Transcripts For SFGTV SFMTA Board Of Directors 20240712

Chair borden Municipal Transportation Agency commission. [indiscernible]. Please call the roll. [roll call] director you have a quorum. Item four communications. Chair borden due coth chair borden we ask the public to participate remotely. For all comments received in advance of the meeting, we have received an appreciate these comments. Thank you for honoring our request. We continue to urge the public to write the board. While this Technology Allows us to hold these meetings via teleconference, there maybe gap and silence as staff is transitioning the technology between speakers. We are doing our best and we ask for your patience and understanding. If we lose the connection during the meeting, we will pause the meeting until the connection has been reestablished. Lastly i want to thank the village that it takes to keep this meeting possible. This meeting is televised by sfgov tv, theres a time lag between the actual meeting and what members of the public is seeing on sfgov tv. If you wish to comment, please call the phone line when the item is called. For members of the public who wish to make Public Comment on items on the agenda, the phone number to use is 888 8056929. Please make sure youre in a quiet location and you turn off any tvs or radios. If youre live streaming, the meeting via sfgov tv, that you mute the sound. It will reduce any reverberation so that the board can hear you. At the appropriate time the chair will ask for the phone lines to be open. If you wish to comment, you will be prompted to press 10. This will add you to the speaker line. The auto prompt will say callers are entering question and answer mode. You will be queued in the order in which you pressed 10. There will be an ought th autome that will tell you when to speak. I will start your minutes when you begin talking. I will say 30 seconds when you have 30 seconds remaining. When your time is up, i will say thank you next caller please. At that point the moderator will put the speaker back on mute. I will reinettes instructions i will repeat the instructions. Chair borden one more piece of communication, item number seven on the agenda theres no action taken on that item. I want to note that item number six, resolution about the bylaws and rules will not be heard in the meeting. Item number five . Would you like for me to call them together . Youre not going to call item numbe6. [agenda item read]. Chair borden staff, i know weve already heard this item. Are there anything for you to add at this point on the item director tumlin or monique webster, at this time . We make a brief presentation. As you know, what youre seeing today is a very similar proposal compare to what you saw last week except all of the conditions around governments have been removed. As you also know this needs to be placed on the ballot by friday of this week and san mateo, county board of supervisors have all act to affirm this ballot measure. Since last week, all three counties have been working together very closely in order to make sure that we can get the ballot measure on the ballot with the affirmative vote with all the seven entities that need to approve it. At the same time, to address the governance issues that have been long standing concern for all three counties. While governance will not be part of the measure that you will be asked to approve today, a series of government recommendations will be going to the j. P. B. Board for adoption tomorrow. Provisions that the three counties have negotiated among themselves included allowing the j. P. B. To approve up to 40 million in each fiscal year out of the tax measure with the simple majority of j. P. B. Members. For expenses above 40 million, it will require the approval of six j. P. B. Members until the governance issues have been implemented. The governance reform items include the ability of the call train j. P. B. To appoint its own executive director. Requiring all caltrain to be reimbursed. Allowing the j. P. B. To requiring that the j. P. B. Appoint special counsel an auditor by end of november 2020. Allowing for items to be placed on the j. P. B. Board agenda request of two j. P. B. Members and making sure that all of this work is complete by december 31, 2021. As i mentioned the two san mateo entities and board of supervisors was approved today. Santa clara county will be voting on this item form as well and finally it goes to the San Francisco board of supervisors on friday of this week. That is all we have for presentation. Thank you. Chair borden i know we have representation from caltrain. Would you like to add any comments at this time . Thank you chair borden. Nothing further to add. Were happy to answer any questions if there are any. Chair borden thank you. Directors, before open it up to Public Comment, are there any questions that you have at this moment . Yes, this is director brinkman. Director brinkman i want to confirm to the public listening and watching this is what everybody was referring to the clean ballot measure, correct . That is correct. Director brinkman thank you. Vice chair eaken i want to question, one of the item itemss around reimbursement. Could you mention the dollar amount of the reimbursement if. From m. T. A. We have remaining 200,000 that we owe. Chair borden nil additional questions from the board of directors . I want to remind the public the item number six is not going to be heard. We are not going to be taking any action on approving a resolution. That is the role of the j. P. B. Powers board. The information was included in online for people interested. Only action were taking today is approving this resolution or not. Lets open up to Public Comment. Would you like to set a specific time limit for comments . Chair borden two minutes please. Okay. For members of the public who wish to make Public Comment, the phone number to use is 888 8056929. You can dial 10 to be added to the speaker list. Please open the phone line. I have several specific concerns here starting with the website page for this meeting. The link in there to remote meeting access it says watch Board Meeting online is the link to sfgov tv channel 2 which is currently carrying the j. P. A. Meeting. Its the wrong channel. This is covered on sfgov tv tv channel 1. The next concern is that there were at least two different versions of this agenda that i saw. Youve explained earlier that item 6 wont be taken up. The staff report for item 5, at least the one posted, is the staff report from the july 21st meeting. Im not sure if thats the resolution that youre considering. If not, i would suggest that you post for public review the proposed resolution for today and to the extent that the language is different that the public have an opportunity to review that particular language. Also, the Powerpoint Presentation that was just made, i have not found that posted anywhere. That would be helpful for the public to view. Clearly there are fastmoving items here having a chance to inform public involvement would be important. There was also reference made to the board of supervisors meet offing on meeting on friday, that has not been schedule the or posted. Thanks. Chair borden thank you. Next caller. Next speaker please. Good morning. This is roland. Chair borden can you spell your name for me please before you start . This is roland leblun in san jose. By the way, you just made a violation of the brown act. Chair borden you stated your name and i asked you to spell it. All right. I like to echo the comments the previous speaker made. Item 6 is an information item. I dont understand why youre not hearing it. Youre not going to vote on it. Second thing i like to do is to recognize director heminger to be known as Henry Kissinger of transportation taxation warfare. Last comment i like to make is that now that we figure out a way of this impasse, i like you all to vote on this unanimously please. Thank you. Next speaker please. My name is chris barger. Ive been a daily caltrain rider for the past five and a half years. I want to thank you for your work on this. Particularly director bringman who served on the j. P. B. Thank you in particular for your help last week. Thank you director heminger for your work trying to broker a compromise. This seems like the best possible option to get caltrain running now and into the future. I encourage you all to support this. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning Board Members. As previous speakers have said, i would like to encourage you to vote for this which offers clean resolution which will be easier to pass and has fewer legal issues. Thanks to director brinkman who spoke up at the previous meeting in favor of having the caltrain ballot measure and Caltrain Service riders and director heminger for the role bringing forward this compromise and to the entire committee for being willing to bring this back in a special meeting in order to be able to move forward if there is an agreement. I do hope that you vote for this so we continue to have Caltrain Service including the equity measure that the caltrain board also prepared hopefully to support that will be funded with this tax. Next speaker please. Good morning to Board Members and director tumlin. Im bruce, for identification purposes im in mission bay. Im speaking in support of the resolution in front of you today placing the eight cent sales tax on the november ballot. Im in support of the separate resolution being introduced to the j. P. B. To establish certain specified rules and bylaw of future conduct of caltrain including its governance structure and procedures. I appreciate the efforts, collaboration and agreement by the representatives of all three counties that conditions addressing governance and oversight can be addressed in a separate resolution. We know there are tough times ahead prior to the pandemic. The system was stretched to capacity. Its financially stretched during the Current Public Health crises and will be postpandemic. With a Stable Funding stream in place, the j. P. B. Will be best positioned to hold the abc accountable that meet the needs of the contributing counties. With your approval today and those of the other agencies this week, i look forward to all three counties working closely together to ensure voters have confidence that the measure on the ballot is sound and good for all constituents. Thank you. Next speaker please. Thank you chair board and members. Alit dupree. I like your virtual backgrounds. When i am visible on zoom, i can be zone at Grand Central terminal. Worlds largest train station in new york city. Regarding new york city, as i said before, i remember the day that the declines of northeastern railroading. It took leadership including taxation to save passenger railroads in the northeast region. Including the formation of metro north in 1983 and new Jersey Transit in 1979. Among other plans going back to 1965 with the formation of the metropolitan commuter transportation authority, forerunner of todays m. T. A. I have also supported this modest one eight cent sale tax. This economy is going to come back. This seals ta sales tax will ene Stable Funding for the railroad. I see other railroads in the United States that have to go and ask for money every year. Thank you for your bold leadership and bringing forward this simple resolution of a sales tax. Governance is important but its a separate conversation that needs to be done at a separate time and place. I look forward to your unanimous vote today. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning. My name is sarah oglvie. I live in San Francisco with my husband. We do not own a car. We have no intention of owning a car ever while living in San Francisco. We are asking for you to pass this clean resolution because Caltrain Service is critically important. Hopefully governance will include integration with regional and local service which caltrain cannot do alone. We need to see more integrated transit moving forward and im hoping that this clean resolution is an important step in that direction. Thank you. Next speaker please. This is martin. Im calling in support the resolution to fund caltrain with the sales tax. I wanted to thank director brinkman for her steadfastness in getting this resolution to be clean, to get passed and hopefully i hope all the people that were on the other side of the argument do find a way to reconfigure the way that caltrain is governed now. It is inequitable. Right now its about making sure that folks are able to use clean Public Transit to get to and from work and to and from their homes. Playing political gains with transit is unacceptable. Thank you so much m. T. A. Board for considering this resolution. You like read a quote from the former mayor of columbia. Its a city i also have lived in the past. A developed country is not place where the poor ca carved. Its where the rich used transportation. I wapainting caltrain riders ash and discounting caltrain riders who are middle class or working class or even in below the poverty line. I hope the governance issues are solved. