming on Mission Street which concerns a lot of the businesses also so we can incorporate all those Different Things in making sure Mission Street is safe, not just for pedestrians and riders but safe from being displaced and evicted. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Commissioner cartagena. I just want to put a little bit of context about those Community Meetings. Immediate things we were thinking of implementing we have to get rid of the right turns right now. In essence what has happened is our corridor, our business corridor that involves driving, has been butchered. It does not make it accessible any longer to vehicles and thats part of like eric was saying, the cultural were regional merchants where people come and drive. I think the next step would be eliminating all the right turns until people can make a better assessment. One thing i want to preface, the people at mta they have been amazing. They have been amazing people but i think its the processes that are in place that make it inadequate in the process, the final product. Like you said, they did have outreach but there was no, like, well, you want parking or right turns . People obviously would prefer parking but its just having the sophistication of having the followup questions with what happens with a right turn only system throughout the whole corridor . Its asking for that immediate ask right now that mta, especially our corridor, because a lot of those businesses are month to month. If we dont act fast this becomes a moot point because then the business are gentry fieed or misplaced. The changes so far are all paint, there was no construction. We found out they created an island at cesar chavez to force cars to go right and also those plastic bearers all around to force the cars to go right. I guess thats the major change. One further thing, our ultimate goal, we do want an expedited muni service. The goal is funny, were all sitting at the table, we all want the same thing, just not at the expense of this particular group. Its, i think there is room there in capacity to work together, just like eric said, like first cultural lens and dont plan on us like oscar would say, dont plan on us, plan with us. So. Yeah, one thing, you know, we look at transit as separate from everything else. For us in the mission, you know, transit and merchants are inter29 rred in the way it works and how business comes to the neighborhood. We have it look at them together and not separately. Commissioner toursarkissian. I have a recommendation. When you get down to your list of recommendations or changes that you want to make, why dont you put them in writing and submit it to the Small Business commission. Okay. Since were going to have the mta here, we would like to engage, to have kind of a forum for you to be able to engage mta and for us to be part of that. Sure. I know its a process. I think that youre going to be eventually having a list of things from all the businesses. Absolutely. It would be a good idea for us to have that so we have an understanding of what your needs are as representatives of Small Business. I think the first one were pushing to be removed is the island on because it means you cant enter. Something like theyve done on dubose and market. Thats reconfigurable. So thats good news. So theres a certain sense of urgency here because, as you say, once youre out of business. Thats it. Thats history. Anything that we can do to facilitate moving this forward as quickly as possible is he that businesses arent harmed and ultimately pushed out of business altogether. So i know you have an ally here and william, who is close to this issue, you have an ally here on the commission in general to facilitate the conversation and move as quickly as possible with the mta to make whatever immediate changes can be made to kind of easy up on this a little bit. Absolutely. Thank you. And of course theres other persons here to talk about the issue. Well welcome anyone else who wants to do you want to handle this . How. Public comment. Before we. Just a second. Before we do additional speakers, i think william, i need you to identify who is part of the presentation and then who is Public Comment. But i think based upon this particular issue theres, even with Public Comment if theres followup questions that you have for a person in Public Comment obviously you cant engage in a dialogue but you certainly are welcome to ask followup questions if you want a little more detail. I think with this situation we can deal a little more informal. But i did want to inform you that in your binder i did print out in sort of the short term and then the manypage plan so you could look at the right turns and then while you may not be able to do this today here, but if you go home and sort of think if you were to try to sort of be that little car in a little map driving around, the choices that you have and what, the difficulties i think for those blocks that are between the rights turns or right after right turns. Creates dead zones. Thank you. Director, just for presentation, i think that would give you a good consensus on a presentation basis and then from there Public Comment after. Okay, lets then stick to that plan. We just have some procedural items we have to follow here. So we will open it up to Public Comment so anyone else whos here who wants to comment can comment. Public comment is limited to 3 minutes and we cant have a back and forth dialogue with you. If you have a question or comment or something that you want us to directly respond to we will make note of it and then we can come back and ask you questions, but we have 3 more people that are part of the presentation so you do not have a time limit, you can make your presentation comments and we can have some dialogue. Welcome. I really appreciate you having this item on your agenda today. My name is roberto herpb dez and i work alongside of eric, and eric is president of the 24th street association. I am on the board of directors of the Mission Street Merchants Association and its really hard for a lot of businesses to take time off from their daily jobs, work, running their business, to be here today. So im here representing everybody i ran over here and i was a little late, im glad i made it. We know the drill. Let me start off by saying the mission is in a crisis. The mission has lost 10,000 residents, most of them natives due to all the evictions that are going on in the mission. The mission out of all the neighborhoods has been hit the hardest from all the gentrification that is going on in the city. The new people who are moving in, primarily techies, 6,000 of them moved in, do not smaup on Mission Street. Simple as that. They have these little apps and they go and if they want to go have dinner they go to their little app if you as a Small Business arent on cyberspace they will never come to your business. Thats no. 1 thats true. You know what im talking about . Second of all is that they are not the type that will walk into a business. They dont do that. Third of all, a lot of them use their apps to get home delivery. You know, i thought seniors were the only ones to do Home Deliveries for food. They have apps because i studied it very closely, they have apps now where they order dinner home and now you can get breakfast in bed. Check that out, breakfast in bed. Unheard of. But these techies got that kind of money that they can afford to have breakfast delivered to them in bed. So what impact does that have on a Small Business thats mostly im sure familiar with siegals, one of our oldest businesses on Mission Street, michael gardener, owner of the business shared with me numerous times hes lost 55 percent of his business since the people have been evicted. Ever since this red lane has been put on Mission Street, he has lost an additional 15 percent of business. He cannot sleep at night because if the trend continues he will go out of business. So lets talk about out of business. Julios business on Mission Street between 25th and 24th street went out of business. You have encantada gallery, out of business. I can go on and on and on, theres a number of businesses who have been displaced because the rents have been increased or because of loss of business. So in addition to that, now you have 10,000 people moved out but a lot of them drive in because theres products and services that they cant get in concord or in pittsburgh or in richmond or in stockton. They will drive in to get latanos yuccas, rent a tuxedo from siegal because hes the only one that has zoot suit tuxedos. You know what those are, right . But mike and everyone else will tell you that has a specialty that people will drive in, its like a maze. You cant, first of all, drive straight down Mission Street like you used to. Then they took parking away from Mission Street so theyve made it so its a maze and one customer told us that it took them 98 minutes to finally get to their destination and get a parking spot, 98 minutes. Not returning. Drove from stockton, california, to come shopping on Mission Street, formerly lived here, will not return. And this is what were hearing every day. So lets go to sfmta, they did reach out to the community, they came to the mission Merchants Association, they presented to us several options. We said no to every option that they presented. We did present an option to them. We said, keep the 4 lanes, you can have one lane dedicated for the busses because we are in total support of Public Transportation. Dont get it twisted, dont get it wrong, we totally support Public Transportation because there are a lot of people who will take the bus to come to work or to come shop. They could have simply get the 4 lanes, did one red lane dedicated or another color, like eric said we shouldnt use the color red, but they can use a coded, painted lane, dedicated to muni. But they didnt. They did not listen to us. They didnt listen to the businesses when they went to meet with them and they had a third meeting. And several of our members went to all 3 meetings. At all 3 meetings they were told not to do what they did and they did exactly what they wanted to do. That is a total disrespect to having community input. Why have Community Meetings if youre not going to listen to the community . And thats exactly what they did. Basically what we need to understand is what is the difference that its made for muni . Lets talk to bus drivers. Bus drivers saying they are now in more danger of driving a bus because more people are speeding up and cutting them off, no. 1. No. 2, you ask muni, well, how much time is this saving riders . Two minutes, folks. Two minutes. Please ask ed, the director of sfmta, how much time muni has gained from doing what they did. Two minutes. Is those two minutes worth the impact its having on the businesses . No. If you speak to the schools you will find the schools in our neighborhood will tell you that the tardiness of children today has increased by 78 percent. Because if you are a parent and you have 5 children or 3 children and you have to drop your children off to two or three schools, every right turn, right turn, right turn, right turn that you have it make is a loss of time. So we ask you today that you please contact the director of sfmta and their commissioners and have a joint meeting with them to tell them exactly what you heard today and that they need to, first of all, immediately stop what they are doing, revisit what they are doing. Weve already met with them, they have done absolutely nothing. In fact, the only thing weve heard is bike riders and some organization that they are a part of complaining of how dare this community be complaining about what muni has done for San Francisco. Thats what weve heard. Thats the only response that weve heard. Its like pitting a neighborhood against the new folks, bike riders who are living in our neighborhood. I was born and raised in the city, in the Mission District, all my life. I rode a bike, never had a bike lane, never had a problem. Simple as that. But now we have dedicated bike lanes for these entitled folks who buy six, seven thousand dollar bike lanes. I had a bike that didnt have any brakes. Does everybody see that picture . I have documented 19 different busses and we have 216 other photos from merchants who can document that the busses arent even using the red lanes. This is the evidence. Over 200 different times we have photographed busses not using the red lanes. