Public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker unless otherwise established by the presenting officer of the meeting. [clearing throat] all right. Sfgov tv, please show the office of Small Businesses slide. We begin with a reminder that the office of Small Business is the only place to start your Small Business in San Francisco. Today we will start with a reminder that the Small Business commission, official public forum is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Business 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 current local emergency. If you need assistance with Small Business matters, you can find us online or via telephone. As always, our services are free of charge. Before item one is called i would like to thank the mayor for granting us a special authorization to hold this special meeting. Id also like to thank Media Services and sfgov tv for coordinating this virtual hearing in the live stream. A special thanks to tom, michael, jason and sean. Please call item number one. Item one, roll call. We will come back to you. He is trying to log in so he can have a voice. Ok. [roll call] mr. President , you have a quorum. Great. Thank you. Please call item number two. Item number two. Overvo u hview of the local, state federal response to the disruption of the covid19 emergency, discussion and possible action items. Today we have the office of economic and workforce director joaquin torres. Great. Director torres, thank you so much for taking the time to present and take some of our questions today. We know your time is short and that you have a hard stop at 11 20. The floor is yours. Well, thank you very much, commissioner. Can everyone hear me ok . Yeah. Ok, great. Am i on screen . Im not able to see if i am or not. You are. Great. All right. Thanks. I just wanded to say hello, everyone. I hope you and your families are safe and well right now during what we know is an extremely difficult time. Thats why our office of economic and Workforce Development has been just tirelessly working across teams to make sure that we could affectively be responsive to Small Business community needs. And i really just want to thank very very much you, president laguana, for your leadership as well as the leadership for all of your commissioners who i know have been responding to deeply to the needs of the Small Business community. I also want to give a huge, huge shoutout to the leader of office of Small Business for the work that you have been leading, the insight youve been providing and, of course, the extraordinary work of your staff, stretching [phone ringing] themselvess to the limit so we could [phone ringing] so that we could effectively respond to community needs. The support needed right now is deeply, deeply important and extensive. We know that the widespread impacts that were experiencing here in San Francisco are unprecedented in nature. We know that we have not seen the level of unemployment in this city in over a 50year period of time. Just based on the number of applications we were seeing at National Level in terms of even just unemployment relief. We know that the information we know the information that we are currently receiving only applies, for example, to businesses with employees of 50 or more through our notices. We already know we already know that we we have seen over 8,000 people be impacted thus far we know more to come in the coming days and weeks. So, the pain that is being felt is very, very real. Which is why im very proud of the efforts that the mayor has been taking, not only to support the Small Business community, but all of our communities here in San Francisco. Weve had some initial conversations with some partners who let us know that weve been citying citywide merchant sales down on an average of 70 . That changes in some areas more than others and not fully conclusive as it does not represent every single merchant in the city but rather a sample data set that is pretty informative about whats happening. We know because of the Public Health order that some industris are shutting down entirely. Music venue, restaurants and bars that have not been make a takeout model work and we have been shifting our resources as well to help meet the need. On march 11, three steps were taken and together with some of you and the director, a deferral of business taxes until february of next year. As well as fees being deferred for a quarter. That would have a Significant Impact on Small Businesses as merely a first step in the work to be done. At the time we announced a Million Dollars in Resiliency Fund grants that would benefit Small Businesses individually in the amount of up to 10,000 per each, we have over 2,000 applications that we have received thus far. You know that more are being count more. Im sure well have more once we have folks looking at applications that will come in over the weekend as well. To be sure that were being responsive to all of those folks. About 400,000 of that first initial 1 million has already been provided to Small Businesses. Our partner there, many thanks to them northeast federal credit union. The next stage for us is really going to be the second Million Dollars for those grants which will serve a little over an additional 100 Small Businesses. Those Small Businesses, it has been a priority for our office, the Mayors Office, your office, the supervisors offices, in making sure that we have an equitable approach to half those resources. Were very much looking forward to providing you, commissioners, with an update on that work once we have a plan put into place. To complement that work, we also know that facebook is planning to launch their grant process and their application will be going live next week and well have more details specifically on that program. In addition to the 10,000 Grant Program through the local Initiative Support corporation. These are nonconclusive in terms of the other Additional Resources that may be accessed through private companies to also support these efforts for Small Business relief. We know thats not enough. The state knows thats not enough. The federal government knows thats not enough. It is one of the reasons that we launched made an announcement of a 9 Million Loan Fund for private philanthropist that will be made to the mayors and the cities give to s. F. Philanthropist fund. To date, we have raised 1. 3 million for specifically that loan program. Our partner is main street launch and they will be providing loans of up to 50,000 per business. That is a 0 interest loan. We know that is not enough. Which is why in partnership with many of you with the office of Small Business and with Small Business leaders, we have been advocating both at the state and the federal level to make sure both businesses and employees are being served in this time. The expansion of Unemployment Benefits, weve seen a number of weeks be expanded and we continue to advocate for additional relief at that level. We know that individuals will be making not only the 450 cap, but also have an additional investment of 600 per employee, bringing the Unemployment Benefits to over 4,000 per month or possibly of over 4,000 per month. That is a major benefit to us, but we also know that thats not enough. And the federal government knows that thats not enough. The Small Business administrations two loan programs, one of which is newer, that has been announced and has been troubling for us at times, which is why weve been in conversation with many of our Financial Partners here