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning directors. Im mike, im a member of the San Francisco transit riders. Im speaking in support of the measure. I hope you vote yes. I appreciate all what you doing and the time to call the special meeting this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair borden any additional speakers . We will close Public Comment. Well turn back over to the directors and man of the hour to director heminger. Which we owe huge gratitude for your ability to bring conversation together and unite leaders. I want to thank you like everyone else has been thanking you. Director heminger i appreciate that madam chair. I have to start by acknowledge how wrong i was over our last meeting. I said it will take a long time to recover from this stalemate. I couldnt be happier to have been more wrong about that. I do have a short list of thank yous that i want to mention. First of all, our three San Francisco supervisors who were engaged in this question. Supervisor walton who is my colleague on the caltrain board as well as supervisors peskin and haney. We got a much better result than we were a week ago. Their peninsula counterpart who is a san mateo supervisor as well as cindy chavez in santa clara county. I wanted to single out another santa clara director, jenny brewer who went above and beyond the call in making sure that we could do all this work in the short period of time we had. In particular, i want to single out the mayor of san jose. Who intervened in a strategic moment. Which is a euphemism when we were really in the dumps. He got us going again in the right direction. Like several other Public Commenters, i would like to thank director brinkman. My predecessor on the caltrain board. I think her no vote administered a shock to the system. People understood how serious this was and that we were on the knife edge of defeat for the whole enterprise. When director brinkman is ready to make the motion, ill be happy to second it and lets see if we can get a yes vote this time out of her. Director brinkman thank you director heminger. Thank you so much to everyone who got involved to get us to this point. It goes to show, we can all get along as a region and we can pull together for a common cause. In this case, it didnt just take a village, it took a region and it took all of you and it took everybody that director heminger listed. Thank you all so much and so grateful that were here at this moment. Motion to approve. Second. Chair borden i want to join others as well thanging director brinkman for her leadership and sharing with us her insider knowledge and understanding how things work. I want to commend her for standing up and having such great integrity and doing whats right and voting in the way she thought what made since. Most people dont always realize that decisions are very much individual decisions that we make here at the m. T. A. Board. People make them based on their experience and knowledge. Theyre looking out for the best for the public in general. Thank you so much, you really help advance good public policy. I want to say thanks our board of supervisors, mayor and everyone and jeff whos come together to make sure that we can keep caltrain solvent and deal with issues that will make governance and future more smooth. With that, secretary robinson [laughter] cal call the roll. [roll call vote] the ayes have it. Motion passes. Chair borden item six is not on the agenda. That cleats that completes our agenda for today. Ly adjour i will adjourn this meeting. Thanks everyone. Roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. The light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. Working with kids in the ocean that arent familiar with this space is really special because youre dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of excitement. When i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. Well get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who dont like the beach. Its too cold out, and its those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. Over the last few years, i think weve had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. Surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. Weve start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. Swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all not being anxious. So when we started the city surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p. E. Credits. Just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. But now that weve been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids thats consistent, and the word has spread, that its super fun, that you learn about the ocean. Starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. We usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. We once did a special trip. We were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. We get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. Once we go to the beach, i dont want to go home. I cant change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. Our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. I dont really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didnt think id like, like, ended up being my best friends. Its a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybodys doing it for themselves. Its great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. It can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves while negotiating the waves. I feel significantly, like, calmer. It definitely helps if im, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, im going to be okay. It gives them resiliency skills and helps them build selfconfidence. And with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. I went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. I saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. For some kids that are, like, resistant to, like, being in a Mentorship Program like this, its they want to surf, and then later, theyll find out that theyve, like, made this community connection. I think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. For kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. We go on 150 surf outings a year. Thats yearround programming. Weve seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. I just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that theyre engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how theyre doing, like, in general. What i like best is they really care about me, like, im not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. Were creating surfers, and were changing the face of surfing. The feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. Its definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but its definitely fun. It leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kids going to go out and do. I think its really magical almost. At least it was for me. It was really exciting when i caught my first wave. I felt like i was, like it was, like, magical, really. When they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know their face lights up, you know you have them hooked. I was on top of the world. Its amazing. I felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. It was, like, the scariest thing id ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked welcome to the tuesday, august 4th, Virtual Meeting of the San Francisco Entertainment Commission. Im the Commission President and due to the covid19 Health Emergency and to protect Entertainment Commission members, city employment and public and city hall meeting rooms are closed. However, well be participating remotely. This is taken pursuant to the local, state and federal orders, declarations and Commission Members and employees will attend through Video Conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present. Public comment is available on each item on this agenda, both channel 26 and sfgovtv. Org are streaming the number across the screen and each speak will be allowed two minutes to speak. Opportunities to speak during Public Comment period are available during the zoom platform using meeting i. D. 89143696905 or calling 833 5480276 toll free. Using zoom platform, select the raised hand option for Public Comment. Dial star 9 if calling by phone and you will be unmuted when its your turn to speak. Please call from a quiet location and turn down your television or radio. When your item of interest comes up, alternatively, while we recommend that you use zoom audio or telephone for Public Comment, you may submit a written Public Comment through the chat function on zoom. I want to thank sf gov tv and Media Services for sharing is with the public and thank you to the board of appeal for their Technical Assistance for this meeting and we will start with a role call. role call . Thank you very much. And the first order of business is general Public Comment and this is Public Comment not listed on our agenda tonight. We have a comment for general Public Comment from barry toronto. It looks like he wrote in the chat, he or she wrote in the chat that they may need further direction on how to speak during Public Comment if i wonder if its for general Public Comment or an agenda item. President , i have barry torontos hand is raised and i will unmute him right now. Yes, my name is barry toronto. Im an activist on the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance and im calling in because i see that the Entertainment Commission is in charge of sert which is related to shared spaces and all of these different departments are involved. The reason im contacting the Entertainment Commission is im filing a complaint that the sausage factor as usurped the taxi zone. Im not saying they shouldnt have Outdoor Dining. But the guidelines say you dont take over a disabled parking space or a bus zone or a wide zone. White zone. If you go to the castro if the evening hours, its the busiest commercial district in the city outside of valencia street. Without having actually provided an alternative at the same time, its a stealing of income from another service and we probably serve a lot more people throughout the day than that restaurant serves during its afternoon and evening hours that its open. Not only that, but if you see the photographs, youll see it doesnt have an accessibility ramp for that dining space. And so, i would like to have someone contact me from your department to be able to work something out because it is not fair to take away one business that is a necessary business to one, where pardon the pun, theres lots of sausage offered in other business along that corridor. Thank you for your time and im hoping that we can resolve this as soon as possible. And i dont even see the permit on posted anywhere that allows us to usurp that space. Thank you very much. Im done. I will just know, barry, if you want to leave use email address in the chat, we will note it and you can go ahead and we will email you so you can file your complaint. Is there any more Public Comment that were seeing . Hearing no more Public Comment, we will move on to the next agenda item. The next agenda item is number 2, the approval the minutes for the june 30, 2020 meeting and do we have a motion to approve the minutes of june 30th, 2020 . I move to approve the minutes of the june 20th meeting. Second. Before we vote, is there any Public Comment on our minutes . Ill take that as a no. There are none. Public comment is closed. role call . The minutes have been approved. Gavel down. The next agenda item is the report from our executive director wylen. Thank you, president blymin. Good evening, commissioners. Its nice to see all of your faces, even though its on zoom. And there goes our president. And i also do want to just note all of the attendees in the room. This is many more people than we normally see on any given Entertainment Commission hearing night and i appreciate youre here tonight and i encourage you to reach out to our office and i will just provide during our update some ways in which you can engage further than tonight. And so currently, i do want to just talk about our engagement with the Economic Recovery Task force. And then i will get into a little bit more of the outreach that we have been doing to the industry and then i can briefly update you on our staffing assignments right now supporting the work of the Community Education and Response Team. And so, relative to the task force, you know, you are all lickly very aware of the creation of it, the mayor and board convened to guide the citys efforts into revising businesses and employment here in San Francisco. We started in june and the group is compromised of community and Industry Leaders and city officials and this fall, were tasked with submitting a report to the mayor and board of supervisors with final recommendations on how to guyede the citys recovery effort. So within this group, we branched out into four smaller groups, one of which is called arts, culture, hospitality and entertainment. President blymin are both serving on the task force and both sitting within the policy group. I am also the policy lead for this group on the Staff Support side which means i am helping to guide policy discussions and making sure that the group is in alignment with the overarching goals and strategies for the Economic Recovery Task force. And i have a great Staff Support team. Dillon has been essential in helping and joanne lee from the Arts Commission and ben van houten, along with beth reubenste rbgin who has been da fantastic job and Benjamin Peterson and so this group has come very far along in the last few weeks and at this point, we have come up with some policy proposals that well be presenting this week to the large Economic Recovery Task force and so, the goal is that by our next hearing on august 18th, well be joined by some city Staff Support members, possibly beth and ben, to provide some updates on our policy proposals and then take some more comment from the public on that. And as a part of that process, though, i do want to know that we did put out another survey that this is our second survey that weve done during the pandemic and this one was really focused on those beginning proposals as they were beginning to marinade within the Task Force Member group, trying to ground troop them in our community and see how important they were as priorities for our industry. And so that was very helpful. Theres going to be more ways in which you can engage. Were ensuring were updating anything related to covid19 and we do a newsletter immediately. But were constantly updating the sf. Gov website and i highly encourage the public to check that out. Again, educating on the roles, we had a new Face Covering rule that went into effect on july 24th and you now have to wear a Face Covering in more situations, such as within six feet of people outside and passingpassing people on the si. You have to remain the rules and youre