held on monday, february 22nd, 2021. this meeting is being called to order at 4:32 p.m. we thank you media services and sfgov that can be viewed on sfgov tv2 or live streamed. members of the public who will be calling in, the number is 415-655-0001 access code is 146 595 6926. again, the access road is 146 595 6926. press pound and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion and you will be muted and in lipsing mode. when your interest of comes up dial star 3 to be added to the speaker line. when you are aren't called, mute the device and when it's your time to speak you will be prompted to do so. best practices are to call from a quiet location and speak clearly and fully and turn down the device that you are listening to the meeting on the it's three minutes per speaker unless otherwise established. when the time is finished. speakers are requested but required to state your name. sfgovtv show the office of small business slide. >> today, we will begin with a reminder that the small business commission is the official public forum to place your opinions and concerns about policies that effect the economic vitality of small businesses and in san francisco. the offices of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, particularly at this time, you can find us online or via telephone and as always, our services are free of charge. before item number 1 is called, i'd like to start by thanking media services and sfgovtv for coordinating the virtual hearing and thank you for assisting with the public line. please call item number 1. >> clerk: item 1, call to order and roll call. >> commissioner adams. >> here. >> commissioner dickerson. >> unmute. >> here. >> commissioner dooley. is not on yet. commissioner hule is not on yet. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. also not on yet. commissioner laguana. >> present. >> mr. president, you have a quorum. >> president laguana: great. thank you, next item, please. >> item 2. board of supervisors file number 210078 administrative code. san francisco reinvestment working group. ordinance amending the at administrative code to submit business and government plans for a non deposit tory municipal finance corporation to the local agency formation commission discussion and action item. the presenter is preston tillborn, legislative aid. supervisor dean preston. if i need presenting controls, let me know and i'll give them over to you. >> thank you, dominica. welcome, preston, delighted to have you. very excited to learn about the much-needed potential public resource and good to see progress moving forward on this. i spoke with some folks that were working on this at the beginning of the pandemic. it's good to see on going steps being made. tell us where we're at right now. >> thank you, all so much. dominica, i just got an e-mail from carl saying he can't access the meeting. maybe you can help him join the meeting. awesome. so, real quick, thank you all and good afternoon everyone and happy monday. my name is preston killborn and i'm a legislative aid of dean preston in district 5. i want to thank president laguana and vice president executive director and the dominica donovan and small business commission secretary. dominica, you will be missed. so thank you all for all your work on the small business commission. i also want to thank carl from the v.o.a. and the public bank coalition for making themselves available to join me here today as well. so, today i'm here to speak on the reinvest and sf ordinance introduced by supervisor preston. the ordinance is -- we believe it's an essential step in creating a public bank here in san francisco. we're excited about the potential. public bank to provide solutions to crucial issues facing our city, especially as we look ahead at how to ensure an equitable recovery as we emerge in the pandemic from the years to come. a public bank promises public funds and the proceeds from wall street banks, indoor struggling communities, now needed more than ever. and also i just want to step back and say also, i also want to say thank you to our early co-sponsor at board of supervisors. that includes president walton, supervisor ronen, supervisor chan, melgar and supervisor haney. thank you for their support on this. i also would like to recognize sandy fewer and her team. particularly chelsea for their work leading this effort at the board of supervisor while supervisor was in office. and i would also like to thank assembly member david chiu and it makes this possible here in san francisco. so a little bit about the ordinance. we know the severe economic impact of the pandemic. the inequity in our city that are socioeconomic lines have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. as all of you know quite well, small business this is our city have shuttered while they're to survive with the combination of cleansing revenue and debt. we also know the communities of color have been impacted by the pandemic. at the same time, building as our nation by a trillion dollars, and simultaneously millions of dollars of p.p.p. loans and grants that were intended for many of our struggling small business have gone to billionaires and mega corporations instead. our for profit banking have played a key role in asker asexacerbating communities locally. and as we move forward and chart a path to economic recovery, we believe public banking can be a powerful tool to regenerate our economy with shared values in san francisco and afford housing, struggling small businesses, helping our entrepreneurs, our underserved communities and great infrastructure. and some of the things that you public bank supports locally, includes strengthening our mom and pop enterprises and supporting legacy businesses and cultivating new ones and strengthening co-operatives and adapting to covid-19 shifts, strengthening our neighborhood-based economy, a plan for longer terms stability. we think about some of the small businesses we think about some of the loans and the small businesses that need these loans to open. it's at the critical part. the last part is, public bank has the potential to support community banks and credit unions. north dakota with the public bank was the only state with a public bank and they have more credit unions and community banks than in eye state. in california, it's near the bottom. so what does the ordinance do? it will create a working group, tackle developing a business plan for a municipal corporation within a year, the group will have three banking experts, four community representatives and as well as a rep ten serve from the representative t willapply for . submit a business plan to the california department of business and oversight. business oversight innovation. and financial protection and funding requirement this is accordance with requirements set fourth and the california public bank act. and so we believe these are the key next steps in order to move forward on this visionary and essential task of creating the first municipal banks here in the city in san francisco. in my few months in this working on public bank, i realize it takes a lot of creativity, determination and per ser vance to reimagine banking and changed it while building equitable publicly owned alternative traditional banking and we have been carried by a diverse group of individuals and organizations that come together through the san francisco public bank coalition and we're grateful for their advocacy and hard work and intrusting our office to carry this critical legislation. some of those groups include the bank coalition leadership team and jackie fielder, curtis wu, jolene larose a, sam lu, jesse fernandez, charlie shamez and fernando marti and some of the organizations council of community housing, choo choo, lawyers committee for civil rights, dsa, sf after and lastly the united educators of san francisco. and so, i'll leave you with this, with this coalition and with the support and partnership of you all, i'm confident we will have successful public banks so once again, thank you all for in inviting me and happy to take any questions that you all might have. >> thank you, preston. commissioners, do we have any questions? >> we do and i'm just waiting for me to type their name in chat. >> commissioner adams. >> this is interesting. i appreciate you coming on today. i have some notes here. so, this is just to create working group to start the public thing, correct? >> that is correct. yes. >> because i've started a bank in san francisco. 27 years ago. and i am no longer there, it did go public so i appreciate your sediment when you say wall street because you were a private bank and we went public and i left to work for another private company. this is really interesting to me. in the working group, so, aba 157, i'm trying to wrap my head around this i know about north dakota and how they work. and how they're able to -- you said something that was really key like in north dakota it's a state public bank not a city public bank. having more people in san francisco then in the state of north dakota. i like the fact on some of the lending that you described, and one of the things that i would be interested in, i don't know if this is part of the working group or what so, does this fall under fdic number one and number two, who would be the -- would the federal regulator would be a state regulate or or the office of compliance and currency? do you know any of that? or is that still being worked on? >> so, a few things. so the goal is to set up a non deposit tory bank and part of the reason with that is we know the sdic has very strict regulations and around the creation or one is we'll be the first to create this. so with the outline was some concern around getting approved for a public bank through the fdic. so the thinking was, we go the route of a non deposit tory bank to build a little bit of equity to bring that conversation in years to come to the fdic to get approval on forward deposit tory bank. >> how do you raise the capital for this? you need money to lend out? you need to get the capital. >> that's a great question. >> i can also answer some of the questions as well. >> feel free to jump in. >> commissioner adams, to answer your question about the who is the regulator, the bill says they be fdic insured so the insurance which does provide some regulatory authority as well as the required to be have a state regulator, which is now the dfpi, formally the d.b.o. >> ok. and do you know -- how would you guys -- since you are not going to have deposits because that's how most banks do it, how would you raise the funds? >> one of the recommendations in the d. l.a. report was operator redirection of earnings on the city's investment pool that would have to be authorized by the board of supervisors, as part of the annual corporation ordinance. a second one is a series of board authorized appropriations from the investment pool and the third is a series of annual line items corporations as part of the annual probation ordinance itself and so the goal is overtime, increase the amount of money coming from the city into that pot of money to help finance the public bank. >> ok, here is another question. i mean, there's a part of me that does support a public bank and it's for this reason and it's