lwv board of education. >> the league women voters we're a nonprofit organization and if you would like to support our work, please become a member or donate on our website. today i'm pleased to introduce maxine anderson. born and raised, and the california criminal justice reform. respond for travel and readers i'm really pleased and welcome

maxine our moderator for this evening. [applause] >> thank you allison. and welcome to the candidates for san francisco board of education. and welcome to all of you who have come out this evening, either via electronic or here in person to hear what they have to say. the candidates will have a chance to present their views on issues affecting the city and to answer questions about those issues that were submitted in advance for tonight's forum. first, i would like to remind you of our ground rules. response to see questions should be on the issues and policies related. candidates are expected to be respectful of other candidates and ask to not make personal attacks on other individuals. here are the procedures for the forum. the candidates will have the opportunity to make 90-second

opening and closing statement. opening statements will be in alphabetical order by first name. closing statements will be in reversal fa bet cal order by first name. each candidate will have 75 seconds to answer questions. the order of answering each question, will be rotated among the candidates. each candidate will have the opportunity to answer the same number of questions. any rebuttal may be included in the candidates closing statements which will be 90 seconds. a countdown timer will be displayed with a visual indication of remaining time for response. they'll be right there in the front. every aspect of the forum will be equally fair to all candidates. thank you to our attendees

tonight, for those attending online, you're in listen, those who are online, you are in listen only mode. the q and a and the chat features are not attribute i have. just--active just so you know. this forum will be recorded and made available on our website, our youtube channel and sfgov tv cable channels. you have many important decision to see make november 8th. tonight's forum will give you an opportunity to learn before you vote. the questions for tonight's forum were submitted by san francisco residents and organizations. now let's begin. as i mentioned, we will start off with 70-second opening statement in alphabetical order and therefore we welcome our candidates and thank you for participation in this forum. please introduce yourself, tell

us which neighborhood you live in and why you're running for san francisco board of education. and we'll start with aleta fisher. >> thank you, is this on? yes. hi, my name is aleta fisher i live in the lmi neighborhood district 11 and i'm running for the district because of my children. i have i'm a foster parent, now adoptive parent. all of former mechanical engineer turned school advocate. i served on all of pt a, pts a, i served on district level advisory committees for ten years and it's my experience going to not only my children's iep meetings but meetings school after school where we have the same conversation over and over again. we need more services.

we need more parent educators. we need more school social workers, psychologist, more nurses more everything. and what we found when we provide more services in our schools, everyone benefits from it. and so i'm running to make sure that we bring more support and services into our schools and that we make sure that when we're talking about our billion dollars budget, we are prioritizing our student first and for most over central office over anything else. and that our budget is aligned with our values of inclusion, equity, diversity and love for all of our students. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. anne shu, did i get your name right? fantastic. >> good evening, i'm anne shu, i am the only immigrant and business person on the current school board right now.

and i'm running for election this november. i have been a professional working in the high-tech industry for 25 years, running my own company for 18 of those years. and i only got involved with the school board and school district during the pandemic when i saw that my twin sons who are now 16, in two different schools, were not engaged with school at all. and i looked at the school board then and found them renaming schools, murals doing a lot of politics and not focusing on our students. so i and thousands of other parents worked together to recall three school members and i was appointed as a replacement by maryland on in march of this year. and i'm running for election because i want us to focus not on politics, but on student outcome.

so my first priority is student achievement and academic excellence. second is safe schools, both physically and emotionally for our students. and last but not least physical discipline and operational discipline. i'm here to reform sf u.s. d to get the politics out and to focus on educating our students. thank you. >> thank you very much. gabriela lopez. >> good evening, i'm gabriela lopez i'm running for the board of education tone sure that there is the educateive perspective. my background is rooted and dates back over 13 years. i started off as a parent educators which helped build an affective bilingual educators

in public schools. i then went on to, i learned the importance of union work and became the union rep at my school. i was an arts coordinator for our site and also participated in the district wide mentoring for success program. i was formerly he electricked becoming the youngest women every elected. and once i was on the board, educators and families. during the pandemic, i made sure that our school district protected teachers, students and families. i was on the ground every single day. providing tech support for families and getting school supplies in student's hands. i'm working at the university of san francisco with future educators in sf schools. thank you.