in the city in partnership with the treasurer and Tax Collectors Office and the assessor Recorders Office in reaching out to Financial Institutions here in San Francisco and making sure that theyre aware of what our priorities are in ensuring that our Small Business communities are being served by these products. We were very heartened to hear that it was also very clearly on the speakers mind when we took part in a Town Hall Session on monday of last week, monday evening when we talked about the importance of our Financial Institutions doing everything they can to be deeply engaged in this process and providing access to the Small Business community. Just kind of as an anecdote, ive had conversations with some Small Businesses as well around this specific issue. And been able to support them in conversations through their lending institutions. The biggest thing really has been about clarity and clarity of access in ensuring that people will have access to those products. When they are unable to do so, we encourage everyone to reach out to our office a, which brings me to the next piece. And a lot of where the relief of where the work has been done, where people have been dedicating their time to the weekday and weekends. I dont think many of us know what day it is anymore. Many of us share that perspective. In terms of being available for immediate responsiveness, whether youre a Small Business owner, a Business Owner or employee. Through the office of Small Business and the office of economic and Workforce Development. The workforce line or the business line. Those are seen on the Small Business side along, over 1200 calls or nearly 1200 calls to date. And emails. And i know in my testing of doing that work, i received a call back when im sure what was a busy day in just a very short amount of time asking me what else i needed to know. So, please do refer Small Businesses to those hotlines and please do let us know, commissioners, how well that is going. I mentioned very briefly on the worker front the advocacy work that has been done to date, both at the state and federal level, our conversations with the Employment Division at the state level as well to make sure that theyre doing everything proactive as well. We were alerted by the Governors Office just on friday that an additional 850 workers were being redeployed to support those efforts at the state level so that people trying to get through will find a better time doing so. And were very, very happy about the work and the effort that the governor has done with his administration as well. We also knew that there was a question of what the shelter in place order would mean to employees and also how it was going to be important to craft a policy around paid sick leave that would benefit Small Businesses. I really want to thank regina again and also our Deputy Director of the workforce cad daniel for developing a policy and program in partnership with many other city agencies and City Attorneys Office to provide a Program Source with a 10 million allocation of general funds to provide employees an additional outlet and employers an additional resource to provide their employees with paid sick leave up to 40 hours could be reimbursed for a week. 755 applications have been received to date. More than 85 of those applications come from businesses with less than 50 employees. Right now were oversubscribed by about 1. 2 million. But as we go through this process and people submit their applications, we will also be working with those who have applied and maybe arent on a wait list at this time to make sure that if we are able to, we can serve them as well. Again a 10 million fund, almost immediately within a week, fully exhausted. Just again to highlight what the need is right now out there. In terms of Rapid Response work that weve done, weve had 10 webinars that have served 46 employers and about 240 individuals. On that work force hotline, similar to the Small Business hotline. About 1100 calls and emails that weve responded to. Everything that im talking about right now is identified on our website and i just want to share that upfront again. Oewd. Org. Oewd. Org covid19. Click on our button and youll get a list of resources for employers, employees, businesses employees as well as nonprofits to make sure that were framing where relief can be found and also for us to have through those phone numbers and those emails a way to have some feedback about what is and what is not working on our end or on our partners end. On the state and federal level, we have the private sector to connect displaced workers with Job Opportunities and those providing essential services. Its a onestop resource for people here in this state impacted by the job loss due to this pandemic. At the same time, youve already heard me mention emergency paid and sick and paid family leave bills. Weve also talked about unemployment extensions and expansions for that 13 more weeks of coverage and two Additional Resources. Weve touched on the forgivable loans to cover fixed costs at the s. D. A. Level as well as the already existing Emergency Disaster Loan Program at a 2. 75 Interest Rate sorry, 3. 75 Interest Rate for businesses, 2. 75 for nonprofits. In addition to that 10,000 advanced grant being provided. The federal reserves main Street Lending program has not yet been launched but were looking forward to providing you with up. Dates here at this commission as well as on our website. As i mentioned to all of you, we know that this is not enough. But i do want to thank you, all of our partners at the chamber, at our ethnic chambers, our chinese chamber, filipino chamber, African American chamber, Hispanic Chamber of commerce and all the work that our [inaudible] have done to make sure were addressing these issues holistickly. It has been a very, very important time for us and i have to say how extraordinary it has been to work with so many of you and our partners to make sure that were delivering the resources as we can. We know that it is going to be a long road ahead. Which is why were looking forward to beginning conversations around recovery, through the mayors Recovery Task force. We are hoping to provide additional updates to the commission at a later time in terms of when we will know the competition of that task force in addition to when the dates will be taking place. Were in conversations now with two city chairs, jose cisneros, carmen chue, in addition to the Mayors Office to be cochaired, of course, with rodney fong at the chamber of commerce and rudy gonzalez, the head of the Labor Council here in San Francisco. And then i dont know if regina will have an tounl share with all of you the april 10 letter that they that Frank Cisneros and assessor chui sent out to Financial Institutions. If there is any feedback there, please do let us know. Hello. Hello. [laughter] again, if there is anyone who needs support out there, immediately, please do go to our website. Please do call our hotlines. Please do let us know what is or is not working. Were here to provide a human level of service here during this time when we know in this hyperautomated world right now that can be hard to find. We want to make sure that were a voice for you that you can connect with. And ensuring that we are being responsive to Small Business community needs. Again, mr. President , to your fellow commissioners, i cant thank you enough for how involved all of you have been involved and commissioner cartagena, i want to say what a long road it has been from where we s