Extremely hard. Just a little bit of recap over the last few weeks, the city and the mayor have deferred some of the Business Registration fees. And they deferred them until september. That adds up to about 49 million in cash flow to the city of San Francisco. Several fees that apply to storefront businesses have also been deferred until september, helping to preserve another 14 million in cash flow. I want to be very clear that the mayor is clear about this, we are going to be looking at a significant deficit in the city of San Francisco, the bay area, the state of california, and so were talking about a Million Dollars out from the city that we wont have in revenue. We will have to all pitch in. Well all have to figure out how we save and go back to San Francisco in an even better way. If we want to Start Talking about recovery tomorrow, weve got to start planning it today. Im happy and delighted to tell you that the Recovery Task force kicked off last friday. It is about an 80person Task Force Led by myself, carmen chu, Jose Gonzales and rudy representing labor. 80 seems like a lot of people, but when you look at all of the different sectors and industries and nonprofits, it is a good representation of a lot of people who have shared interests. Again, were going to have to all Work Together. It is not just one industry here in San Francisco that is better than another. I want to also mention that were going to have to rely on our Public Health department to lay out new guidelines. We are essentially reinventing ourselves in a great way, bringing in technology that might be able to help us in a better way and create a better San Francisco. I want to touch on three points, though, if i can, pretty briefly. This is one where probably from a commerce perspective it doesnt emerlogicalseem logical. The Public School system and private School System implementing guidelines to get kids and teachers safely back into the school affects the whole area. Not until moms and dads feel safe, do we get a full workforce. It is important because a busy downtown San Francisco supports so many businesses as you know. All of the sandwiches get bought and kids get picked up at lunch, and it is important that somewhere e that wehave a busy. The second main point i want to make is Small Businesses will need to pivot. Well have to reinvent ourselves, get creative, and were going to have to be entrepreneurial problemsolvers that we naturally are. There is no greater test than this one to figure out how it will be different. Restaurants may have to change their seating arrangements, going town to not a full house. Here in San Francisco and los angeles, it is very difficult to make money without a fullseated restaurant. And were going to have to figure that out. That means takeout and maybe retail inside of a restaurant. Maybe other clothing produced by someone related to the restaurant, creating a lifestyle. All of the pivots are going to require us, the city, government, and private sector to be flexible with our permitting process. To look at permit streamlining, to allow change of use permits to occur. Maybe temporarily, just as we get back up, and then we can tighten them back up, but we need to be in this all together and be flexible. The third thing i want to mention is Public Health. The mayor has disown such done agreat job in listenig to Public Health. And well rely on them to tell us what is best practices. I hope the departments listen to Small Business, and Small Business actually steps up and says, you know what . No one knows how to run this nightclub better than we do, and here are some suggestions we think we can voluntarily put down, something we can live with financially, operationally. We look at the changes and the way theyre going to occur, theyre very much operational. There is one piece that has been floated around, and that is an idea of a certifcate of healthy places, voluntary standization, much like standization standardization, much as a food place has to have a safe handling permit. I, again, wanted to stress that creativity and ingenuity will get us largely out of this. And what will set one business apart from another is how safe and clean it is. If we can do that independently and collectively, San Francisco can be a better city. So ill stop there. Mayor all righ all right. Thank you, rodney. Commissioner huey, if you want to get some remarks, and then we can go right into the question and answer. Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, for logging in today. My name is cynthia huey, and im a Small Business owner in the city. And most recently, as a commissioner on the Small Business commission. I just really want to express how grateful i am to be a san franciscan right now. I was just outside on saturday, singing with my neighbors, and it was an amazing feeling. So im incredibly appreciative of show everyone in our communities have come together to fight for and support the health of all san franciscans. You know, just a quick story i wanted to share. I was recently in a west portal merg merchants meeting, with mayor breed as well you probably had no idea i was there. I was watching you during a meeting, and i could see you in your little zoom box, typing away. And i was just floored that this is our mayor. This is our mayor. You were in the chat to try to answer everybodys questions and connecting people. And i was so proud of the fact that i live in a city where our mayor just digs in