ensuring that our reopening process and timeline can stay on track and especially now with whats going on within San Francisco. So again, beyond the education that we constantly try to do, we are Holding Virtual office hours and this is something thatten tn van houten are doing together and if theres anyone that wants a half an hour with us on zoom to discuss the current rules, go over any of your plans for how you hope to reopen and at this time, we can do a lot of speculation, but a lot of what were doing is really encouraging the industry to come together and to be a louder voice and if our Commission Hearing is the first place for that, we encourage it. And so far weve conducted over 90 of these meetings. This is the first touch that goes out relative to 311 complaints that come in about businesses and how they may or may not be operating in compliance and our group does not have enforcement powers. So the real aim of it is to educate businesses about what compliance looks like and, of of course, correcting while were there. We environment support of the City Attorney to review all of the reports that come in to ensure that those reports get routed through the appropriate channels, to let the enforcement agencies know that, hey, were able to bring this into compliance or this may need further enforcement and so im happy to answer any questions about that. The only other kind of big stat that i would share that we have completed within that program 616 investigations. So we are going out to many investigations in San Francisco far and wide and making a big impact in educating people in San Francisco, at least when it comes to that kind of reactive method that were dealing with in this program. I know thats a big update. Let me know if you have any questions. Commissioners, any questions . I want to thank you for your exceptional work . What have been the big challenges in this . Are there areas to do more here are you referring to serts . Yes. Yeah. I think, you know, our gaffes, weve been meeting them along the way and a lot of them was resources in that way, just because we want fair inspectors who are out there and were pulling them from other agencies and there arent a huge pool of people who have that skillset. We try to be as educational and fair and approach prior to even disciplinary action with a lot of education. And so thats what were looking for in our inspectors and we ensure that the folks that we have in the field do just that and so that has definitely been a bottlenext at times and then, also, just work on workflows with other agencies that i think were at a pretty good place right now as we have now achieved longterm activations for all of our folks and thats a huge weight off of our shoulders. We have the people we have now through the end of this calendar year and so that means the more we continue to educate them on what is correct, were investing in these human beings now and theyll be doing a great job. Thank you. Anything else . I just have a couple of items if nobody else has anything. So one, im on the frontlines. Certainly many bar owners and restaurants get a visit from sert and i hear about it, generally, and i want to say that overall, the experience has been positive. That is in stark contrast from other agencies, where it feels like people just want to treat everyone like theyre a criminal, every Business Owner like theyre criminal and they need to be cited or changed and so i appreciate that. I think this is a good to have a hearing, are we hearing from permit holders right now and if so, could you boil it down to some general things that are coming up. Is there anything thats coming up regularly or anything thats surprising or what are we hearing from the Entertainment Permit holders, if anything . You know, generally, we are hearing about plans for the future in whatever way, shape or form that may be. Huh can we move this idea forward relative to policy making . And then, you know, other people are closer toward being able to reopen in some other way and some those folks are nightclubs that, you know, may want to activate a parking lot and whats good, we environment mayor, had another supplemental declaration pass this last week to allow for temporary use authorization within parking lots and so that will cover Outdoor Dining. However, folks are thinking really creatively about how they can host entertainment outside. I think one of the big challenges were seeing come up, too, is how limiting it is to not able to have a vocalist within entertainment and, so, that includes any kind of spoken word participation because of the transmission issues. Ive heard great, great ideas, though. I mean, i kind of dont want to put the yeahs on blast, though, just because you may actually see them crop up. But there are some ideas that actually can fall within Outdoor Dining guidelines that allow for entertainment. When the world progresses beyond Outdoor Dining, this could potentially Carry Forward and so youll be hearing about that possibly by this next hearing, which is great, but im spinning out. Ive got one question. So even though we cant open as an entertainment venue, but we have a Liquor License and when the order is lifted that bars can open again, the Entertainment Venues are not restricted to do so, correct . They can still open as a bar as long theyre not running entertainment . So the hypothetical is that, ok, when bars are included like a type 48. I think if i can just clarify, i think the governor, it seemed to us and the expect that he was pretty unclear when he said that Entertainment Venues could not open. And correct me if im wrong, commissioner lee, but i think hes asking when bars are allowed to open outdoor or indoor, if they happen to be an entertainment venue, that will mean whether theyre under the governors directive or they can open as a bar as long theyre not an entertainment venue. If bars get included in outdoor dine asking they dont t have to serve as bonafide meal, that would include the entertainment venue. Venue. What if we just want to open our bar inside. Bars . So right now, bars are not allowed to be open outdoors, but if theyre serving food yes, i know that. Then theyre treated as a bonnified eating place. Fids not a venue depending on the size and all of the things from sacramento, they would conceivably be able to open within the rules as long theyre following guidelines. Were going to look for that pathway. If you own an entertainment firm, you wont get penalized, even if you dont have a dj and you want to open your bar and serve drinks, whether its with the restaurant or whatever. Entertainment venues could do that now and some are, right. They could do entertainment within the outdoor tuning guide. Ok, thank you. Any more questions for the executive director . Is there any Public Comment . President bleiman, we have Michelle Delaney with her hand up in zoom. Ok. Im going unmute her right now. Hi, guys. How are you doing . Thank you for taking my question. So steve brought up something that i thought about and maybe mentioned it. Just curious if there would be a possibility for if the downtown area will stay as dead as it might for awhile, with every possibility fopossibility for ur Liquor License in the city where there are maybe residents or people, just to try to think of options we might have if well be closed down for awhile down there. And the answer . So Public Comment is not question and answer. Ok, sorry. So this is a time to make your comments, but also, were all available to help you answer questions and so in reality, im writing this down as an idea. Usually theres a time for comment and were a stoic group of people. You guys are awesome. Follow up with our staff and we will you can always ask questions and well try to get in touch with you as quickly was can. Thank you. Are there any other Public Comments on this agenda item . I do not see any other hands raised. Were going to close Public Comment on this agenda item and so, now we are the next agenda item, actually, i would like to propose that we make a motion to move it and we want to move it correct me if im wrong, dillon between item five and six instead of where it is now. Is that correct. That is correct. So the presentation on the city shared Spaces Program, robin needs a little extra time before he can make his presentation. We have to vote on this and before we vote obviously, we need a motion and second it. But well do Public Comment. Lets start with the motion. I make a motion to move item 4 to after 5. Do we have a second . Second. Is there any Public Comment on the motion to move this item . President blieman, i see no hands raised. We can have a vote. role call . Even without commissioner falzons vote, it still passed so well move that agenda item. This ithat was 5 and now this i. Hearing impossible action for permits under the jurisdiction of the Entertainment Commission and this is 5 and i will have the Deputy Director introduce the items. indiscernible . This is located at 333 11th w owner and peter lin of p p inc have plans to maintain this as a nightclub. Their programming includes bringing in live djs and using the space for events and theyre applying to maintain the same parameters which would allow entertainment until 6 00 a. M. This is namely for continuity as they do not intend to hold events after 2 00 a. M. But would like the option. This is michael and peters first venue in San Francisco, but together, they own pier nightclub in sunnyville and did conduct Neighborhood Outreach. Peter and michael walked down 11th street and dropped off 15 letters included in your file this evening. Most of the businesses were closed, they were able to contact a few of the neighbors and introduce themselves. There is to opposition for this permit and southern station approves with the conditions listed below in your memo. And here to tell you more is michael and peter. Hello. Hello. Hi, everybody. So this is a venue nightclub in sunnyville and weve been there eight plus years and we have been looking for another venue in San Francisco for the last couple of years and i think steven lee knew about this, too. And finally, we had a chance and just a couple of months ago. Obviously, right now, we cant do anything. Were just trying to apply for were in the process of applying house permits, the fire permit and just working things slowly and i dont see us opening any time soon. And were in the process of getting a Liquor License, as well. So that is pretty much it if where were at. Does anybody have any questions for us, any concerns or comments . Feedback . Are you finished, michael . Yes, steven. President , can i go first . Please do. Ok, so tell us, what are you going to do . Obviously slim is an iconic venue, you know. Youre taking over a very iconic space and historic space. And so, other than just dj, are you planning to do any improvements . Are you remodeling . I mean, obviously youre not doing live music and it is they were doing a lot of 18 and older events and what is your real plans of formatting and tell us what kind of djs . Is it all locals . Are you planning to bring anybody from overseas or things like that. So tell us more about the format. Of course, of course. So we all plan to open at first, well open friday to saturday night and were going be doing pretty much we book a lot of international djs. So were going to pretty much have one dj come here in sunnyville and play on friday night and then, were going to drive into San Francisco the next day to play at yolo. So that is our plan. And then, as far as 18 and over, were not planning and doing 18 and over. Its occupationa optional, juste extended hours. Both peter and myself have kids and it is something we like to have. And just in case. And so, its going to be mostly dj, dancing, dj. Were not planning to do any major remodeling, purely cosmetic. The neighborhood is very sensitive and i know because its pretty much closed and have you met any of your neighbors . Uhhuh. Pretty much next door to you. Uhhuh. That building and you actually sat down and they discussed any issues with you . Yes. We met with right next to us was actually a construction designer crew and theyre called dan and i met both of the owners. I spoke with them and introduced myself and they were talking about doing their Company Party because they do a Company Party every year at slim. I said, yeah, sure, were open for the idea, if were able to open. I said, obviously, i cant tell youy or no righyou yes or no ri. Across the street is a liquor store and theres a new opener moving in serving food and i met both owners and i think the owner was named joe. We introduced ourselves. Mind, wwe walked around the neighborhood and not a lot of venues are open. We dropped off the letters just to say hello. I was reading that you did some soundproof testing. How did you do that . So, slim did a lot of soundproof already in the last couple of years. If you walkedded in, you would see the black colored banners from the ceilings. And then we made an appointment with someone in the entertainment department. Was his name jeff or somebody else. It was jordan. It was jordan. So he came over and we did sound testing. Because of the fact were not doing any light bands. So slim, as you all know, it was an historical place and they were doing a live band and live bands produce a lot more sound level, but were not doing any of that. Well be doing just sound. He tested it out and said you should be no problem if youre just doing live dj. Just the low frequencies are the problem, you know. Bands play a lot louder and you can control it. Right, right. As far as you guys running a club, i mean, i know youre experienced and youre successful at pai pier and as fs knowing what to do, i have confidence you can run an operation. Unless commissioner falzon has other things for you, but youve learned a lot sip since ive knn you. Good luck and im glad youre helping to keep entertainment alive in San Francisco. Thank you, steven, thank you. Im done. I have a question. I raised my hand. Im trying to be