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. We have two more presenters. Hithere. Im eden stein, im the owner of succession art and design in vernal, also the Vice President of the mission vernal Merchants Association so i am here on behalf of the 150 businesses from cesar chavez to randell, supporting them, because we cant really wait until mta figures this out. Our neighborhood has been very impacted by the red zones. Weve seen loss of business, loss of customers, some of the things that have happened since the red zones gone in, were seeing more accidents. Carisen on our corner, they are nervous someone is going to run into their building. They support 7,000 people, they have a preschool, they want to make sure that everyone who goes to their business is safe. They are very passionate about keeping everybody in our neighborhood safe. Since mta has been working in our neighborhood they have caused traffic jams, we are seeing major back ups all the way from randell to 29th to valencia and one of the things weve been on them for the last 2 1 2 years is to put left hand turn signals on 29th and valencia and on 29th is our gateway to our bike wiggle and many Small Businesses. Were seeing people race down 29th street so they could get back to guererro to get off Mission Street. And as far as being a merchant on Mission Street, many of my customers have said they have tried to find parking, theyve got to the end of Caesar Chavez and they went somewhere else because they cant get to our neighborhood. The last few weeks ive been do ago walk from 16th to randell and almost every Small Business is impacted in some way by the red lanes and all the changes. On 20th to 22nd a lot of the businesses that are restaurants that to said to me our delivery trucks wont come. How are we supposed to run a business if we cant get our delivery trucks in and they wont show up because they cant get on to Mission Street . And thats a real problem. Thats going to shut people down real quick. Art and design represents 60 independent artists and we think its really important to get the arts and culture in the mission and in vernal and we think this is a direct outreach, mta, how are we supposed to benefit the arts if we cant even get people to our neighborhood . From noon to 6 00 were seeing Mission Street be a dead zone and a lot of the daytime businesses being really, really impacted. At nighttime people are more willing to take an uber, take a bus, take a taxi to get to our businesses but they have to be really intentional. So many people have kids and a fulltime job so you only have a small window. If they cant get to your business they are going to go somewhere else because their time is so precious. So those are some of the things. Also in our neighborhood we had bus bump outs built that are not being used. We had many, many things built in the last couple of years that just were restructured and our bus stops got moved from the original placement of the bus of the bump out and where they have placed the bus stops are not ideal to our community. They placed them on dark corners so weve seen an increase in crime. They placed a bus in front of a preschool so they are seeing people smoking in front of the preschool and people loitering and it just doesnt feel productive or safe to the community. Where they had the bus stops before it was, like, open areas that had more opportunity and were more visible. Now when you wait for the bus you feel like everybody is messing with you. And once winter hits and the darker months were going to have a real problem with crime because people are going to see our neighborhood as free pickings. All the people waiting in the dark bus stops, thats who they are going to approach. Some of the other things is a lot of our parking, i know there was 50 parking spots taken away from 16th street to randell and i know that they did, they went out and they talked to merchants but when i did a Small Group Meeting we asked them, how did you talk to when you took away 3 Parking Zones and put a loading zone . And none of the merchants knew about it so they talked to employees or they talked to somebody who didnt have the official, didnt have the daytoday experience to say we need a loading zone or we need 30minute parking so our barber shops dont go out of business, we can get quick people in and out. We need a loading zone so our Live Music Venues dont close down and the bands dont get ticketed when they are loading their gear in. The only place, the knock out, for example, is a Live Music Venue and the only place for the bands it load it in is the bus zone, in the red zone. We dont know exactly where to put them unless there is a loading zone that can happen. And one of my last biggest issues that ive seen many, many times is at 29th street the bus not being able to stop on the red carpet just rolling through the lights, its raining and it just cant stop, and pedestrians getting hid. The red zones are really slippery so bicyclists on Mission Street, they only go on the sidewalk because our stretch of mission is really broken up, the busses cant stop and we just see everyone on skateboards, everyone on bicycles, on the sidewalk which is not safe and the busses just going through the lights because they cant stop. So that was a big issue for me. All right, thank you for your comments. Commissioner toursarkissian. Kevin today and lane, thank you for the businesses you are trying to help. I noticed also that you did some walk between 16th and randell and talked to your Business Owners. I would like to talk to you about process. Now, this happened and have you been in touch as an association with the mta i have. Ive been at every single meeting that they have held, the three meetings that have just occurred, trying i closed my business down on multiple occasions so that i could show up to the mta meetings and make sure they knew that our neighborhood was really struggling. Thats wonderful. I think the way i see it, youve been gathering a lot of data and i wrote down quite a bit of it and im wondering whether mta has all of this. They do. They do . Youve presented all of that orally or in writing. At both and sent to many departments. It just feels like, it doesnt happen fast enough. Were im an example of a business who has lost their first location. I lost my lease and i had to relocate. I had to take a whole entire restaurant out so i could rebuild my business in my neighborhood and i always feel like as merchants and people that are on the streets, like, we make thins happen fast. And ive been at all of these meetings and theyve been agreeing but they are not, i havent seen the action happen yet and thats what we need to feel some confidence and hope as Small Business and were not going to get shut down because we cant get our customers to us. Final question. Have they done anything in response to recommendation at all . They have come out to the neighborhood. I did hold them accountable to do a walk in my neighborhood and to talk to at least 10 merchants that really got impacted by the changes and try to make some changes. And that was more based on what they can do right now and thats loading zones, 30 minute meters and potential light signals. Because it sounds like that is the only thing they can do immediately, so were really trying to hold them to that. Have they done anything . No. Not yet. Were waiting. When did you start this process. As soon as this i mean ive been, for the last 3 years that ive been part of the association we have been of course always talking about issues like those lefthand turn signals have been a really big issue in my neighborhood for 3 years and i was always told its just, you cant get that done, you cant get that done. And then as ive gone to these meetings theyre, like, thats on the table like its not hard any more. I dont know when it got easy to do that. But that took about 3 years to actually even get them to notice. So that is really crucial to people not getting into accidents at those two signals. Commissioner adams. What business do you have . Is he session art and design. Because i frequent that neighborhood a bit, quite a bit. And i wanted to just say thank you for fighting because i met, i do drive over there, i dont take Public Transportation but i go to fox hardware right there and it has been, i go to emmys spaghetti shack. I wanted to say, as somebody involved with the merchants in mission vernal you guys first off have done a great job because there wasnt anything going on there for the longest time and with virgils sea room and rio and everything going on, you really brought that section of Mission Street alive and its very vibrant now. My business is 9 years old now. Its important for people to know you can survive past year 5. I go there, i cant find parking any more. Where im winding up parking on guerrero street or down by san jose highway, which can get you killed, and having to walk over there. Anything we can do, please, please, let us know. We just cant wait. I hope mta is watching this. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have one more presenter. Welcome. Good afternoon, commissioners, my name is irwin rodriguez, providing services to the community for 43 years. And commissioner mentioned today, this list of organizations, agencies, groups, that have been meeting in the last few weeks and they have a list of recommendations for immediate action so we can forward that list to the commission. Among those immediate actions that are included on the list are, one, that we need to remove all required right turns, two, stop the red lane painting, three, stop enforcement unless it is to help with safety. Those are among the immediate actions that the group and the Group Includes mela, Merchants Association from vernal and mission, also i would like to bring one more thing to you. Our program, mera, our mission is to help our community and especially my program is to support those who are planning to start their own businesses. Those who are planning to bring their own income to create wealth in the community. Im going to mention 3 examples today, just 3 examples. There are two street vendors, two hot dog vendors in a block between 20th and 19th streets. Both vendors, they did not receive any notice from the mta that they would get a move. Now you can imagine how long it will take for them to get a new permit in a new address. The San Francisco department of public works p take at least six months to provide with a new permit to these two vendors. They are struggling with that issue every single day because they were removed from their original location. There is another business that weve been helping that he was able to open his fifth restaurant which is located on mission and 26th. When he started this restaurant he created 6 new jobs in the community, but now hes reporting a 50 percent loss of business. Its affecting everybody every single day with all these changes in the community. So we really ask for your support on behalf of Small Businesses in the Mission District as well in the other districts and so i can provide more examples, more documentation to the commission. Thank you. Thank you very much. Commissioners, any other questions . That concludes the presentation part of this. So we can now, if theres no further commission questions, we can open up to Public Comment. Okay . So lets have Public Comment. Any members of the public who would like to comment on this item . Please bear in mind Public Comment is limited to 3 minutes and theres no dialogue during that time. Say your peace, well make note of any questions or comments you want us to refer back to. Welcome. Hi, my name is marie sorenson, id like to take a minute to say that i went to all the meetings. I also went to all the mta meetings for potrero avenue. The way they work, they come in and they say, we want to improve the situation. Lets break down into groups. So wie break down into groups and then we talk about what we want, what we need, and so then we all go away and then about two, three months later they come back and they say, we have a plan for you. What do you think of this . Of course after the first meeting there is no discussion. We cannot ask questions. They come, they give it to us, they give us little dots, vote on this, have the vote on this, vote on this. And they dont address any of our concerns, thank you for helping us with this big plan and im always standing there saying i didnt want that big plan. Its like somebody else took over. Like on the case of potrero avenue, the Bicycle Coalition showed up. I talked it a woman who lived in the marina who had never ridden her bike down potrero avenue but, man, she was for that program. In terms of mta on Mission Street when we did have votes people were so angry and mta would not talk to us. They would say, just vote. Just vote. Well, were concerned about your concerns. So finally somebody said, how about having a thing where it says, no we do not want to vote on any project. Send it all the way back. The amount of people that voted send it back was way over people that voted on cumulatively all the projects. And they said, we spent so much time and money on this, this is what we think you really need. And we said no, we dont want it, its going to ruin Mission Street. So lets fast forward to all of a sudden they are rolling out their new plan. Oh, heck yeah, were going to cut busses, were going to make it faster, were going to do this and that. Well, the two minutes that they whooped and hollered over in the mission was, guess what . They eliminated half the stops. These are long blocks and im handicapped myself, i have titanium knees. So im not, i walk because i have to. I just had the disks in my knees replaced a second time. So i can walk but theres lot of elderly people that live in the mission that its not that easy to walk two blocks. So the whole thing about two minutes is bologna. The other thing id like to note is its every other stop here, but downtown its still every stop. So who are they really catering to . Im also a pedestrian so when i try to cross the street im constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure theres no car now that everybody has to turn off Mission Street, that im not going to get nailed by somebody thats so flustered because they cant go straight that theyre going to hit me. Its just wrong. Its very dangerous for pedestrians right now. I actually got to ride in a car for the first time yesterday down Mission Street. We were looking for something specific and of course we didnt have the gps, much less the address. And i couldnt remember what block it was on. So were constantly going around and turning left on