and is doing the work. And so i just wanted to say from the very bottom of my heart, thank you so much for trying to help us all through this. It is an incredibly challenging situation, time. I cant even imagine, but i know were going to all get through this. And i believe in your leadership, and i really thank you. Mayor thank you, commissioner. So, i think, also, all of us have all of the programs and things memorized right now, all of the wonderful grants we can apply for and all of the loans and all of the Different Things that i think have been mentioned already, but i also wanted to highlight the work of the office of Small Businesses. Theyve been fielding hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and emails every week, trying to get Business Owners connected with resources, and really doing a lot of oneonone counselling. So i wanted to thank them. And thanking everybody on the panel. Rodney, your expertise today, and also leading us into the recovery. And joaquin, i dont know how you do this. Youre in every single meeting, and somehow youre in 20 places at once, but thank you very much. So at this point, lets i just want to move into the questions, if thats okay with everyone here . Yes. Great. Just to give everyone some context about the questions, the vast majority of people who are c. P. For todays talk are also c. P. d with a question. And these are questions that have been asked over and over again. Starting with joaquin, what is the status of the citys grants and funding programs for Small Businesses impacted by covid . Yes, thank you very much for the question. As the mayor said, for up to date realtime information, please go to oewd. Org, and click on covid covid19, and it will list all of the Resources Available, and what is implemen complementary from the state and local levels, ready to reach out with you online, connect with you on the phone to guide you through the process and help you navigate this very difficult time. In addition to that, also private Resources Available, newlyannounced grants that are accessible to you. Please do frequently visit that site. Its where we try to put everything we have available. We started out with a Million Dollars before we had the shelter in place, to support Small Businesses with grants, up to 10,000. Since that time we have doubled that grant pool so we could serve over 200 businesses through that effort, with grants up to 10,000. We also heard that some of the resources were not reaching some of the soul proprietors. And well be publicizing that on our website. We have a little over 127 grants from that first allocation. And secondly, the mayor introduced the gift to s. F. Fund here in San Francisco, so we could coordinate, and, mayor, thank you so much for the leadership there. So we will have private Resources Available to support us with a loan program, a zero percent interest program. We have a partner surntlcurrently that accepted applications. We received over 4,000 businesses who submitted that application. We want to reinforce that the resources we have able right now, from a citys perspective, are greatly exceeded by the demand. Which is why it is so important that today, if folks have not been aware im sure everybody is in the Small Business community thae federal sba program those applications opened up this morning at 7 30 a. M again, go to our website for more information there. Where you can learn about additional partners, Financial Institutions, who can also help you in getting those applications filled out. Why is that important . Because many banks are only working with their clients, and prioritizing them on a first come, first serve basis. There are billions of dollars being held for other smaller lenders, other Smaller Banks and cdcdfis, and making sure thethat the public knows they are there. Please do take the initiative right now, reach out to our hotline, as you mentioned, cynthia, and get realtime information from us, with any questions you may have, you will get a response and talk to a person when you reach out to us. So i think ill leave it with that. As a final piece, the mayor also introduced a Neighborhood Mini Grant Program on friday afternoon. It is also meant as another fill the gap in some of the most underserved neighborhoods. Given the fact we do have a financial crisis, we wanted to make sure were finding those resources as we have them available, and delivering them where they are needed, again, focusing on those who may not be able to access other resources in other ways. And also ensuring that women entrepreneurs, from a citywide perspective, had access to those grants as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. So many of the fees and fines that Small Businesses have been experiencing have been deferred now, i think, until september, is what you mentioned . Are there longterm plans for Small Businesses to be able to navigate those fees beyond that . Since many of us were already struggling to pay those before this. Mayor definitely. Thank you, cynthia, for the question. That is one of the areas that im laserfocused on. Because the fact is some of the businesses that are being required to close under our ordinance are not generating any revenue. And the fact that we would expect businesses to pay these fees during times that theyre not even open and able to generate revenue is not right. So we are working to figure out how we can deal with the fees overall, and what it would mean to