what i see with the cannabis industry and what they have to go through. also, low income housing, what they all have to go through. those two things could use a public bank. so on the cannabis, i know, you can't get fdic insurance and there's a lot of restrictions because they just don't let you deal with that. would you structure it so you could deal with cannabis institutions, for small businesses? >> i don't know the answer off the top of my head. that's the goal is to bring experts within those induce industriesto have those convers. >> i think there's a lot of gaps right now with the regular banks and that i think a public bank would really help out, especially with small businesses. like you said, you've said some key things with the p.p.p. loans and stuff, if we had our own public bank we could get those funds and direct them to the right people. going through this once in my lifetime, i find this very fascinating so, what you guys, i don't know the answer to this and i'm just thinking ahead of the game, in the case of collections and (inaudible). is it the same as a regular bank? >> yes. so one thing to note is that keys, it would be just like a regular bank, however, the contemplated position of this bank in the lending marketplace is important. these are contemplated the wholesale banking institutions rather than retail and their clients are cdfis, local banks, and community lenders so the goal is not to replace existing small local finance institutions. what we be doing is wholesale and participating lending. that's what the public bank of san francisco would be doing. >> thank you. you really cleared it up for me. i appreciate that. i can get behind this then, that's great. >> thank you. >> president laguana: ok, is that it? you are done, commission adams? vice president zouzounis. >> thank you for coming before us today. this is really exciting and i'm really looking forward to learning more about how the small business community and our commission can support public bank initiatives. thank you for asking the cannabis question. that was on there for me. i think it would be helpful to understand a little bit more of what the fundings scheme for this if the city attorney had any reference points for how the city interacts with the public bank. would the city be able to put money directly into this that is something that came to my mind. there are two questioning and on the legislation and the composition of the working group and gets disappointing and if i could and not to let them participate in public bank lending. i would ask that the sponsors take, maybe, a recommendation swap that for 35% of selling area being healthy products but not more than 20% selling area being tobacco and alcohol products. i feel like that is a much fairer definition. our public housing entities are tntc or mercy housing, that he plied by this very similar and these special spaces so we wanted to fully encourage community retailers to be able to seek participation in the public banks and what it has to offer so that would be my recommendation for eligibility changes and then, yeah, if my fellow customers have any information i feel like that's a big one we want to make sure we're not having unintested consequences with who we preclude from getting access to this. >> you want to respond to vice president zouzounis? >> i appreciate that and i'm happy to share that with the supervisor. i appreciate that. >> ok. are there any other commissioners? couple quick questions myself. so, about the investment pool, i'm trying get a sense of the that would be available to anticipate year one starting with? >> this would be best answered by carl. do you know if he is joining? >> i have issues getting on. what i can say is i'm looking at the floor right now so the bla model that they drafted they assume that, i apologize. so they assume the -- they're looking for general pro priations of 10 million and in years two and three of the municipal finance corporations operations on the first two and three years and in additional appropriation of general funds or plus money from the investment pool of 10 million each year and year two and three. in total, that ends upcoming to about $80 million which can ultimately be increased or decreased at the discretion of the board of supervisors. >> is the presumably, the moneys are in that investment pool. i guess, who controls that? is that the economist? >> treasurer controls that. >> got it. and presumably, (inaudible). it does a feedback for whatever reason. so, if presumably the money the treasurer is looking for a return on is it part of the bank's business plan to match or equal that return? >> the b.l.a. they assume that through the funding of -- through the dedication, through both the general fund and appropriations they expend a return on investment of $25 million and 5 million general fund balance which would be allocated. the goal is to take the interest earned and reinvest that into the public bank itself. >> president laguana: wait a second, take the interest through the public bank and reinvest it through the public bank? >> take the interest earned through the investment pool you mean? >> you are muted. >> yes, sorry. thank you for clarifying. the money from the investment pool interest back into the public bank. >> right. what are the expected returns on the public bank? are you just looking to be revenue neutral? >> that is unfortunately a carl question. i don't know if carl is on yet. >> president laguana: no sign of him yet, if he gets on before, i guess, we're providing the call-in number for him so hopefully he will join us. i have a couple more questions that aren't as specific about the financing. hopefully we won't be as dependent as carl and he will show up before the item is over. so, let's talk about the -- you know, i should mention, i'm a fan of the idea and a fan of the concept and i think i agree with the point that north dakota having its own bank and i'd like to see the city have similar flexibility and so with what i'm asking my questions i'm coming from a place of being a supporter many of i just want to clarify that. on the working group, you have nine members of the working group. one through three are technical experts and 4-7 are community representatives. where, looking at this and i'm not sure where would you put someone with small or micro business development experience? because on our commission, that's what we would be looking for and i think should be a guiding light for the creation of the bank and if the intent is to support small businesses and certainly we'd like to make sure that there was someone on this working group that had experience with that. >> one of the community seats would be an expert in small business and the term local enterprise is the ordinance references to small business, non-profit, co-operative and land trust and then that term is used again when it's a person familiar with local enterprise lending. >> ok. would you agree that -- did you guys have a chance to review the feedback from our legislative aide? our soon-to-be missed dough dominicandonovan? i think -- could you just reread that definition of local -- where is it? local enterprise lending. >> it means small businesses and non-profit that operate mainly in san francisco. >> so, non profits, land trust, some them are not small business so what i'm suggesting here is that a seat be reserved for someone specific to small business and many are not small business some can be sun stan shall. we're always finding that when you have small business voices on these commissions and boards, the outcomes tend to be a lot more small business friendly. four seats would be to this local lending category. >> i personally was anticipating one seat. we can take this feedback back to the author. >> i appreciate the feedback. i think what i will say is we're working close partnership with the public coalition and of which is a member of they've seen the report from dough doughminute ache and the publick is to assistance and there's ways to get small business voices in simultaneously and achieve some of these equity goals as well. so, that is an important point to pay attention to. the other issue is legislation could be strengthened with more specific language with goals for economic development and economic opportunity, for example, establishing lending priorities to support borrowers who would otherwise be considered high-risk and lending priorities for entrepreneurs and vulnerable populations like women and minorities and to that, i would also add, as a subset of job creation, job creation that dis purport atly benefits vulnerable populations because we see examples of that too. for example, our restaurant industry as compared to save the tech industry and the vulnerable population and so it would be great to see those communities receive assistance and do you guys have any reaction to that suggestion? are there constraints there? >> i don't think so. i think for us it's -- i mean it's always conversation like how do you get more people around the table and for us, what i will say is the working group will be drafting the plan. they would be collecting feedback from external stakeholders in that conversation. so yeah, absolutely. what i will say is as working exclusively for district 5 and we've seen firsthand, even the city grant processing how often those businesses are left out due to outreach and all those things. and i think it speaks to the needs for public bank locally to having someone, having a bank that is just situated here that can assist a more hands on approach on some of these lending of some of the grants processes. absolutely. you are spot on with what you shared, yeah. >> and as a point of clarification just for myself, so, i just wants to make sure i understand this correctly. wholesale banking means that you won't be processing the loan documents or doing the credit evaluations yourselves, instead, you will do the credit evaluation of the city adviser or the -- you are a middle man between the money and the lending institutions than the actual lending institution, is that correct? >> i think you saw where i was going. that's fine, you can jump in. >> that's correct. these banks aren't intended to be retail banks. and part of the reason for that is in order to get it passed, we had to deal with the banking industry in sacramento and one of the associations to keep those public banks in their lane and not to encroach on local banks and credit unions. so, the restrictions on public banks are that they, if they pro provide a retail service it has to be clear it's a retail product or service that's not being offered by a local bank or credit union or financial institution. it is going to be difficult to provide those what is very clear and what is explicitly permit they do wholesale lending and infrastructure and affordable housing lending in the communities. so the participation in wholesale lending is where they'll touch on where their capital will reach small businesses. >> president laguana: again, from my own curiosity, what's the size of the market for a public bank in terms of outlets, cdfis, local lending institutions, how many -- i'm trying to get a sense of how many customers could the public bank potentially have and what