cap, trying to get back on Mission Street so of course, you know, all the streets are backed up on the side streets because you cant go straight down Mission Street. That is just fundamentally wrong. Mission street should be, i dont care, yes, they are meeting with campos and they are meeting with mta, but ill tell you what, thats a lot of bologna. They are not going to do anything because mta wants this. It needs to go back to the way it was, to have drivers go down Mission Street and busses go down Mission Street with no turn offs because its just wrong. Its wrong for the businesses. They also need to stop sorry they need to stop, busses need to stop at every single corner the way they have for years. Thank you very much. Sorry, we didnt have our timer on properly. Thank you very much for your comments, appreciate it. Okay, i think i covered it all. Besides, yeah, mta wants to talk to us . Theyre not going to. Next, please. Sorry, a little timer malfunction there. Incidentally under normal circumstances you will hear a little gong at 2 1 2 minutes, that means you have 30 seconds left and then when the final gong comes we will give you the proverbial hook so please be mindful of the time. Welcome, thank you. Eileen bogan, resident of sunset, here to request a hearing by mta on the project on Mission Street and also the el terra project. I agree the muni forward is a cookie cuter approach, not just on mission. They are trying to do similar things on terravel and the mta doesnt listen. They basically pat you on the head like has been said. Id like it read some quotes on an article recently in the chronicle. It says, we have to really look at how its working or if it isnt working, why. Erica rail, Lifetime Mission president and president of calle24, a preservation group, i think we need to revisit the plan. Residents, mer chants and many others are seeing red. Campos wrote on his Facebook Page that his office was flooded with calls. Once the paint and signs and the parking control officers arrive, though, the trouble started. Drivers werent the only ones frustrated. Merchants businesses have been down since transit only arrived. Some of that is from misplaced Mission Merchants who in the past have driven back to dine and hang out. Now the travel restrictions are keeping a lot of them away. The changes has sucked some of the life out of a usually lifely main drag, especially midday. There is a definite loss of activity on mission. He said its visible, you go out of there and around noon and there is usually a lot of hustle and bustle. Now its just silent except for busses rolling by. Its a dramatic change. Id like to do a comparison from the alteraville, their improvement is 3 minutes from the ocean to west portal. Again, wow, were going to disrupt the merchants, the residents, in order to save 3 minutes . There is no cost analysis that can justify this. Thank you. Okay, do we have more Public Comment . Good afternoon, 1 more time today. Commissioners, i think i had a speaker card in there. Im just going to mention a couple things in here. Im going to give you a written list of some of our demands so i have copies of the list. Its not a proper format, ill send it to you in a letter when i have time to put it together, along with a pretty extensive list of what the mta staff that we met with on 3 occasions told us. We were told staff can do this and they cannot do this, we have a pretty good idea of what they can and cannot do. Were also really mentioned enforcement. Okay, one thing to say you have to do this turn but are you really going to be enforcing it . We were told theres really 3 different enforcement officers from their department on Mission Street and exactly what they are. I have my notes that i took at the meeting approved by the staff person who was there so i know that im pretty accurate on my notes. Okay, so i just want to mention one or two things that havent been discussed here. Ive been running into these, what appear to be tourists like my elderly aunt from atlanta walking up and down the street with maps trying to figure out whats going on, what theyre doing. And it just occurred to me, even people who normally would be coming to the neighborhood, particularly people who are really, really familiar, theyve been coming for years, they always get off at this bus stop and they know where theyre going because they get off at this store, they take a right or a left and they recognize where they are. Nowadays you get off on a bus stop, you dont recognize that bus stop, you dont recognize that store and oh, am i in front of or behind, do i take a right or a left . I can tell you recently ive had some experiences with some other parts of the city where theres no real signage and you really dont know whether to walk to the right or the left, theres no real numbers on some of the streets and that sort of thing. So i think its really bad form for a city that wants to invite tourists and visitors to come to the city to confuse them. And when you set up a whole new set of just pedestrians as well as drivers, but when you set up a whole new set of rules and regulations for people to follow, who knows what theyre supposed to do . What you are seeing is mass confusion on the streets and that to me is a real problem, one that were hoping we can deal with. One other thing. You asked what you can do, i blaefrb believe you can support us in our request for a full hearing about these matters before the board, the mta board, and the board of supervisors. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next, please. Why dont you go all the way . Okay, thats fine. That isnt terribly important except how worn it is. Because from the day i heard about this thing on mission i printed that out, folded it up and ive been carrying it around showing it to people ever since. Usually with the words look at how crazy this is, lack what theyve done to mission. Look what theyre going to do to us. And that was a great, great piece of great handout because it finally told us what they were going to do to us. Some of us had been to some of the meetings, et cetera, but they wrap all these projects up in, you know, things like transit effectiveness project and it goes from one end of the city to the other and ought bus lines and then when they have their hearings theres little bits of here and there in. Normal human cant keep up with it until you get Something Like that and you go, oh, my god, and theyre painting it now. Anyway, im here today as a Small Business customer. And im approaching 70 this year. Im on the leading edge of the baby boomers. And that means theres a lot more of us coming. You know, ive seen things that said, you know, that at some point San Francisco will be 30 percent seniors because theres a big lump of us coming. We have money to spend. We have money to spend at Small Businesses. We like to get out of the house. But the city is designing this whole thing for young, rich, healthy and transient people. Its way too much, way too fast, and it certainly doesnt bode well for your Small Business customers like me. I live in potrero hill, i go to the mission, but i drive. Im not fully handicapped but like the other person that spoke, i cant walk long distances. So i am car dependent. The city is making it impossible to drive and park near your Small Businesses. There are whole swatches of the city i dont even go to any more and with regard to the mission, you know, one little example, i live on potrero, my friend said, oh, lets meet at emis spaghetti shack. I left to go down there to meet them, encountered this mess, drove around and around and around, could not find any parking, got so frustrated with just what was going on, my Blood Pressure must have gone crazy, i went home and i said, sorry, i would not be good company tonight and dont everybody make that an evening destination for me again. You are losing business. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, do we have any other members of the public who would like to comment on this item . Henry. I thought id chime in on the end of this. First, i wanted to talk about this whole Rapid Transit. All this around the world, korea, joe an he is burg, were usually out there on through ways, just a poor mans plane, thats what this bus Rapid Transit is. Its not really meant to go from commercial corridors. As everybody has spoken earlier, ive gone to a number of meetings with mta and it wasnt about what we wanted to hear, its about what were going to do. They gave us some choice but at the end of the day, this is what were going to do. Is there a way to make it better . Yes, there is. We have dedicated transit lanes for certain times of the day. Synchronized lights to keep your busses moving. If you want a bus to move as fast as it can from point a to point b, nobody gets off and Small Business dies along the way because nobody gets off. Thats what theyre doing. I could go on and on. You already heard from everybody else. I just feel this is not what we want to do for our community. It really is wrong. I hope that you will be hearing all of us out here and im sure you will be hearing more as time goes by. So, commissioners, great system for why we cant afford to build a train to toronto, 5 speed rail or whatever, its fabulous, it does work. But on commercial corridors, no. Thanks, henry. Are any member s of the public who would like to comment on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioner dooley. I wanted to thank everyone for coming out today and i want to urge every single business corridor to get out here and talk because clearly its all over town. Im in north beach, youll be hearing from columbus avenue next. This autocratic attitude mta has toward the citizens of San Francisco has got to stop. They need to be involving both the residents and the Business Community from the early, early part of planning, not when they come, which they do and waech all been to these meetings, where they say, oh, this is a Community Meeting where they tell us what theyre going to do and pretend like theyre interested in what we have to say. I congratulate you for coming out and i urge you to get in touch with your supervisors as you have and have our supervisors stand up and say, there has to be some huge changes here. Its not going to get better. There are many more projects coming up, one after another. They dont look at the cumulative effect of the different projects, they look at them one at a time and they dont see the mess that is being made when you do several at once. So you guys are doing the right thing. Thank you and just keep pushing on this. I ho that. Thank you for coming out. I know its a hassle to come to these meetings and it probably seems like youve been to many many of them and to have to come to one more at city hall seems like a burden but i appreciate you coming out. My observation is that the mta, while they may be the experts in transportation theory, we as the Business Owners in the neighborhoods are the experts in the neighborhoods. When they dont reach out to experts on the ground, they make mistakes. Clearly here they have made some pretty serious mistakes and put the lifl hoods of people and businesses at stake and if we dont move quickly were going to do permanent damage in this instance and continue to do permanent damage if we continue on this moh did you say operatedi. There are a lot of projects afoot and many of them similar to this one where the experts have really not paid attention to on the ground knowledge and so we will try to work with you as best we can to try to implement some changes and also make a point out of this, that this needs to be something thats done in the future for all new projects. So thank you again for coming out today. Commissioners, do we have any other comments or questions . All right, well, thank you so much. All right . Lets take it from here. All right, next item, please. Item no. 6, presentation of the california paid family leave bonding with new child and updates of passage of ab 908, presenter is myself from the office of Small Business. Menica and i are going to switch places so she can go stand at the podium and make her presentation to you. Awesome. Again, commissioners, in your binder is the Powerpoint Presentation and some supplemental items for you under item no. 6. Could you cue the powerpoint, please . Sfgov tv if we could have the powerpoint, please . So this is sort of everything well go over today in part 1 of this discussion. First well talk about the state of california paid family leave program, an overview of that, some of the changes that well be expecting with the passage of ab908, how weekly benefits are calculated, how wage levels and weekly benefits are associated, and then ill give an interim, well go into a deeper discussion of this next time we talk about this how the state of california and the city of San Franciscos new policies create some overlap and then finally well talk about some future topics and i would like to get some other direction on questions i can possibly answer for you in the future. The paid family leave allows partial wage replacement for 6 weeks after vacation and pto have been taken and the pto has a special provision within the city of San Francisco law which we can discuss a little bit later. Theres a lot of parents who want to bond with a new child and it must be taken within one year of the birth of the new child or adoption or placement for foster children. Its under the state Disability Insurance program and it is administered by the edd, Employment Development department, of the