Transcripts For SFGTV Small Business Commission 20240711

H, and neighborhood permitting. Update on proposition h. Discussion item. The presenter is bridget hicks, senior planner, Planning Department, and bridget, i am going to be passing the controls over to you. Thank you very much. Welcome, bridget. We are absolutely thrilled to having you here. We are looking very much forward to how this will be implemented, so the floor is yours, and after that, well hear from the commissioners if there are any questions, and Public Comment, and then finally, a last round of commissioner comment afterwards. Excellent. All right. Thank you so much. [inaudible] and is expected to pass. The initiative will become effective ten days after the br b board of supervisors certifies the election, which is expected to happen in late december. A conditional use authorization which requires a Planning Commission to an over the counter administrative approval. It eliminates neighborhood notification which have been permitted for land use changes in commercial districted. This seeks to give businesses greater flexibility to adopt their operations during the pandemic. This will not only assist with the recovery, but the recovery and the link of the covid19 pandemic, but also to simplify the process to start a new business in San Francisco. As a part of this permit streamlining, the city shall permit and inspect storefront uses in neighborhood commercial districts within 30 days. We are currently working with the office of building inspection, office of Small Business, department of Public Health, Entertainment Commission and others to implement these multiagency provision. If the city makes a significant error laid in the application process, we shall wave the review and reduce the fees associated with the additional review. Public parklets may now be used to provide service to patrons of restaurants and limit restaurants. Previously, no service was permitted in parklets, but parklets are still to remain open to people who are not patrons of these restaurants. Once the threeyear period has ended, any changes may be made. The Initiative Ordinance removes neighborhood notification requirements to principally permitted changes. Previously, they required a [inaudible] all of the neighborhood commercial Zoning District tables, except for the Mission Street m. C. T. , the mission 24 street m. C. T. , and the soma m. C. T. , have been updated to relaxed use control. Parks activities and nonprofit uses are now principally permitted on all floors in these districts. Nonretail sales and service uses are now principally permitted on the second floor. General entertainment facilities, restaurants, limited restaurants, animal hospitals, and [inaudible] as you can see, many of the uses that were not permitted, indicated been an np, is now allowed, indicated by a c. This is an example of an nc1 district, and all of the tables have been amended, so the proposition is quite lengthy. I wont share all of them with you. You can see restaurants, by previous previously are now principally permitted and can be permitted over the counter, and here is an example of the clements street district, and all of these are available via text and will soon be available via the Planning Commissions website and documentation directly. So the permission ordinance creates a new use called retail work space. This allows work space to be permitted rented on an hourly or daily basis so long as that space has the capability of eating and drinking and faces the street. Restaurants can rent out their space as a coworking space during the day while still operating as a full restaurant at night. One of the larger changes is that bar and Entertainment Venues are now able to switch their use to another use and not lose their permit as an entertainment venue. Previously, if a bar or restaurant was not used as an entertainment venue within three years, they would have to get another permit. The temporary use allowance is good for four years, provided that that period of four years happened within six years of the Effective Date of this ordinance. Another change is that popup retail uses are now allowed in vacant special storefronts. Previously, pop up retail was only allowed in a space occupied by a legally established commercial use. So previously limited special uses and limited corner commercial uses, these are the Grocery Stores on the corners of the residential districts that have been there for tens of thousands almost 100 years sometimes. Previously, they were subject to the stoning provisions of the nc1 Zoning District or the nearest named neighborhood commercial district, if that district was located within a quarter mile. It was quite confusing. Under this proposition, theyre only allowed use in the current nc1 neighborhood Zoning District. Autos change is Outdoor Activity area. Previously, most Outdoor Activity areas required a conditional use authorization to operate. State and local guidelines, as we know, encouraged the out of Outdoor Dining as opposed to Indoor Dining as a means to operate during the covid19 pandemic. Weve seen many businesses take advantage of Outdoor Dining through the citys shared Spaces Program. This change does not apply to bars and is only permitted for restaurants and limited restaurants to operate between the hours of 9 00 a. M. And 10 00 p. M. The outdoor space must be located also on the ground floor and is to be used for seating, no standing, and alcohol and is you presence from outside the premise to the patron seat outdoors. They now conduct their administrative activities onsite as a principal use in the neighborhood commercial district. Previously, nonprofits could only have their functions in the neighborhood district to the services that they provided to the community at that site. We also have something called a bona fide eating place, which comes into play with restaurants and limited restaurants. Weve now expanded the definition, so in addition to the existing definition, which means that a minimum of 51 of the establishments gross receipts comes from food or nonchafrgz sold on the premise, so they can either be defined as a alcoholic beverages sold on the premise, so they can either be defined as a [inaudible] having them account for at least 4200 per occupant based on the maximum occupancy load as determined by the department of building inspection and the fire department. So the idea is this just provides more flexibility for the business to continue to operate as a restaurant or limited restaurant without just meeting that 51 threshold. Upon certification of the election, the Planning Department will begin to process applications in accordance with the permission ordinance. We expect more businesses to qualify with the expansion of these limited reviews and less conditional use authorization, which will greatly use the timeline for these businesses. In addition, we expect to see some storefronts change their operations or uses in response to the covid19 pandemic. We are currently working with the relevant city agencies to implement this 30day review and approval process, and that concludes my informatiopresent. I know it was a lot of a failure or some parts were a success and other parts not so much . Yeah. I think its been expressed from the mayors office, from the Planning Commission and this commission, as well. Everyone is asking, is this going to be a proposition thats going to help people . Were working with our data team to try and pose these questions. I know on the shared Spaces Program, the application, there was a section of optional questions, where people can perabo answer about their businesses; you know, hey, is this something more permanent for you or is this something you want to do that could lead to Something Else . So yeah, were very much looking into it. Okay. Great, and then, lets talk about implementation for a second. So, you know, some aspects of prop h allow for the use of a third say, for example, a third party inspector. I guess my understanding is many of the causes of permit delay is inspectors just simply arent available, the city inspectors, so the ability to use an independent inspector to help move that along, and to be able to do inspections in parallel, that was the other innovation, right, or why they had to be in series is beyond me. But thinking about that, if there are independent third party inspectors, there has to be a process for each department for allowing that to happen. So i think we are going to be asking departments how they intend to go through that process. Maybe this question is coming to you soon, but do we have a sense or have people tarted to talk about how theyre going to implement that side of it because from my perspective, that looked like the heaviest lift from a department change. With yeah, thank you for that question. I think its a significant lift for the city to undertake, but it was explicit and intentional in this legislation that it would happen in this 30 days, so were really working to he can inform us on that. Weve started as you know, planning is not usually the inspection agency, so it will be more the department of building inspection or fire or Public Health, but we are meeting with all of these agencies essentially weekly now to start this process to figure out a, how were going to get this permit approved in the 30day process, and then b, getting the subsequent approval and inspection. I cant speak to the details of the inspection. Thats planning expertise, but we are definitely working with all the agencies that conduct those inspections to make sure that it will happen within 30 days. Well, lets talk about the review part of it, then, because that is the Planning Department. I think one of the things we learned from shared spaces is that it is possible to get things done very quickly, that it turns out its not impossible to do that, and that all we need to do is find the will to make it so. For your typical i know were going to this consolidat consolidated physical location, but its probably going to be a while to be able to use it as full speed. At full speed. Is planning considering going to Cloud Storage im not trying to pin you down. Im just trying to get a sense from you roughly how does planning envision theyre going to meet that requirement . Sure. So we at planning are full on board with dejulio tall review. I think weve kind of been one of the leaders in the city agencies in our electronic plan digital review. I think weve kind of been one of the leaders in in the cithe agencies in our electronic plan, but getting everybody up to speed and staffing has been the challenge. We are working with city agencies to figure out how we can expand the electronic plan review . Right now, its pretty much limited to Affordable Housing projects, but i think the idea with what were thinking are that a lot of Small Businesses, maybe theyre thinking they dont need to do much in emergency roterms of a plan to make that happen, but they dont you know, in a lot of cases, its a swap of a location. So sometimes, the hard copy plans are the cheaper and easier alternative. But as you said, yes, were at the new permit center, but in the pandemic, were rotating in the office. Even now, weve got a handful of planners there every day, processing applications, and, you know, the building inspection, fire, everybody else is there, doing the same thing. So the benefit is at a point where weve been doing this overthecounter review for quite a while, so weve got the process down and working between city agencies, but were looking into ways even if its as simple as an extra box, prop h, thats what you start with first thing in the morning. Even in the pandemic, were never going to get to the way we used to did it, where the owner would be walking the plans over to all the different departments because we dont want to interact with the public that much. You know, were looking to start handling it from the appointment side of it. Right now, they make appointments through the department of Building Inspections website, so were looking at how we can streamline that. We have a screening process i think were at a good stage of having done this during covid enough to have done the basic handle of it and tried some new things to improve that. Well, thats fantastic, and ive very excited, and i know the Small Business community is very excited. And let me just say for the benefit of commissioner ortizcartagena, if any of the groups in these affected communities need support or would like to come and talk to the commission about the issues theyre facing, wed love to hear from them and make sure that theyre getting the caref careful attention like sensitive communities like theirs observe. So i just wanted to know that as we hear more from the community, the commission stands behind you on that. Yeah, and well also be publishing a punch of handouts and documents that well put out and share with your agency and all the other ones so that people can have an easier type interpreting the legislative checks. Okay. Great. So why dont we see if theres any commissioner or see, any Public Comment. We currently dont have any Public Comment, but i would suggest we give the phone number, the access code, and the directions on sfgov can i just say, this is a good time to opine. Whenever i call in, im struggling to commit the meeting i. D. To memory. I dont understand why its a crawl. The whole thing should just be displayed on the screen continuously. Its, like, a video game trying to remember that thing. Thats not able to be the case at the moment, would you like me to read the number up . Yes, stepping off my soap box. Members of the public who will be calling in, the number is 4156550001. Again, that number is 4156550001. The access code is 1463760438. Again, 1463760438. Press pound and pound again to be added to the queue. So i just had this bright idea to make the phone number the background for my webex so, like, it appears behind my head. All right. So what do we want to do . Do we want to wait a couple of minutes and see if anybody calls in . I dont see anybody has any questions for bridget . Press, can i just make another comment . Yeah. I want to take an opportunity to thank all the City Departments that mitigated a lot of our community concern. I dont want to point the finger, but ajoaquin torres an office of workforce development, supervisor ronens office. Its great to see us all come together and maybe they can [inaudible] know, commissioner ortizcartagena, this is a good minute to take the opportunity to comment. Many people both from the community and from city leadership have thanked me for help, and i have tremendous respect for the work you do. Okay. Okay. Now is a time to check and see if theres any Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment . We have no Public Comment right now. Okay. Seeing no Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. Is there any further commissioner discussion on the prop h presentation . Seeing none, bridget, thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate it. Were so graceful for this change and this opportunity to help the Small Business community. Its well timed. I think its a great piece of legislation. We will continue to provide support in terms of checking in with the Department Heads and seeing what their plans are. I think my only last comment would be, you know, i think many members of the Business Community dont even know whats available to them with respect to prop h, and so i think the burden is on all of us to help convey that, you know, just even, for example, you think about these bars and Entertainment Venues, some of them have been jerked around from left to right faster than their heads can spin, and in the case of the Entertainment Venues, theyve had to layoff most of their staff. Without having to jump through all of the hoops that they normally have to jump through, thats really helpful, so we as a commission and City Department need to tell them that its easier to do their job so they they arent rolling the city legislative site for new and exciting changes to their sector. So we really do got a communications challenge as much as a procedural challenge, so i know we tried to do a big but there was certainly a Big Communications push around the runup to the campaign, but now that its passed, theres an equal so i guess the one thing id encourage people to do is when people are planning for permits, even if its unrelated to prop h, if its related to the sector that theyre in, perhaps theres a way that we can say oh, by the way, did you know that theres a way you can have a work space in the back of your restaurant or you can use that patio or you can now have this new space . Is i think all of that would be helpful. Thank you so much for your time and hearing our feedback and suggestions. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Yeah, ill be around for questions, and our offices will be in touch. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Next item, please. Clerk item 3, presentation, street cleanliness. Update and report on San Francisco public works activities relating to clean streets, discussion item. The presenter is alar alaric degrafinried, acting director of public works. Thank you, director, for making time for us today. I did want to say directly from us that were starting to you know, one of the things that we hear about from Small Business a lot is street cleanliness, and rather than just jump into, you know, the discussion, guns blazing with a lot of recommendations and feedback, i thought it might be helpful to just learn whats going on, you know, how does this look like from your guys end before we start making any decisions on community needs. So this is, from at least my perspective, an educational session just to help us better understand how d. P. W. Is running and what are the challenges that you guys are facing right now, and how you plan to navigate these upcoming changes. Its a [inaudible] environment, i guess is what im trying to say. Thank you, commissioners, for having me. Alaric degrafinried, acting director, department of public works. Ill be focusing on our street cleanliness and the works that we do in the street. Im joined by my colleague, carla short and joined by the acting director of public policy, rachel gordon. So it would be of help if i could pull up the slides. Director degrafenrinried, l me give you the presentation controls. Okay. Give me one second to share. Great. We can see that. Okay. And so Department Works is a department that is made up of about 1600 employees, and we have a broad and diverse portfolio of things we do. Everything from designing and Building Public buildings, and we also design and build infrastructure for the city. We obviously do, as a street cleaning, but we also do maintaining and repairing buildings across the city. We have an urban forestry department, and lastly, i was listening in to your former presentation. As a Planning Department. We also have it is a very broad mix of things that we do. But specifically tonight, im going to be focusing on the work that we do in the streets and the street cleaning. As you can imagine, thats something that we do 247, every day of the year. We have about 350 employees that work in that area, and we have a budget of about 94 million in that area. We have Service Requests every month, and those are requests that we get from the 311 system, and if you add it all up on a weekly basis, we collect and dispose of about 900,000 pounds of trash each week. So there actually is no easy way, commissioners, or a magic bullet to keep the city clean, because if there was, i would have found that bullet already. But the things we see, as the population of the city has over the last decade, weve also seen a large rise in the number of Service Requests that are in the city along with the along the same timeline, weve also seen a rise in the number of encampments in the city. So im not saying that one thing is the cause of all the problems that we have, but again, you have to think of all those factors in some of the things that were trying to address right now. Now, luckily, though, over that same time period, weve seen an increase in the number of services that have been assigned to that area. Unfortunately, weve seen that the services assigned have not been on the same level or trend line, but there is a steady increase of the resources in that area, both of the number of the fulltime employees that we have in the area as well as the number of budgets. But ill tell you as i told the board of supervisors this past summer, i would gladly give back some of this budget if there are ways that we could reuse some of that budget that we could address some of the issues underlying the streets not being clean. Its not often that you hear Department Heads wanting to give back money, but this is something that public works cannot do by ourselves. This is a problem thats going to require the assistance of other City Department, the community, and homeowners overall, and this is something that ill go over in more detail, as well. So the sources of the 94 million that we receive, in large part, that is from the general fund. We get over 50 of that from the general fund, which is good if we are in good and moderate times, however, the budget is tight, and theres going to be some pressure on those dollars because those dollars are competing with Public Service i mean with Public Safety bureaus and things like that, so this is something that were going to definitely have to be dealing with within in the next few years. We also receive certain funds from transfers and other departments and to do certain things through the gas tax and abatement fee. I know that this is something of interest to the commission, and id be happy to talk about that more, as well. But as a cigarette abatement fee, that was a fee essentially put in place, 1 per pack of cigarettes that is used by public works to go around, essentially try and to cleanup after after cigarette butts because its very difficult to do that in the mechanical sweeping because the butts get in the cracks of the sidewalk, so it takes a lot more mechanical effort, so thats one of the reasons why that fee has developed. So thats one of the reasons where the funds go, and thats where the funds come in. Likewise, on the righthand side, you can see where those fees are used, so we use over half of those dollars are dispensed for manual cleaning. That goes back to what i was saying before, commissioners, like the cigarette butts, and were doing the manual and the sweet sweeping in between the cars of the city. This is something were doing 247. This is something youll see it in the Early Morning hours, in the overnight hours, on the weekends, the street sweeping, this is something we had to temporarily stop in june or in the spring of this year in certain neighborhoods because we as a city decided not to have people move their cars because of covid for as a few months, but we did work with m. T. A. , and they now have began to ticket parked vehicles again, so we have relaunched the mechanical sweeping. And again, we have and the Graffiti Abatement Program as Illegal Dumping and the steam cleaning and the Illegal Dumping is something you see in our commercial corridors, and were trying to work with the residents in those areas. The one thing that has impacted public works just like it did everyone here in the city and the world is, more broadly, this spring, is the covid crisis, but im extremely proud of the work that public works and the City Departments did. We started to design and to establish some of the safe sleeping sites that you can find across the city, and i can go on and on about the work that we did with the engineers and operations division, while also and the general admin divisions, as well. We have teams from we have individuals from our finance, accounting and communications teams, as well. We [inaudible] as you probably know from the last conversation, this is something that has allowed businesses and specifically restaurants and some retail to open back up, and so public works has byeee working hard to make sure that we can streamline the process to approve, and thats something that we are as committed to doing Going Forward. And so we do all of this and the street cleaning with a myriad of various initiatives. As im not going to go into all of the ones that you can see here on the slide, but ill bring into the spotlight a handful of our biggest programs. But the one thing that weve seen in the last five to ten years is the efforts that we have to send around encampments. This is something thats frankly going to take the the entire city to try to find out ways to solve the problem. We are happy with some of the temporary solutions that weve been able to develop with the city and the safe sleeping sites, providing unhoused individuals with some solace in the shelterinplace hotels and things like that. But this is going to be a much bigger problem for us solve because it has conditions in the streets with the litter and garbage on the streets, and i think to some extent, a perception of the streets, as well. And so one of the programs that we have is a Workers Program where we have 104 routes throughout the city. This is something that has a double benefit. One, it creates cleaner mich e commercial corridors throughout the city, and were giving people and individuals second and third chances that they probably would not have had otherwise. You know, we are hoping to get the routes staffed up to about 150 overall, but again, thats something that were just going to have to balance with as we work through some tight fiscal budgets and that the next few years. And before, commissioners, i was talking about the mechanical sweeping program, we cover about 150,000 miles of and streets and we pick up litter and leaves, and now that its the rainy season, the leaves go into the sewer, and it blocks the system and causes flooding. So thats something thats important to us here at public works, but also our colleagues at the m. T. A. And p. U. C. We have had some difficulties trying to get some routes into north beach and the russian hill neighborhoods, one, because of the width of the streets and because there are some residents that dont want to give up their parking on the days that the cleaners would be running because they need to get next to the curb. Again, there are neighborhoods that we would like to have these routes run, but its a balance between the needs and the desires of the residents and the homeowners in the neighborhood because, again, it would require them to move their cars. And the next one is something we have Just Launched this past spring, and unfortunately, it was just before covid, but its the clean corridor program. The sidewalks that abut the Business Owners or the Property Owner property are the responsibility of the Property Owner, so the sidewalk and things like that. Thats really something that the Property Owner is supposed to maintain, but at the same time, as public works is dedicated to as assisting in that effort, so the thing that we have done, we have a program where we go around, and once a week, we pick a different neighborhood every week, and we essentially go out and do a deep clean. So we its a blitz that we go out and remove litter, we steam clean, we pick up i mean, we get into the cracks of the sidewalk, take out secr cigarette butts, we do a deep cleaning. Its really a few blocks in the city here, and its once a week, and really, the intent or the thought is, after the deep cleaning, we hope that the neighbors in that area will be able to maintain that Going Forward because thats not something that we frankly have the resources to do in every neighborhood every week. But the thing is were hoping that we can go through and do deep cleanings throughout the city in various neighborhoods, then over time, well be able to hit all the neighborhoods, and hopefully, the neighbors within that area will be able to keep it up. And Something Else were seeing, which is within this area that is a problem for public works and the city as a whole is Illegal Dumping. I was just out in the bayview this morning, speaking with neighbors there. You know, at public works, we have 90,000 Service Requests each year. As it relates to Illegal Dumping, this could be from illegal move out, this could be from Property Owners or Business Owners or whatever you want on the street. And this is on top of the normal runs that we do and to pick up litter and things like that in the public realm. And weve been trying to think of ways we talked about increasing fines, and so were working with some of the support supervisors to do that, but thats more of the sticker approach. Were trying to provide some carrots, if you will. Were also weve also began a project working with the board of supervisors to put some locations in the city hopefully, well be able to find out and identify the person there. Weve set [inaudible] and ill give you an example. If you had a home, and you added on as an inlaw unit, and you still have the same trash can, but now, you have a whole other family in that household, and you still have that one can, but thats not enough service, so were trying to find out if its an example of a home that doesnt have enough service. [inaudible] and the Property Owners are responsible for doing it on private property and [inaudible] in the spring also as a result of the shelter in place, but i can tell you that within the last in the several months that we have began, as that process begins, we are now working with in the private owners and Property Owners and asking them to go out and abate as graffiti thats on the property owned by them. This is actually Something Else that youve probably seen or heard about as our pit stop program. We provide access to the 48 staff rest rooms in the city. It started out as 23 in the spring, and weve been able to double the effort, which is just a massive process. The one thing we saw in the city is we didnt have public rest rooms in the shelters, in the libraries, and at the same time, the restaurants werent allowing people to come in and use their rest rooms, as well. So it was a service that we needed to provide across the city. It is a need that were currently providing rest rooms, and for 48 different locations across the city and in 13 different neighborhoods, so its something that we have a pit stop in all of the different neighborhoods across the city. And misthat is a concern that is in the Small Business community and really everyone in the city are the public trash tans. This is something that weve had as a long as a history with these cans. The cans can be easily tampered with when you have people looking through them, trying to find glass bottles that can be recycled and things like that, and its just really a big problem, but im glad to see, within the next year or so, we are hoping to roll out some new cases. We are working with [inaudible] now who has some designs of three new cans for us. We are in the process of working with, as a manufacturer, whos going to develop some prototypes of each of these cans, so were going to be building five cans of each, and im hoping that in the spring or something of next year, well be able to put these cans out into service. Well be working with Property Owners and Business Owners in the city as well as recology to find the best can for us. And after that, im between now and this Time Next Year to be able to start to roll out these new cans. Again, as i was saying before, we have a big partner in all of this, and its keeping the streets clean with at recology. They are in a as an employeeowned business here in the city, and they are truly our partners in this in trying to keep the streets clean. As you can see in the image here, somebody trying to empty a trash can. The new cans, theyre going to be tamperresistant cans. Theyre going to be a toter, like what you currently have at home. The employees currently have to lift the cans, so theyre causing all kinds of safety concerns with their backs going out and things like that. Were looking forward to a continued partner somebody with them and trying to find ways to speak with them. Again, speaking with pardon nership nerships partnerships, we have benefit districts through the the city, and theres a request that comes into 311, we will often times try to assign works to either public works staff or either the impacted mcbd, and i can tell you within the last several months, weve began a pilot as each as a c. B. D. To make it even more efficient for the way the city shares their 311 data with as a c. B. D. , which is something that im hoping, after we get d done with the pilot next spring, that this is something that well be able to roll out and get everyone involved. This is a picture, obviously, thats a precovid picture, but we, at the same time, we at public works need and rely on the volunteers to help us and to keep the city clean. We see that and do that with and businesses as the large and small and neighborhood associations and schools. So i cannot say enough about the of reliance that that public works has on the volunteers and the Public Works Program in the city. It is ac its something that were trying to make sure that everyone is safe in the city, and thats something that were trying to implement as a volunteer program in the city. With that, that concludes my presentation, and im happy to answer questions. That was fantastic. Thank you. Didnt take too long at all, at least not from my perspective, and wonderful information, so thank you, so well start turning it over to our commissioners. Commissioner dooley. Thank you for this presentation. It was really great that explains how d. P. W. Runs. I just have one question. Ive noticed trash cans not only overflowing, but people seem to feel free to dump their household trash. Is this something that we have security cameras where can we try to stop these neighborhood scoff laws . Thats a good question. Oft [inaudible] because of that. Now, as your second question, if there are cameras, and thats something that we as a city are working on, we at public works are working on because there was a board that passed a few years ago that precluded City Departments from using security cameras in public spaces as a detailed process because they didnt want big brother, if you will, filming things that werent necessary. I can tell you that as public works, were trying to get cameras to read license readers. Its not going to be reading someone going into the grocery store, its going to be reading their licenses if theyre dumping trash illegally and Something Like that. I remember a couple of years ago, you had people coming out to check whether residential buildings, whether they were paying for garbage, and i remember i had my shops, and the entire three shops above me were only paying for one garbage cans for all of them. It never seems like anything happened for what we could do to get those owners to pay for their trash . Well, its a practice where we have some of our colleagues in an outreach enforcement team, and they work with our colleagues and d. P. H. If we can show them that no, theres not enough service at a particular building, then public works, my colleagues can work with d. P. H. Can ensure that that business not that business, but that home or that building does get some more service. Great. Thank you. Commissioner hui . Thank you so much, director degrafenried. Thank you for the presentation. It answered so many questions i had going into this meeting. I think just a few questions on some elaborations on some of the points that you made. I was curious about the new camera rollouts. Have there been any thoughts to the big belly receptacles . Yes. We are choosing to not to go with the big belly itself, but we want a can that has all the features of the big belly. We want it to be tamper resistant. Ill say one of the concerns that we had with the can and going with one of those, ill be sure to work with doe dominica. Its going to have wheels and a foot pedals on the bottom, but its not going to be able to compress. Thats one thing that weve had conversations with recology, and theyve said thats not necessarily a good thing. Because when you compress the garbage, they get really heavy. So the models that were having to design, in the cans itself, there are when it gets to 50 or 70 , itll notify people at department of public works, so itll be a lot easier for us to maintain. And budget wise, is this already slighted in the budget, like, all new cans around the city . Is it going to go around the whole city . Are there going to be any new cans . Like, what does the rollout look like for all of that . Yeah, thats a great question. Right now, we have 500 cans all across the city. The new cans will be rolled out each year. I could be wrong on this, but i want to say between 300 to 500 cans or so a year. And the budget for that is already paid through for at the garbage rate, so thats something, as the annual cost that you all pay for garbage, theres a piece of the funds that you already pay, so it wont have to have any increate on any of your fees or whatnot because its already baked into the rates. I know in the past, in our neighborhood, we had requested kind of additional garbage cans as some corners that were maybe being out of traffic. Maybe there was a new takeout restaurant or something coming up. I know at one corner, there was a parklet that was built, and weve kind of requested for additional trash receptacles, and we were told that the city didnt really want to add more receptacles because they found when there were more receptacles, theres more trash in that area. Ive noticed when i walked my dog that there werent many receptacles available. Is there a sense of adding more to the city or is it more like we dont want to add more because we dont want to give people more of an opportunity to illegally dump . Yeah, i wouldnt say theyre hardandfast noes at this point. I think the thing that, as weve talked about, as we begin to roll out the new cans, were going to be talking with residents and Business Owners across the city about rolling out those new cans, and well have to work with the Business Owners and the neighbors to make sure that we dont and to commissioner dooleys point, that we make sure they dont tamper with the cans, but its something we will very to go back and consider as we can figure it out. I would love to offer to the merchant committee, its not necessarily, like, me representing all of them, but i think the Merchant Community would love to have input in terms of what their neighborhood looks like, especially in approximate the next few years. And then, in terms of capacity, do you have any idea of where youre at with the bulky item pick up or is there an opportunity for people to use those or, like, could we spread the word about that and mitigate some of the Illegal Dumping, especially in the residential corridors . Yeah. With that, thisats something that were in discussions with currently with recology. If you are a good actor, and you call recology and say hey, im moving out at the end of the month, and i need someone to come and take my old coach because its dirty couch, because its dirty, i dont want to take it to my new place or whatever, recology is taking three weeks to come out and pick it up. If im getting ready to move, rather than waiting two to three weeks, theyre just going to leave it on the curb, because that person knows if i have a choice between waiting a couple of weeks to schedule an appointment versus leaving it illegally, versus they know somebody, in a couple of days, is going to pick it up, so were rewarding the bad behavior. So were implementing something with recology, and were going to implementing it as a pilot. We just have to figure out the neighborhood were going to do it on, but were going to shift it a little bit. The neighbors are going to have to let some of that Illegal Dumping sit to the overnight hours, between 5 00 p. M. And 5 00 a. M. Recology will go around and pick up that Illegal Dumping overnight, but during the day, well be able to pick up other things. Were trying to find ways to use the same resources, but just to use them smarter. But and i guess, also, to your point, to do that, though, we know were going to have to launch a Massive Campaign for outreach just to let people know that this is happening, and if youre moving out, call whatever, or send a tweet or a text to a certain phone number or whatever account, so they know that you can schedule these services, and its free. I think that would be helpful, in terms of me being a resident, understanding how to utilize City Services so im not part of the problem. The thing with City Services, nobody wants to be part of the problem. I think they have a problem that they dont know what to do with these things. I know having a lot of brick and mortar, having a lot of card board and things like trash, are there places that the city has that it you know, now we dont have the card board resellers and things like that, so what do you recommend with all of the extra trash that residents and merchants are maybe collecting right now and dont have, you know, the means to be able to just really upgrade all of their services because its not a consistent kind of mat erin . Thats a good question. Thats one that im going to have to take back and think about because we hadnt thought about the easy answer is well, he just need more service, but thats not a real thats not a realistic solution. Because if you dont have your job or cant afford to pay your employees, the last thing you need is more cost. I will talk to the people here thats on the call to see if theres things we can talk about. We used to have, in each of the neighborhoods, you could go and dump your belongings and things like that, but at the same time, thats for that one moveout or that one dumping a year. But i think the thing that im hearing you say, commissioner, is is there some kind of recycling that we can do for everything and the packaging that we can do, amazon and others, because everyone is receiving all this extra packaging, and it fills up your recycling much faster than it used to. Thats not something that you want to save up for next spring and the dump days. I think in general im always a Glass Half Full time person. I think people are trying to do the right thing, and you see things lined up and piled up around the can. The person tried. It would have been better if they tried to put it in their receptacli receptacle, but i think they tried. And it would be helpful if we tried to help them. [please stand by] it kind of feels like we have this ethos that runs through and it stops at a certain point and it doesnt go through the point which it needs to. Thats just my understanding. It please to be at the end. If you put it in the trash, its kind of like not quite as good. You will probably know better. That piece of it, as public works and the city more broadly, we do have a campaign to try to encourage more other composting and things like that, even for aasking City Departments. They give us as departments, fewer and smaller of the black hand. They want us to more green cans and blue cans. Thats something that we can take back. I was at their facility about couple of months ago doing a visit and seeing how that operation works in the composting and seeing they are using that as a byproduct for planting and things like that. Everything is done within the city. They 4 try to salvage more from the black bins into the green bins. Even as you a resident didnt put it right in as they trying to sort that on the backend. I would love to see some support for our emergents who are dog increase takeout. There are specific type of business producing specific type of waste. Having support in the city providing receptacles for outside of their restaurant thats compostable would probably ease some of the burden to Restaurant Owners to sort their trash after or have to feel compelled to have mixed trash. I think in terms of supporting the behavior, kind of