would is the typical wholesale lending amount look like. is it a million or 10 million or 50 million. what point does it make for the lending institutions to dig through all the administrative work of applying for the money and administering it? >> unfortunately i don't have a number. the types are existing community based cdfis so it would be like meta, and or sf halving accelerator fund organizations that for them it would be worth it to have an ongoing relationship with the public bank. >> do you have a sense of what a typical wholesale lending amount is? what it makes sense to do. you are not lending on a case-by-case basis, it's some larger that they lend out of? >> right. i don't have that number with me but some examples of wholesale lending amounts were provided in the treasurers task force report. you are right. it's not a million it's 10 or 20 million is what we're talking about. >> so we're talking, basically about funding three to five local lending institutions or providing a source of funds. what is the competitive advantage that a public bank is it is it lower interest rates? i am a cdfi, why i do want to work with a public bank that might come with restrictions that more typical wholesale outlets might not have? what's attractive to me about it? >> yeah, it would be lower cost of funds. >> ok. >> great. thank you. and that's just, sorry -- >> i'm let commissioner -- my question was in line with what you were saying president laguana. i want to know where the accountability is for what you all are drafting as you know goals and for the public bank and how that gets translated to money provided to the community lending institutions so is that money going to be earmarked for specific things when it's giving to -- you know, given off to the cdfis? how are the goals translate nothing the funding is really what i'm trying to understand and if our mandate is san francisco, how are we making sure that those goals are in line with our san francisco needs they want text proper co-operative models and do feasibility studies like that. for example, if they're a tobacco or fossil fuel business and they want to transition out of that, you know, like, i am just trying to make sure that we going to be able to translate on to what cdfis are going to be given loans to and what tools we are envisioning to keep the goals of the public bank. >> you are asking a critical question of who is this bank account able to. the ordinance says the working group is tasked with coming up with a business maud that will is financially feasible and presenting that back to the board of supervisors and this would be all the questions you just asked. that is the opportunity to publicly hear them. i participated in the san francisco treasurers task force and one of the biggest issues with that task force was the lack of direction that the implementing ordinance gave that task force led us to basically have several months where we were asking each other what is the purpose of this bank and and to evaluate additional lending programs. >> back to the working group. the goal is also to have houses in and they've put a very similar role in terms of just facilitating not to the extend and clean power sf that's been housed in the puc and playing that role. it's to hire a consult apartment consultant whowas an expert to e working group around what a public bank looks like and both the lending priorities and to have the working group run with those ideas, and the spirit of san francisco's values. >> all right. let me ask you another question, who is determining who is on the working group? how are the people selected? >> we are partnering with -- so we're partnering with supervisor walton's office and president walton as president, we're also going to be partnering with supervisor peskin and the chair of the rules committee and there's externally, checking the community working closely with public bank coalition and putting fourth experts if they have in the industry and then also just reaching out to -- there are other public bank coalitions across the state and communication with them around recommendations locally and yeah, really rely on public bank coalition and the expertise that they offer around recommendations to support. >> in the legislation, it's legislation it'soutlined to putd recommendations to sit on the working group. >> and does the mayor's office have a role? >> >> the mayor's office does not, no. >> i was just -- why was the mayor's office excluded? just out of curiosity? >> the thought is we have a participant from the treasurer and city control's office which plays a role in the formation of public bank and that was thinking with the relationship to the mayor's office is they're putting two large departments onto the working group and the thinking was they're connected in that way. what were you saying? >> it was written in partnership with the board of supervisors. >> so the treasure and controller are from the mayor's office, do they get to vote on the plan as well? >> >> y. they will be voting members. >> ok. got it. >> all right. yes. got it. i thought seats 1-7 would be a pointed -- i got confused. got it. >> this is carl and i was the primary author of the d.o.a. report i had a hard time getting on and if anyone wants to ask questions about the report, i am now here. >> wonderful. thank you for joining us. and i apologize for the technical issues getting on. webex is always fun. we couldn't have gone like zoom like the rest of the world. we have to pick something complicated. so anyway, i had a quick question -- i asked about the investment pool and you guys asked those questions for something you were referring back to carl. i can't remember which question that was. i don't know if you recall, preston? >> i think it was around the funding and better understanding the -- sorry, i apologize, i'm going off the -- >> you asked a question about, you said it was a circular structure where it was reinvesting in the bank and taking funds from the pool and reinvesting, i believe. >> preston has spoken and we corrected that and he was saying it was how the bank was going to be funded and that would be difficult to accomplish. i think -- didn't one of the other commissioners have a question thaw wanted to defer to carl on? did you have a question on earlier? >> they answered. >> ok. >> commissioner, if i can inter jeb quickly. >> i think your question is correct me if i'm wrong, was how the profits were obtained and reinvested. i wrote it in my notes. >> i was trying to understand how much money was coming -- i remember the question. we were trying to get an understanding presumably the treasure when he puts money in the investment pool, he or she or they is expecting to make a return on that investment and i was trying to get the public bank and how it's looking to match that expected rate of return on the funds it took out. carl, i don't know, i think i've got that someone answered in that the bank wasn't really looking to make a return per se but i mean, obviously there's some return because you are charging some sort of interest rate to your cdfi and maybe it's just to cover the administration costs and nothing power and perhaps you can just very broadly at top level about the businesspeople or the business plan of the bank and how it creates to these funds that would otherwise be earning some kind of return? >> yes, that good question. in the model we proposed the blink benefits ray profit. it's not its primary motive but it is designed to generate a profit and, based on the assumption it generates a rate of return of about 1.4% on assets and about 9% on equity, which is around roughly comparable to what private banks do and what you do with those profits, is a question. i mean, in our model, we have all the profits going back into the bank, it's capitalization because what that means is that every dollar you have in profit, you can leverage it at five times that amount. you can transform those profits into a greater amount of loans. it is possible that the profits that the bank would earn could go back to the city. i mean, there's no reason that could not happen in our model. there's a -- the investment pool is essentially saying the policy goals and the benefits of the bank outweigh the rate of return that we were expecting to get on these investments. so they're basically take a lower rate of return. >> that's a fair assessment. it makes perfect sense to me. when we put vulnerable populations to work that benefits to the city far outweigh that cost. we see it over and over and over again. it makes a lot of sense. i guess, the last question i'd have is, on -- if one of the cdfi has a failure or event, is it just like as if the city had lost money on an investment? what sort of protections are there if any against the city being the victim of fraud or just, you know, we're in a pandemic? i think we've all seen tables can be turned upside down at us in a moment's notice. what kind of control do we have over protections of the city's money? >> i missed the earlier discussion, is the bank established and lending to cdfis and what protections are in place to ensure losses are not incurred by the bank and passed onto the city. is that correct? >> that's correct. i want to understand the cdfi lending guidelines and not in ex excruciating detail. just top level. >> to dive deep into the weeds would be the task of the working group. you know, the essential way you guard against that kind of rink is you have rigorous under writing standards that are vetted and are publicly -- they're available to the public for review. and the way we design the bank, i mean, you have to anticipate that some loans you make will not be repaid. our model could withstand very, very heavy losses. and still remain solvent. the trade off is it grows slower and it has a lower rate of return but the benefit is the financial commitment has a robust and very strong buffer and i think we did modeling and our bank could withstand a great depression-like scenario. our model would have done very well in it just has so much cushion. >> what is the typical loan size to a cdfi. >> i don't know the context of that question this is a wholesale lending environment and it's a cdfi. so we talked about over the first few years there being roughly $80 million in funds contributed by the city to be learned out and so, i would assume that a cdfi will not borrow $20,000 but they're going to borrow enough money to make it worth while for the administrative cost and the under writing guidelines so i'm contemplating how many -- what is the typical loan size and how many customers do you anticipate the bank will have? >> well, that really, you know, that depends. that's a question that is, i think, the next stage. we were looking more generally at kind of broad-lending categories as opposed to drilling down to that extent. i mean, i guess, one of the ways that i would imagine the bank would try to operate if it's providing loans to small businesses it would do that to the maximum extent possible with existing cdi loan funds like the northern california loan fund. i know those existing loan funds only lend up to 10 million. they have certain caps and the bank can go way beyond that. it can make large-scale loans. it can make loans in hundreds