state of california. Its funded by employees through a payroll tax so the employer simply facilitates the deductions and also under this fund are the Disability Insurance and the paid family leave care, which is for other members of the family. There are no minimum work hours or length of Service Requirements and the application actually, commissioers, i placed copies of the application under item 6 in your binder in case youd like it take a look at that, as well as so the application is required and also proof of relationship documents. So what i also provided in your binders was another one pager that says some of the documents that can serve to prove that relationship. So right now the policy has a 7day waiting period. I already mentioned that its up to 6 weeks. The weekly benefit is 55 percent wage replacement and there are some ranges for salaries, so after a certain salary you will only collect 55 percent below that level and you wont collect anything more after that level and right now that salary corresponds to 106,740. With ab908 two major things change. One is that the 7 day waiting period is removed and the second is the replacement rate is changed. In 2018 it will be 60 to 70 percent instead of 55 percent. The calculations of those, the wage levels, are also different and i will go into a little more depth about that later. You can just review what your codes are . Of course. There are quite a few codes on this page. The weekly benefit here ranges from 50 to 1,129. That has to remain below the d subw, which is the maximum Workers Compensation temporary indemnity weekly benefit amount. If you continue in your binder also i did place a lilgt backet packet that looks like this and that is the e, essentially. So the first value is that 75 which represents the minimum that an individual can earn within a quarter to receive this benefit. And then it goes all the way up to the maximum, which is that d sub w, and that d sub w corresponds to the salary i mentioned earlier. We dont know the numbers for 2018 yet, so you will see some estimates a lit later where you use the 2016 figure on the last page of the table. Its calculated using quarterly wages but some of the calculations require this weekly wage, and b sub w represents the weekly benefit and then another calculation requires this state average weekly wage, which is another number, its very close to the d sub w, but just slightly different. Okay, so now getting on to that calculation, so to figure out what an individuals weekly benefit would be, you start with the month in which they filed their claim. So this table right here demonstrates that if you file your claim in january, february or march we will take or the state of california will take october of two years previous, two calendar years before, but its all within a 17 month period. Lets say that we file the claim in january of 2016, so the 12 month period under which your quarterly based wage will be calculated ends in september of 2015 and it would have begun in october of 2014. So once thats determined then within that 12 month period, which quarter had the highest wages . That is the quarter that will be used for determining what the weekly benefit is. And right now there are so as you can see on this little diagram, the wage calculation changes in 2018 but right now well just talk about the present. So if an individual makes within a quarter between 75 and 1,749. 20, then we use this chart that i showed you and all of the values are listed with ranges. If they make above 1,749. 20, then its their quarterly based wage times 55 percent divided by 13. And the 13 represents the number of weeks in one quarter. So because the weekly benefit is how these figures are presented, we go from quarters to weekly but then in some cases were using a weekly figure from the state moving up to the quarter and then back down to the weekly benefit. Its a little bit mathematically confusing. And that number, the weekly benefit, can go up to this figure i mentioned before, 1,129, the last row on the table in the documents you are looking at. And again i will discuss the khaifrpblgs changes in the wage level for 2018 in a bit more depth next time. So you take this, you dont take into account the last quarter before you file. Correct, you do not. That is excluded. You go back a year and then within that year you take the highest quarter. Yes. And then you divide the weekly wage, if its over a threshold you divide by 13. The quarterly wage is actually the number you would use because individuals could make a little bit different amount in each week, so they take the quarter in its aggregated form. The highest quarter. Thats right. The 75 up to 1,729. 20 are in terms of the quarterly wage. And but then the benefit is given in a weekly. You divide it by 13. Correct. To come up with that amount. Thats right. It cannot exceed, after you did all this computation, switching from quarterly to weekly, it gives them the amount and that condition exceed the 1,129, that is the old one which has to be changed under the new legislation. But that would be the max. Yes, on a weekly basis, thats right. Got it. Ill make a little side note here but this is what menicka will be presenting next time. The local law requires you to take a look at the last 90 days. Thats why i pointed it out. Right, right. Which is why we think its really important to really understand how the states works first before we start overlaying the local. If your employer is giving you bonus compensation, is that included in the total wages . So if you get a year end bonus or any time, midyear bonus, does that is that included or is it only base wage, some kind of base wage calculation . That is a question that i will note and take to the edd so if you are an employer you would want to know that. The typical practice is to give a bonus in a lump sum rather than averaging it out over the year so you put yourself at risk of really grossing up, having a spike in your wages that could play out in your disfavor. And i think this is one of the reasons why we do this, because sorry to interrupt you, menicka but i think we want to ask all these kinds of questions because oesd will be making its rule making so will they be, how will they handle the bonus amount in that last 90 days. Right. As part of what they see as the requirement. I think this is what we want to really hear all these sorts of questions because the more we can get that information, but then, two, what do we need to keep in mind as os e. D creates its Administrative Guidelines and we want to make sure we have our own clarification. It is relevant whether that that brings up the highest quarter, would that be considered part of wages . There are wages and whether the computations would be based on that. The answer is yes, but its nice to be, to double check that. I mean and with all due respect, an employer could gain that in the opposite direction and put someone on at nominal wage with the promise of sweatening the deal at a later time so they can keep the average wages low for benefits of this type. For that quarter. Just to say if the bonus dollars didnt count, then i am going to put you on its like being on sales commission. Im going to give you minimum wage and then give you commission. If your commission doesnt count if you are a sales person then you are not going to get anything but a minimum benefit. They may be experts on the administration of compensation programs but they are not experts on the administration or the construction of these kinds of plans to try and figure out, one, how to deal with cash flow in a business but also how to deal, what are the loopholes in things like this. When i see this awkwardlooking nature inaudible california, it makes me think what the legislators were trying to do or were told to do was make huer sure that the historic cal wages were already cast in cement and there is some kind of 90 to 180 day period where there can be some adjustments which may in fact be bonus and commission, which is contingent on the completion of the deal or the deal sticking for a certain amount of time so they probably wanted to say, look, were only going to look back as far as we know its already said and done. Or they did not want the timing of the claim to be such that you would spike your wages and then rely on that to get compensation. Maybe it takes some of the gamesmanship out of it on either side. Id be curious what the rationale is behind that gap is, initially because it would inform our local officials if they need something there we would want to know the same thing. Hopefully it will be the same policy and approach to these issues. Although it sounds as though were on a path to having a different policy. Can you explain why were dividing by 13 . 13 is the number of weeks in one quarter. So to go from the quarterly wage to the weekly wage, we divide by 13 and to go from the quarterly benefit to the weekly benefit we divide by 13. The weeks in a quarter, okay. So just to clarify your question, commissioner dwight, youd like me to find out the rationale behind skipping the previous quarter. Effectively this 90 to 180 day waiting period or blackout period, looking back beyond 90 to 180 days, what was i mean i dont know how far you have to dig on this, but was there a rationale on this which might be useful for us. The second item is what compensation or what base compensation are we using here, would it include commission, tips, and the like, variable compensation, because it may affect how it is claim order by employers or gone after. Wonderful. Any other questions on the calculation of the weekly benefit before i go forward . So just looking at 2016 now, if you look at the next slide, so what ive done here is divided into wage levels. So this is the 2018 law will be separated in a similar way, different figures, but im just going to start at the very beginning. If an individual earns less than 75 in any quarter during that 12 month base period they are not eligible for any sort of benefit through this program. If they earned between 75 and 1,749. 20, they would be eligible for between 50 and 74 as laid out in that chart. And if they earn between 1,749. 21 and 1,923 its a bit over that, but that threshold is just between, is between 1,923. 08 and 2,052, i tried to use cleaner numbers, in that range they get 55 percent of their weekly base wages, quarterly wages times point 55 divided by 13 to get to the weekly. And then in the upper limit you can see that the weekly benefit levels off in the blue and that is the d sub w, that benefit i gave you. Moving into a brief inintro of how california and San Francisco laws will overlap, this table here shows the different dates that things go into effect. And as you can see, things are happening at all different moments at the state level and the city level in terms of both parental leave and minimum wage. So just starting at the top there, july 1st, 2016, at that point 55 percent is the benefit within the applicable wage range at the state level. And the minimum wage in San Francisco is 13, of course the parental leave in San Francisco has not yet gone into effect, which is why there are dashes in those two columns. On january 1st, 2017, the state benefit is still 55 percent, but now the San Francisco paid parental leave goes into effect at a supplemental rate to get you 100 percent. That means its 45 percent that employers in San Francisco would be contributing but only employers with at least 50 employees. At that point the minimum wage is still 13 there in San Francisco. Then on july 1st, 2017, the state benefits still 55 percent, which means that San Francisco employers make up that gap of 45 percent still but now thats expanded so now its employers who have at least 35 employees and of course that includes the category above. Now, in that same time the San Francisco minimum wage increases to 14 an hour. Now, on the first of january, 2018, this is where ab 908 goes into effect, so the state law increases the wage replacement rate to 60 to 70 percent, which reduces the percentage con trib because from San Francisco employers to 30 to 40 percent. At that point. But a greater number of San Francisco employers would be participating in this because now at this point employers with at least 20 employees are roped in. And the minimum wage is still 14 an hour at that time. And then finally july 1st, 2018, 60 to 70 percent from the state program out of that sdi fund that were talking about, 30 to 40 percent from San Francisco employers for employers with at least 20 employees and the San Francisco minimum wage goes up to 15 an hour at that point. I have a question. Just to clarify the following slides, does the City Ordinance have a dw, does it have a maximum for that 45 percent and what is it . If im not mistaken, and i will check on this just to be sure, but if im not mistaken the city uses the same. The same . So it wont go over threshold and is it again for 2016 106,740 as a yearly salary . In other words, so we are going to be tracking the same maximum to be checked, to be verified. Yes, in the legislative digest, i believe, it did mention that figure of 106,740. Thank you. Something i would be interested to know is how many employees are thereby excluded by this 20 employee threshold . Because one of the primary observations of this commission, that one of the major defects of our legislation is that it actually excludes some of the very people that this legislation seeks to assist and those are people who work for the Smallest Companies in San Francisco. Now, a lot of