as good as the young people ive done calls with and im trying to practise raising my hand. [ laughter ] and so, hi, michael. Hi peter. You talked about talking to your neighbors, sounds like they have businesses on the block and what about the engagement that you have had with nonindustry folks that are in the neighborhood . And then ill have a followup question after that. Could you repeat that one more time, please . So you spoke about the liquor store on the block and also an Architectural Firm on the block. Did you do any outreach with some of your neighbors who are nonindustry . So residential neighbors in the neighborhood . Around our year, theres actually no residential not that i can see. Its all commercial. Bars and automobile places. Its all businesses. So i didnt see any residential. That large theres a tall brick billing right on the corner of 11th there that is a residential building. Ok. Im aware of that. A residential building, i assume theres residents living there and what are you asking us, to go and knock door to door, drop off a letter . Well, as part of your outreach within the neighborhood, just letting them know youre coming in and that youre applying for the permit and so i just wanted to get a better understanding of the extent of your outreach. European operator in sunnyville. And why dont you tell me a little bit about some of the the incidents that maybe you have had with some of your neighbors and how you just troubleshoot some of the issues. Weve been there for eight years. One time one of our neighbors glass got broken and they were upset. I thinin downtown sunnyville, ts other bars opened late, as well. So we dont know which customer whether it came there us or the other bar. So we approached them and we gave them we figured out how much the window would cost and gave them 25 . Whatever that would cost, i talked to the openers and said,i dont know who did it, but well go ahead as a nice gesture to give them 25 of the window replacement. And i think thats one incident i can remember. We have strict conditions opened from 10 00 p. M. To 2 00 a. M. , and so our security will have strict security protocols where at the end of the night, our security staff will walk or customer to the parking lot and thats another thing that we do. We do bring a lot of business to our neighbors restaurants. Ok. And i just wanted to get an idea of the kind of outreach that youve conducted with nonindustry folks and we have had a series of complaints from neighbors in the area and not for the full block so much, but for with specific permit holders on the block and so, i think its just important for you to become important with some of the sensitivities and some of the issues. And i think you can have additional conversations with our staff just to that you will be knowledgeable and just mindful and make yourself available to have those conversations. Sure. So welcome. I surrender my time to commissioner thomas. That was essentially the same question that i was going to ask. There are a number of very engaged neighbors on that block, both on norfolk and on 11t 11th street who have who have. Involved in Entertainment Commission issues and have had a long series of complaints. I mean, slims themselves, you know, much longer ago went through quite a battle with neighbors and so, it would probably be good to familiarize yourself with some of the concerns of the neighbors and to reach out to the folks who have been most involved. I think that the Entertainment Commission could help you reach them. I would hate to see you move forward and open this and then have complaints from neighbors as opposed to reaching out to them ahead of time and hear their concerns. While i dont think that the neighbors have been concerned about slims, that building specifically, they have been very engaged around not just noise from some of the clubs across the street but also the noise that happens from the late nights with uber and lyft and people on the sidewalk. And so some of the businesses in the area have tried to coordinate better around how to mitigate some of the noise for the neighbors. And so, yeah, i would strongly recommend reaching out to them now, especially the folks who the Entertainment Commission staff know well who are the most active and engaged there because i think youre better served meeting and hearing from them now and getting to know them and what their concerns are instead of doing that afterwards. Ok. Got it. I do want to just jump in and note, too, for the two of you i dont want you to be super scared out of this large investment and big life decision. Just as background, we have not received sound complaints about slims in years. They did a whole lot of work, as you know, on soundproofing and the tests evacuee done with you proves that building can really hold the sound, which is fantastic. But to commissioner thomas point, we just want to underscore the importance of not only connecting person to person with these neighbors but maintaining that once you finally get to open, maintaining that traffic news, i think thats going to be your biggest issue. I really hope that when you do open, it will be packed. But people will be lined up and theyre really loud and that will be the most impactful thing to folks and then the leaving at the end of the night. Are you going to log them and will you have a time of response or engagement with the neighbors who might be complaining. I would say 24 to 48 hours, well reach out to them and community kate to them ancommune how we can improve that situation. And then, so, youre required to have your cell phone number to be available to the numbers, via your website and so youll have somebody assigned to keep track of that cell phone number and respond to it . Yes. When theres a call . Of course. So hopefully, you can respond sooner than 48, maybe more like 24 . Sure, sure. Well make it happen. And maybe you can think about doing a log so that you can have a record of the recurring pattern of complaints for certain issues, certain neighbors and then you can figure out if its a pattern, a oneoff and you can kind of keep track for historical purposes . Yes, will d well do that. We have a security log with any incident, whether it was intoxication, altercation or whatnot. We always have a log and we sent that to the Public Safety in sunnyville within 24 to 48 hours and we have a log, a procedures that we do. Ok. You can incorporate that for the potential hopefully, there wont be any complaints, but just to be prepared and have a policy everybody in your staff can follow. Will do. Thank you, thats all and good luck and welcome to San Francisco. Thank you. Any more questions from commissioners . I do have comments. I think, guys, it sounds like youre on it and know what youre doing, which is great. I think the staff has george floyjoyedworking with you and ta lot of belief you can make this happy. You cant go door to door because of the coronavirus, obviously, but you need to get in touch with some neighbors. It doesnt mean you need to get in touch with every person who lives in the radius of you. Theres a lot of housing and apartments close to that strip and i really want to see you get out ahead of that. We try to have, in the spaces that i have, we try to have realtime communication with neighbors who have issues and in the long run, i think it will be very helpful for you and i dont think youll need to worry about the investment you made, but just doing business in this city where residences and commercial corridors really come right up against each other, its different than other places around and i would just encourage you to go above and beyond and try to connect with neighbors who live near you and really, really do a substantial job of that and in the long run, it will be extraordinarily help follow fohelpful for you, i pro. Promise. Its incredible to see the evolution of one of our iconic place expossplaces and how they. I think its great to put in your amazing club and get your incredible djs in there and lets keep partying. But i would encourage you to really consider neighbor and Neighborhood Outreach as a top, top priority. And this is coming from somebody who has had to do this for 11 years. Those are my only comment. Comments. You dont have to respond. I just wanted to put that out there. If there are no more comments from the commissioners, lets go ahead and open this up to Public Comment, if we can. If the staff could let me know whats going on with Public Comment. Dillon, i am looking right now and i do not see any hands raised and then crystal, do you see any chats from anybody . President bleimam, you may want to reallowed the chat. I have to get off the screen share here. This is from maureen. So there was a comment and this is not a question. So its not question and answer period, as we were saying. But the comment that we will read is, its from a maureen r. And says, would you still have live music like slims did . There arent enough rock venues in the city and well just leave that as a comment. And again, guys, i appreciate how difficult it is right now in entertainment and i appreciate how hard it is, probably, to be in your shoes and be opening this up during a pandemic. So we need more people just like you coming in and bringing life and energy to places and so we do appreciate that. But with that, i think we can have a vote and, so, Deputy Director or executive director, can you just remind us what the staff recommendations are on this, if any . Deputy, this is your item. So the staff recommendation is the approval with the Good Neighbor policy and the sfpd southern station positions which are one, permit holder shall be responsible for outside pr promoters and patrons inside and on perimeter of the venue and two, notify via email the southern stations permits officer, southern Station Events supervisor expect Entertainment Commissioner of special events for situational awareness. I have one possible. Do you think its advisable, they wont be using extended hours often, but i think it would be nice to know in advance when they do use it so it doesnt surprise the neighbors. Can we add an addendum to that . Or is that included with the notification to southern station . Deputy director, do you have an answer for that . Does the notification include afterhours, like a calendar ahead of time or Something Like that . Commissioner lee is the goal to provide that information to neighbors, or is the goal to provide it to the department or both . Well, yeah, neighbors and the police. I mean, maybe not so much the police, but i think you would just say a calendar of events and can you repeat the language one more time, katelyn, on the item that you do have . Notify via email station officer, station supervisor for situational awareness. So essentially, they want a calendar. If i could raise my hand when we get a minute. You could amend that to include neighbors and to highlight extended hours event. Those are options. I would like to hear commissioner falzons take. Im having some technical issues but are you hearing me . Yes. A couple of quick comments. I think i understand what mr. Lee is asking but my only observation is number one. I dont think we should limit that. Theyre paying for a permit, but that said, i think as the executive director said, i think we can amend the notification to include when theyre going to activate their afterhours, that the commission and Police Department knows about it. Then as far as community awareness, my only concern is how effective it can be if they dont. But i think what is a way of communicating is putting stuff on their website which i suspect they do from a marketing point of view anyway. So my take away would be if i was the neighbor, i would be tracking their website or whatever social media theyre doing. So i do agree with commissioner lee, i think a modest amendment would be just to add the word and after hours activations, notify the station and the commission. Sure. Thats a common condition and that can always be amended to include neighbors or we can share info, but youre very right. If they keep their website up to date, then anybody can see that. I think once they get the chance to meet the nonindustry neighbors, theyre going to realize that the open communication will help them a lot. please stand by clerk [roll call] president bleiman congratulations, guys. Your permit has been approved. Two things, one, follow up with our staff as soon as possible for next steps. And two, do that outreach it. Will help you and everyone involved and i cant stress enough how how good it will be if you make the honest effort to do that and and how much that will benefit your business in the long run. So thank you. Thank you. President bleiman my alarm is going off in the back because my wife is cooking dinner for my daughter. Sorry about that. I thought that maybe the popcorn was ready. President bleiman i thought that something was burning. Okay. Let me get the next item. So now we are going to go back and forward in time and this is agenda item number 4, the presentation on the citys shared Spaces Program from robin abad, shared Spaces Program manager. Clerk and president bleiman bleiman before robin gets started i want to tell you all how incredible this person has been to work with. We are working together, as i mentioned earlier, on how we can possibly to integrate entertainment and amplify sound permitting into the shared spaces scheme. So thats what we hope on to sharto sharewith you next. It would require a mayoral declaration so we will keep you apprised of that. And with that, robin, take it away. Thank you for being here tonig tonight. Thank you. Commissioners its a pleasure to updateow this very Important Program and also to give a shoutout to Entertainment Commission staff. Theyve been really critical in the program success. Not only helping us to design it and to put it together, but then also to operate it and, you know, to notably running and operating the Response Team which is cert is not only shared spaces but a number of