>> thank you, very much. karen? >> good evening, thank you so much maxine, allison and league of women voters for all of your leadership and putting this forum together. i'm proud to be a league member. i'm karen, i use she her her pronouns. and i'm running for sf for the board of education to unify san francisco for san francisco unified. i'm a sfu parent of two students who have been here since kindergarten. and daughter of retired educators and graduate of schools. the early part of my ska reer was in the immigrant movement. i shift today youth development and have 20 years of experience preparing young adults for success in college and careers that i will bring to this position. i currently work as a

diversity, inclusion educator, shifting work place to be safe and positive for everyone. my priorities are to invest in students and educators social, emotional and well being and academic to promote collaborative decision making and provide transparency and accountability with the specific emphasis on appropriating our graduates to graduate from with the career of their dreams. with help from 9th grade to 12th grade. >> homidi. >> hi oim i'm homidy, i'm wholely focused on fulfilling

our obligation, because san francisco deserves to have an excellent education system and essential part of a thriving and vibrant city. i'm a parent with over a decade of engagement, pta's, school site council and volunteers in classrooms, tutoring, yard duty extra. my parents are public school educators and i know how hard they worked. and when i joined the district, i knew i was going to pitch in how i could. i start today serve a four-year term on a committee that oversees about 80 million dollars. and it was there that i discovered the real disconnect between leadership, essential office decision making and what our schools and students and educators need. in that role, i advocated for accountability, transparency and really aligning funding with our students priorities.

i have over 20 years of professional experience in state government, clean energy education, business and nonprofit for us here in san francisco. it's a pleasure to be here and i really, my focus is again student success fiscal, responsibility and resulting trust. >> thank you very much. and lisa? >> >> thank you, good evening. thank you to the league of women voters for having this and for us to be here and thank you for those participating online. i'm lisa wisemonday ward. i'm the product of public education all the way from elementary, through high school and college and law school. i'm a daughter of educate acre. i myself am an educator.

i teach; in that space i wear two hats, one as a immigration attorney, trying to keep our families together. the second hat is as an educator, i teach, and i supervise law students and spend my days to understand the systems we're working within and trying to fight and dismantle and also the importance of building and negotiation and meeting each other where we are. but most relevant is because i'm a mother of two, usf children. and i have come about larning how many amazing the district has but also how many things we're missing. my focus is three-fold, close opportunity gaps, we need to restore our trust and create transparent systems and ensure fiscal accountability. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, lisa.

and now the fun part. we're going to start the questions that you submitted before they vent began. we're going to try to get in as many as possible to think about the issues that we brought up. don't forget to stop. question 1, we're going to start with anne. if i may, i may call you all by your first name. okay. what experience if any, you do have in education and what qualifications do you bring to the table to make critical decisions impacting children's education? >> thank you. as i introduced earlier, i'm not an education professional, so my experience with education is my personal experience which

is in all public schools in the united states, i emigrated when i was age 11. so middle school, high school and graduate school all in public institutions. and my twin sons who also have just been to public intuition all of their life. and my qualifications is that i have run companies. i do know what it takes to run a business, including fiscal responsibility and operational excellence but most importantly setting goals so that the company and all the employees of the company can move in the same direction. and i think that's something that is lacking for the past many years is no clear goals and priorities. that is something that the board is working on right now. and i'm supportive and once we get everything going in the same direction, i think that we