of thousands of dollars or you know, even into the millions. it would have that kind of large scale lending capacity. the way in which you structure strong business lending, there would be a lot of questions addressed around that. i don't want to get too specific. >> now i'm confused. i apologize. because earlier we talked about the bank would be wholesale only not lending directly to businesses. you are contemplating to businesses. could you clarify? >> well, the way i imagine it working is yes, i mean, the bank could lend in principle directly to businesses the way in which the stay law and if you are on the call, jump in around this but, i believe if i'm recalling correctly the way the state law is written is the bank would have to have an agreement with at least one local credit union or community bank and if it had that agreement then it would have latitude to engage in a broader range of lending activity. the way we imagine it, that i think the way you get the most bang for your buck, is if you had a local credit union or a network of them who entered into partnership with the bank through things like loans syndications, risk sharing, loan participation. there's a lot of different ways you can structure those. what that would mean is for instance, a credit union can put in you know $100 and the bank can put in $100 alongside that and take a lower rate of return or accept certain types of risk. does that make sense? you actually leverage the bank's money through the existing network of local credit unions and community banks. that's how we envisioned the bank having maximum impact. >> so basically you are supplementing the cdfi existing capital and giving them flexibility to increase their lending guidelines? >> yeah. and you can again you can do that for instance like the cdfi can make a loan and the bank can buy it off their loan book and sort of infuse more money that they can relend. or the bank could in some cases inject certain types of equity, it's called secondary capital into credit union and they can leverage that. so there's a variety of ways that you can go about structuring that relationship when you git the buy in there's creative thinking about how it can work. >> so, commissioner adams, who is our commission and you missed this during the beginning here but you actually started a bank so we're blessed to have experience and wisdom on the commission. commissioner adams, does this all make sense to you and matches up with you as a lending institution like this is an attractive proposition? >> yes, absolutely. especially he mentioned a couple of things we call them pap precipitation loans. yeah, it makes total sense to me. so, yes. a good example to work with and one of my favorite organizations is northern california community loan fund. they've done some excellent work with low income housing here in san francisco and if it wasn't for them stepping up to the late with mercy housing, you wouldn't even be put up. at the bank i was at, we used to participate with them and fund a lot of our cra funds through them. i really like this proposal and i really like that it's been really thought through and everything. so, i think through participation loans, with community banks and credit union, to answer your question, president laguana, prior to this bank, i was at another bank when i specialized in wholesale lending in detroit and the wholesale amounts were anywhere on the low end 250,000, so we're talking detroit. and a high-end to 5, $10 million. >> ok. >> but that's detroit, you know. detroit and san francisco costs are a little bit different. and the interesting thing is historically, you know, there's a risk. even in some of the worst -- like in 2008-2009 across the country, a lot of these organizations didn't lose money. you know. on the top end you have governmental entities that are large institutions providing them with capital. some of the small business owners who want to buy their buildings or this is will happen because that's where you run into issues with the big banks but i know there are some cdfis out there and they're willing to help small businesses if they had the funds to do it and we used to do tic loans for commercial buildings and that really helped out. when the big bank won't do it. n will help out a lot of people across the board and especially small businesses and we think this will help out a lot and affordable housing, that's where a lot of people, we need to keep telling you, values they say rents are down in san francisco you about rents being done in san francisco when you went from $3,500 to $2,700, it's still $2,700 a month. which to me is nuts. and i think this will help a lot of those working class people stay in the city. and that is so so important right now because as we heard from our last commission meeting with people leaving the bay area, this will help so, i really like everything i've heard tonight from all three of our guests. i got excited here. >> that's amazing and i love that you are excited about it. one last question and this is really for all three of you and i appreciate your patience in helping me understand how all of these pieces fit together. with respect to the existing community bank cdfi environment, are there any holes, areas where we're weak and for example, you mentioned madia, you know there's some good resources in the mission. do we have a similar level of support in bayview and the excel see year? is there some place and let me tell you why i'm asking. the next question after starting a public bank is, do we have enough end user or borrowing support in the places where we really need it and i just wonder you have been looking up to this much deeper than we have and is there any holes that come to mind and places we don't have enough cdfi or community bank support. >> i think it would be useful to actually hear about the dla's anticipated end user isn't just giving advice a lot of it is housing preservation production which will be beyond just the existing cdfi base. do you want to talk about that? >> yeah, i mean, we were as specifically by supervisor fewer to look at housing issues so we didn't do a lot of work on small business lending by think what commission adams have had the name correct, talked about, i think it's where this could have very major impact in terms of property acquisitions and providing and you can do things shorter term working capital loans and those things of things but particularly for establish small businesses and non profits, being able to assist them in acquiring property would be a major area that the bank could operate in. one of the things the bank can do is make large scale loans or find purchasers and the system and acquiring property. the northern california loans fund they do great work and i think their maximum loan amount last time i looked at is $10 million and so the way we designed the bank it could go much higher than that so you talk about very large scale acquisition and i have stabilized non profits and the arts groups and the cultural groups and also provide tremendous benefits and small businesses and yeah, meta is doing a lot of work in the commission but you know, there's always, we can calls do more and i think a lot of other areas of the city, bayview are very underserved right now. >> go ahead. i just want to add to carl's answer which is the presence of this bank will provide an incentive for other cdfis to operate to fill the gaps and you are bringing up president laguana. >> that was what i was thinking and that leads to the next question, how do we make that outreach happen and capitalized on it and i great the feeling those institutions aren't the kind of thing you create over a weekend. and so, those conversations skating to where the puck is going to be rather than where it's at needs to start happening sooner rather than later and if people know there's an injection of capital into the system that is indicatorred to its useful information for the market to know and how do we find the right people to help make those be really successful in impactful for the communities and serve as some of the areas. that is the one little feedback i have is let's keep an eye open for those possibilities and opportunities. and try figure out how to jump start those conversations because, i imagine between the city and assembly member hule this will come to fruition and hopefully this working group is successful. so, let's also build all the elements of the foundation so that this translates broadly to all of tour struggling and disadvantaged communities across the city wide. if that, unless any other commissioners have any comments or suggestions and thank you again for entertaining all my questions. we will go to public comment. is anyone on the line for public comment? >> checking to see if anyone is on the line for public comment, please. >> no one is online, sorry, i had trouble trying to unmute. it kept going. >> what's the story of our time. >> you are either muted or trying to unmute or trying to mute and you don't want anybody to hear you and it's always the thing you don't want it to be. seeing no public comment, public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have any further discussion? i just think this, now is the time, please. >> i just think, as we were just discussing through, what helps is oohed thing right now i've seen in the city is non profits want to buy their facilities just to stay in the city and this will help so many people and so many different levels and i just think this is long overdue. >>. well, i am going to make a motion that we support the supervisors ordinance with the recommendations that they adopt the suggestions that were offered by our soon-to-be dearly missed legislative aid dominica donovan and i feel like there's one other suggestion we had in there. >> i would like to propose -- i will second with a friendly amendment if it isn't taken. and i recommendation that we add to our action item that for section 4c in eligibility for lending, instead of precluding any tobacco license holders, that language changes to that mirror the healing' retail ordinance definition which is no more than 20% selling area to tobacco and alcohol products. >> that's a agree. if you want to make any kind of amendment about cannabis, was that commissioner adams, was that the answer to your satisfaction? >> it was answered to my satisfaction. >> great. dominica, i know that wasn't the most he will gently worded motion, but were you able to capture all that have? >> yes. >> ok. >> the motion presented by commissioner laguana and lended by commission zouzounis. [roll call vote] >> he is having technical difficulties. >> we can try and come back to him if he is able to get back on. >> i don't think that he will be. >> i also vote yes. >> commissioner laguana. [laughter] >> motion now passes. >> president laguana: great. thank you all three for taking your time and being so patient to explain all of this. not all was on point but it helps us understand so many aspects of this and i imagine this won't be the only time the public bank comes before us so, this is important work helping us understand you are all up to and we're supportive and if there's anything to help in the future don't hesitate to let us know. >> thank