giving the support tangibly will be helpful. Those were pretty much that i wanted to ask about. I really do appreciate just offering if there are any ideas or ways that we can give input. I hope this conversation continues beyond tonights meeting. Thank you. For sure, one thing i will work with on is coming back to you when we roll out the new cans. I would love to get the feedba k and to get your thoughts which ones work well and which ones dont. Thank you. Commissioner ortizcartagenat hank you so much for that presentation. It was thorough and informative. One of the things i want to say, how can we all help you and your team . We want to make sure that you understand were with you on anything that we can do, were here for you. Also do you make a point all the people i grew up with, they work at d. P. W. I dont know if its a requirement because it help. They do have a sense of community. They know their neighborhood. Thats pretty cool for a city and department and employees to know their community. One last question regarding budget. Is there data that shows where the money going . Say theres lot of dumping, is that in the southeast corridor . Do you have tha data that shows that . I can certainly work with my team to provide you some data and where employees are going and the request to get the districts. As commissioner, one thing that as you can do and you talk to the Business Owners you work with, residents that you work with, one thing we see in some of the underserved communities is they dont rely on Services Like 311 enough. There are a long line of reasons why people dont. What happens is, as were in certain neighborhoods, everyday all day. But at the same time, it helps to get everyone to inform us of a specific problem. Thats one thing we can do. To get you to as commissioners, a report on the amount of garbage and debris and number of the Service Request we see in each of the neighborhoods as well. Commissioner ortizcartagenaj ust from an optic, i have an office by oakdale. Theres lot of industrial businesses and like i know since covid and all the other stuff thats going on, the dumping out here is crazy and anything we can do to help because nobody wants to go to a Mechanic Shop and field shop, its almost scary to a point. Anything we can do to fix that. Its really deterring businesses from being patronized. Especially on the first street corridor which has spaces. I was talking to business the other day [indiscernible] one of those things, i was there this morning, one of the residents made a good point. This is kind of like in the broken window syndrome where you see a broken window and no fixes it. Then im going to leave old water heater out. No one says anything. It gets worse and worse. We beginning to try to focus on that now. There are lot of specific jurisdictional things we need to figure out specifically as it relates to the park area. Thats gotten really bad frankly. Im in the process now trying to figure out the Property Owners. Were all going to have to come down and sit at the table and figure it out. Its gotten to a point where its ridiculous and to be like that and as i told neighbors this morning, im going to get to the bottom of it. Its not fair for me to tell you as commissioner or really as a resident, well, its not my area. You need to call this person or call that person. For you, its the city. Its the citys responsibility. Thats where im going to work with my colleagues to try and figure it out. One last thing, this is in general. This is actually im getting lot of feedback. The rodent population. Its just like crazy. Restaurants and other businesses tell me this have to have strategies. Theres a call to mitigate this. I dont know if you can opine on this. What are you seeing and any thoughts or comments . Were seeing certainly as rodent problem in the areas where we have the encampment with trash building up. I dont have much visibility into that. I can tell you that we have seen it in the public spaces lot more issues as regarding rodents. I dont know if its because people going out much. Rodents are feeling more brave to do their thing. We have seen some areas where thats been a problem and the tenderloin for sure. In candlestick, they are throwing garbage over the fence you can see the garbage moving. Its not the wind thats moving it, its the rodents. They are doing that. Were going to work with our colleagues and d. P. H. To get to the bottom of that as well. Commissioner ortizcartagenat hank you director. I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. President laguana thank you, commissioner zouzounis. Vice president zouzounis tha nk you director for the presentation. [indiscernible] i have three areas of your presentation i like to ask questions around. The first on some of the things occurring around [indiscernible] i know that d. P. W. Covers some of these. I want to understand in this time, they are still being administered related to graffiti. The cardboard and things, after the informal picking up of cardboard stock, it increased and created difficult thing for card booker to pick up. [indiscernible] to speak to fines as it relates to graffiti. When we go out and we recently had within the last 15 months, go that enforcement as going again. I can tell you that, that usually as a last resort. We will put someone on notice and say you need to address that. We will provide them if its up high, say, 50 feet high or Something Like that, we will do it on their behalf and charge them for it. I can tell you, though, its not our first ever to find someone just because of graffiti. Second question you had about the fines from recology Vice President zouzounis i will turn my video off. I can sent you the recology Payment Scheme if thats helpful what they are charging us. Another followup to recology, i know that the Community Benefit district are concerned with having to pay two times over for hauling. I know this is probably come to our your attention, theyre picking up 2000 pounds a day in trash. They are doing the service and are trying to appeal to potentially the contract thats coming in front of the board of supervisors with d. P. W. And work with some agreement with recology. I want to see what that conversation has been with your department . As a couple of things, ive been working on that with recology. We are working with to try the issue was, when the city negotiated the contract with the garbage rates years ago, at the time, they did it with the c. B. D. , they put in an allowance to dispose x number of debris or whatever at a certain cost. At the newer c. B. D. That came in existence after that. Whats been happening over the last several years, i dont want to go into details, theyve been being charged for thousands of dollars for recology. They werent part of that rate structure. Were been working with recology and in the process of rolling out as a structure that, will provide as a credit to each of the c. B. D. S and blocks that you are as responsible for. The intent is the amount of that credit should offset most if not all of the cost that you will see occurring from recology. At the same time, were going to be working with recology and c. B. D. S to do some education. I think there are some cases where in the c. B. D. S collecting, debris garbage and other as responsible for and thats been one of the problems thats causing their bills to be so high. Ill give you an example. The garbage associated with the encampment, the c. B. D. S arent supposed to be picking up that garbage. Whats causing them to have a much higher bill than as they supposed to have. I believe theres a meeting that we are trig to set trying to set up on wednesday to meet with the c. B. D. S and to go over this. You mentioned the contract negotiated now between the city and recology and the 62 million contract. That contract doesnt involve any of the c. B. D. S. That is the contract for the city offices. If you as public works or department of health or p. U. C. Need to have a garbage removed from your building, thats the contract that the city uses to remove garbage from the public buildings. Its not the contract city uses with recology to cover the cost of the garbage in the public realm. This is one of those things now, because theres so much stuff in the news about public works, recology and bad actors in the past. Were hopefully going to be working with the supervisors, and the c. B. D. S and recology to make it clear to everyone. Vice president zouzounis tha nk you for clarifying that. My last set of questions has to do with the abatement fee. I want to understand how the fund are administered particular to that fee . When you say how the funds are administered, do you mean which of the programs we use . Vice president zouzounis whe re does the money go specifically . That money is used in large part to it goes to as our cleaning efforts. On the slide that shows 44 million, that money in large part goes to help fund cleaning efforts. To be specific, it goes to fund as a corridor workers and the laborers. Vice president zouzounis i understand its based on a study that is severely outdated. Which stated that 50 of the litter as a whole that we find on the streets are cigarette butts. My question is, are there any other similar fees or Funding Sources that are based on a study of litter and percentages that go into this budget . Is this it only one . In that, were looking at around 700 businesses that hold a tobacco license that are paying in this fee, are paying a considerable amount of street cleaning for whole of the city. This is a very small percentage of our Small Businesses that are taking up this burden. If there are oater tools it that youre using to base the funding on, why is there not a fast food reuse fee . Based on data and Small Business feedback, we see the majority of litter being in containers and what not. Going back to the abatement fee, large amount of that litter is due to tourists and now litter that is coming from outside the city because the city experienced two bans relate to product that will fall under the cigarette litter abatement. Its tied to a specific sector but that sector is not necessarily the one producing the trash at the same amount as its reflected in this old study. Weve seen lot of cigarettes outside other types of businesses too, like bars and restaurant. But theyre not paying this fee. That was kind of my question around it. If theres any types of metrics that used to determining percentages of litter on the streets and who pays for that. I cant say off the top of my head if i know there are other metrics used. In this case, the metric is a survey that was done. The concern that im assuming that went into place where policymaker did focus abatement fee in place. As a hazardous nature of the cigarette butts themselves. They are very difficult to pick up when they do get into the crevices of the sidewalk. I know they are sister small. It doesnt seem like that much. As a level of effort, i think thats why it was in that percentage. To answer your comment or question about the restaurant, in the Public Health department does require that Restaurant Owners have trash receptacles in their business. I cant speak to all the thoughts that went into making the study. I do know they decided to keep the fee the same because its part of the age of the study. I know the Controller Office is working on a revised study within the next year or so. I know at the same time, they do take the cost associated with that fee seriously because we had to do it on a very conservative basis. Its a fee and it isnt a tax. As a result, we had to be able to demonstrate the amount of cost that we incur as a city and as public works that that cost was at or below the fee that was being charged. In this case, it has very much below the actual cost incurred by this year. Vice president zouzounis my understanding this bill increased 400 . Its more than some people gross receipts. Im trying to understand efficacy of this. Do you think its the best way to abate that literato put owner fee on businesses that are meant to be passed down to consumer to affect consumer behavior. Do you feel that methodology has been successful. Do you imagine theres a better way to pay for this type of service . Honestly, i will be interested working with the businesses. As a policy call, there could be ways to possibly mistakes we have to work with them on. If you are a Business Owner and you run a business and you sell cigarettes. Youre going to put in your own type of cleaning program but then feed from your store. Therefore dont charge me the fee because im committed and im going to clean up within 10. There could be ways for you to show that im going to meet the ordinance, or of this policy. Im going to selffund it as opposed to pushing those dollars in public works. As a sensitive issue, on the other side of the coin, thats really making it easier for people to buy cigarette and things like that. I know is going to be a hot topic. I do know, i appreciate that it has as real impact on the Small Businesses here. Were were trying to get every job they can to support their own families and neighborhoods. Were seeing some of those dollars going to south city to buy the same product. Vice president zouzounis tha nk you so much. President laguana thank you. Commissioner yekutiel if you could call commissioner adams before commissioner yekutiel. He need to step aside. President laguana Commission Er adams. Commissioner adams great. I want to thank you for this presentation. You said some things thats really important. I want to tell you how it works for me. Lot of the people in my neighborhood. Thats using the 311 app. We use it a lot here in the castro, the merchants. We use it. We use it in noe valley and twin peaks. We did some test. We had garbage out on the street. We did 311 app. Lot of cases within an hour, the garbage was picked up off the street. Thats pretty amazing. This is even during covid time, this is before covid. That 311 app works. I cant stress enough you said it director, use that app. If you want things to happen, it usually happens when you use that app. I wanted to make that comment. Thank you. I will use myself as an example, growing up, i was very reluctant that the people in my neighborhood im from denver we are reluctant to use those Services Just because the historical nature calling into it. I grew up in the black neighborhood, you never expected that. Some of its working with the same neighborhoods here and getting them used to. Then we have to performing and show up within to your point, we cant have someone call in as a ticket. Then have to wait a day or two for something to be picked up. Thats where as a history here in hat city and across the