can turn this serviceship around. thank you very much. >> gabriela. >> i appreciate this question because i can elaborate more often my education. as i mentioned my work and heart is rooted in education. i have bachelors in liberal students to become a elementary teacher. i received in masters in education from ucla where i gained a teaching credential in california where i can teach in spanish in sf schools or public schools. i take all of that experience and bring that at the decision making level because it's level because it's lacking and we'll see in boards of education, you don't have thed on the ground experience from the people that are doing the work. one of my, what i believe my

qualifications is the stability to to connect that expertise and the experience with the community and the people who are impacted by our decision. now i work with future educators and instealing these believes and understanding in what they're bringing into the classroom for the students. and the last thing is i'm currently getting a ph.d at stanford. >> thank you. >> my first job was out of college as an english as a second language and i was fortunate to work for a organization that taught us how to be teachers. my career in youth development and college access and i worked for some of the leading organizations in the space for europe, for sco scholars.

through my work experience, i became a mentor to many young adults and i maintained those relationships even though i'm no longer working for the organizations. so i've literally seen them buy houses, get married and have kids and all of that. and because i've been an affective mentor to them, they refer additional people to me. so i have a lot of mentees. and it was them that inspired me. we're being bombarded by racism, non stop and that's when i decided to shift focus when preparing young place. so i'm constantly facilitating adult learning experiences. >> unified school teacher and

my dad is a professor and i grew up where i was able to prepare classrooms for kids. so when i joined, i ended up doing similar kinds of work with teachers. in the classroom and helping kids learn to read and understanding the curriculum and introduction that was instructed to them. and third grade intervention and 5th grade intervention. so really understanding what the curriculum is and how it is being delivered and the resources that are teachers are being given or not being given. and as part of the budget advisory committee that i was part of, we reviewed programs and program ethicacy here in the district. and as i was talking about the disconnect before, i, i realize what the district was saying was happening, wasn't happening. so what i bring is that, asking

the question and being able to draw the connect the dots between the design and the statement of what the program is and what is actually happening in the classroom or not happening in the classroom. >> thank you very much. lisa? >> yes, so i've been an educator. i've been an immigration attorney for over 16 years and educator for the last nearly 10. and one of the things that i've learned in myspace as an educator is the value of curriculum and the value of implementing the curriculum. you cannot have one without the other. if you have a great curriculum but don't know how to implement it, our folks are not going to learn. if you have a lousy curriculum, you can't implement it. we need to have both.

after each session, i think how can i do better? something else that i've been focused on is understanding the value of patience and that each of my stud epts come to me with an individual skills and understanding how to approach my work with the strength and space mind set, really leaning into meeting folks where they are. using cultural humidity lens and really making sure that all of the work and all the education is transparent and accessible so that students can harp and do learning with one another. >> thank you very much, arleta? >> thank you for this question. so i've been as a mentioned, 17 years as a parent in the district. i served on various district level committees. i'm the daughter and granddaughter of teachers and spend summers in classrooms. i used to come after school and

play school with my stuffed animals. i loved school. but it was really my experience with my experience that made me realize schools were not set up for everyone. that's why i became an special education advocate and now i'm the director of nonprofit in the city. and in the world of special education, the way an vijd eyesed program works, for each child you do assessment, you get all the information you need to figure out what the child's strength and weakness is. and then you, take that and you provide support and services to meet that child's needs. that's what we do meeting after meeting which is a micro cause um in the district right now. so i bring that and want to

take it toll education level. >> thank you very much. now for the second questions, great answers. how do you plan to reduce food insecurities in our public schools. gabriela you get to go first. >> i i've been thinking about this given the work that i've done on the board, given my own experience as a child in public schools. to ensure that kids had food when schools were closed. in sf u.s. d, we have implemented so many innovative way to see get healthy food

that kids want to eat as a teacher. i see food that they're not interested in eating and hearing from, from our student population to make sure that they have access to something that they enjoy eating and that they build a healthy relationship with food. at the kitchen and how we can implement it district wide. >> i would say as a parent, i was excited when we went with revolution foods, but my kids don't like it. there is a lot of food that is going to waste. i live next to a school and it a tracks, vermin, that there is so much food that is being