you. >> thank you for in inviting me and all of us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> president laguana: next item, please. >> clerk: item 3, approval of legacy business registry applications and resolutions. discussion item. the presenter is it richard kurylo legacy business program manager and impassing the control over to you now. >> thank you. >> hello rick. >> how are you? >> i'm excellent. it's go ahead to see you. >> let me see if i can share my screen here. is that it? does that work? >> all right. >> ok. good afternoon, president legault and voice president zouzounis, commissioners, office of small business and staff. richard, legacy business program manager. before you today are two applications for your consideration of the legacy business registry. including a staff report, a draft resolution and the application itself and a case report and draft resolution from the planning department. the applications were submitted to planning on january 7th and heard by historic preservation commission on february 3rd. item 3a is ajc auto body. the business is a vehicular repair facility established in 1990. they provide full service automobile work and including paint, suspension, repairs, tires, electrical work, bus and truck repairs and more on both contemporary and classic car models. although hac sees a diverse customer base from all over the city they're returning customers largely are from their own neighborhood of the bayview and nearby neighborhoods such as visitation valley and the portal and the mission. the core feature and maintain to remain on the legacy business is auto motive services. item 3b is g.mazzei and honed hardware it was opened in 1936 and making it one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the buy have you. bayview. it was a watch repair shop and it continued to expand to a hard ware store. and they offer a personalized shopping experience that is more approachable than big box hardware stores providing advice due to their knowledge of the neighborhood building stock throughout time. the store is well stocked with supplies from home improvement and repair projects and the core feature must maintain is hardware store. and both businesses met the three criteria for listing the legacy and received a positive recommendation from the historic commission. they recommend adding the business to the registry and two resolutions for your consideration and a motion and support should be framed as a motion in favor of the resolution. i'd be happy to hire any questions. they may speak on behalf of the applications during public comment. >> president laguana: great. thank you. commissioners, any comments? >> seeing none. do we have any public comment on the line? >> >> is anyone on the line for public comment? >> yes, we have one caller. >> hello. i'm calling on behalf of ajc auto body. i have the owner on the line who would like to speak on behalf of the business? >> great. >> hello. >> you are on, please speak, caller. >> first and foremost, i would like to thank everyone in attendance for the opportunity to be able to speak. i would also like to extend my regard to all the nominated ajc in last but not left i want to tend the city and county of san francisco for everything he has contributed to be in our legacy. and for all the the wonderful memories he continues to make for me in everyone else that forms a part of the story of this city. allow me to interest myself. i am the business owner of ajc like many people who have emigrated to san francisco, i started my business with a vision and a dream and i wanted it to be a lot more than business and i wanted to make an impact on the community and i was going to serve and make it my own for the rest of my life. during this long journey doing business in san francisco i have learned to accept and embrace the cost of doing business here in the city. i am focused on my community by giving back in anyway that i can. even if that is putting them back on the road or only giving them a bottle of water. i want to be able to pass down ajc as a legacy with the same values with which it was found all those years ago. to keep the flame going in the pain. ajc wants to continue to be a part of the story of san francisco. thank you all for your time. thank you, very much. >> thank you. >> are there any other callers on the line? >> that was the only caller. >> great. >> so, any commission comments? >> i'd like to comment. >> please, go ahead. i am literally down the street from them. to see them to be nominated and we have an opportunity to do some and media exposure just so people but from the bayview and hard wares and amazing and i just this is a wonderful opportunity from follow them with this and they're such an essential part of the bayview from ourself and we were going through the building project that they were just always right there and i just want to speak on them and the community that i think this is definitely due for them. >> i think the phrase that they say now is love to hear it? >> is there any other commission comments? >> i would just say, the city is full of a lot of businesses are not as sexy and visible as the restaurants and comedy clubs and live venues and cleaning our clothes and selling every piece of good under the sun and so it's really nice to see some recognize are doing just that have worked long over a hard time and stay over business so my congratulations. >> do we have a motion? >> i will second that motion? >> we have to have the motion first. >> would someone like to make the motion? >> i move. >> ok. >> commissioner, what is the motion, please? >> to approve the two legacy business applications as presented. >> ok, is there a second. >> i second that. >> ok. >> the motion by commissioner hule to approve the legacy business applications as presented presented by commissioner dickerson. [roll call vote] ordinances drafted five resolutions published two white papers and the economic mitigation working group which resulted in 15 recommendations assisted in the drafting of 83 federal stimulus recommendation and 32 separate recommendations to the recovery task force and she did all of this while fielding 15 billion calls e-mails and text and we tried to be very specific there about the number of calls and i think we came up short. her excellent research and analysis skills along with her willingness to go above and beyond helped ensure important legislative amendments, inspired and contributed to new legislation and improving the quality of life for all of san francisco small businesses and it's for these accomplishment this is which deep gratitude the small business commission will recognize dominica donovan with the certificate of honor. [applause] it's a quiet clap on zoom but we can loud clap. >> yeah. >> thank you. i don't know if this is my time to speak or not but, i will -- >> let me interrupt. this is not your time to speak yet. you can go last. commissioners, do we have any comments? >> yes. >> commissioner dickerson, just fyi, if dominica was continue, she would say use the chat to indicate you want to speak. but i will recognize you none the less. commission dickerson. >> i officially went in the chat. >> perfect. >> i am the newest to this and this board and i initially received all of the information and was extremely overwhelmed. and i was really grateful for the initial set up and consultation but there was something about when i received the pope call from dominica. i -- she literally was my great of air and it made me feel like not only was this possible, doable but she literally brought such an ease to me it was something that was so complicated is not easy for someone to do that with something so large and capacity as being a commissioner on this, at least i don't take it lightly. i just want to say and you know, just with who she is as a person, her ability to communicate and bring ease to me was probably the most essential part of -- i appreciate dominica so much and the last question we had it felt like we have known each other for years just with how -- just the way that she is. i mean, of course we all know she has an amazing work ethic and she's really good at what she does and i would say this and i don't know anyone that does what she does, she's the best at it but more importantly to me, it's who she is as a person. i am so sad. although i celebrate you, transitioning. you spoiled me rotten and i gist i justwant to say, i'm going tos you tremendously and i do celebrate you moving on because i know it's going to be for your embersment and i just celebrate you and i'm grateful because i know we're going to continue to have a good friendship. i'm so grateful and to the small business commission. >> thank you. >> commission hule. >> yes, i cannot believe this is actually happening already. i hope you didn't have to write your certificate for yourself. but -- >> we won't do that. [laughter] >> i think i've only been on the commission the past year and it's been through zoo and i wish we would have spent a lot more time together in-person and in real life because i do miss those moments and just before and after meetings where you really helped put me at ease and helped me kind of understand the lay of the land and in terms of what is going to happen and when things happen and stuff like that and on top of that i appreciate all of the personal connections that you know we've been able to make and it's harder now because i don't know exactly, you know, how i'm supposed to text you and when i'm supposed to text and you stuff like that. i really do hope that we stay in tough and i really am looking forward to staying abreast of your future success and this is very exciting for you and i'm totally rooting for you and i'm just going to be your biggest cheerleader. thank you so much for all you've done for the office and thank you very much for what you've done for our commission and myself personally. so, you can't wait to see all the good stuff that you are going to be doing. thank you. >> president laguana: vice president zouzounis. >> thank you. dominica, i am so grateful for your time serving us. you are our point guard and we could not have done the work that we've been doing without you. i am probably going to get emotional because i can't thank you enough for having this perfect balance of professionalism and bringing your experience in the public sector and making sure our document and our recommendations are up to parliamentary code and meeting that with real community of informed input and economic policy that is driven by need and driven by the real lived experience of our most vulnerable communities and you've done that so well have and it's recognized and it's felt not just by us by by all the small businesses that you've helped and advocated for and you taught the supervisors a lot. i think that you've learned we've early learned from you and we're process and yeah, who and what you spring professionally and your love and support for real community-driven economic policy and i appreciate that so much. so thank you for also being such a strong advocate of leadership and i have benefited from your support and we now have a woman majority commission and i'm really proud of this moment and for your role and bringing us here so thank you so