these programs. So the Commission Staff are really showing up and showing up for the city and our communities. So with that, i will just share my screen. Can everyone see the slides okay . Im getting some nodding heads. Okay. So just some program stats. A little overview of how this works from the merchant or the small Business Owners point of view. And then some of our thinking about next steps, in particular with regard to equity. So shared spaces is a program of the Economic Recovery Task force which mayor breed has set up for a cross sector, you know, analysis and development of a plan for helping us as a city to get through all of the forthcoming stages of recovery, especially with regard to our economic wellbeing as a community. So this program is specifically tailored to serve our Small Business community and our merchants by allowing the activities that would otherwise, you know, to take place inside, the commercial activities being retail, merchandising, of course, dining, and allowing those to take place out of doors where we know that, you know, transmission of the coronavirus is minimized outside versus an enclosed spaces. So this really is part of our Emergency Response to to the coronavirus. And theres also implications for, you know, further stages of recovery and things that were experimenting now carrying on past the pandemic. Which we can talk about a little bit later. As i said earlier, this is really about public space. So where do these activities take place, where are we allowing them to happen . Of course, on the sidewalk, in the curbside lane or that parking lane, that is kind of where we see a lot of park lits in the recent day. And curbtocurb in the case of valencia street between 16th and 17th and 18th and 19th streets. That is from thursdays through to sunday from 5 00 to 9 00 p. M. , those segments are closed and the local merchants and local restaurateurs are deploying and serving in the street, which is really wonderful energy. Also on other cityowned lands such as parks, mostly managed by the recreation and parks department, plazas, lands owned by the port, you see here in the diagram that we have this parcel and this deceptively shows, it may look like were talking about inside a building and we mean private property that is unenclosed. So you could think of parking lots, for example, being a prime spot for these activities. And shares space allows for a number of different types of uses, curbside pickup. So temporarily turning the curbside, you know, in front of your storefront into a white zone, a temporary white zone, to facilitate contactless pickup and the like. Of course, outdoor retailing. Reserving or helping to mark out parts of the sidewalk to allow for them to distance. So you might look at outside your local produce market, for example. And then most famously and probably most notably is Outdoor Dining. Were seeing applications in all parts of the city. Were seeing some concentrations which are kind of natural, you know, and kind of the valencia corridor and chinatown, north beach. And were seeing increasing adoption in some of the outer neighborhoods and theres a specific equity strategy that is driving some of our focused Technical Assistance in those neighborhoods that ill talk about a little later. But here of the almost 1,100 applications that have been submitted since the program became active about two months ago we approved about 51 , and others are awaiting or in various stages of permit review. Looking at that street section and kind of the breakdowdown spatially of where these activities are taking place, you can see that the biggest share of these are shared spaces. The biggest percentage of them are shared spaces that are deploying both on sidewalk and in the parking lane. So that you can imagine, you know, like the cafe in your neighborhood putting tables, you know, out by the curb and then also beyond the curb. A smaller portion of those are just Outdoor Dining on the sidewalk and increasingly those roadway closures are a larger and larger percentage of proposals that our team is seeing. Heres just another way of looking at some of the stats. Those different types of shared spaces or places, and where they are in kind of the permit review and approvals pipeline. So where you will see in the total rows as well as columns, there are some numbers in parenethese and these are our numbers just seven days ago. So the trend that were seeing, a lot of enthusiasm for this program and a lot of interest as well. One of the things that the city is trying to do across the board with all of our response programs is actually to minimize bureaucracy and to get out of the way, especially for permitting activities in the rightofway, you know, have traditionally been very rigorous. It can be a very lengthy, detailed and oftentimes expensive program and were really taking a whole different aprepare here. Part of that is the web portal, you know, the way that folks do web intake and they have done this for a while with the permit applications. That is happening more and more across the city. Especially with shared spaces. So theres a portal there for Technical Assistance documentation as well to those various types of spaces. You know, critically were not charge anything fees. This is not a feeneutral Revenue Generating program for the city. This is something that we are doing in the interest of maximum adoption and accessibility, not charging any fees for this. Currently the program runs to the end of the calendar year. It was established through a mayoral emergency proclamation. And its set to expire at the end of the year. Part of what well be doing through the rest of this year, of course, is monitoring and reporting on the success of this program, both in terms of the bottom line impacts to merchants. But also the ways that it might be kind of, you know, changing our outdoor and street culture. And that information will inform emerging policy conversations about what we might want to do with this program after the calendar year. So, again, you know, along the lines of making this a very easy access program, you know, its very straightforward to apply. Its a simple web form. The applicant is expected to, of course, to identify where they would like to operate. Selfcertify compliance with rules, so were not engaging in a lengthy permit or planned review process here. Were providing the guidelines and operating requirements very transparently and folks in their intake are theyre selfcomplying. They are selfreporting that they will comply with those. And applicants are expected to provide the furnishings as we see here in this example in the mission. Caveat this wont work everywhere. San francisco has a bunch of streets and we have many, many narrow sidewalks. So in order for us to ensure in particular a. D. A. Accessibility, we know that, you know, putting furniture out on the sidewalk isnt viable everywhere. So were very transparent about that with applicant applicants,o are entering the program. If its not immediately viable, our attitude, again, is to help you to get up and operational. To get you back get your employees back into their jobs. And so we try to help to find alternatives. Sometimes that means helping folks occupy a space nearby. Maybe, you know, in front of their neighbors business, for example, or their neighbors building. And then we also emphasize collaboration and outreach with neighbors. Something that we know that the Entertainment Commission does a lot of. Heres an example of some Technical Assistance documentation that we have available on our website. You know, endeavoring to make it really easy for folks to understand how to do this safely and how to do this right and how to maintain a. D. A. Accessibility and access to life safety facilities such as fire suppression, etc. So, essentially, you know, access and application forms through the website and you fill it out and its a very simple web form. And at the end of that work flow for sidewalks you receive a notice to operate. Slightly different in the curbside. You know, its a little bit more technical. As you know, we want to ensure that folks arent proposing these in red zones or in bus lanes or at stops. So theres more analysis that goes into it. And, of course, the requirements around enclosure of the space and physical barriers and kind of the material strategies are more robust. So heres a great example of another site in the mission i actually presented to district 9 constituents earlier today. So a lot of photos are from the mission. And not a legacy business but certainly a longstanding one, a beloved institution in the mission, using their parking space immediately in front of their frontage, you know, to put out a little space for folks to dine. And, again, as with furnishings, the applicant is also responsible for providing the delineation or the barriers that mark it from the rest of the street. As a result you get a lot of innovation and creativity and a lot of whimsey sometimes with these sites. You know, adding a whole different kind of feeling to the street that we often get with parklets but at a much different scale across the city now with so many participants. And you can also enclose the entire street. In these situations, merchant associations and other neighborhood groups are the key sponsors oftentimes. The Valencia Corridor Merchants Association was responsible for putting together the valencia street closure. And so these are big collaborative endeavors. Theyre quite a bit more technical and complex, of course, than the sidewalk or the curbside ones. But with that sort of scale, that physical scale, you do get a lot more potential for activation and a lot more potential volume with more tables that can be spread out, you know, physically distanced. We do caveat that shared spaces, street closures, arent appropriate for streets that currently have active transit lines running down them, buses and munis are already at reduced capacity. Our transit network, the core network, is much reduced. So those are real lifelines for helping folks get around San Francisco and we are not really entertaining any compromise to those systems. So frequently in neighborhood commercial districts if you do see shared spaces that are closures, they are sort of on side streets that dont disrupt muni service. Our goal with these projects is from application, submittal, to application approval two weeks. Which is a very ambitious timeline. But were endeavoring to meet that because we know that every moment, every day that passes, is another, you know, loss to that small Business Owners livelihood and their potential to support their family. As with all of the other shared spaces the Neighborhood Association is expected to, you know, to provide the materials and to operate these sites. Part of our equity strategy is looking at the city providing at least the barricades and some of the other, you know, Traffic Control devices. And so those conversations are ongoing and were working with the public works and the office of economic and Workforce Development to resource this. And i mentioned port and parkland. Parkland the applications for the web forms and th they are on the same web page that we looked at earlier. Other details are that the operators are expected to carry insurance and this is very standard for Small Businesses. So, you know, we havent found it to be an impediment. We are relaxing some of the requirements for participants of the program to actually submit this documentation or to go through the process of naming the additionally insured. Were waiving those requirements so its a few less steps for these stressed Business Owners to have to worry about getting up and operational. And as i mentioned before you can, you know, occupy your neighboring buildings frontage if you get permission. I mentioned or i opened up this presentation with celebrating the e. C. Staff and the work that they do running our cert team. So we do have a more of a complaintdriven, kind of enforcement response. We are really trusting that small Business Owners and merchants in their neighborhoods are being good actors and theyre doing everything they can, theyre doing their best to be Good Neighbors. And so we will only respond and send a team out if we are hearing, you know, repeated complaints or we get reports of something that sounds very egregious. So this is as you know a very different approach for this city in terms of kind of enforcement and monitoring. You know, we dont have a require site visits, for example, as part of the planned check. And it seems to be working well so far. And in the situations where we do have a deviation from compliance, again, thats where the skills of the sirt team have come in handy as being very able ambassadors and able to work with these businesses to bring them into compliance and to have that communication. You know, kaitlyn is really fabulous with training her team and we hear a lot of positive feedback from folks who are subject to those interactions in terms of, you know, the conversations and the interactions they have with those sirt team ambassadors. Of course, we do caveat that we can revoke permits if anybody is being really, really bad, but peaply, i can report that hasnt happened at all. Finally just a few notes on like things that are coming up, emerging aspects of the program. We do have an equity strategy that is helping us to focus energies and some the limited Technical Assistance and Financial Resources that the city currently has to help this effort to direct it at, you know, communities that were already facing barriers and were vulnerable, even before covid hit. Were all acutely aware that this pandemic has only amplified the preexisting inequalities and vulnerabilities that certain communities were facing. So, you know, were being very attentive to that. That looks like multilingual outreach, for example, so we can reach e. S. L. Community, business communities, and immigrantowned communities. Were partnering with citywide nonprofit to provide more Technical Assistance