composted. we need to study how can we make the food so that the student want to eat it. that healthy food that is available all the time with fresh food and vegetables. i would like to see something like that. there is a lot of nut allergy focus but there is a lot of soy allergies. making sure that we're providing it is going to be a tough priority. >> thank you very much. liny. >> i've been in a lot of lunch rooms and i've seen the waste. this year we're doing free lunch last year, we did free lunch. that's great but one of the

benefits of it, there used to be a-line that kids had to get into if you were getting the school lunch that was really really slow and kids didn't have access to the time to eat. they were being singled out and waiting to eat just because they were getting school lunch. my daughters. school has been a recipient and it was a switch list. we need to continue the partnership during winter breaks and summer breaks so that families have access for

food and know where to get food for their meals and their children and their families as well. >> thank you very much. lisa? >> i, would agree with what everyone said thus far. food insecurity in our public schools is a very big deal. if our students are not fed, or feeling hungry or have the water to drink, they're not going to focus on the learning. we need to make sure that the core, that the core needs are going to be taken care of. we heard in the district and our role in the board, that students are being impacted by the fact that they don't have access to snacks which came from federal funds that were cut. but that has been impacting our students. yes, revolution foods, folks

were really excite beside. but any of us with kids in the district, know it did not go well. i want to lean into what lane' mentioned, the programs that are spanning with refresh, we have seen, students excited to eat and the idea that we took kitchens out of schools and now we're in a situation, we did not have good foresight back then, so we need to be changing that. >> thank you very much and anne? >> you want me to go first? >> aleta. >> i appreciate that lisa teached on the subject of hierarchy needs, that is the base like the foundation of house. if a student basic needs are not met, they're not open to learning. and food is a huge part.

so i appreciate the work that we've been doing with community partnership, we have community that's rebring resources into our schools such as food pantry. my son goes to deniman and we have a foodbank once a week. and i'm happy to see that we have additional funding, thanks california, for those additional grants. we need more partnership. today i was at hub in south here, where families on, wednesdays can stop by and get food free food. but op tuesday and thursday, they're also offering housing assistant, helping people apply for benefits and things like that. and so much more than just food. also in the past we've involved students in the work, we actually had our students as part of the tasting committee. so the more we can bring our students in to have ownership, the better off we'll be.

>> thank you very much. anne. >> thank you. i think all the other candidates have said everything that i want today say. so really my first encounter and i'm very fortunate, my first encounter was a driver for the foodbank during the pandemic. for about ten months, i brought my high school age kids and we drove around and delivered food to the household mostly in the east and southeast neighborhoods. sxifs also a volunteer at the voes relate middle school handing out school lunches when kids were not in school. i was out on that day when it was orange, pollution that day i was out there handing out food.

i think laney mentioned that we're expanding kitchens and i was on the part of that. and i actually one thing that i do want to mention that we actually give the same amount of food to high school students as well as elementary and that does not make sense. because two high school sons will have to bring home food from home. >> thank you very much. our third question, can you share your thoughts on the new board of education governoring model and how it may impact the board of education? karen? you get to answer this first. >> on the one hand i'm supportive of the student outcome having worked for the organizations that were outcome focused and discipline in that way and really pushing the

decision making to the educator level, it would be good. on the other hand, i feel we're rushing way too fast and community does not know what is going on. last night there were 50 items at the board of educators meeting. it went until 1 1:00 o'clock at night. and these were important items, food contracts and many many different items. and on saturday, the board is needing to decide on the goal vision and outcome. to focus on the specific outcome. i'm concerned that not as many san franciscoians know what is going on and how fast all of