country, the underserved neighborhood need to get the same level of service as all the other neighborhoods. Thats something me, carla and rachael as committed into doing. Im certainly and glad to see that the service as youve seeing, you will see that its create. I want to make sure that same level of service is occurring everywhere else. Commissioner yekutiel thank you commissioner. Thank you so much for coming. I apologized i missed the beginning of your question. Its up to one specific and one is general. I one more thing, with regard to specific issues in the area my Small Business is in. I want to thank you for being so responsive. I heard from her hasnts that Say Department of public works no longer has power washer on the streets . Is that true . Is that up the street or the sidewalk . We may have to change some of the routes. I believe that we still are doing the same service and i have my college on calm. Commissioner yekutiel there seems to be more in days past. Im relatively new Business Owner. Epromised the merchants on my streets i would ask you about that. Second, the thing about Small Business, its kind of like a city. You constantly have people coming in this community. Theres a bit of an orientation that happen and sometimes doesnt. Theres some lack of clarity over whether what responsibility do Business Owners have to maintain a clean area in front of their business . What is the duty and responsibility of the city . Apologizes if you already gone over this. What are the Small Business owners responsible for making sure the area nice neat and clean . Residents in general are responsible really from the city is responsible implementing thline. The property even owner is responsible where the sidewalk caves. We try to do that and assist with. The city, we arent staff and funded to clean the streets. Sidewalk is something that were not commissioner yekutiel there s some confusion amongst new Small Business owners. What is their responsibility and the responsibility of the city. Just so im clear, from sidewalk to the curbline, theres no City Department that is responsible for maintaining that area being clear and cleaned other than in matters of Public Safety. That is the purview of d. P. W. To make sure it stays clean. Now, at the same time, there are going to be some instances where, for example, a supervisor has gotten an addback funds where the board of supervisors has said, public works, here is a small bucket of money. I want these dollars to be allocated for you to hire an additional staff person or two, whatever it is, to they care about the sidewalks on this block in this area of the district. Its possible that the city did addback funds on certain areas on valencia. Im not sure, ill have to go back and talk to the group of guys in the budget at public works to confirm that. Im assuming its probably Something Like that. Commissioner yekutiel thats troubling to me. It shouldnt be the case that Small Business owners would need to lobby their supervisor to get addback money to make sure the streets are cleaned. No. The streets no, but the sidewalks. Commissioner yekutiel in an ideal world, none of that will be necessary. You wouldnt need to get addback funds to make sure the department has the funds necessary to provide cleaning that might seen necessary to folks who are on the street level themselves. I guess thats not really your issue. It sounds more political to me. Thats the way i dont know the code section, the way that the admin code is written, it defines whos responsible for what. The sidewalks in most cases r going to be the responsibility of the Property Owner. Commissioner yekutiel thank you so much. I want to say, i know and your team has been on the front lines over the last seven months. You guys get called in to do some of the hardest work in our city. Especially to the folks coming out there and providing the service to the city that we need now. I want to publicly give my thanks and my gratitude to everyone in your department for the work they are doing now. Thank you for that commissioner. Theyre on the front lines everyday and its one of the things that will never stop. Before covid, during covid and well do the same thing after covid as well. President laguana i want to say, what comes out for me loud and clear through all of this is how lucky the city is to have somebody like you as a director, your community and spirit comes through loud and clear. I appreciated what you said at the beginning about willing to give back some of your budget to address some of the root causes that are affecting d. P. W. s responsibilities and work. That kind of spirit is commendable. I wanted to echo what you say about the workers at d. P. W. Who have incredibly tough jobs. Were all grateful for theyre willingness to take on those jobs. I think they got a tv show about it. One time i was watching tough jobs it was getting garbage out of tiny alleys in chinatown and how complicated that was. I appreciate you coming out. I think its really helped us get a better and finer understanding of d. P. W. s job. I have couple of quick questions for myself. We have 350 workers. You might not know off the top of your head, how many of those are not in specifically like cleaning up garbage or street cleaning . Is there a percentage breakdown what the administrative overhead is on that . I say, of that 350, i believe most of those people are on the front lines doing the cleaning. The admin and the managerial need to confirm that if that includes supervise those teams im almost certain that every 50 theres people on the front li line. President laguana on the revenue side, theres 14. 5 million coming from the gas tax. Governor newsom announced all vehicles will be electric by 2035 which seems like a long time from now. Welit will be here before we kw it. Does the support have any thoughts . We have not. Im assuming, as im hoping in some ways that youre right, that theres we are going to get off between now and then. That doesnt mean that everyone what has a gaspowered car, 2035, were going to start riding it. It will take time to cycle through. An existing car will just be around still. Im hoping there will be an offset to that. If you are traveling as a gaspowered car k its not leaking fuels and soil and not leaving all the exhaust. We received some of those cost to help with cover if that works. Gas tax helps fund the cost to clean the tunnel, it helps us offset the cost of picking up the fuel and things like that that are on the streets. Hopefully, once we do migrate to vehicles, we wont see the same cost as well. President laguana thats a fair answer. Let me ask you another question about on the manuel cleaning side. One thing i didnt see in revenue was fees from fines and citations. Presumably, there must be some sort of revenue from fees and fines . Was that elsewhere in the budget . Is that considered part of the general fund . I would think that part of the general fund. Im assuming those fees come in to public works. They go through as the Controller Office. Its not like were making all kinds of money on those things. But yes it is as a source of president laguana understood maybe this is too loaded, i got to ask, because im curious. We heard commissioner yuk yekutl expressing frustration about getting the sidewalks cleaned. We know that when theres addback dollars in place, its possible to get that done. Is there any sort of program for a Merchant Association or even an individual merchant to instead of like coming through addback dollars to actually just pay for d. P. W. Come and clean even if it doesnt really need it . I cant say and have that done despite public works. I do believe that basically as c. P. D. S work. Or you can hire as a private contractor to do that. You will probably need lot less by hiring contract yourself than going through the public works to do it and employees to do it because of the cost of youre paying for that labor. President laguana thats it as far as my questions. For the benefit of the public, i try to do experiment with the Public Comment number. I was told by sfgov tv they dont like to have Public Comment number as a permanent background. I guess the number changes from meeting to meeting. I took the background down and i will open this up for Public Comment. You may dial 4156550001. Access code i do we have any Public Commenters on the line . I have one person on the line. Good evening this is stephen cordell. I have a comment. I as a Business Owner over the years have never gotten citations for cleaning my sidewalk. I gotten notices saying i could get a citation if i didnt clean it, saying do better job of cleaning, in other words. As a Property Owner over the years, i have been given citations to do the work of fixing my sidewalk, which all relates down to what the director said. Im responsible from the curb to the building. How does it relates to someone camping on my sidewalk, staying on my sidewalk or leaving their garbage on sidewalk . Am i responsible for that . Somebody hurt themselves over this or do i have to clean it up . Where does the city take over and where do i take over . Thank you. President laguana thank you. Any other Public Commenters . Clerk that was the only one. President laguana Public Comment is closed. Director if you wanted to respond, youre welcome to. I dont think youre obligated to. Thats a good question. You laid out exactly the sidewalk to the Property Line and end of property is the Property Owners responsibility. What happens if there is something happening on the sidewalk in your area, are you on your own to figure it out . I believe we try to assist there. For example, if there are tents that are lined up and theyre on your sidewalk, we have the hot team as a Homelessness Outreach Team that can come in and try to help you there. That will be done not the only way to do it. You can put in a request through 311 app. Thats probably how the city would see the problem and try to find a way and help you solve it. One thing now, though, because of covid, unless theres a place to have that person go in a tent, we arent allowed to move them any more. There was a time where we could seize the tent. Now because of covid, were instructed because of the cdc guidelines, we cant ask people to move unless we can offer them as a bed somewhere. Thats where im giving an example how we can help. Its a bit different because of the rules as shelterinplace. I will encourage you if you are having issues with your sidewalk or something happening on your sidewalk, put a ticket through through the 311 system, well try to help. President laguana i think thats it for tonight. I appreciate you giving us so much of your time. If i said at the beginning, were very grateful for all the work that d. P. W. Does and we want to be good partners with you Going Forward and looking forward to working with you to helping make the city work better for all of us. Deeply appreciate you personally and your Public Service. Thank you director for coming and speaking with us tonight. [please stand by] director rodriguez. , happy to have you here. I know we asked a lot of questions of the previous presenter, but thank you for joining us. My name is marissa rodriguez, director of the office of cannabis. The legislation before you today is to extend the sunset date of planning code section 190 from january 1, 2021, the end of next month, to january 1, 2022. I am happy to provide a brief presentation about this legislation and answer any questions that you may have afterward. As background, all medical cannabis dispensary of article 33 health code exist under the health code, and theyre wishing to continue Cannabis Retail operations. They were required to apply for business permits under article 15 applications were first made available in 2013. Certainly, a lofty goal, but the current sunset date of january 1, 2021, was set with the understanding that my office would have completed applications by next month. But given the high number of applications submitted, not to mention the additional challenges that the government has had across the agencies, including our own office, weve been charged with ten core functions, including our core own staff. Were very happy to report that weve cleared out the backlog of applications. In closing, the ordinance seeks to extend the date of planning code section 190 to january 1, 2021, and with that, that concludes my presentation. Im happy to answer any questions. Great. Do we have any commissioner questions . Okay. I dont see any questions, i dont have any questions myself. Commissioners, do we have a motion . Public comment. Oh, thank you, commissioner adams. Is there any Public Commenters on the line . We have no Public Comment online. Okay. Commissioner ortizcartagena. Director, thank you for your time. I just [inaudible] truly, truly helping equity applicants. Wow, you guys could be a model for every department. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Ill make sure that that certainly gets in our smile file, and ill let jeremy know, as well. Thank you. Yeah, ill echo that, as well. That was a refreshingly positive update, so thank you for making that happen. Is there a motion . Ill motion. Motion to to what . Is. A motion to support the extension of the planning code to january 1, 2021. I will second. To january 1, 2022, im sorry. Clerk motion by commissioner adams as presented. Seconded by commissioner laguana. Roll call vote. [roll call] clerk motion passes, 60, with one absence. Thank you so much, folks. Appreciate you coming in and presenting. Sorry to make you wait so long for such a short presentation. No, no problem. Happy to go so everyone can get going. If you have any questions on this or any other related matters, dont hesitate to reach out. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Next item, please. Clerk item 5, covid19 Economic Impact survey. Update and report on progress of a survey seeking to gather information regarding the impact that covid19 has had on the local economy and Small Business. The presenter is commissioner cynthia huie. Commissioner, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. I am commissioner cynthia huie, and i wanted to bring you kind of a status update on the survey, and i wanted to preface this with just a huge thank you, a huge thank you for support of this of this project that weve kind of embarked on, and president laguana, i really want to thank you for all of your support and all of your time that you put into gaining, you know, real feedback from people and really getting people excited about this. So i just really feel a great sense of gratitude, and, so were basically at a point where the survey is in its very final stage. The weve gotten a lot of input from Different Community organizations, different Merchant Organizations, and as well as had extensive meetings with people at oewd, the Planning Commission or the Planning Department, council of district merchants, i know, has kind of given some feedback on this. Who else is there that i think that weve talked to . Weve spoken to oh, Tracey Sylvester with the with gave a lot of voice to this as well as supervisor ronens office, and also, individual merchants have weighed in on some of the things that we really wanted to hear. So a lot of the feedback that we really got was around what type of information was missing from what we have currently in terms of our understanding of the Economic Impacts of the pandemic so far . And a lot of [indiscernible]. Is what were really trying to tease out in San Francisco. What we really felt was missing was, like, really, that equity piece. Like, what is happening in our different neighborhoods, in our different communities . How are people experiencing this because overall, i think our population has experienced this in many different ways, and i think weve seen a spectrum, and we wanted to tease out some of that spectrum in the survey. So theres some areas where its not a dropdown, its a fill in. We want to know if you speak a language, you know, besides english, what is your primary language . And we wanted to have that opportunity for us to kind of see what the nuances might be in different demographics. So this is an opportunity for the Small Business commission to also learn about our Small Business community, and hopefully, well be able to use this as kind of a base study for us to be able to administer an annual study Going Forward. So timeline wise, we are close i think im supposed to be able to get a final from the professor tomorrow, and that was after many, many rounds of feedback. And once i get that, ill hand that over to director dickendrizzi for quotes and Translation Services. We did get feedback on the google translation and thank you, commissioner zouzounis, for getting us feedback on the arab translation. I think the feedback that we looked at, which was arab, spanish, and chinese, which was the three, i think we got a sense that Google Translates okay, but where its really not okay, its really not okay. So it kind of meets a certain need, but it doesnt meet the whole thing. I think if our equity goals are we want to, you know, give everybody the information the way that they need information and to do our very best in in kind of walking the walk and, you know, i think commissioner ortizcartagena has always talked about, you know, getting i thithings out u know, everybody should get the information at the same time. This is our one opportunity to be able to roll something out at the same time in language for people, so that was a big piece for me in terms of timing. So we are going to hopefully invest in that piece of time. So that that was a big thing for us, and i think that might, you know, hold us back maybe a week or two, perhaps closer to the two . So but i think that creates a greater conversation that we have to have, right . This is, like, one thing that were doing. I think in the future, we do need to have that conversation about how do we speed up Translation Services, how do we, you know, have a better kind of route for things that we want to put out besides just relying on Google Translate if we really want a truly equitable outcome. So i at this point, i would really oh, and especially the timeline, so hopefully rolling this out as soon as Translation Services are done, and that survey will go out in the in those languages. And then, the next big thing that i think i need help with is outreach. And so far, the response is that weve gotten is that people are really hungry for this information. I think the regilationships th you built with the supervisors are going to be paramount at this point. The people that i talked to, theyre excited to see something that might purport the ideas that theyve had. People are saying, i want to walk this around in any neighborhood, i want to have my constituents take it. One of the things that Tracey Sylvester said during our last meeting was she is excited. Shes likes this is a piece that is so important. Like, if i had a chance to tell the mayor, tell the board of supervisors what i wanted and what i needed to keep my business afloat right now, i would spend the ten minutes toic at that the survey, of course. And i think when looking at it this way, its exciting that were doing this as a commission and as a body. I hope when this launches, were going to have it in all the in hopefully, these languages and be able to reach out to some of our Equity Partners to be able to put it out in language, as well. So any sort of outreach would be amazing, and i can share i dont exactly now what know what the process is to exactly share an outreach plan, but were on the agenda right now to be able to discuss, so i would love to hear your feedback in where you think you could share this out. If we get this out in the month of december, january is a wonderful month to have the professor and the Economics Team to look over everything, and the big thing is shes going to be looking over this data for us, so not only are we going to have organic data, but we are going to have her expertise to analysis it and put it into the economic context. Commissioner ortizcartagena . Commissioner huie, you killed it. Thank you for this, also. Im here im here. If you need any help in spreading the information in the mission, im grassroots and pavement. Thank you for all of your help, and i agree with what you said about the language component because thats been a key issue with my community, so thank you very much for all your work. Sure. Great. Commissioner adams . This is great, commissioner huie, and id be more than happy to go door to door in the castro, glen park. The only issue i have is the month of december because right now, going into december with a lot of the Small Businesses, even with covid right now, its tough to answer a survey. And you may want to push that survey until january and push it back a month, just to get better participation because right now, ive had some conversations over the weekend with some Small Business owners. Theyre freaking out over the holidays, especially if we go into another shutdown, and theyre going to have to do things before. Im hoping they dont close retail stores, just limit it to how many people go in, but decembers going to be a tough month, and this is this is for a lot of them, and especially in the castro and noe valley, this is where they make a lot of their money. And i think its very important that they do participate in this survey, and im going to encourage them to do it, but i think pushing it back to january might be a little bit better just because a lot of them are stressed, and theres a lot on the table going into the next month, and thats just my opinion. So but id be more than happy to help distribute that and make sure people get it. Great. Commissioner dooley . Hey, id just wanted to indicate that id be happy to take the survey around to north beach and the surrounding area . B but i agree with steve, people would be ripping their hair out with curfews and what might be coming, so i agree it would be easier to talk to people in january. Great. So first, not seeing any other commissioner questions do you want me to respond to the Planning Issues . Oh, sure. I wasnt clear you were going to. Sorry. Oh, no, i wasnt still when im still getting used to the cadence of the meeting. Im not sure when i can be allowed to speak. Its like standing in a store during covid, where i dont know what to do with myself. I agree that people are freaking out, and there are a lot of things that are coming at us and that will be coming at us. I think in terms of the survey, we gave it a lot of thought as to when, and we wanted to even finish this, you know, like, two months ago. You know, like, we would have put it out a long time ago if we could. But i think whats important is we capture as much data as we can so we could work on putting the supports in place and, like, putting in the time to analyze the data and really get that to us to be able to advocate for the businesses so that, like, were capturing current real data. And i think, you know, ten minutes, hopefully, will not be too much to ask, and i totally understand that, you know, some people will just be completely tasked, and they wont be able to do that, but im hoping that enough people will that we get a good amount of information. Even if they fill out just, like, the couple of requires questions and, like, what they really want. There is a question that goes hey, tell me what you need. Whatever theyre willing to give us is going to be a real plus for us. Its going to be information that weve been waiting for and that we need. So my hope is that we continue to use surveys and to collect data and to have, you know, kind of, like, more formal understanding about our Small Business community, but i really feel like we need to get this going now and as soon as possible and to just do the very best that we can right now. So i totally appreciate right now that december is going to be a tough month for a lot of people, and this is when people are going to makeup hopefully, especially in retail, makeup much of the year. And hopefully, people will have a moment, especially because we wont be able to spend so much time with our families right now, to spend some time to give us some feedback. I really think that the relationships that youve built with your merchant communities will really help. I think having your support and, like, letting people know that this is going to help us make decisions as a body will help the survey. I dont think this is, like, one that you just get in the regular mail and you toss. Director dickendrizzi. Thank you, president laguana and thank you, commissioner huie, for your presentation. I have a question for commissioners on outreach just so we can help you with this. So ideally, it would be that businesses take the survey online. Again, that will be able to make it faster for us to aggregate the data. So commissioner adams, and commissioner dooley, youve offered to walk around. Would you have a tablet or is there Something Else, some other thing that you would like us to provide for you, even if it is just going into the Merchants Association i mean, merchants, handing them something that says heres where this very important survey, heres where to access it . Yeah, that would be easiest. May i ask for something really simply . Supervisor connie chen and i had this conversation about the survey, and she offered this idea that i thought was really cool. She just said it as if it was, like, just, you know, normal, but i thought of it like oh, my gosh, thats a really great idea. She asked if this was going if there was going to be a q. R. Code for the survey. So i think we could provide a different q. R. Code for the survey, so if we are having facetoface contact, they could just scan the q. R. Code and have the survey show up on their own device. I could help dominica, and we could create a slide or something that people can scan if were going to have a oneonone conversation with them. I think thats a really good idea because i know from my experiences in our merchant corridor, you have to get them to do whatever you want right in front of you, because if you dont, theyre not going to want to do it. So the q. R. Is a good thing that i could just say here, just scan this, and ill just ill just wait, and so theyre filling it out. Because i know otherwise theyre not going to do it. Right, right, right. Right. All right. Just kind of saw it coming in. It confused me. So i just want to say thank you, once again, commissioner huie, for taking a leadership role with respect to this survey, and it was a lot of work that you and professor chaudhry have been doing. And i want to echo your comments about thanking the other partners that have been providing feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve the survey. I think the survey has improved quite a bit from when we first thee rised on how to go about doing this. So im really super excited for the survey. Ive said privately to you and publicly to the commission that this is one of the most exciting things that the commission will do over the next six months because itll give policy makers a window into what was what is actually happen. With that, i have two quick questions. One, commissioner huie, have you or professor chaudhry given thought to the window for the survey . Have you thought about how long the window might be open for the survey . I mean, i think initial conversations were between, like, three to four weeks, like, but i think thats a piece that im totally open to hearing comment on. So i think and i mean, this is just my perspective, and i defer to what you and the professor decide, but thinking about commissioner adams and commissioner dooleys comments, and yours now, we want to get as man apeople as we can. I would advocate that just because the timing of the survey being over the holidays, perhaps extending it to an eightweek open period, so it would be open for the entire month of december and the entire month of january. I dont think that would decrease the quality of the survey measurably, and i think allowing it to stay hope you know, theres nothing about that that would prevent us from providing data in in situ there i am sha, dropping lat incompetelat latin, and im a high school graduate. We can continue to address that issue while still moving forward on having as wide a pool as possible. So thats my my thoughts on the you know, the timing issue. I think we just extend the length of it. And then, if we think of this as being an annual effort, i dont think i think it makes sense to capture the end of the year and sort of the beginning of the next as being a good time because there are businesses that nows a good time because the owners have more free time than they would in peak season and summer. Vice versa, the ones that are busy during the holidays might have freer time immediately after the holidays, so thats my thought on that. I had another question oh, on so with the Translation Services, just thinking about the timing, are we thinking december 7 hold on. Let me look at a calendar here. I think it would be nice to synchronize the launch of the survey with a Small Business hearing, so this is another way to help us raise awareness and distribute the survey. Is that a reasonable target, do you think, with translation, december 9 . Through the president , director dickendrizzi. Because we will be submitting