much. >> president laguana: thank you. commission dooley. >> i just want to say that you have been amazing all this time of grace under fire. >> zahra: we will definitely miss you. >> thank you. >> i want to echo what everybody is saying. our loss is supervisor stefani's gain. i want to thank you for all your help. when i was helping out with the meetings and making sure we get our forms 700 filled and turned in and those are the important stuff and i want to thank you from the about the um of my heart for everything you've done and helping me with this commission. we know you are not going far. just up to the second floor so we know where to find you. >> i'm so grateful that you responded to the job application and moved from d.c. to san francisco and you have definitely been the glue for the commission and have been instrumental in terms of being a partner with the business councilors and we have our preliminary discussions and the input and insights to looking at legislation that i didn't think of so, that has been really stimulating and i will miss that but, as commission says you have the gift of being able to look at things at the high sort of level but knowing how to impacts the smallest of small businesses and that is truly is a gift and your passion that you brought to the work and during the legislative analysis and you were doing business counseling and the active space and working with all these really massage therapists losing their space and livelihood and just the ability to be able to have a clear head of how we solve that problem and being empathetic to that and i am a very excited for you going inform supervisor stefani's office. i am really looking forward to what you are going to be able to contribute and i think you are going to help make this city even better because you are going to be dealing with a broader set of policy issues so, looking forward to what is coming ahead of us. thank you so much. >> president laguana: why are you leaving me? you know, right away, i was joining the commission in march of 2019 was immediately impressed by your depth of knowledge and your commitment to the process. i became present and later and two or three weeks a global pandemic started. i can't even imagine how we could have gotten through that at the level we did without all the work that you were doing. both in front of the scenes and behind the scenes and my god, how many text did you answer at 11:00, midnight, 1:00 a.m., as we tried to push forward on one resolution or another or strategizing on how to best help the city. you know, i'll just say for the benefit of the other commissioned that didn't have the pleasure that i did of working as much with you as i was blessed to do. dominica personifies the best that the city has in terms of public service and commitment to helping the city grow and become better. she helped me grow and become better and ways that i didn't. never could have seen in a million years. she was and is a vigorous advocate for minority and women and paying attention to all kinds of things that aren't technically in her job category or job duties and bringing her formidable intellect to bear and it's going to be a devastating loss to lose you to this commission and the work that you have done really we're all deeply in debt to you whether we know it or not and we all know it. and so, just thank you so very much for being you and for everything you give to the city. i'm so sorry we have to do this over zoom and can't do it in-person. i'm sorry that i've never had the opportunity for us to socialize and buy you a drink or get you a glass of water even. but, you know, i know that the one thing i take constellation in is that the city is not going to lose you. and the city will be a big winner because your portfolio will be widened and everything you learn here you will take there and i think also that this spreads the influence of the community a bit to and throughout the city that is probably a good thing. saying all that aside, on a personal note, it's been an honor and a privilege to know and you become friends with you and i'm really going to miss working with you on a daily basis and that part is really hard. thank you. >> if you. >> that's is weird to hear. it's uncomfortable to hear people say nice things about you for a little bit. i don't know, especially on camera how am i supposed to react. thank you from the bottom of my heart. thank you. each of you for those really kind words and remarks and it is been an absolute privilege to serve in commission and thank you for providing me with that opportunity. i am so grateful that you responded to the random applications from a woman in d.c. who had zero ties to the city. just over -- i guess two and a half years ago, coming to san francisco i am not a native san franciscan, i don't have family here. i threw myself living in this city and getting to know the different communities. there's no better training ground through the small business commission and through going to the different commercial corridors and so grateful that i have the opportunity to do that while also serving the commission and businesses. each corridor has its own personality and that's what i love about san francisco and that's what i loved about it biff even moved out here and i'm so grateful that i was able to positively contribute in some way to making those corridors over the past few years. when you are in the thick of things, the results of your work but i would like to think that i did have a positive impact while i've been here and that i am so grateful that i got to work with all of and you get to know all of you and where you are own personal allegations lie for the small business community and what your motivations are and how you -- what brought you to the small business commission and why they did things. this is a volunteer position and you've spent collectively, i don't know how many hours serving this community back that needs you. i can about further and through the list individually how much i enjoyed working with each of you and i will not be able to do that because i'll probably start crying and i hate having the spotlight on me but because of all of you, i have grown tremendously in this role and professionally and personally and i will be grateful for that persons and i'm absolutely committed to bringing that into my next role serving the city and under supervisor stefani's leadership and i'm so grateful for this -- son, i don't know if my dog just popped in the video to have the opportunity to be able to do that and so with that, i thank you all from the bottom of my heart and this is not a position where i will forget but one i will carry with me as i move forward. >> we're looking forward to asking you some tough questions when you come back. >> i am prepared to be in the shot seat. to go in the -- so i'm looking forward to that. >> president laguana: with that, do we have any public comment? >> is there anyone on the line for public comment? >> seeing no one in line forecast public comment. >> seeing none. public comment is closed. you've dodged a bullet there. >> yes, i did. i don't know if you can tell but i hate attention. [laughter] why are we uncomfortable but it's something that needs to change. >> get ready. so, no further comments from commissioners and we wish you all the best and godspeed, thank you so much and look forward to seeing you when you come back. with that, we'll go to the next item. >> i will follow approval of draft meeting minutes february 8th, 2021 action item. >> are there any member of the public would would like to make comments on item number 5. >> i see no one in the queue. >> perfect. >> and seeing none. public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have a motion. >> i second. >> motion by commissioner adams and approve the minutes. from february 8th, 2021 and seconded by commission laguana. role call vote. commissioner adams. [roll call vote] >> next item, please. >> clerk: item 6, general public comment allows members of the public to comment on matters within the jurisdiction and not foe young suggests new agenda items for the commission's future consideration and discussion items. >> there are any members of the public who would like to make a comment on any item or matter that is not on the agenda? >> there is no one in the queue for public comment. >> public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item 7, director's report on the office of small business and the small business assistant center. department programs, policy and legislative matters and announcements from the mayor and discussion items and thank you dominica, i'm actually going to ask if you can pass the controls over to me so that there are few items i want to show the commissioners in my report. >> ok. >> over to you now. >> all right. >> thank you. >> ok. commissioners, i want to -- i'm going to be providing with more consistency reporting data from this business assistance center as i have mentioned in previous meetings we have my greated from sales force classics to sales force lightening so this data information is more easily and readily accessible. and our january 2021 numbers a total client served was 453 and this is an increase of 41% over january 2020 and a reminder that in january of 2020 we weren't yet in the pandemic. we are current lie assembling data from our annual report for fiscal year 19-20 and so i'm going to provide you with a highlight from that annual report so the total client served is in fiscal year 19-20 and again that's from july 1 to june 30th, so july 1, 2019 to june 30th, 2020 the business assistance center served as total of 6,476 clients and that is an increase of 66.3 9% and this is the pandemic being front line responders for small businesses and so as you can see for january of this year, we served 453 clients and that is a 41% eve last year but our increase numbers for the fiscal year 19-20, the significant increase is the result of responding to over a thousand clients in the months of march and april. i also want to provide you with taking a look at the previous last five years and to let you know -- so our total client numbers and that we've had an over all consistent increase in the number of clients that we have been serving at the business association center and so fiscal year 15-16, we served 2,935 that was a 1% over the previous years and fiscal year 16 and 17, 3,309 that was the 12.74% and 17 and 18, 3,604 and that was in 8.92% over 16 and 17. fiscal year 18 and 19 is 3,892 clients served that's roughly an 8% increase and then of course our fiscal year 19 and 20 that's 6,476 and that was the 66.3 9% and increase. and in the previous years, the majority of businesses that we do assist are in their pre start up and start up phase and generally that's consistent of 60% of the clients that we served and this past year, because of the pandemic, there's been a flip and the pre start up and start up consisted of 24% and 70% for the existing businesses. we also track our services, the number of clients that we serve in languages, and so fiscal year 19-20, we provided clients services and chinese to a total of 431 clients that is at 7% of clients served and in spanish 413 that is 6% of the client served. and in our news letter and