these decisions are being made. >> thank you very much. lany. >> i wish it was that fast. >> i'm excite beside our new governorance model, one of our goals is 50% of our meeting time will be spent on students and the outcome of decision on students. the other change and the goal is to start in december is our agendas will be posted 12 days in advance. part of why our meetings are so long is, this will change so people have the tupt to see the agenda and--opportunity to reach out. there will be a documented q & a that is part of the final agenda that is posted within 72 hours of the notice. but that will allow, to make sure that we're making good

decision sxz that public input is embedded in a way that is much more authentic. i'm also, very convinced that the way that the board and our governorance structure has been working has failed. we see that and how our literalcy numbers are. it's time for a change. >> thank you very much. lisa? >> thank you, we've been thinking about this since june and it may feel fast. when we look about what we're not doing for our kids with the underscore, we're not moving fast enough. we do not have time to lose when it comes to centering our children and making sure that we are meeting their needs and their goals and making sure that everyone has access to an excellent education. in terms of the work that we've

done over the last month and a half, we've done over 20 visits at schools on the evening and weekends with two board members usually, in community throughout the city. and how we're engaging so people do not have to come to 55 franklin in order to get their needs met. >> thank you, thank you very much. aleta. >> well actually engaging with the community has been done multiple times. and that's part of the problem

that we have with trust in the community. is fact that i've done it a number of times. we've gone out. great, the devil is going in the details. do we have the metrics to get to the part that we want to get with everything in values? we don't. and we don't have an authentic engagement process other than coming to the board of ed right now.

i'm very cautiously optimistic, but there is a lot of work and a lot of things that we need to do behind the scenes to make this work appropriately, implementation is key. >> thank you. anne? >> as a newcomer to the field of education, i was very glad to get some government training along with this board starting in march/april of this year. and what i've learned is that school boards, actually work kind of boards where we do not meddle in the business or the jobs of superintendent. we are suppose to set the goals for the school districts overall. and the professional comprise of supervisor and his whole team to figure out a way for us to achieve the goals some guard rails.

and that's been helpful to know what my lane is. what i'm suppose to do and what i'm not suppose to do. so i'm not, none of us are suppose to, higher or fire principals. the only person that we can hire and fire is superintendent. so this training has been good for me and it should continue with all the board members. >> thank you very much. gabriela? as a former board member, i was working with the community and i would come to the areas of the city to engage with different organizations and groups. as bilingual i was for accessible. but it was true that i was not implemented for a former way for a board member to be engaged on the ground in that

way. i'm looking at the new structure and i do appreciate the attempt to be more affective. but i want to ensure that we don't limit anyway for the public to engage however they can. so continuing to operate in a way where people can access the board and have recorded their issues so that we can access it later on, i believe that's really important while simultaneous' redoing the structure that makes it more accessible. overall, people need to understand what the board of education does and it's really important that as a board, we educate the public on that. what are we voting on? how can they tribute to the decisions as we're here to represent the public? >> thank you very much. our next, our next question, let me put my mouth up here.

we've seen dropping enrollment in sf u.s. d, how do you feel about the investment in the schools? and we're going to start with lany? >> i missed the last. >> we've seen dropping enrollment in sf u.s. d, how do you feel about enrollment in new schools? >> i think we've seen dropping enrollment as in sf u.s. d because we've seen a real lack of trust in families about what we offer and what the students are going to experience when they attend our schools. one of the things that i've focused about what it is that the district offers academically, enrichment support for all students at all sites. at a base line and then what do we do when there are students

that need additional support over committing to additional pathways or other opportunities at our school site. there is little documentation available about any of our schools and what they offer in consistent way that does not require families or students to actively seek that information. we have not published a category for our high school since 2014 and our enrollment reflects that. i'm an advocate about being clear about what our commitments are so that every school, we want every school to have a unique school and to be warm and welcoming but but to have consistent offering. >> thank you very much. lisa. >> yes, so we've seen dropping enrollment and i agree that it's because our family do not