this hopefully by before the thanksgiving holiday week, having it translated and come back completed by the end, and then and then put in the Online Survey format might be a bit of a push . Realistically, we could probably have a soft launch, and towards the latter part of that week, and then, we have another Commission Meeting on december 14. Okay. Well, lets certainly my advice is to hit that december 7 date just so we have more time because then, we could reamplify it again on december 14. I think theres a cdma meeting that im not exactly sure when the date on that is, but thats another oh, thats on the 15th. Maybe the 14th is a better datovdate overall. I just worry because were getting so close to the holidays. So if its decided to extend the survey period, i think thats not a big issue. Yeah. And i think the survey period, we can extend and leave from december to january. I dont think thatll be an issue. Okay. One more thing with regards to survey, this is just kind of planting a seed in in our minds for future, but if we do want to do an annual survey, thats something that i think, you know, after doing this particular survey, i do recognize that we would probably need some sort of budget for and to kind of start thinking about that in term of, like, kind of, like, office of Small Business kind of like infrastructure. Kind of, like, infrastructure. Thats a good idea. Director dickendrizzi, what is the cost for Something Like that . Are. The issue isnt in the translation. The issue may be more with the administration, and i dont know if its i would have to learning from this situation and working with dr. Chaudhry, what is the technology thats used and perhaps hiring somebody to be able to take that data and put it in a format thats a presentable format for the commission. Right. Well, well and thats that is something that we can begin to explore. We will learn from this pilot effort, and when we get around to next year, well be well educated. Okay. Any other commissioner questions . Great. Well, commissioner huie, once again, thank you so much for all of your hard work. Really appreciate you taking the lead on this, and please convey the commissions thanks to professor chaudhry, as well. Im looking forward to continuing the work forward work with you on this, and we will do Everything Possible you know, i leave it at your discretion, but we can do a soft launch, you know, december 7 or december 14. Just make sure whatever you decide, to get back to me more than 48 hours or 72 hours before the agenda. Oh, actually, i have one more thing really quick. In terms of Translation Services, i just wanted to doublecheck that were slated for chinese and im not sure if thats traditional or simplified that you normally do, and spanish and arabic, and are there other languages that we should make a point of having it translated into . Again, director dickendrizzi through the president. I think tagalog is one that were mandated by the city to do. Traditional chinese, spanish, tagalog. Then we talked about vietn vietnamese. We could also do arabic, and we could talk about japanese. I have a question. I thought we were trying to circumvent doing the contract like, external contracting of our translation. Like, i had someone on board to do the arabic. Are we going to pay someone on staff to do that or do it externally . Commissioner zouzounis, if you have someone to do it that might cost less than the office or a faster turnaround [inaudible] it would be a compensated ask, then, is what we would be looking at . No, we wouldnt be able to compensate someone, but wed have to go through a city approved vendor. This would be a volunteer. Okay. So if you and i want to talk about that offline, you know, after the meeting, we can do that, as to whether the whether the office pays for arabic or you want to provide for that. So i think did you answer your question, commissioner huie . Does it take the time for, like, all of the languages versus, like, if we took three or if we have to translate it into all of them . Like, are there any choices we have to make sure or is it pretty much standard . With we well, the mandate for us is spanish, chinese, and tagalog. Those are the three mandated languages to translate. Generally, they will deliver it altogether, and im not so sure that it will delay it, but what we can do because its the holidays, so if there is any delay, we can ask them to provide the translation as they get it done so dr. Chaudhry can work on getting it formatted. So if theres going to be any extended delay, its probably going to be with one of the less the languages that the city does not translate in that muc much, and then, we can make an assessment. Okay. Whether that will delay the launch okay. Or whether we move forward with it. Well, we will do our best, regardless. We will. All right. Any other commissioner comments . Okay. Do we have any Public Commenters . I have nobody queued up for Public Comment. Okay. Seeing no Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. Next item, please. Clerk agenda item number 6, approval of draft Meeting Minutes. Is there anyone that would like to comment on the draft minutes . I know that was a sudden transition, but are there any Public Commenters on item number 6 . No, there is not. Okay. Seeing none then ill motion to approve all the minutes from the previous meeting that are listed. Second. Clerk motion by commissioner adams to approve the Meeting Minutes from april 30, july 27, october 26, and november 9, seconded by commissioner dooley. Roll call vote. [roll call] clerk motion passes, 50, with two absent. Item 7, general Public Comment. Allows members of the public to comment generally on matters within the small basis commissions jurisdiction but not on todays calendar and to suggest new agenda items for this commissions future consideration. Discussion item. Are there any members of the public who would like to make comments on item number 7 . Ill repeat. Item number 7, are there any members of the public who would like to make comment on item number 7 . There is no Public Comment. Thank you. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Next item, please. Clerk item 8, directors report. Update and report on the office of small basis and the small basis assistance center, department programs, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor, and announcements regarding Small Business activities. Discussion item. Thank you, commissioners, and good evening. So i think dominica has provided you with the information, and im sure youve seen the press releases, as well, is that last week, the mayor launched a we will recover campaign, and the campaign consists of encouraging San Francisco residents to do holidays at home, not to travel, and then, we there is the shop and dine in the 49, and thank you, commissioner adams, for already refacebooking or reposting on facebook to promote shopping local at our local businesses. And then, the third component of the campaign is to help your neighbors in need. So today, i received a toolkit packet, so i will be forwarding that to you, and hopefully, you can help through your means of reaching out to family, friends, and the Business Community to help promote the campaign, particularly or shop and dine in the 49, since that is our constituency that we support. At our next i want to thank all the commissioners for or most of the commissioners for your ability to do the special meeting on december 7 to be able to hear the planning the license fee waiver, Business Registration fee waiver, and payroll taxes for the Entertainment Industry . So as that is part of the sectors that has not been able to open whatsoever. So far, today, reported that our caseloads, while theyre still relatively high, they have not been spiking to the degree last week, so we are still in the red. We have not transitioned into purple, and so lets hope it stayed that way, but, you know, well be able to get a good assessment after the thanksgiving holidays as to that particular trajectory and what decisions may need to be made moving into the color purple. But i am glad that at least we are not immediately moving into the color purple immediately before the thanksgiving holidays. I also want to report to you that the Health Care Security ordinance for 2021, that fee is going to be going up effective january 1, so for businesses from 20 to 99 employees, itll be going from 2. 05 an hour to 2. 15. And for businesses with 100 or more employees, its going from 3. 08 an hour to 3. 18 an hour. So i think that theres some questions in taking a look at that, i think theres some questions that i will be asking the director of olse in terms of just how i want to confirm how theyre going to account for that, if theyre really taking a look at the number of employees in 2020, since businesses were not required to file their 2019 filing reports back in april, and so and or need to know whether theyre going to be expected to file their 2019 and 2020 reports their hcsl reporting in april of 2021. You may not have had a chance to see the letter that dominica forwarded to you about the cigarette lit abatement fee, and that is not being increased for 2021, and so very muchmuch i i think that at least appreciative that that is not going up. I think to many of commissioner zouzounis points, we do need to continue to further look into that and look into it with department of public works. For the february excuse me. February. The december 14 meeting, you are receiving a presentation on the permit center by that will be from the managers who manage the permit center. This presentation will be around the operations of the 49 1 south vanness permit center, that the permit center has this, d. B. I. , planning, public works, Entertainment Commission, the tax and Treasurers Office, the police department, the fire department, all the permitting agencies in one space, and so it is not as as bridget mentioned earlier today, it is not fully open to the public . D. B. I. Is doing some by appointments only, but again, its dropping off the permit application and plans . So so you will be getting a presentation just on the operations but not necessarily this presentation will not be an invitation from each of the departments on how theyre processing permits, but i really would liketor you to know what the layout is and also the efficiencies that were put in around the queueing system, the ability for departments to communicate with businesses should their appointment be delayed or if an individual is sitting with one agency, and their next appointment theyre with d. B. I. , and their next appointment is with fire, but theyre still working with d. B. I. The ability to have instant communication like, can i meet 20 minutes later . So theres a lot of thought thats gone into a Customer Service component with a Onestop Center at 49 south vanness. So the presentation will give you that overview, and then, dominica has sent an email to you, and after that presentation, your ability to go in and see the permit center . So its not a virtual tour, its an onsite tour, and i think its really important for you to begin to see this or for you to see it, so especially once we move out of covid just exactly the kind of experience our businesses will have with it. Our office did have [inaudible] and of course because were not a licensing agency, we will not be occupying that desk until the permit center is open and full operations. So i think that is all that i have to report tonight, unless there are any particular questions you have of me or for me. Any commissioner questions . So just one quick one, director. Periodically, im checking in and reminding both myself and yourself of the desire to have some sort of Communications Platform that will enable us to speak more efficiently and more directly to the issues still on our plate. If we had that, some of things on our plate would be easier, so and i i know theres nothing to report there, and im not actually asking for a report. Im just suggesting that we both remind ourselves that thats potentially a thing that could make both of our lives easier, and we should probably find some time to focus on that. Yes. And actually, as a follow up, i did make note that, two meetings back, that oewd is taking heed of the commissions desire particularly around having good communication during the covid19 and more you know, cause businesses are receiving information around the covid updates in very different means and formats, and some of them arent receiving all the communications and things that they need to do. Thats right. So oewd is working with the tax and Treasurers Office on figuring out theyre working out theyre not figuring out, theyre working on a plan to make this happen . So that said, i think its a good point for me to check in with oewd and the timeline to be able to present that back to you. You know, i did have occasion to speak with laurel about that, and i think what i heard at oewd, sorry, for members of the public. And i think what i heard is its difficult to get information from t. T. X. Because its private, and theres privacy issues. Now that was last week, so perhaps youve heard Something Different than when i last spoke about that. But commissioner huie and i have had conversations about simultaneously using the survey to help flush out at least some of the contact points of information so theres a thing on the survey about, you know, if youd like to get results from the survey and other Important Communications from o. S. B. And make an optin. But whats missing is an actual platform to communicate, and so, you know, we can have all the information, but without something to plug the information into right. So that is something that we can work on, and i think, commissioner laguana, perhaps, at our next checkin, we can map out what that is and what needs to be done. Thank you. And im accountable as you are for progress on this, so im not, by any means, throwing you under the bus. Weve just had a lot thrown at us, but if we could somehow get that one in the complete file, then other things were trying to do would probably become easier is my guess. You are right, so all right. So is there any Public Comment on the directors report . Im seeing nobody queued up for Public Comment. Okay. Public comment is now closed. Next item, please. Clerk item 9, commissioner discussion and new business. Discussion item. Great. So are there any commissioners commissioner adams . Yeah. Theres something here i need to bring up that i have one business ive heard it from several Business Owners. One in particular asks me to bring this up in the meeting tonight, and its over the shared spaces, and the communications with that department and retail