and ambassadorship during project development. And as i mentioned earlier, also working with our colleagues at oewd to design some surveys so that we can understand who who were touching, who were impacting. You know, what the benefits and the impacts have been to their bottom line and their ability to recall staff, etc. So maybe later in the year in the fall or closer to the winter, if the commission is interested, we can report back on some of those findings. I think that i went over time so i apologize, director, and you all have our email address. Thank you so much, that was great, robin. Thank you very much, any commissioners have any questions or comments . I am checking to see if anybody has their hand up. Nobody. Commissioner thomas, please. Commissioner thomas there was a question raised in the Public Comment earlier about taxicab stands. Are they part of the, like, blue zone and red zone that should be protected from shared spaces in or are they fair game for shared spaces . And i have a second question what it means to be adjacent like, if theres a park across the street from a restaurant, is that something that they would be able to use or does it need to be on the same block . Those are really excellent questions, commissioner thomas. And i do see that theres some comments about the blue zones and red zones. So currently established blue zones and red zones are places where were discouraging shared spaces. Because, you know, theyre in place for a reason, obviously, for a. D. A. Accessibility and in the case of red zones to make sure that theres adequate visibility between the motorists and the pedestrians and the like, or to protect a bus stop, for example. Whats great about this program is that were actually creating more spaces for things like pickup dropoff. So, you know, thats one of the potential things that you can apply for with shared space. This is creating a temporary white zone, right, or rather, white or a yellow zone. So, you know, the existing white and yellow zones and the blue zones and the green zones are part of the analysis that happens when someone applies to do this on the sidewalk or on the curbside lane. So our m. T. A. Staff are definitely looking at all of those, and making sure that were not having any conflicts. With regard to physical proximity or adjay being adjacea shared site. Its something that were exploring. What is most feasible and viable and what most people are trying to do is to activate the spaces directly adjacent to their frontage. Like, right outside. Which makes a lot of sense. That being said, there is you know, if the driving principle is to help as many people as possible stay operational and survive this distressed, you know and these very stressful times, then were open to figuring out other spatial solutions. So a park across the street or a plaza, why not. Were also as i mentioned earlier looking at we just created a process to allow groups of merchants to use open surface parking lots, undeveloped lots in neighborhoods. So naturally that, you know, might mean that youre serving food or your patrons are dining some distance from your brick and mortar business. And so theres a lot of things to think through on a casebycase basis but its not something that were discouraging in the spirit of economic recovery. Commissioner thomas great, thank you. President bleiman commissioner lee. Commissioner lee so, thank you, robin. Yeah, a lot of questions. Ive been involved with the shared Streets Program in chinatown for the last three weekends. And weve been working with livable cities. And its been successful every week. Weve been getting more people but theres a lot of questions. And today there was a press conference, the Chinese Chamber and the ccdc are going to be giving out grants for the restaurants who are not on grant avenue. Theres not a lot of restaurants on grant avenue, and the ones that are are really doing well now. Which, actually they were only making 3300 a day or even less or not even open. The thing is that theres a lot of restaurants on jackson street and washington that are all on a slant. And some have been granted already their parklets and theyre doing well, but theres a lot of restaurants on jackson street that are still closed or offering to go. And theyre still struggling. So one question that i have is when is the information going to be translated into multiple languages . Number two, since grant avenue is closed, is some of the restaurants that are on the slant that want to participate but because theyre not right across the street from each other, theyre not allowed to. So i know that the program will be expanded a little bit, and i dont know what you can do but i guess if these restaurants are on a slant, theres no other way that you guys can evaluate if theres a safety issue. But are they going to be able to do the same thing . And, you know, with assistance be able to apply for the shared street as well . Yes, thank you, commissioner lee, for those questions. Firstly, regarding language access, the materials on the website are available in chinese. So what we looked at and what i showed on screen, you know, was obviously the english version. But if you go to the website you can see that theres the ability to click on the spanish, simplified chinese and as well as filipino translations. So that that Technical Assistance is available. We do realize though that in other parts of San Francisco, not necessarily in chinatown because theres this big there has been this big pilot that everyone is aware of that has made everyone aware of the program, but, certainly, in other parts of the city we could do some more proactive multilingual outreach. So that is something that our team has been gearing up for. With regard to the slant i think that, yeah, thats one of those physical characteristics of San Francisco that is part of its amazing charm and quirkiness but it makes Outdoor Dining impossible to do in kind of a safe way outside. So, you know, without building significant structures that are terraces and have ramps, you know, its not a viable solution for any businesses or merchants that are located on those steep streets. I think thats where these larger more roadway closure or surface parking lot kind of neighborhood surface parking lot opportunities could could be part of the solution in helping or being made available to folks who are in other parts of the neighborhood, maybe on side streets where their immediate physical locations arent conducive to a shared space, and being able to, you know, to leverage space nearby in the neighborhood. Grant street youre right you know, theres so many streets in chinatown and many, many restaurants and most of grant street was really a neighborhood commercial corridor with produce markets and other food markets. And thats important. I think, you know, the shared Spaces Program isnt just for Outdoor Dining and its also to make sure that there are people that are able to physically distance in these parts of in parts of our neighborhood where you do go every weekend to go shopping and to pick up neighborhood essentials. So i think thats something that we are encouraged by as well, that commissioner lee if you could talk to the people at livable cities, because theres a lot of restaurants that wanted to be on grant and theres only like one or two. And everything in between is only retail stores. So theres plenty of room to put restaurants there, but theyre not necessarily, you know, directly right across the street from each other. They, you know, they wanted to set up tables where they could have display of their food. Of what they serve at their restaurants. And they would actually walk them down to tables that were right in front of their restaurants on the sidewalk. They wanted that opportunity but we were denied you know, because the program is still new, right . So everybody was still testing things out. But they were saying that those restaurants were not allowed to participate in the closed street. So i thought that maybe that is something that you guys could figure out later, you know, because theres a lot of restaurants, you know, that wont be able you know, were going to lose them anyway if they cant survive this. So theyre just trying to think outside of the box. Absolutely, thank you for that insight, commissioner lee. Ill followup with livable city and we are trying to tweak and evolve all of the pilots. After every weekend we learn something more about how they could work better for more people. So ill followup with them, thank you. Commissioner lee thank you. President bleiman other commissioners . Commissioner caminong had her hand up on the thing. Vicepresident caminong hi. Robin, thank you for the presentation. I was just curious, in terms of the mapping tool that is basically just show degreecasinf the spaces, is that public or internal . Thank you for that question, commissioner caminong. It is currently internal but were working on a public version so that you can actually go to the sf. Gov web page and see where everything is. So its just its just one of those tech projects that has been on the back burner while we deal with volume, but we absolutely intend to make that Data Set Available for the public. You can visualize it in that form and you would be able to i think that our plans right now are to be able to download a list. Vicepresident caminong i would just encourage to get the word out. These are our wins right now during the pandemic as each business goes online and is able to continue to practice and serve their audiences. You know, it would be really be great to help those who dont have many right now, but this is definitely one. So thank you. President bleiman all right, we have commissioner falzon has his hand raised. Commissioner falzon hey, robin, i wanted to first off to congratulate this effort that you have been doing. From the Law Enforcement side that spent decades dealing with bureaucracy and the crazy laws, it fascinates me that it takes a pandemic to actually do good business. I think theres a real learning opportunity here. That being said, i did want to share something regarding the planet hills. Something that i have saw in the south of france and it was really successful. They put a lot of restaurants on these steep hills and what they have have are portable ramps they put right outside their restaurants. And it could really work in chinatown. What im talking about is that there would be a level ramp on the left and the right side of the door as you go in and in some cases it might be just be one table that can fit two people on each side of the door. But at least youre serving people. So thats two, you know, turnover table opportunities. In some cases, depending on the width of the business, theres four. I completely recognize that there would be a. D. A. Challenges. But i would encourage you guys seem to be willing to think outside of the box. Im just telling you firsthand. Number one, it really makes for a really cool experience. These are not elaborate and expensive structures but theyre sound. Its plywood that is leveled with a 2by4 frame underneath it. And it can be pulled into the restaurant at nighttime and theyre about four feet wide and as long as you can get away with with the width of the property or if guys would let them expand it. But i encourage you to not give up on our hillside restaurants. Thank you, commissioner. Yeah, there are definitely Design Solutions to this. I think that we have seen after running our citys Parklet Program for nearly three years, we definitely got some beautiful parklets on some slanted streets. Some steep grades. Commissioner falzon great, thank you. President bleiman commissioner wang. Commissioner wang yeah, i wanted to echo my fellow commissioners in commending all of your efforts, robin. I work closely with the Small Business community and handled the insurance for the valencia street closure as well and have heard really, really positive things about their ability to recoup some of the lost capacity in income. I did have some questions with the outer sunset Merchants Association. Thank you, honey. [laughter] my daughter. And i had heard them express some frustration because they had put in an application about potential irving street closure and had a several week delay in hearing back. I havent talked to them in the last week or so, but im wondering if there was a status update on Something Like that . Because i did see less dots on the map on the west side of the city. Thank you, commissioner wang. And we would want to see west and south and southeast, or where theres still a lot of opportunity. So first off i want to acknowledge that the program has been extremely popular. We saw some of the numbers. I mean, the number of applications increases by the day. And so that does you know, in all transparency, theres a lot of volume. Theres a lot of things to get to and the city is running at a very you know, is running at reduced capacity right now. Many of us are wearing multiple hats and doing Emergency Service work and our departments capacity is cut by a third. Thats not an excuse though. I mean, its just some context i think for what frustrates us as the folks trying to deliver this program about the pace. So i am glad to report though that, you know, in the sunset that there are no fewer than three active applications. The one on irving is one of them. One site is already irving between 19th and 20th. And one site is already operational that is on 37th avenue, between ortega and the pops group has a popup market there. Theyve applied to expand that further, which is wonderful. So theres another iteration of that that is on the way. And folks are also looking at terevel. So, you know, i think that we we are working with merchants to get a site plan for the irving and 20th proposal. Thats the next step. And so were really excited to see that come from the merchants because it will help us to advance the applications to the next stage. And its a natural place to have a shared space, you know, with the concentration