those are sole proprietorships, but there are a lot of businesses with less than 20 employees that are employing low income workers and it seems completely counter to the progressive nature of this legislation to exclude those employees from the benefit. So id like to know in San Francisco how many employees that actually excludes and what percentage of the employees are excluded on this basis. So if we can find that out, it would be great. Certainly. Okay. Okay, the next 4 slides are a few different scenarios that kind of show you what a weekly contribution or weekly benefit would look like for employees who work 5 hours, 15 hours, 25 hours and 40 hours. So you can get a better sense of what the dollar figure is that goes along with that. One thing i want to clarify here, this first slide is 5 hours per week. The reason that the San Francisco portion let me walk through what this iknow theres a lot going on on here, but thats because the laws are a bit complicated in how they fit together. I wanted to display what exactly is happening at each point in time. So the rose corresponds to the rose in the previous slide that we discussed and on the righthand side now what is new on this slide versus the previous is in green is the benefit from the state level and then in this kind of orangishyellow color is the San Francisco employer contribution to that. Now, why is it zero here . Because its 5 hours a week and an eligible employer or covered employee must work at least 8 hours. Under sf law. Correct, under San Francisco law. So in this particular case those employees would be collecting from the state but not from the city. Got it. Now moving up to 15 hours a week, heres where the San Francisco law is applicable. However, the first row on every single one of these slides will be zero for San Francisco because that law has not yet gone into effect. So lets start with january 1st, 2017. The state ab 908 has not yet gone into effect, but that is the date on which the San Francisco law goes into effect, so in this period the contribution from San Francisco employers with at least 15 employees will be 45 percent. For a minimum wage employee on january 1st, 2017, at which time the minimum wage is 13 an hour, the San Francisco employee would receive 87. 75 from the San Francisco employer each week. Now, when we move to july 1st of 2017 now were including employers with at least 35 employees and the minimum wage has increased to 14. So the weekly benefit for an employee working the same number of hours will be 94. 50 from a San Francisco employer. And on january 1st, 2018, this reduces because the state has increased its wage replacement rate and now the San Francisco employer will be paying a smaller percentage. However, its expanded at the same time to a greater number of employers because of the at least 20 employees kicking in. Then on the first of july in 2018, the minimum wage goes up so thats why the entire bar gets longer because that employee would be making more money and the San Francisco employers contribution goes up by 4. 50 per week. And these contributions apply only after expending whatever if you have any vacation accrued, so this is post depletion of accrued vacation. Thats correct. Now the same thing for a 25 hours per week at minimum wage again, so you can see that the 2017 contribution from the San Francisco employer is the greatest portion that it would be because ab 908 has not yet gone into effect. Then, finally, forlt hours a weekality minimum wage again. These are just sort of to give you a sense of all the numbers. Im happy to answer any questions on the specific calculations if you have any or if youd like to take a look at them and followup with me. This is the weekly benefit . Yes, this is the weekly. So you take six times that number if the person has no accrued vacation and you are paying completely the entire benefit feir a period of 6 weeks. This could cost, if you look at a fulltime employee working at minimum wage in 2017 this could cost you 12, 13, 14 hundred dollars total out of pocket, 6 times 234. Plus federal tax. Right. So thats an interesting point, what are the adders on to that . Its a question as to what the payroll tax would be on that amount. These are wages that youre paying, so therefore you have federal tax added to that, in my opinion. Question would be. Right, so these are the kinds of questions that we need to find out is the 55 percent that is paid by the state pre or post all the Tax Deductions and what is the level of expectation for the San Francisco employer, is it pre or post tax in terms of what they are expected to pay the individual, are they paying them that wage and then taking out the payroll taxes . Right, because if its w2 income then its going to get grossed up like any other income with all the attendant fees and taxes, which is not technically sdi would kick in on it too. I can see you paying sdi on top of parental leave benefit. Also, just as a point of clarification about the waiting period. The law has changed, there will not be 7 day waiting period on the state level. Could you remind me whether that waiting period exists or not on the city level . I will need to check on that. Please. And i think what we will clarify for you is whether that, i think the waiting period in here is a waiting period after your eligibility date. So, you know, well clarify the waiting period pre or post eligibility date. How it tracks the state legislation, if theres going to be kind of a lag or waiting difference period. The fundamental issue here is that when you apply for the benefit from the state coming out of an Insurance Fund so its not counted as income to you. You just get an insurance benefit. Here the city is going to make us put this on an employees paycheck as a payout, as income. And so its going to go into the income equation rather than coming out of a fund, an Insurance Fund. So this is a very important distinction, very important, i say, only because it incrementally affects it adds to the cost. Whether its a few dollars or not, it again gets to the very point that nothing was done to anticipate all of the implications of this. Is it a benefit or is it income . And if its income, does it get grossed up and have employers paying not only to the city but because into the state because if its income i got it tai sdi, i got to pay all the insurance, all the deductions that im paying on ordinary income apply so it gets even further increased. Yeah. So, you know, and why were asking these questions after the legislation has been signed into law is what is so wrong with this process. And, i mean, say no more. It is an important question. If these are wages and not Insurance Benefits they come with all sorts of other additional expenses. Work comp is based on wages and a lot of other, you know, expenses or premiums. So one has to kind of educate the Small Businesses and businesses in the city to find out how is it going to affect them and what their obligations are. So the tag on as to how much its going to be and what applies and doesnt is important. Because whats going to happen is when you come in for an insurance adjustment on your workers comp, theyre going to say, oh, you reported, you anticipated x amount of computation, now you have y amount of compensation, you are going to get dinged because you underwithheld. Whether you get fined or not, i underwithheld, i have to make up the difference now. Again we dont know if this is a big amount or a little amount but the mere fact it exists in this law is a flaw relative to the way its administered at the state. That presents a huge problem. If were having this conversation here, imagine what the conversation is in the trenches where uer youre trying to figure out what to do and how to run your business. 20 cents an hour, thats something they didnt account for. It is not an inconsequential percentage of the total. So like if you factor in on your average your typical costs or your state insurance, all that stuff, sdi, its about 20 percent which was not accounted for. Its just that threshold, you hit that over 20 mark and you have 3 or 4 employees, like one of the First Companies i had technically had 35, 40 employees but a thousand dollars or 15 hundred, 2,000, that was my profit margin. You know. So in fact the net effect on the business could be 20 percent higher than the numbers that were seeing here because of the Ripple Effect through all the other ways that this affects the business expenses through workers comp, sdi and all those other things. Thats just a dollar amount, that doesnt include the overhead of the time consumed. If you want to quantify that, then. Understanding just kind of understanding how the state deals with its calculation, the state manages that calculation, right . So when we deal with the San Francisco law its going to be to the business to manage that calculation. Thats right. And if youre getting into, if you have employees that work for multiple employers how do you insure . So i think its great, i mean theres some lead time and im glad were looking at this now before oese really starts getting into the weeds of writing their Administrative Guidelines. I anticipate a request that they create some kind of calculation table to help because our Small Businesses, especially those between 20 and 50, you know, tend not to have in house hr services and so trying to handle and manage those calculations are going to be much more complicated than i think was perceived and so i think that theres going to be, i perceive for you commission to, at the end of this, a list of there is be some things that menicka will not be able to answer because shes not setting the administrative rules around the compliance, but we can draft a list of questions and recommendations of what our Small Businesses are going to need to ensure that they are able to comply with this easily. This, i mean already were revealing a level of sophistication thats way beyond the means and expectations of any Small Business. So i think that were going to have a lot of good questions and these things are going to have to be addressed. You cant obey the law without addressing them. You have to get down in the weeds on every one of these issues. Then we havent even discussed how this, i mean really the whole funding mechanism is abysmal. So the idea that this falls solely on the company thats affected is just sort of a tragic outcome of this. Im a little bit concerned about the timing, when the state benefit kicks in and the local im a little bit concerned about the timing issue, when the state benefit kicks in that is the insurance benefit and the wages are paid. A lot of businesses pay on a bimonthly basis and there are some issues, timing issues, that are of concern to me because of that waiting period and when that, these wages are earned and payable. So whether its going to be in the same cycle, maybe thats the obvious but we need to clarify that to everybody, it all the businesses. And if you do think of additional questions after this meeting, please do email me, especially so for the next time we discuss this if you have some specific scenarios youd like me to explore i can raise some of those when i discuss some of these things with the edd and i can also do some research and find out how specific situations would be treated under again, i cant deal with some of the. So its olse that has to come up with some of the Administrative Guidelines. They have 8 months to do it. Well, less than that because you have to have outreach and education period. Really they have very little time to get this done before informing employers how to deal with this january 1. I have a question. On the 24 hours, the 2018 numbers you use 30 percent for the city. 30 to 40 percent. But the number is 105, which is 30 percent. And then on the 40 hours you use 40 percent. Is there a reason why you are using two different percentages . Are you looking at the 25 hours . The very last page. Im looking at both, the 25 hours you use 30 percent for the San Francisco employers. And were looking at which date . The last row . 18, 2018. The 25 hours falls right at a threshold and the calculation for 18 is a little bit complicated because theres another figure, the state average weekly wage, and at this level if your wage is above a certain amount, they take the greater of one number or another number and one number is 60 percent of the quarterly wage divided by 13 and the other number is 23. 3 percent of the state average weekly wage. And whichever one is greater the state will pay. But that falls right at that border. I think the border is at 24. 9 something, so that particular number is a little bit tricky because youll see, i found at one point that actually somebody who made more got a little bit less. Somehow the numbers worked out so theres a little, in the calculation theres a little drop where its not a steady line. These are not definite, 30 or 40 percent for everybody, it depens on each individual case. It does not depend on individual case, but it depends on the exact quarterly wage whether they fall into . Ue . Oo as the saying goes, its complicated. And you have a ph. D. I have a question about it if i may. The question youve laid out was very helpful and thank you with the edd tables as to how it worked with the numbers at the state level. Uhhuh. At the city level its going to be pretty much, do you have an idea how they are going to come up with the numbers, is that going to be the same calculation or is it going to be much simpler, they are going to get your wages and the average and they are going to multiply that by 45 percent or youre going to have all these thresholds and tables, do you have an idea. What i know so far and some of this we will need to clarify with some of the finer points you brought up, but the city law requires the employers with covered employees to supplement to 100 percent. Yes. So it would be whatever their wages are, minus whatever the state benefit is, thats what the San Francisco employer is responsible for. So then within the 106, correct . 