feel they're getting access to equitable education opportunities. they may think that the opportunities are sufficient. it may mean that the students are not getting supported emotionally or educationally. we're not paying our teachers, we have an educator shortage because our teachers are losing trust. we have seen a mass exodus hemorrhaging of students and teachers. i think investments in schools is really really important. whether it's a new school or existing school with the community and a family of love, i think our investments in our educators and our communities is key to ensure that we can

get folks excited. i want to get our district back up in a way that people are excited to be part of. >> thank you very much. aleta? >> i think our enrollment went up by about 1,000 this year after based on most resent data, so that was encouraging to see. binge that there is a lot, as everyone else mentioned, we do have a huge discrepancy on what is available at the school. when the new system was proposed back in 2018, all of us wrote a letter to the board. adjusting an enrollment system is great, but until you address the discrepancy, the facility is different. the school that have the bond renovations, others have been passed over. until we fix all of this, you

know, it does not matter what system, we put in place. we have parents that are going to gain the system. we need more language pathways. we need more stem programs. we got these programs that attract families, build more of those. >> thank you very much. anne. >> i emigrated from a developing country and developing countries when developing fast, they build a lot of communities in just barren land. and when you plan on the communities, have you to put in schools, grocery stores, community centers, so i think for us, we are a developed country but portions of our

city that are developing which is great. for example, mission bay is a brand new community so it makes sense that you build in schools, commercial corridors, and community centers and libraries so that you can provide the services for the newly built community. so i'm for that. and in addition, we do need to somebody else mentioned look at our overall portfolio. we're doing that for the schools to see what schools we have and what programs we have in the schools. and i would like to see that done for middle schools and elementary schools as well. >> okay, thank you very much. gabriel a. >> i believe we, we need to know why our families are choosing to leave sfusd. and i feel the pandemic was a

factor. students feeling safe at the school site that is also important for us recognize. but i don't believe we have that information. so that we can improve in those areas. again as a former teach in the district, i was able to see the wonderful work happening in our school sites. our school district needs to highlight that. we can share the good work na is happening in our school laws versus, a lot of messaging that often tends to be the office for public schools. >> thank you very much and

karen? >> yes, i agree with what gabriela said. 56% of students have add least one immigrant parents we're a very divert district. but only 50% of our graduates are graduating college and ska reer ready. among our black 1 in had, among our latinx 1 in 3 is graduating college and career ready. this is a city, that assures that usfusd is a giant gentrification force. i want to see from 9th grade all the way through high school graduation, an individualized learning plan that helps a young person discover. what am i good at? what am i curious about?

and has a paid summer job in leading san francisco employers every summer where they if get to experience what it is like to be in the workforce field. enhance, career and technical education and community partnership so that we can get our students to and through college, those who want to go. >> thank you very much. and now on to the next question. during the pandemic, an issue that came to light, was the lack of universal high speed internet for all students. how will you work to address this issue in the coming term? and we'll start with lisa. >> that's correct. >> so i think, i'm going to answer the question about high speed internet. but i want to say it's not just high speed internet it's other things that we now understand

our critical to learning. that relates to what we talked about food security, so many other things outside of what we think of when we're in the bubble of a classroom that impacts and i am preliminariation an individual's ability to learn and engage. i'm really excited about state money that is coming into the district to support community schools, should proposition g pass, that would be 56 million a year coming into the schools for the long term. a lot of times we've had programs that are short in duration. so i'm really looking forward to these wrap around services that can include other things from well being to making sure that our families have access to internet so they can engage and do the work that our educators are asking them. >> thank you very much, aleta.