reduce, or to eliminate, certain fees for a time period, or what have you. We are definitely looking into that because as what was said by rodney, what weve seen, were talking about somewhere around 49 million. The city is facing a significant budget deficit, but we also cant balance our budget on the backs of businesses that wont be able to reopen if we continue to burden them with even more city fees. So that is something that were definitely focused on. It is something that i care about. I care about dealing with that, to try to remove that barrier. But i also want to be clear i think, first of all, we have so many businesses that are going to be struggling even after we begin to reopen. There are businesses that are having challenges now. Theyre going to have challenges after this. But then there might be businesses that are okay. And we want to make sure that those businesses that are okay, that they continue to pay what they owe, if they can afford to do so. Because there are going to be a lot of businesses that cant. We want to be fair because this impacts all of us. When the city is not able to generate sufficient revenue, it makes it more difficult for us to provide more resources to those businesses that are struggling the most. In fact, we mentioned gifts to s. F. , where im actually raising private dollars to support Small Businesses. There are only three categories in our give to s. F. Program, and one is food insecurity, one is for housing and to help with people that might be facing eviction, and the most important category here is Small Businesses, and making sure that we have more resources. We need to maximize the amount of resources were able to provide in order to help carry businesses that need it the most through this pandemic. So it is definitely something that im committed to addressing. And this is where im going to count on the Business Community as i try to propose legislative changes through the process. Were going to need people to be supportive of that. Because it is really going to be its going to hit our budget hard, but i think the benefits of supporting our Small Businesses outweigh the need for us to collect these fees from our already suffering businesses. Thank you very much. This question, i think rodney would be the person to direct this to. Along with the fines and fees, i think one of the things top of mind for Small Businesses is also commercial rent. So what programs are there, or what types of resources do you have to help some of our Small Business owners with, to negotiate rent changes, rent relief, with their commercial landlords . Thats a good question and it is a tough one because at the moment, there is not necessarily any relief for landlords. In San Francisco, a very old city, many of our landlords are Small Businesses, too. They have mortgages, insurance, and their own obligations. So i think the battle is they want to not have vacancies. I dont know any land owner who wants to have a vacancy. If youre a tenant with a Small Business, you should begin a dialogue with your landlord, if possible, to see if there is any kind of deferment. I stress to you they are also under the same pressures, with mortgages and such. But there are private arrangements, and those kinds of conversations would be very helpful. Okay. Thank you. Mayor breed, many Small Business owners have not even heard back from the sba jet o yet on their loans. Do have you an update on the federal Assistance Program . I know this morning there was new funding added to that, but do you know anything beyond, or how the city can help advocate some of the Small Business owners who havent even had a chance to mayor yeah. And joaquin can provide some insight into that. His office is working on trying to get access to that. Absolutely. That is one of the biggest questions for us, in terms of where is accessibility happening. Almost immediately we were on the phone with Financial Institutions when we were getting questions across the city about what does this Program Look Like . Everything was rolling out so quickly, everyone was scrambling to understand even their own lenders, who they had a relationship with, would provide them guidance or even a response. What were monitoring very closely now, both treasury sisnaros and the recorder, cameron chu, reached out to the Financial Institutions to ask, how are you communicating with your clients . What is the process by which you will be processing applications . What is important to know right now, is based on those conversations, the mayor asked us to make sure we were submitting those concerns from the general politics to the speakers office, part of our federal advocacy. Thats why we saw this funding that was reserved specifically for smaller lenders, so folks had many outlets to access though federal relief funds at the same time. So as we see that program roll out today, well be monitoring it in realtime to find out what the responses are like. The Silver Lining for us that were seeing right now, but well still be watching closely, is the fact that there are those dollars that are held for smaller institutions, and we can see what relief is provided to the Small Business owners that take that path, as they begin to work with their financial clients, the large banks and the sba around their own applications. I do encourage every Small Business owner that has an application to reach out to their lender with some followup questions, in terms what have will