116, so in other words if the state sets a limit beyond the 55 based on the table that you mentioned, the city comes in and no matter what covers that gap up to 106,740, correct . Wait. Im sorry. The state covers the gap . The state has a 55 percent based on all the other computation requirements that you mentioned, which are too complicated to set out today. Correct . Right. So we get to a number and beyond that the city has, the employer has to cover in the city, whatever that gap is. Correct . Up until the d sub w up to the max. Potentially that 55 may not be reached for some limitation that you just mentioned. I mean, there may be some well see next time what you come up with. Youre wondering if that, you had mentioned theres sort of a drop, there may be a point where the state pays less than 55 . Yeah, im concerned and i would like to find out whether there are instances where the city employer may have to pay more than 45 percent for some. Im sorry, go ahead. So the state pays the greater of the two numbers, so even if there is a little strange gap the state picks the larger number which means the city employer pays the lesser number. So it seems to me the safest thing for an employer to do would be to wait and see if the employees benefit is from the state and then use that as the reference point. You can make an once you know how that was calculated by the state you can say, well, then this is what i have to supplement. Because the states going to report back to you well here was the benefit that, heres the salary that you are getting the x percent of, so they are going to identify the salary, however they calculate it through all this averaging. They are going to identify your benefit and so the technically under our law we are required to pay the differential between whatever the impuetd salary is and the benefit that was paid by the state, were supposed to gross it up. Thats my understanding. But the periods dont match. So you have state that excludes the last quarter and gives you a highest wage within that period of time divided by 13, yet the city takes into account the last quarter. So what. The city is calculating the maximum the maximum benefit differently. And this is what my concern is, that you have a computation based on the basis, nerd in other words, taking 55 percent of that but the city is taking another number and telling you to pay 45 percent of that. How do we reconcile. The state is quite possibly calculating the benefit on a lower wage if we assume that people get cost of living adjustments, that salaries go up, not down, the minimum wage goes up, not down, the city is going back further and therefore capturing a lower wage than the city is going to capture in its methodology. So again this is a major, major point of contention because when. When we design the wall were very well aware of that. Our minimum wage is accelerating faster than the states so we will always see on the minimum wage side of this equation a higher percent so we are going to end up paying not 45 percent, but more than 45 percent because were going to be referencing it on a higher gross take home pay than the state is us using because they are looking back 180 days. So basically is the message that we have to convey to Small Businesses in the city, they should not be relying on the 55 percent . In fact they cannot. They cannot rely on it. They have to have separate computation on an average and they have to take into account the last, including the last quarter and if thats the highest then they have to pay 45 percent or more of that. Massively complicated. Which is why were doing this early. There is a level of expectation that we need to ensure the olse provides to make sure that the rule making and the how to cup comply makes it as uncomplicated as possible. We may need to ask them to do more than is required on the face of it. Huge amount of homework. Huge amount. Its going to be important for us to submit in writing, the letter to the olse, the letter of expectation what were expecting them to provide to our Small Businesses to ensure they can easily and accurately comply with this law so that there are no issues later on down the road because it wasnt thought about. This legislation never contemplated any of these complications. To further add to that, obviously so it is complicated and the computation, i saw that, but olse is probably going to have to have staff. This is a benefit that people are going to partake in heavily. Yeah, they are. Its an entitlement. This is something if i was a Small Business, i cant figure this out, even if i do know the numbers i wouldnt necessarily have to go to olse, this is my employee, what should i be paying them . Because the penalty phase, the retribution coming back as an employer, thats scary. Thats scary if you get it wrong. And its complicated. Its very complicated. This is why you have members of the board of supervisors who have never met a parole payroll and im going to slam them. This is a bad piece of legislation and they did not listen to us when they presented here twice. You know, here we are having to deal with this. Were scratching the surface here. Thank you for your presentation. This is just points of how complicated this is. Were going to have to make some very blunt recommendations to ose and this needs to get reported to the Mayors Office and the board of supervisors. This is the very thing we are here to prevent. We werent consulted at all and we could have helped them a lot. If all they had done is harmonize with the state of california, we would eliminate 50 percent of the complexity. Simply harmonizing with the state of california and anticipating what they might do. Waiting two weeks, california passed their law two weeks after we passed ours, if that long. And like commissioner toursarkissian was saying, its more than likely because like you said, the way were calculating is just. We requested a 30 day delay in the passage of this legislation. That 30 days would have allowed us to see what the state of california had done, to do our own research, to inform them of the complexities of this, the implementation of this legislation, and now what are we stuck with . Something that the mayor was forced to sign because how could you not sign it . Because if you did nothing it becomes law anyway. None of the supervisors could object to it, how could you . And so now we are left with clean up. And by the way the Small Business community is going to be the most affected by this because theyre the least capable of figuring out the complexities of this kind of legislation. You know, shame on them. Election year. Politics. All about politics. Mr. President , i believe that theres a lot of work product in this presentation. Yeah, there is. And frankly a lot of good data that can be helpful to the city management, i think. Appreciate an excellent presentation and a very helpful tool to whomever is going to make to implement the law. I dont know how regina would share this. Well, lets hope this is a good example of how we need to get out in front of issues like this. Because basically it created a nightmare for the city because the administrative overhead for the city is also not being contemplated, the expense for olse to administer this, just the expense to figure this out, i dont think they have planned this in their workload. To figure this out over the not 8 months, over the next 3 months so theres a 6 month education period for business. That, in addition to no plans for, im sure, in olses budget to even have any sort of side of technology and developing a Technology Tool to help businesses. You should be able to plug your numbers into a calculator and figure this out and that is not going to happen. Just so, commissioners, next month we have one meeting, may 9th, then thats going to were going to have a large sfmta presentation, ill talk a little bit more in my directors report. The next time menicka will be before you will be june 13th to do the wrap up. You need to give olse a heads up on this. Its only fair they know just that our preliminary findings, some of the complexities of this, give them a shot across the bow so they wont be, oh, were going to do this this weekend. Theres a lot of work to be done. Commissioners, one of the things i am also working on is to try to develop a set of scenarios of every possible complication that can occur. So some of that is pertains to the wages and what ages are earned in which periods and the multiple employers, as regina mentioned. And one of the things we were discussing is possibly creating some sort of decision tree to help because there are so many questions that are its a whole path dependent process where you end up and what rate you pay and a whole series of things so were working on that and hopefully that will also help olse as it develops its requirements and again if you can email me with any questions that you come up with, theyre really helpful in terms of guiding my research and helping me find the right places to explore. Well, great work on this. Thank you. Without belaboring it any further. And the beat goes on. Well have to do more work. But thank you, this is great. All right, commissioners, any other questions . Seeing none well call for Public Comment on this item. Any members of the public that want to comment specifically on this item, if this is not comments on this item it will wait until Public Comment at the end of this meeting. Are there any members of the public that want to specifically comment on this item . I do apologize with the confusion and that i need to have allow like nancy reagan said, all together, right . I think that on this june 22nd we will be scheduled, ill have it all on page here so you can see it. inaudible that put these numbers on it where we can get more money this has to be efforts. This is what i was talking about which is tried really hard because i was in what you call scrambling, you know, i didnt mean it to put it that way. I apologize that the clearance has what you call hocus pocus what we have on the pages, to put it in mathematic order. And that explains the spelling is very rare. Im sorry my teachers couldnt help me so i had to help myself i know that its been very confusing and i didnt mean to put it like that. I will get it a whole lot more understandable, you know, because i have been through some, a lot of things that a lot of people wouldnt ever that was very tough. Okay, thank you for your comments. Are there any other member s of the public that would like to comment on this item . Seeing none, lets move on to the next item, please. Thank you. Directors report. Item no. 7, the directors report. Thank you, commissioners, so next meeting is the may 9th meeting and we will have the sfmta here. I have had a preliminary meeting with deanna and prior to todays topic coming up our plans were initially to provide an update of the lombard street, the extended parking meters and then to begin be to provide you with a schedule of all the projects that are ahead and their timelines so that you can begin to prioritize what projects you want to have come before you to get detailed presentations. And then also to provide an overview with things like the transit effectiveness, muni forward, what does that mean, what goes into planning for each you know, thats sort of an umbrella for some of these projects and so whats involved with that. So if you do want me to i will also talk to her about the 14 mission as well so to ensure the project manager is here. So if theres anything else, this will be the first meeting. This will be the first meeting bimonthly so every other month were working to have a scheduled presentation before you so that you can stay hopefully soon ahead of the curve on some of these issues and really dive into some of the issues and details hopefully ahead of time. And again just sort of overlay with the Small Business leaders quarterly meetings, you heard the presentation last time, the item no. 1 in the tier 1 was, you know, being at the table early on and so how do you ensure, you know, this is the opportunity for the Small Business commission to kind of be early at the table with the sfmta and working with them but also helping to ensure that business input is really at the table as well. Then if you recall the mayor in the 1516 budget, he did put in some funding to develop Construction Mitigation Program around some of the infrastructure projects. This program is nearly finalized so im hoping to also have a presentation on that program for the may 9th meeting as well, but if not, it will be the june 13th meeting. Under item no. 7 i put in, its time for the summer youth jobs so i put in the announcement for it. This year were going to do work with the work force side of oewd and united way. They really want to push out they would like to engage as many businesses as possible even if its just one internship or one job that a business is able to provide, but really work to increase Small Business participation and engagement with this. So you have the flyer, this is the kickoff event on