of businesses there and some businesses that have been institutions in the neighborhood for a long time. And its, you know, fairly accessible by transit and so, yeah, its a really sensible place to make sure that it happens. Commissioner wang oh, great, thank you for the update. And glad to know that theres progress being made there. President bleiman all right. Any other commissioners with comments . Awesome. I have a couple things to say. So first of all, i think that you guys did just a stellar job of rolling out the sidewalks and the parklet, the Parking Spaces deal. Ive done it myself in my businesses and i know so many people who have. And i just commend you on that. Its shocking that there was so much red tape to do Little Things before and then all of a sudden as commissioner falzon said, we can do this and the sky didnt fall down and it seemed that everything is okay. And i hope that the city can learn from this so that we can continue to make decisions like this that dont require, you know, 18 months of hearings before you can do it. So thank you for that. And i know that youve had so much to do with that and i know that our staff has had just a really positive experience working with you and theyre always talking about it. So thank you very much for that. I had some questions around the street closures. And im going to just caveat this with sorry, my cat was on my lap and now theres Hair Everywhere im going to caveat this with the fact that im pretty disappointed with our street closure game in the city. And i saw the stats that you put up and i think that you said 13 approvals. Are those 13 different streets or is that 13 blocks . Those are 13 different projects. Some are multiblock. So, yeah, valencia counts as one of the cases. President bleiman and there were 47 denials, is that yeah. Youre not on a crossexamination, i know that its not your decision. I know that youre shepherding this through and i appreciate that. My personal feeling is that the city has really blown their opening up the streets and they should have done it similar to how they did the streets where they by edict closed a bunch of areas. From what i have seen and i dont know all 13 so you are clearly privy to the information that i dont have but from what i have seen, the only ones who managed to get open so far are either super wealthy or super connected and organized. And i think that it should be the opposite. I think that the streets should be open and i dont mean all the time but thursday, friday, saturday nights from 5 00 to 10 00 p. M. , whatever the thing, and a bunch of streets should be closed. And the only people that could stop that from happening should be the most organized people. So i hope that im wrong and i hope that theres a bunch in the works and theyre coming and 13 is a good number and i hope that its coming. But i know a number of areas where theyre not organized at all and its not their own fault. Maybe the english isnt the first language of most of the Business Owners. Or you dont have a Merchants Association or a c. B. D. That taxes the wealthy landlords and the executive director of the c. B. D. , full disclosure, im not speaking on their behalf right now and so i understand how that works. So personally im just very, very disappointed with San Francisco street closure game, and i think we could do so much of a better job, especially in areas that are less savvy as to how to organize. And the questions that ive seen and most of the denials that so a lot of the denials come across my plate because of my position as president of the Entertainment Commission and also organizer of bars and an advocate for Small Businesses. And the denials come across and it seems to me that the decisionmakers who are deciding whether or not the street should be closed down, they want to settle it, nothing less than absolute consensus from neighbors. Or, you know, 90 consensus or 80 consensus. But a lot of the neighbors dont understand the struggle that Small Businesses are going through right now and how hard it is. And its impossible to get 80 of people as weve seen 47 denials and 13 approvals, its impossible to get 80 of people to agree. But if youre a Small Business and youre about to die, its the idea that you would have to go and build a consensus, like the pied piper or the johnny appleseat is just absurd. You have so much pressure on you right now. So im kind of making this comment and maybe maybe maybe you have some thoughts on this that would be interesting. But im just kind of saying this and its a frustration for me, obviously. And im just wondering maybe you have thoughts on it or maybe its just a comment without a response here. No, thank you, president bleiman bleiman for that. I think that the struggle and the duress is very apparent. You know, and its very acute. And so i think we as you have observed, the city has taken a leap and changed a lot of the way that it typically does business with this program. So in that way i think that youre right, it is a win. And it hopefully portends a different kind of future and a different way of doing things in general. That being said, i agree with you that we you know, we should be open to taking more risks. And thats very much the attitude and the spirit with which, you know, department leadership, our Mayors Office has to approaching responses to this pandemic. I mean, we really have to try things and experiment. You know, this program in and of itself is a huge experiment for the city. But that also translates to individual street closures and, you know, the kind of Public Engagement and outreach processes that weve traditionally had. We are exploring changing those or streamlining those much more so that we can get more projects up and operational, helping that many more businesses, that many more employees and their families. So i definitely hear you, what you are saying resonates a lot with feedback that we are getting from the Small Business commission and other members serving on the Economic Recovery Task force. And i i always carry these comments back to our team and to our city leadership. And we are we are working to create more approvals rather than denials. President bleiman and, again, i dont want to besmirch you at all and i know that youre all in, and all of the feedback that i get from you, robin, is that youre just an allstar right now. So i dont want to confuse the message here. Maybe we can end on one question which is, if you are in the position of Small Business or neighbors who want to encourage more positive responses and encourage more risk taking, do you have any and not general but like more specific recommendations for how best to advocate on this . Well president bleiman and i dont want to put you on the spot, obviously, its a balancing act that you have to do. But in terms of advocacy, what would be most effective in your mind . Yeah, i think that a lot of the points that you just raised, you know, if the commission wanted to they could convey those to the Economic Recovery Task force directly. Certainly, my boss, the mayor. And to the to the department heads, you know, who are charged with delivering this program. So, you know, its always helpful to get constructive feedback, absolutely. That helps us to be clear about, you know, how we can be better, what we can be doing, so, you know, certainly the Small Business commission has been very well developed ideas about what could change and what could be made more efficient. And, you know, as far as im concerned im open to any and all ideas. Everybody on this commission, you know, is connected to the Small Business community and has that experience and wisdom that could, you know, drive the content of some kind of transmittal. Im very open to that. President bleiman i think that the biggest thing is outreach and communication because we wanted to close down six blocks of grant avenue, really. And a lot of the merchants, the restaurants were hurting, but the retail merchants didnt understand it. All they were thinking is that were cutting off their lifeline, you know, not letting traffic go through the street. But i think that as we progressed and we are able to communicate because a lot of them we actually got a 42 a petition of 42 retailers that wanted us to open grant avenue and just have dining on the street. But, you know, thats the whole concept would have been its not the same. You know . So now theyre getting theyre getting it, because were doing more, you know, outreach in different languages and seeing them eyetoeye and they actually see more people showing up because now the advertising is happening, you know. It just takes time. But i think that somehow you guys can do more outreach, you know, to the neighborhoods, to the c. B. D. Or to get them, because thats the problem. Theyre fighting restaurants are fighting against the retailers. I mean, at least in chinatown, you know. Valencia street you have a lot of restaurants so theyre probably all happy and everything. But jackson street has all of the restaurants and grant avenue has all the retail. And theres only three or four restaurants so, of course, but we still pushed through it. And now were looking at everybody, including retailers are benefitting. Theres more people going in their stores now. So they just didnt understand. I think that we could work out some kind of Outreach Program or something. I think youre right, commissioner lee, in that we could really point to the highlighted examples and how theyre working and theyre turning out to work out for everyone and really telling those stories, you know, sharing those stories will help folks to understand the benefits and maybe to be less wary. So thats a really great thing to call out. President bleiman, did i answer your question . President bleiman yeah, yeah, i was just grandstanding there a bit, thats all. [laughter]. Commissioner lee its not all of his fault. President bleiman no, but i do appreciate you have done an incredible work and, you know, we do work i do communicate constantly with the Small Business commission and i am in full support of their proposals. And we have to consider for us specifically our permit holders. Hopefully our team is going to have a breakthrough soon where you will be able to stand outside and play an accordion or a guitar during shared spaces without having to come to a hearing to figure it out. But once that happens, you know, im very much interested in opportunities for safe socially distanced entertainment for people where we can employ artists and performers. We cant do it without the streets. So, thank you, i appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Thank you for everything that you have done. I know how hard this is. I cant imagine how many permits come across your desk every day and the process that you have to go through. So i dont know exactly, but i can sort of appreciate how difficult your job is right now. So thank you for everything that you have done. Lets open this up to Public Comment. Any Public Comment on robins very well done presentation . Clerk at the moment we have one hand raised right now in the queue from barry in toronto. So, barry, were going to bring you in. We have two minutes. And, john, could you put it on the screen too . Clerk yes. Thank you. Caller hi. Good evening. This is barry from toronto again. Robin, you did a great presentation. It was really efficient. And i think that the valence vaa street is working because i do food deliveries too and the restaurants that we serve are not in the closed off areas. So it doesnt impact us. And i have seen they do it on Fourth Street and it works great. The problem is that theres more parking on the side streets for parking and going and pick up and delivery. The feedback, they should probably provide some parking on some of the side streets, either on 16th or 17th, to allow for the going into the closed off area to do pickups from food delivery. Its great to hear about how you decide on the shared Streets Program. You answered the question succinctly about taxi stands. The thing is that i believe that white zones are not a permitted use for shared space. And a taxi stand is technically a type of white zone. So it would be great if i had your Contact Information and sent you photographs. And a followup further with robin regarding regarding this issue of the restaurant. Plus arent they supposed to post the permit they obtain from the shared Streets Program . There is one Restaurant Bar on polk street that has posted on the outside of the structure his permit. But theres no permit posted for this particular organization. So it would be great to have a link to know which shared streets have the permits and which ones were issued on your website. It would be great to have that information. Thank you for your time. And this really was a wonderful presentation. Thank you. President bleiman thank you very much. Any more Public Comment . Clerk yes, we have Michelle Delaney who is next on the queue. Ill unmute her. Michelle delaney youre in Public Comment. Caller hi, awesome. Thank you. And hi, robin, it was great. Thank you. I wanted to make a comment, and today when i went down to minna there was a Homeless Outreach team and i am like so glad that you guys are here and to help the homeless folks here to get into Navigation Centers and the homes. Because, guess what, theres no way that i can do a shared space at all on that alley because theres too many people loitering there and its impossible for us. We cant do anything, we cant move anybody or do anything during shelter in place which is probably for another i imagine six to 12 months for me. So i literally cant even put a table out there with this situation in the alley right now. So i know that theres a lot of pressure on you guys and i know that youre trying really hard but at some point youll need to figure out for something for people that want to open up their bars or restaurants that can, that literally cant with the situation on the street. Thank you. President bleiman thank you very much. Anymore Public