what we call our news letter in e-blast, so, previous to the pandemic, we generally sent out a quarterly news letter and starting with a pandemic, we were sending them out at least three to four times a week and we're now down to twice a week depending on kia nounses and we started translating the news letter though this is not the most reliable for real time information around the guidance that the city was providing businesses and in terms of what they needed to do, we were translating our e blast through google translate and what is interesting to note is we are also able to track the number of news let tears have been open in the vary us languages so in spanish we've had a couple of our e-blast open in spanish there's 1,545 and over those four months, i'm not going to read the entire numbers. it does speak to the importance of trying to do the best that we can in providing language accesses particularly during this critical time. the open rate is for our e-news letters is 26% and the click through rate is 10.5% and both of these numbers, the 26% is above industry standards and the 10.5 is around industry standards. and then you will be getting the information soon. as we compile it and we track our client services by districts for the number of individuals served by the district and by industries and type of service request and type of service request is the pre start up existing businesses, expanding and closing businesses and so, those are the retract by the service requested and race, ethnicity and we're beginning to track by gender and how they heard about osb and also our business portal you use h user numbers and it's interesting our business portal user numbers, while i did not put this data in the report, the portal is really designed for our pre start up and start up businesses and the information and those numbers are remaining relatively consistent so, it's still speaking to the fact that the portal is information that is important to provide our small businesses starting this week, san toronto will move into 1b tier 1 of the vaccination schedule and that includes food and agriculture and childcare and the city has been directly communicating with businesses that meet this classification with that information and their employees and so, and these, because food agriculture and those are businesses and when they might start to asked themselves for a vaccine. it does need to be thank you to mayor breed. they're doing an excellent job and being able to be at the ready to be able to get vaccines and distributed quickly. we have the ability to do that. we just need the vaccine. also, because we're on the downward slope there's a possibility the state will allow cf to move into the red tier and so we're going to try to something new. we'll conduct a webinar to provide businesses in advance notice of what the red tier opening guidelines will be. so normally how we've been handling it in the past says on this date, businesses can start opening and with the notification that the timing of the notifications and it doesn't give businesses enough lead time to often be able to do those opening and reopening criteria on the date that they're allowed to do the open or expand their operations so, i really want to extend the and workforce development and let our command center for putting together the webinar will be sending out an announcement either this evening or first thing in the morning about businesses to be able to join that remember nar but again, to stress this is an advance notice and the webinar is not advance notice for when we get the notification from the state we can move into the red tier. i'm not sure and commissioner zouzounis but president joe biden announced the sba will establish a 14-day exclusive p. p.p. loan application period for business and non profits with fewer than 20 employees and this also includes self-employed individuals and this is really his attempt to get this loans and funding out to our smallest businesses and equity related approach and so, couple things to highlight is that, as i said, so sole proprietor making it's year for them and also eliminating exclusionary restrictions and such things as prior non fraud felony convictions and and also, eliminating the restriction for small business owners who were struggling to make their student loan payments and that was a disqualifier so that's being removed and then also ensuring access for non citizens, small business owners and who are lawful u.s. residents by clarifying that they may use their individual tax i.d. numbers so this is definitely an expansion of those who will be able to access the p.p.p. and when i'm done if there's additional information that you have that you would like to add please do. state funding rise, governor announced he is expanding relief so increasing the 5 million for small business to 2 billion and then also providing fee waivers for both our bars and restaurants and so the abc waivers and this is definitely -- this is contingent on sen ter wiener's bill passing. i think we'll have that to look forward to and then of course, more resources for critical childcare. and then lastly, just to highlight a few legislative items. this tomorrow at the board of supervisors, it will be the final reading for the music and venue recovery fund. supervisor haney's music and recovery fund. supervisor stefani's waiver for the business registration and license fees will have its first reading at the board of supervisors and last week at the government and audit oversight committee there was a police code, general store mandate tag employers provide ppp and he is moving it out and making it a established ordinance and this timing of this we weren't able to get it scheduled before the commission. it will be sunsetting in two years and i want to extend tosupervisor main's' staff to review some amendments that are being proposed in relationship to that and we did have discussions around the penalty and administrative fines as it would effect small businesses versus the larger businesses so, that for the business registration is she will provide you with an update on how the tax attorney's office is has fee waivers taking space and the fact that you have to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the fee waivers and how they're facilitating that communication with businesses as they go about. just because your business registration may be waved, that does not mean that you are exempt from having file your business registration. your annual registration and the same thing goes for the consolidated license bill. and then, supervisor hule, hopefully you will be able to provide us with an update of the survey under commission reports and commission snow squalls there anything else you would like to add at this point on the sba new announcement from president biden today? >> i'm happy to try to answer commission adams' question too if you would like to raise it. >> sure. >> commissioner adam. >> you have a question? >> when you get information on that, can you send me the link for that? because, there's a lot of people who are 20 employees and under that this would really help. i can get a link to that. >> i'm happy to share -- the only information we have right now is the press release that is publicly available so i'm happy to share that with the office to spend to all the commissioners and that's publicly something you can share with small businesses and the short of it is, it is a small window two weeks so we need to encourage people to get out there right and i get in the door. and for folks that are concerned about pending p.p.p., that applications that don't fit that cry ter y. anything in the pop line will continue to proceed. yeah, i'll share that press release and any other information that i get. >> with the state of california, it was the same thing. they only had a 14-day window and some tenants go right away and others just they get it towards the end that have and we didn't get anything. i think you can send it help so i appreciate it. thank you. >> just to clarify, if you had an application that is already in the works, it's not going to be impacted by this? ok, great. i know a lot of people in that category especially with all those error codes. so, that will be -- i know many of them were worried. ok. any other -- did i interrupt someone? >> i do have an important comment i forgot to make related to the director of port. so, four individuals that are using schedule c for p.p.p., another change and is that you are able to use your gross amount as he posed revenue and that's a big change. so take note of that. >> can you repeat that again. >> sure. so, because we are focusing now on sole pro pry people will use the 1040irs form, prior you would put your net revenue online 6, now can you use your gross. >> 80% are small business requests 10 or less employees so having them have the ability to be able to have that focus institution time that they're working and it's greatly appreciated. i don't know if this is the information that you have received commissioners but that the president did say on wednesday, it's more specific guidelines to come out and it's that what you have heard. it's doing its regular weekly webinars and so they do it on wednesday zoos they may also wednesdays so they may have information on that as well working with the sba. if there aren't any other questions, then i think that we can move to public comment. >> are there any public commenters on the line? >> we have no public commenters. >> great. public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 8 commissioner discussion and new business discussion item. >> president laguana: great. commissioners, any new business you want to bring up? >> i apologize for my dog in the background. commissioner hule. >> thank you. so, i guess in my report today i'll kind of -- i was given an update by professor chadry on the survey so i'll take this opportunity to give a little shorter update. so far, the survey has had quite a few respondents. we've had about 510 people responding so far which is a significant number. a lot of it is actually qualitative data to people who left a lot of comments and they shared stories. so, i think the fact that people really spent the time taking the survey means that they're still people who are going through a lot of adversity right now and so, the survey was also taken in several different languages and vietnamese, japanese, the professor is going to give us more of an analysis coming up but right now, i can share, the survey today was supposed to be the closing day of the survey but i plan on keeping the survey open for the next week because i feel like we've been getting some really good momentum and i'm still receiving e-mails and hearing back from different stakeholders and compiling this data is important and useful. so, if there's anyway that you could reach out to all of your network to push, i can tell you pushing those we could probably reach out one more time in the supervisorral district to make sure that everybody is getting it throughout the city. so, so far, it seems like we have a lot of representation in the personal service industry and events and definitely the people who are the hardest hit right now who have not been able to reopen and the