thursday, may 12, at the Asian Art Museum at 9 00 am. So you are certainly welcome to attend and learn about the program and the initiatives but i do want to encourage to share with your Business Networks as well and our office will be helping with it. Then in conjunction with that, on the work force side of oewd theirs was called Work Force Investment San Francisco, a Work Force Investment board. This is basically a board that oversees some federal dollars that deal with, that deal with kind of how the work force dollars are managed. There have been some changes in the federal program that also combine some changes at the state program so theyre going to be reconstructing that board. So there is a requirement to have more Small Business engagement. A couple of areas that they are giving some consideration to are nd construction, hospitality, retail and health care. So i will likely be, you know, having further conversation with each one of you to see if finding good candidates once i get a clear description of what the needs are and how the demographic shape in terms of size and what have you. But i just wanted to put that on your radar. In your packet is Small Business week, the mini guides have gone out and this gives the overview of the week. Last meeting i provided in the written directors report calendar. I will work with menicka to start sending calendar invites to you and then doing followup just to mind out which events you will be participating in, but the highlights, the three big things are the kickoff event monday for flavors, monday the 23rd, flavors of San Francisco, then theres tuesday the board of supervisors Award Ceremony and then wednesday is the Small Business awards in the evening that will be held at at t park. But there are other couple events happening that you as commissioners may want to attend eventually but in terms of those three items, those three events, it will be good to know the capacity of the number of commissioners who will be attending just for the brown act. Then also in your binder i sent some articles around taking a look at retail. Im not going to go into it but i printed those articles out. They are probably going to have some relevancy as we continue to look at formula retail but also around the Affordable Housing Bonus Program and the Affordable Housing Bonus Program. So i forwarded those articles to you in the email, but i printed them out for you as well. I did want to make a note around, you know, weve had the conversations around the Affordable Housing Bonus Program and discussions around business support and developing a package. And so this will be coming up for rediscussion amongst staff at oewd and with planning before we bring it back to the commission. But there are other projects that are taking place so right now theres a building at sutter and polk, its two levels of commercial space but it is going to be redeveloped. And so i think that theres considerations that, you know, the Affordable Housing Bonus Program is not just going to affect businesses and commercial space. Thats not the only program, right . So there is general development that is taking place where businesses are being impacted. So anyway i just want to put that on your radar as i think we begin to look at this on a small scale and if theres anything that we can develop thats scalable. In your binder i also put in proposition e is paid sick leave, so this is, this is lining up the state with changes that have to be done at the local level and have to be on the ballot. The one unfortunate thing that will not be on there and we would only be able to do it by the ballot is allowing the employer to say menicka for the paid family use to use pto and paid sick leave time before the employers contribution kicks in and that of course the ballot measure was written before the paid family leave happened so thats not included. So just note that unless it happens at the ballot, San Francisco employers cannot make it a requirement to utilize paid sick leave. Then just very quickly, so the position was, the position for the Legacy Business Program manager was passed on the first read at last weeks board of supervisors meeting and this week the mayor signed into law supervisor tangs mandatory Disability Access improvements, the all gender toilet facilities and then of course the paid parental leave for bonding with new child. So that concludes my report unless you have any questions. I think were good. Okay, next item. Item no. 8, the president s report. I have nothing to report. Item no. 9, the Vice President s report. I have nothing to report. Item no. 10, commissioner reports. Commissioners, any reports . I have a short one ill be working with sba tong how to succeed with Asian American Business Owners. It is scheduled for tuesday the 24th, it is be at 901 Market Street from 5. 30 to 8. 30 and is sponsored by east west bank. Any other commissioner reports . Okay. Okay, item no. 11 is general Public Comment. Any member s of the public that would like to make comment at this point . Yes, commissioners, my name is ray heart, San Francisco open government, im very curious why you are holding all these ayen today items and not asking for Public Comment. Its a requirement of the sunshine ordinance that each agenda item there will be a request for Public Comment and you are apparently just ignoring that completely. I think that is not a laughable matter, commissioner dwight. You seem to think its humorous. You are not following the open government rules or the brown act in the way you are conducting your business and very frankly i will file a complaint with the sunshine ordinance against you just to make a point of it. You want to laugh about the fact you are not following the law and somebody in the public has the temerity on step up and say you should be and you think its a joke, so well take it somewhere else. Just to let you know, i have 24 orders of determination against various city bodies including the police commission, Library Commission and so forth so some of these very matters. You cant sdurpblg the public by treating their Public Participation in these matters as if it was a joke and simply going through each item on the agenda and ignoring the opportunity for the public to make comment is exactly that and i think you all know it. You just choose to ignore the law and flaunt it in the face of the public and very frankly i believe it is the responsibility for any City Government body to encourage this participation and attendance of the public and by not asking for Public Comment, you are not doing that, you are in fact discouraging it. Thank you very much for that. Any other members of the public that would like to comment on matters that are generally within our purview . Shirley dalton. I feel sorry for the ones who have to work, especially when we got somebody that wants to damage everybody in the room. I mean, this is kind of getting ridiculous. I mean, where do they want to tear apart because i dont think the ltd, i say not me, bdl, you were saying that you was not going to consider the process of, i think its tf, what is wrong with that process . Because i think that we just been leading us along, you know, because i know for a fact i had put everything on the list for that the inaudible control and all of this has been just blown out of proportion. And i think were going to have a hearing on this and i think were going to get it straight because if we dont get it straight i feel sorry for you because im going to have this damaging the whole people in the world because of this, i mean, and it will be i think he can reason with himself and try not to hurt herself and be nice to yourself instead of being angry with the world. All right, any other members of the public that would like to comment on any items that are within our purview . Hello, my name is Michael Petrellis and im here again to talk about the Small Businesses in the castro which my boyfriend and i dont frequent. We are like many other people, gay and straight, who have no reason to go to the castro. And art part of the reason is because the castro Merchants Association, which used to be merchants of upper market castro, they really made it clear they dont like activists coming to the community. They also made it clear they are very much in the pocket of scott wiener and they endorse his politics. Its really sad to see how the castro has lost its interthational feel. I went be there yesterday to go to the castro theater and i saw maybe two people from the neighborhood. Everybody else with us a tourist, taking pictures, i noticed they werent going in the stores either. Seems like every week i pick up the bay area reporter and merchants are complaining about this issue or that issue. They never seem happy. They dont seem to understand part of the reason why their businesses are down, part of the reason why no one cares or let me say very few people care any more about Jane Warner Plaza and we can no longer sit there, you really cant find tables or chairs there any more, has to do with the policies of the castro merchants and how they have just set themselves up as a body that doesnt want Public Participation, doesnt want the public coming around, doesnt hold Public Meetings and then they want the public to come and spend dollars. Id really recommend if anyone here is connected to the castro Merchants Association that you send a message to them that they really need to rethink how they interact with activists, people in the neighborhood, who need reasons to come to the neighborhood to spend money. Because right now my partner and i, neighbors in our building, were happy to shop in the mission. We shop along church street. We are not coming to the castro to shop. Its about time the castro merchants woke up it that fact. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Any other members of the public that would like to comment at this point . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Next item, please . Oo . A item no. 12, new business. Commissioners, any recommendations for new business . No. All right, next item, please. Sfgovtv, can we please have the slide . All right, as is our new kuflt custom, we begin and end each meeting that the office of Small Business should be your first stop when you have a question about what to do next and it is the official forum to voice your concerns regarding any issues that you think affect the economic viability of Small Businesses in the city of San Francisco. So if you need assistance with Small Business matters, start here and for the record, we have called for Public Comment on all pertinent issues today and we always encourage the public to come to our meetings and make themselves heard in our forum. Thank you. Do we have a motion to adjourn . Item no. 13, do we have a motion to adjourn. I second. All in favor . All opposed . All right, were done. Meeting adjourned. meeting adjourned . Welcome to culturewire. Today we are at recology. They are celebrate 20 years of one of the most incredibly unique Artist Residency programs. We are here to learn more from one of the resident artists. Welcome to the show, deborah. Tell us how this Program Began 20 years ago. The Program Began 20 years ago. Our founder was an environmentalist and an activist and an artist in the 1970s. She started these street sweeping campaigns in the city. She started with kids. They had an exhibition at city hall. City officials heard about her efforts and they invited her to this facility. We thought it would coincide with our efforts to get folks to recycle, it is a great educational tool. Since then, we have had 95 professional artists come through. How has the Program Changed over the years . How has the program what can the public has an artist engage with . For the most part, we worked with metal and wood, what you would expect from a program like ours. Over the years, we tried to include artists and all types of mediums. Conceptual artists, at installation, photographers, videographers. That has really expanded the program out. It is becoming so dynamic right now with your vision of interesting artists in gauging here. Why would an artist when to come here . Mainly, access to the materials. We also give them a lot of support. When they start, it is an empty studio. They go out to the public area and we call it the big store. They go out shopping, take the materials that, and get to work. It is kind of like a reprieve, so they can really focus on their body of work. When you are talking about recology, do you have the only Sculpture Garden at the top . It is based on work that was done many years ago in new york. It is the only kind of structured, artist program. Weit is beautiful. A lot of the plants you see were pulled out of the garbage, and we use our compost to transplant them. The pathway is lined with rubble from the earthquake from the freeways we tour about 5000 people a year to our facility, adults and children. We talk about recycling and conservation. They can meet the artists. Fantastic. Lets go meet some of your current artists. Here we are with lauren. Can you tell us how long have been here so far and what youre working on . We started our residency on june 1, so we came into the studio then and spent most of the first couple weeks just digging around in the trash. I am continuing my body of work, kind of making these hand embroidered objects from our daytoday life. Can you describe some of the things you have been making here . This is amazing. I think i started a lot of my work about the qualities of light is in the weight. I have