owners, not restaurants, not bars. Before i say what im going to say, i am in fully support of the shared Spaces Program. I think its a lifesaver to the bars and to the restaurants. However, we are neglecting retail businesses, and one in particular i sent regina the complaint theyve reached out several times to the shared Spaces Program about their concerns about having delivery vehicles come and customers park, and theyre not getting callbacks, and now ive heard that that person had other businesses calling me, and all of a sudden, im getting these calls, and im just going to refer them all to the office of Small Businesses. I dont have a contact at shared spaces, but calls arent being returned, and this is something we need to think about and get on, and, you know, we have we tail customers, Small Businesses, too, that cant participate in the shared Spaces Program, and yet, the shared Spaces Program is affecting their business. So its not that they they want to shut it down because they dont. I mean, its a plus for them, but theres some concerned out there, and they need to be addressed. Ill work with regina on that, and the office of Small Business. She knows who im talking about, but i just need to get this one particular business taken care of so we do have a contact at shared spaces. Thats robin abad. He is not returning calls. I dont want to bring up names, so i will offline bring up names and stuff. You know, ive heard a strikingly similar bit of feedback, and ive tried to help their i think its, you know, naturally, a program that launches as quickly and comprehensive, and, in many ways, as revolutionary as shared spaces is you know, theres going to be some challenges there. Well, i absolutely agree, president laguana. As i said, i think the program, what weve done here in San Francisco is being mimicked all over the state, all over the country, and thats why i wanted to begin. I dont have any complaints about it, and the speed that it happened, especially here in San Francisco, things dont happen that fast in San Francisco. We all know that, and it did, and it has to do with a lot of what you, manny, did. But with all our efforts, some industries got left on the side, and thats an industry we need to worry about, especially going into the winter months. So i just think, you know, maybe well work im going to try to get ahold of robin myself and just see if we can stop some of this, or have some dialogue and have people talk to each other. I think some of these concerns can be alleviated if people talk. Thats all. Well, i will just say i completely agree, and then, ill make just two observations, and theres other commissioners that want to comment, as well. Observation one, where i was headed, i dont mean to gloss over the problems that are with shared spaces. Certainly, during the heat of the pandemic, we were dealing with an emergency, but its the immediate sort of policy change thats happened, now we can focus on the finer details of making it work for a broader set of people, so i think its appropriate to start looking at some of those other issues and seeing what we can do to mitigate them or make them work better for retail. In january, were going to have a joint hearing with m. T. A. , during which well have an opportunity to potentially discuss some of these issues. [please stand by] we mediated a conflict between two business in which the agreement was they just applied for half spaces that are directly in front of their business because in this case a parking ban is in front of two businesses. Where m. T. A. Is not technically awarding. 5 space, like half spaces, they are working with businesses as they come to an agreement between two businesses in conflict, theyre going to reflect on how to they accept their applications. So that communication has proved a good avenue for in lieu of dealing with shared spaces directly and m. T. A. Contacts and bringing in maps has helped to resolve a lot of issues. And we have to do a process and i dont know if Everybody Knows that either. I believe that theres an experration of existing permits coming. Expiration of existing permits that is coming up. I think it came up already . Oh, really . Okay. Well, well let people know that is the memo. Yes. Is that it, commissioners . Yeah, thats it. I think that too, one more thing, commissioners, there are a lot of new groups popping up. I think that it would be in somebody has to help to read back to the Merchant Community whos who. Because i have a real fear that some of these groups are popping up, you know, out of spite or because theyre trying to do their own type of advocacy that they dont agree that other groups are doing well enough and theres going to be some competition and i really dont want Small Businesses to be victim to that. I want them to know exactly what organization represents what, which resources are for what, and we need to have clarity both because the city and merchant groups are doing all of these different initiatives around Small Business right now and i want to make sure that theres clarity and actual use value, you know, that is being communicated to businesses that are being solicited for membership. So they know exactly what theyre getting into. Excuse me. Caught me midcough. Commissioner is that it, commissioners . I apologize. Commissioner dooly. Hi, i have a couple things that i wanted to mention about the supporting our retailers which is because they really have not been benefitting but from shared spaces, it was very hard to do and we requested m. T. A. To put some of the meters back in operation, especially in front of the retail outlets because, you know, they just felt like they werent getting any customers because everything was shut down. And so we went ahead and did that. And we went around and asked who needed parking for their stores and we restored a fairly small but significant amount of parking for the retailers and they really appreciated that. And myriams comment about the new groups, i mean, we have certainly experienced that in our neighborhood and its very unfortunate that it becomes very competitive and kind of meanspirited. So i hope that theres something that we can do to, you know, say, hey, were all in this together and not just say im going to shut down that Merchant Organization and do our own. You know, i just dont think that that is a very positive thing and as i say we have certainly see it in my neighborhood. Thats it. Thank you. Yeah, you know, one certainly hopes that theyll take advantage of the infrastructure that is already existing. You know, and on the other hand, you know, some feel theyre not served by that existing infrastructure. So theres probably lessons for everybody there in terms of, you know if youre an existing organization are you listening well enough and if youre thinking about starting a new organization, have you tried talking to the existing organization enough. Thats my thought. Having thought about that problem actually quite a bit. And then there are, like i think from my perspective at least, genuine vacancies. You know, one thing that was alluded to i think that it was commissioner huey who mentioned this, theres nobody to adjudicate the shared spaces dispute, and i think that at some point directo the directora good idea about this. Called Community Benefit boards or Community Boards . Community boards, through the president , which is actually a legacy business. It is nonprofit, with professional mediators that the city set up over 30 years ago to initially deal with neighbortoneighbor disputes but now theyre also involved in the business world. So theyre dealing with neighbor and business disputes or businesstobusiness disputes. So, in fact, i wrote it down to reach out to them to, one, to see if this is something that has come on their radar, if anybody has reached out to them. , and twoand, two, if not, thend of go back to oewd and perhaps the shared Space Program to see how we might be able to engage with them on this. Yeah, i think that is that would help i think as well with the issues that for example are for example, the issues that potentially commissioner adams brought up. But we need some way to especially if this is going to become permanent, we need some way to adjudicate this fairly so that, you know, you dont have a business taking up the whole block and then somebody else that needs deliveries cant get it, or customers cant visit or that sort of thing. Theres some balancing that needs to happen here. So three quick things on my end. I want to make sure that all of you are awake the county Transportation Authority is starting to do a survey on congestion pricing. So you may want to keep an eye on that. There are some very strong opinions in the Small Business community i think on both sides about that issue. So we should pay close attention to that issue. And i think that were director, didnt we plan to talk about that no, we did not, not at the joint sfmta meeting. But is there anything that we had planned to discuss with the congestion pricing, do you recall . It is on our list to determine when best to schedule that. So that will be something for you and the Vice President and i to take a look at our scheduling. I do believe, but i thought that i had sent an email to the Commission Just giving a heads up that congestion pricing is coming back around with some linked. You did, yes. And there is a video, a 15minute a pretty short video that gives a good overview that is a good thing to watch. So, again, a reminder that i think that it would probably behoove the commission to receive a presentation on this. And that material is there for you to begin to review. Can i just make one comment on that . I did contact the north beach merchants about the idea of congestion pricing going back and i cannot even begin to tell you how hav vehemently theyre opposed to it. Its a punishment for the merchants in the northeast corridor. It would be a horrifying disaster for us. So you will be hearing in person from the Merchants Association about this. And also residents. I mean, theyre saying that theyll give residents a discount. Thats crazy. We live here. You know, so if you would have kept your commuters, they need to not encompass enormous areas of the northeast part of the city. Yeah. And just a reminder, through the president , a reminder that it is the board of supervisors that oversees th the county transportation agency, the one that is concession pricing project is underneath them at this point. Yes. Yeah, i was saying generally that when i say both sides, i mean, im mainly hearing one side. And its largely opposed. I think that theres yeah, ill just leave it there. So the other thing coming down the pipe, this little bit longer range, but had a long meeting with the Planning Department, and, you know, one of the things that theyre going to be working on i think over the next year or so is the general plan or the master plan and so, you know, one of the things that we tend to do is we wait until something is about to happen and then we freak out and try to engage and get involved. I thought that maybe when something is as important as this, that we could maybe try and engage instead of the last minute, perhaps the minute before the last minute. Or maybe even two minutes before the last minute. So i just want to plant a seed there that theres an opportunity there with the Planning Department and the Planning Commission to engage on something that fundamentally affects how all planning code is written, and whats the word im going to use the same word again adjudicated how the staff tends to filter legislation is through this master plan. The last thing that i wanted to bring up was and i think that this probably will come before m. T. A. If im not mistaken but related to the commissioner adams comment. Ive been hearing about the delivery trucks that are being attacked by parking control officers like buzzards who will follow them up and down the street just waiting for them to stop to make a delivery. Of course, they have no choice but to stop in the street because of all of the shared spaces structures. So theres a conundrum there in that, you know, were essentially taxing these delivery drivers for just doing their job. And as a result some delivery folks dont want to come at all, which hurts the Small Businesses that count on those deliveries. And i dont think that benefits anybody in the city. So i think that we need to think a little more holistically about how we deal with traffic and planning. I had a long call with Shawn Mccormick who was very helpful, very instructive. And, you know, potentially we might bring him to the Commission Just to talk about how m. T. A. Views this, but he also recommended a gentleman who ive not had the opportunity to speak with yet and cant remember his name but ill be reaching out to him and well figure out how to start tackling this issue because certainly we you know, again, going back to commissioner adams point, we want to make sure that retail has a fair shot as well. So thats it from my updates. Anybody else . I think that is everybody. We all gave updates out of who is left. Barely got a quorum. So with that, any Public Comment . Clerk there is nobody queued up for Public Comment. Public comment is closed, next item, please. Clerk Small Business slide. We will end with a reminder that the Small Business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. And that the office of Small Business is the best place to get answers about doing business in San Francisco during the local emergency. If you need assistance with Small Business matters, reach out to the office of Small Business. Clerk item 10 is adjournment, action item. I move. I second. We will have a roll call vote. [roll call] meeting isa adjourned at 8 18 p. M. Great, thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Happy thanksgiving. Thank you, michael and jane and sfgovtv. Thank you all for joining us. As a friendly reminder please mute with your camera turned off to avoid distraction. Submit two questions by chat only. Submit questions and include name. We will do our best to take questions in the order received in the q a portion. We will have intake by emailing. Welcome, director colfax. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us today. As we head into thanksgiving holiday week, i want to acknowledge those lost to covid19. Although the deaths in San Francisco have been lower than other cities, each person who has passed away is one too many. My condolences to their families and loved ones. Across the nation we are seeing tens of thousands of lives lost to this virus. In the last two weeks alone, death in the United States increased by 64 . More than 257,000 people have