Comment . Clerk yes, we have Chris Hastings in the queue to speak. Im pulling him in now. Chris,go ahead. Caller hello. Its just a comment. I have been involved in some Community Meetings about the street closure on noia street at market. And one of the requirements that has been posed to us is that there needs to be an attendant at each end of the street to move the barricades in case of an Emergency Vehicle would need to get through. And for the businesses that are involved, i think that is probably going to be enough to squash the businesses motivation to followthrough with that. I think that would be the same in other places. And one of the suggestions that was put forward is to be able to have the servers who are already waiting on the tables to be the people who could potentially move the barricades, which seems like a much more realistic solution for us. And i imagine that we could have more street closures if that is indeed the intent citywide without that requirement which would be a big its a big expense on the businesses that are involved. Clerk thank you. Can i respond to that one point . President bleiman yes. We are working in particular with the Fire Department to think of alternatives to the staffing requirement, you know, the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association was barely able to get it done with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the local city really stepping in and stepping up to help recruit folks to staff those barricades thursdaysunday, 5 00 to 9 00, every single hour, and every single barricade. So we recognize thats not a sustainable solution. So there are other things that were thinking about that involve potentially different kinds of barricades that can be, you know, driven over without, you know, causing damage to the vehicle as with the current barricades that we specify the Transportation Agency will specify. So i dont want to promise anything right now but i can, you know, assure you, chris, that its something that we recognize that is not you know, there has to be a better way for us to do it. So more on that soon hopefully before the noia street gets approved well have a resolution on that one issue. President bleiman thank you. Anymore Public Comment . Clerk theres nobody with their hand raiseed. It looks like we have some chat comments whenever you are ready and we can look at those. President bleiman yeah, shall i just read them out loud . Clerk yes, i think that the chat started at it would be actually at 6 6 635 president bleiman well, barry toronto already spoke publicly. Publicly. So lets start with christopher millstead because youre only allowed one Public Comment. If theres a bike lane against the curb and a parking spot in the street, is it possible to relocate the bike lane . I have decreased my insurance since were not open but to apply for shared spaces i you have to have one Million Dollar policy. Every penny counts. Those are christopher millstead. And Michelle Delaney has a comment but she did already speak. And marine r. , thank you for shared spaces. I went to restaurants on valencia twice in the last week, i really enjoyed it. And the dogs enjoy it too. And i hope that it continues past the pandemic, and on the weekend. Its too hectic to rideshare and with general traffic. Great use after a long sidewalk. And widening construction on valencia is the only concern was the trumpet too close to the passerby and you need more than six feet. President bleiman, we have flagged that and we are reaching out to valencia street. President bleiman and they wrote to me and saying thank y you. And thats it for new comments. Any other Public Comments . Clerk there are none, but i see no hands raised. President bleiman so Public Comment is closed. Theres nothing to vote on, obviously. There will be cooking demos, a Film Festival and many more amazing cultural programming in art, culinary, dance, health, heritage and info vacation and sports. So i want to invite everybody who is listening to us and all of my fellow commissioners to check us out this weekend auguse and youtube live. Thank you. Any other commissioners have comments . Chinatown, saturday, sunday, come down, they have line dance practicing, food and, unfortunately, no entertainment, but at least you can entertain yourself. Thats it. Thats all i have. Thank you. I have two things and well close real quick. Two things that ive been following closely and what is i spoke with about the street closures and the others, i think that weve seen that people can be outdoors safely and i am begging and im going to continue to beg and plead and activate the San Francisco Health Department to give guidelines to our permit holders on how many people and what kind of events they can have outdoors in public spaces going forward. We need very straightforward guidelines on that. For example, if one of our venues wanted to activate in a park, how would they do it . How many people . What are the rules and we need that two months ago and we need to give our venues opportunities to offer what they do outside of the general spaces. So ill continue to fight for that and working with that on the San Francisco Health Department. So thank you, everyone, for attending and i know how hard it is. Thank you, robin, that was a great presentation and with that, i will ask if theres any Public Comment on commissioners questions . Comments . Do we have any on this agenda item . Senior analyst rice . There are no hands raised. All right. With that, Public Comment is closed and well ajourn this meeting at 7 34 p. M. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. What were trying to approach is bringing more diversity to our food. Its not just the old european style food. We are seeing a lot of influences, and all of this is because of our students. All we ask is make it flavorful. [ ] we are the first twoyear Culinary Hospitality School in the United States. The first year was 1936, and it was started by two graduates from cornell. Im a graduate of this program, and very proud of that. So students can expect to learn under the three degrees. Culinary Arts Management degree, Food Service Management degree, and Hotel Management degree. Were not a cooking school. Even though were not teaching you how to cook, were teaching you how to manage, how to supervise employees, how to manage a hotel, and plus youre getting an associate of science degree. My name is vince, and im a faculty member of the hospitality arts and Culinary School here in San Francisco. This is my 11th year. The policemrogram is very, ver in what this industry demands. Cooking, health, safety, and sanitation issues are included in it. Its quite a complete program to prepare them for whats happening out in the real world. The first time i heard about this program, i was working in a restaurant, and the sous chef had graduated from this program. He was very young to be a sous chef, and i want to be like him, basically, in the future. This program, its awesome. Its another world when youre here. Its another world. You get to be who you are, a person get to be who they are. You get to explore different things, and then, you get to explore and they encourage you to bring your background to the kitchen, too. Ive been in the program for about a year. Twoyear program, and im about halfway through. Before, i was studying behavioral genetics and dance. I had few injuries, and i couldnt pursue the things that i needed to to dance, so i pursued my other passion, cooking. When i stopped dance, i was deprived of my creative outlet, and cooking has been that for me, specifically pastry. The good thing is we have students everywhere from places like the ritz to we have kids from every area. Facebook and google. Kids from everywhere. They are all over the bay area, and theyre thriving. My name is jeff, and im a coowner of nopa restaurant, nopalito restaurant in San Francisco. I attended city college of San Francisco, the culinary arts program, where it was called hotel and restaurant back then in the early 90s. Nopalito on broderick street, its based on no specific region in mexico. All our masa is hand made. We cook our own corn in house. Everything is pretty much hand made on a daily basis, so day and night, were making hand made tortillas, carnitas, salsas. A lot of love put into this. [ ] used to be very easy to define casual dining, fine dining, quick service. Now, its shades of gray, and were trying to define that experience through that spectrum of service. Fine dining calls into white table cloths. The cafeteria is Large Production kitchen, understanding vast production kitchens, the googles and the facebooks of the world that have those kitypes of kitchens. And the ideas that change every year, again, its the notion and the venue. One of the things i love about vince is one of our outlets is a concept restaurant, and he changes the concept every year to show students how to do a startup restaurant. Its been a pizzeria, a taco bar. Its been a mediterranean bar, its been a noodle bar. People choose ccsf over other hospitality programs because the industry recognizes that we instill the work ethic. We, again, serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other culinary hospitality programs may open two days a week for breakfast service. Were open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner five days a week. The menus always interesting. They change it every semester, maybe more. Theres always a good variety of foods. The preparation is always beautiful. The students are really sincere, and they work so hard here, and theyre so proud of their work. Ive had people coming in to town, and i, like, bring them here for a special treat, so its more, like, not so much every day, but as often as i can for a special treat. When i have my interns in their final semester of the program go out in the industry, 80 to 90 of the students get hired in the industry, well above the industry average in the culinary program. We do have internals continually coming into our restaurants from city college of San Francisco, and most of the time that people doing internships with us realize this is what they want to do for a living. We hired many interns into employees from our restaurants. My partner is also a graduate of city college. So my goal is actually to travel and try to do some pastry in maybe italy or france, along those lines. I actually have developed a few connections through this program in italy, which i am excited to support. Im thinking about going to go work on a cruise ship for about two, three year so i can save some money and then hopefully venture out on my own. Yeah, i want to go back to china. I want to bring something that i learned here, the french cooking, the western system, back to china. So we want them to have a full toolkit. Were trying to make them ready for the world out there. My name is alan schumer. I am a fourth generation san franciscan. In december, this building will be 103 years of age. It is an incredibly rich, rich history. [ ] my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. I am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. I have two ways of looking at my life. I want it to be i wanted to be a Fashion Designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. I ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. The work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the Garment Industry. I had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. It is almost like an extended family. I have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. She was a dressmaker of the first order. I would go visit her, and it was a special treat. I was a tiny little girl. I would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. The Garment Industry had the at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. You will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. Women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. There was a woman by the name of diana. She was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. She classified it as a third i. Will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of San Francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. I believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. The board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. Jeffrey heller, the city and county of San Francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. To impart to the history of this building is remarkable. To see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you Start Talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. With children, and i do mainly all of the childrens tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can Start Talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of San Francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. At times, my clothes make me feel powerful. Powerful in a different sense. I am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. Usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. I have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit . Retirement to me is a very strange words. I dont really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the peoples palace. You want a longterm career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something youre then yourself. Follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way. Hello im San Francisco mayor london breed i want to thank everyone in San Francisco. Thank you for your patience, for your resilience and listening to our Public Health leaders. I know the last several months havent been easy for anyone. They certainly havent been easy for me. Everyday i hear about the struggles people are going through from friends from family members and from the community. While San Francisco has been a leader in the fight against this pandemic, everyday we suffer losses. People are losing their jobs, people are losing their grip on their mental health. Worst of all, people are losing family members to this disease. Even as