biggest theme that i'm seeing right now are people feel like there's no assistance. you can go down the line and you will just see that people are saying they have not gotten anything and i think you know, the biggest feeling that i'm getting from these stories is that i'm asking myself, as a small business advocate, what can we do at this point. some businesses started construction like tenant improvement construction or signed new leases right before the pandemic and put in like all of their life savings into creating a new business. they were then shuttered by the pandemic so that money is again gone is money and it has not been replen issued by anything that so much of our assistance programs are based on past revenues. so people who have started new businesses, are struggling right now if they haven't been able to reopen. our personal services sectors and tourists sectors especially when they're sole pro pry to be ship we identify this early on. many of those people are hurting so anybody who is self-employed with no employees and have not had any is eastance given to them and so i think that the conversation is really time will he to hopefully to sba will have a programming but it's been a year that people have had no income and you know, the words financial ruin keep coming up with is heartbreaking there's a lot that is really difficult to read through and i'm looking down because i actually printed out like the qualitative data and it's just a very challenging document to read through. i mean, rent. we knew this already. we know this. rent needs help. everybody needs help with their rent right now. i think there's -- there's just this general feeling in the business community and all they see is contradictions and they see that people are talking about small business support and yet, they're the ones taking the history and then they see that like, they're taking this hit but property owners don't need to take the hit. and it's just kind of like, all daylong, all they see is contradictions and what is happening and it's like, they don't want to pit themselves against other groups because i read this too there are a lot of people who are really hurting, you know, given our situation like with people who are unhomed like the homeless situation that they see in front of their stores and businesses, that's not something that they want to happen to anybody. and yet they see this and then they start to compare sf budget and like what type of assistance is going into that versus going into a small business community and all these kind of things so we're really living in a period of scarcity and i think the small business community is really feeling it and they don't want to live in this period of scarcity and from the general themes that i'm hearing is that this is, these are a group of people who generally have a lot of hope and are really willing to put themselves out there and build stuff and i think it's very frustrating for many people. the other thing that they decided were -- well, you know, crime and i think we addressed and started to address this a little bit but in many of these stories, people are getting broken into multiple times and you know, the only grants that they might be are maybe like the thousand dollars grantor $2,000 grant and like the sf shines programs or some of those types of programs but they're not, these are not business savings programs, and i think that's kind of the crux of it right now is that looking at every single one of these stories, there has not been any sort of business program for these particular sectors and p.p.p. i think was helpful for some sectors to be able to come, be able to kind of believe that period of time until they could reopen and we still have many many sectors who not able to reopen and or are open at a very, very small capacity where it cost them much more to operate than it is for them to open and those residents, san francisco residents, are without an income for the entire period of time. so, i'm not really sharing anything new and i don't know if we had an expectation that we were going to share something new. what i have getting from the survey right now is the gravity of where we still are and we are tasked with they're not asking for eye are $5,000 grant it won't help these small business and these are wide ranging sectors like today for our legacy business we're adding on an autobody shop and a hard ware store and these are crucial to our communities and those are the people who are answering these surveys. these are the people who run businesses within our communities and they have been living here for decades and love this city so i think we, you know, so far, i think the survey is an incredible kind of statement and testament to the amount of passion that small business owners have had for this city and are still willing -- these are people who are still in business right now they're still doing this and i think we really need to push for something that really will help save businesses. that is my survey report so far and i'm done. >> reaching 500 is not just a large and good response but it's also statistically meaningful because we have 50,000 plus minus small businesses in the city. that's right, director, isn't it? so, in statistics, when you are doing a population sample, the minimum threshold for getting to a above valid population same poll is 10% and ideally, 10% versus a ceiling of, you want at least 100 and a feeling of a thousand so when you see these national polls and they say oh you know, they surveyed a thousand people it's because when you get north of a thousand, it stops becoming -- it stops adding new information. the minimum threshold is 10% so i hope that we would be able to get to 500 and the fact we have strongly indicative that the answers that we'lling getting and the stuff we'll report to policymakers actually has not just a useful data point but actually has statistics validity which i think is really important so my only question for you, i did a last push with my networks last week and i agree with keeping it open another week. i think that's helpful we can all kind of help make one big last push and i hear you on -- we're not as well represented on asians seeking businesses as we could be. are there any districts that we're particularly shy on in perhaps we can lean on those supervisors and business associations to focus on those districts in particular. >> i'm going to ask her on that specific piece. and so i can get back to you on that. >> if you could, and just relay it to director dicken so she can communicate it to the rest of us so that we can help fill in some of those holes there. >> yeah. >> that would be great. >> this is fantastic work. really. just fantastic work and i can't wait to see the final output from the professor when it's done. in that last week, let's make a big push. >> thank you, very much for all of your support. i mean, i think just hearing this, i wish i could share this with you right now. that's why i just wish i could share it with you guys right now because i know that hearing everyone's stories is why we're here, right. we want to share those with people and push for change and i think i cannot wait until she puts it all together to be able to be in hopefully much of that remain them so can you hear them in their first person voice. >> perhaps the commission can create a report we can distribute to policymakers with a few quotes and the top-level data that really might effect decision-making. there's a real opportunity there. i'm happy to connect with you about that off line. the next step i think is to wait for the professor kind of final presentation and let's make a push on that last week. >> i think also, you know, i'm really inspired to think big and like really figure out how we can help change this narrative for our city. that was why i joined the commission to begin with is we already knew we were on this trajectory. it was not going in a positive direction for small business for many people and i think, you know, taking this opportunity to really think about how small business could be different in the city is or opportunity right now and i think we, over the course of the pandemic we've proven ourselves to be a body that is thoughtful about that and i think we really have an opportunity to think about how we can help communities and really help small businesses and i think it's great that we advocate for smaller grants that can help months down track but we have months to help people get back on track with and i'm happy to support that type of thinking and be a part of that. >> president laguana: great. thank you. is there any other commissioner comments or reports? and i a apologize for my dog who are is losing her mind right now. vice president zouzounis. >> thank you, cynthia, for that really great report. and for your work on this we have conversations with some of the ethnic chambers this week that i'm looking forward to being in push. i have to do some follow ups in the business communities that i'm part of to make sure they're taking this seriously and there's so many surveys out there so there's a little bit of fatigue so i think one more week at least is important in my end of outreach. we can connect on that because we can do a little bit more there. commissioner dickerson we'll have -- we'll make sure that you are connected to that outreach if it hasn't been done already. and, yeah, i'm really impressed with that report and what we've gotten so far, so, looking forward to next steps on this. >> great. thank you. so, i guess, not seeing any other comments. should we check for public comment. is there any. >> there's no public comment. >> seeing none. public comment is closed. thank you. next item, please. >> the office of small business slide. so we will end with a reminder that the small business commission is -- the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that effect the economic vitality of small businesses and san francisco. and that the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, continue to reach out to the office of small business. >> out of nine adjournment action items. >> i move that we adjourn this meeting in honor of our legislative aid and commission secretary and we're so appreciative and actually, william, i know you had some technology issues, did you want to just add a couple words here before we close out this item? >> it was a true pleasure working with you. i can say it for all our commissioners, we're so excited for you and nothing but the best and hopefully one day you will present legislation from your office or something like that one day. so, best of wishes to you. thank you for everything you do for us. >> thank you, commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> president laguana: all right. so, so moved. do i have a second. >> second. >> last time. >> clerk: last time. roll call vote. commissioner adams. >> yes. >> commissioner dickerson. >> yes. >> commissioner dooley. >> yes. >> commissioner hule. >> yes. >> commissioner laguana. >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> yes. >> commissioner. >> yes. >> and for the last time, the motion passes 7-0 and the meeting is adjourned at 7:06 p.m. thank you very much to everyone. bye, guys, thank you.