been thinking a lot about things floating through the air. It is also very windy down here. There is a piece of sheet music up there that i have embroidered third. There is a pamphlet about hearing dea nearing death. This is a dead rabbit. This is what i am working on now. This is a greeting card that i found, making it embroidered. It is for a very special friend. While we were looking at this, i glanced down and this is amazing, and it is on top of a book, it is ridiculous and amazing. I am interested in the serendipity of these still life compositions. When he got to the garbage and to see the arrangement of objects that is completely spontaneous. It is probably one of the least thought of compositions. People are getting rid of this stuff. It holds no real value to them, because theyre disposing of it. Were here in another recology studio with abel. What attracted you to apply for this special program . Who would not want to come to the dump . But is the first question. For me, being in a situation that youre not comfortable in has always been the best. What materials were you immediately attracted to when you started and so what was available here . There are a lot of books. That is one of the thing that hits me the most. Books are good for understanding, language, and art in general. Also being a graphic designer, going straight to the magazines and seeing all this printed material being discarded has also been part of my work. Of course, always wood or any kind of plastic form or anything like that. Job mr. Some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. Taught me through some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. The first thing that attracted me to this was the printed surface. It was actually a poster. It was a silk screen watercolor, about 8 feet long. In terms of the flatwork, i work with a lot of cloddish. So being able to cut into it come at into it, removed parts, it is part of the process of negotiating the final form. How do you jump from the two dimensional work that you create to the threedimensional . Maybe going back from the 3f to 2d. Everything is in the process of becoming. Things are never said or settled. The sculptures are being made while i am doing the collages, and vice versa. It becomes a part of something else. Theres always this figuring out of where things belong or where they could parapets something else. At the end goal is to possibly see one of these collage plans be built out and create a structure that reflects back into the flat work. Thank you so much for allowing culturewire to visit this amazing facility and to learn more about the artists in residence program. Is there anything you like our viewers to know . We have art exhibitions every four months, and a win by the public to come out. Everybody is welcome to come out. We have food. Sometimes we have gains and bands. It is great time. From june to september, we accept applications from bay area artists. We encouraged artists from all mediums to apply. We want as many artists from the bay area out here so they can have the same experience. How many artists to do your host here . 6 artist a year, and we receive about 108 applications. Very competitive. But everyone should be encouraged to apply. Thank you again for hosting us. Thank you for including us in culturewire. You. Well to the epic center are you ready for the next earthquake did you know if youre a renter you can get earthquake shushes well take to the earthquake authorities hi welcome to another episode im the chief resilience officer for San Francisco im joined by my good friends for the Earthquake Authority were at the el cap center for the city and county of San Francisco started in 2013 to get the community and talk about the risk we think about earthquake if usual great city youll see one of the demonstrates weve built the model home and i encourage other episodes well be retroactively retrofitting and showing you as Property Owners to employ you work for the california Earthquake Authority talk about your role and earthquake shirnls up think the viewers want to know if youre a renter or Property Owner how the insurance issues. Im the chief mitigation officer or c e a a Property Line funded pubically managed entity that provides earthquake shiners for one to four units and mobile owners to come down and renters throughout the state of california. What make the c e a deft. We work with 19 participates the insurer that sells you, your homeowner policy youre not obligated to buy it but you can buy a policy. Am i covered with Homeowners Insurance. No California Homeowners understand their Homeowners Insurance doesnt cover earthquake they need a separate policy if youre an shiners you can get the earthquake insurance policy. So explain why it is for the c e a is deft if a traditional insurance agency. Irreverent so in the 80s the state of california passed a law that requires any company that writes the policies to over earthquake insurance the homeowners are not required by commissioner cranshaw can bye there was so much loss they were going to stop writing the insurance policies for earthquakes they wanted to stop a serious insurance policy. Were talking about the homeownerships buying the earthquake shiners but 70 percent are renters whats my opposite. The option for renter the earthquake be Insurance Company is affordable i think people dont realize just exactly what it covers it covers damaged property but loss of use if you have to be under a building they have a quarter main that was broken as well as Emergency Repair if interests glass breaks in the carpet you need to be in our unit thats whether earthquake is important. Youre title youre the excessive mitigation officer for the state of california when i think of insurance i dont think about mitigation. So as part of Public Safety mission the c e a started to put aside mitigation loss fund 5 percent of invested income and when i joined the company 34 years ago we had 45 million to make a difference for moving and incentivizing and mitigation for California Homeowners to structure engineering a unique opportunity to cervical homeowners to help them to mitigate the equivalent. Whether an owner or renter i want to find more information about earthquake insurance where should i go. Earthquake authority. Com not only information about insurance but a calculated figures and as of january lots of deductible and 25 percent if a homeowner mitigate their hope up to 20 percent off their premium as an incentive for the work. What does mitigate the home mean. Strengthen, renovate, retrofit through a home particularly older to earlier codes and you put in adding streamlining maybe collar bolts to tie to the foundation or to the wall so it is braced to earthquake can be very, very affordable and really makes a difference. Thank you very much for being with us i encourage the viewers not only to checkout the Earthquake Authority but well talk about . Oo hi, im holly lee. I love cooking and you are watching quick bites. San francisco is a foodie town. We San Franciscoans love our food and desserts are no exceptions. There are places that specialize in any and every dessert your heart desires, from hand made ice cream to organic cakes, artisan chocolate and cupcakes galore, the options are endless. Anyone out there with a sweet tooth . Then i have a great stop for you. Ive been searching high and low for some great cookies and the buzz around town that anthonys are those cookies. With rave reviews like this i have to experience these cookies for myself and see what the fuss was all about. So lets see. While attending San Francisco State University as an accountinging major, anthonys friend jokingly suggested he make cookies to make ends make. With no formal culinary training he opened his own bakery and is now the no. 1 producer of gourmet cookies in the biarea and thank you for joining us on quick bites. How do you feel . I feel great. So i want to get to the bottom of some very burning questions. Why cookies . It was a recommendation from a friend. Hard to believe thats how it all started. Why not pies and cakes . What do you have against pies and cakes, anthony. I have nothing against pies and cakes. However, that was the recommendation. You were on the road to be an account apblt. Actually, an engineer. Even better. And it led to making cookies. In delicious ways. Delicious ways. This is where the magic goes down and were going to be getting to the truth behind cookies and cream. This is what is behind cookies and cream. Where were you when the idea came to your mind. I was in my apartment eating ice cream, cookies and cream ice cream. How much fun, cookies and cream cookies. Their cookies and cream is not even it took a lot of time, a lot of fun. A lot of butter. A lot, a lot, a lot. But it was one of those things. All right, now behold. You know what that is . What is that . Cookies and cream. Oh, they are beautiful. Yes, so we got to get. All right, all right. We treat the cookies like wine tasting. I dont ever want anybody to bite into a cookie and not get what they want to get. Were Training Staff because they can look at the cookie and tell if its wrong. Oh, here we go. You smell it and then you taste it, clean the plat palate with the milk. I could be a professional painter because i know how to do this. I can tell that its a really nice shell, that nice crunch. But inside. Oh, my god. So you are going to cheat a little bit. I had to give you a heads up on that. Whats happening tomorrow . These cookies, theres a lot of love in these cookies. I dont know how else to say it. It really just makes me so happy. Man, you bake a mean cookie, anthony. I know. People really know if they are getting something made with love. Aww you know, you cant fool people. They know if you are taking shortcuts here and there. They can eat something and tell the care that went into it. They get what they expect. Uhhuh. System development and things like that. Sounds so technical. Im an engineer. Thats right, thats right. Cookies are so good, drove all other thoughts out of my head. Thank you for taking time out it talk to us about what you do and the love with which you do it. We appreciate your time here on quick bites. I hope youve enjoyed our delicious tale of defendant 93 and dessert. As for me, my search is over. Those reviews did not lie. In fact, im thinking of one of my very own. Some things you just have it experience for yourself. To learn more about anthonys cookies, visit him on the web at anthoniescookies. Com. If you want to watch some of our other episodes at sfquickbites tumbler. Com. See. In this episode, we are featuring the romantic park locations in your very own backyard. This is your chance to find your heart in San Francisco with someone special. Our first look out is here at buena vista park, a favorite with couples and dog lovers. It is as old as its neighbor and both have a significant forest, a refreshing retreat from urban life. The pass that meander we do under a canopy of 0, redwood, pine, and eucalyptus. Chill out and this environment and you might see butterflies and dandelions. Blue jays fly between the eucalyptus. It is ada accessible. Public transit is plentiful. Six, 24, or 71 bus. We have conquered the steps, we walked the dogs, and we have enjoyed a beautiful view the park has to offer. This is the place to take someone special and enjoyed a beautiful look out. Come to corona heights, located in the heart of this district. It offers a spectacular view of the downtown skyline, the bay bridge, and the east bay. The park is one of the best kept secrets. Unlike twin peaks, it is hardly ever crowded. On any given day, you will run into a few locals. Hop on a 37 bus to get there with that any parking worries. Locals can bring their dogs to run with other dogs. There is also grass for small dogs. It is a great place. It is a wonderful place for the city to provide these kind of parks. The dog owners appreciate it. Take time to notice the wildflowers on the grassland. And keep your head on the lookout for hawks and other bird life. Take your camera and be prepared to review the city in a way you will not forget. It is prominent with beautiful formations that are perfect to watch the sunrise from the east over the bay. This is another one of our great look out. We are at Mount Davidson. It has the highest point of elevation in San Francisco, 928 feet. This is the place for you to bring someone special. Enjoy all of the pathways, trails, and greenery that surrounds you. It provides a peaceful oasis of Public Open Space and great hiking trails. The spectacular view offers a Perfect Place to watch the sunrise, or, sunset, with someone you love. It is a good place to get away from the hectic life of the city. Get some fresh air. The view is fantastic. Wear sturdy shoes to conquer the trail, you have the feeling of being in a rain forest. Mount davidson is also a great place to escape the noise and the apostle of the city with your partner. Bustle of the city with your partner. It is quite a hike to the top at Mount Davidson but the view is worth every step. This is the place to bring that someone special. For more information about reserving one of these romantic locations, or any other location, 8315500. This number is best for special ovens, weddings, picnics, and the county for building. For any Athletic Field and neighborhood parks, call 831 5510. You can also write us at permits and reservations. Or walking in and say hello at old log cabin, golden gate park. And of course you can find more information at sfrecpark. Org