>> i love these forums because we all build on each other. anyway. even if we hand it out, the verizon hotspot. stepped up and offered computer lab in common room in our public housing site and we had our community learning hub that stepped up and provided safe spaces for students to learn and be in community.

san francisco unified is one of the social net. strong community and strong schools but it also donate so much else. so being able to collaborate and being able to key components. >> thank you very much. anne? >> coming from the high-tech industry for over two decades, there is no shortage of technology or even money. we are very rich city as well as a rich bay area. i think what we need to do is engage, the the school district needs to engage more partners to be actual partners. i remember during my son's middle school, was a trial school for middle school redesign and every student got a ipad or chrome book with a

verizon hotspot. so when the pandemic hit, they still had that. the resource right side there, the monies are there and there is something called corporate social responsibilities that many many companies are very willing to support the community that they operate in. so we need to tap into that. >> thank you very much. >> gabriela. >> one of the decisions was recording the technology for students to learn at homes because it's irresponsible to ask a family to log on to skaogle classrooms and understand zoom without having or providing the materials needed to do that learning. after that, as somebody who was on the board and as a teacher,

i was providing workshop for families in different languages to help them understand how to navigate the tools. it's one thing to supplement our communities with the materials they need but it's another to walk them through how to use them. we were learning that as parents were now teachers. and they were supporting students in ways that they hadn't before. so it was providing workshops through my work at the latino platforms that helped them how to navigate and translate so it was accessible on their end. >> thank you very much. karen. >> building on what my one of my fellow candidates said, is partnering with organization and think systematically.

last week, we heard from a parent, why are there so many programs, shouldn't all schools have after school programs, the same requirements? so the higher superintendent had a standing monthly meeting with the youth serving community organizations that is no longer happening according tovaness a, the head of parent's for public schools. i really want to make sure that they're meeting on a regular basis with our community base organizations and thinking system wide. how can we make sure that there are community base organizations supporting all the students providing access to wi-fi, to computer et cetera and that, it's not a huge discrepancy between what is happening at one school and what is happening at another. and that all students who need

access to the internet have it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. lany. >> we're still providing chrome books to students. the rate has skyrocketed. where my focus is, how do we get our students excited about being at school? how do we make it so they feel supported at school? and interested in services. in language communication, even through our, the 20-some odd out reach that we had in language offering were by far the most attended. which indicates to me that a lot of who is not at the table, who is is not connecting at the

school site and habits, are families that don't are not getting the information because it's not how they're xaoun indicating with us. >> thank you very much. and our next question, sfusd, has had deficit spending since 2017 and failed to address its deficit. now do you plan to address this issue going forward? and we're going to start with aleta. >> we need a holistic review of all plans that they have. one of the plan that i've been working is our reading instruction program in san francisco unified. we just did an addity, our curriculum instruction and we found that we don't have the foundational skills, we're not

reaching the building blocks of reading in over 90% of the schools. so we wonder why we have less than 50% of students that are pro efficiently readers. if you don't learn to read in, you get referred to speciald. if you learn in fourth grade, it takes four times longer. if you get rifrd to special education, it cost three times as much. we know that the work that we're doing, is costing a whole lot of money, so that's one example of what we need to do, what are we doing to be done efficiently. >> thank you very much. anne. >> ever since i joined the board i started to talk to a lot of people and i hear a lot

that we need funding, funding from federal, local and philanthrophic organizations. we always need more resources. while i don't disagree, i want to look at our expense site. we have a one billion dollars budget, that is not small money. what are we doing with that money? what are we spending money on? and what are we getting for it? a paeshtly not much. what i would like to do for all the money that we spend on program, i would like to see the metrics of success for that program. if a program is working, then we get more money expanded. if the program is not working, what does that mean, that we stop spending one. it's that we switch a program, try a different way to help that community.

>> thank you. gabriela. >> i do agree with what has been said and it's one of those things, where we've dreamed of what our classrooms can look like. the resources, should be provided, the materials, the learning experience that's we want our students to have and we have not actually invested in that because of outcomes that we've seen. what we're needing to do is monitor the effectiveness of the programs and if they're not working, then we cannot continue. sfusd, does not directly invest in classrooms. >> if we start with what that looks like and think about the resources needed for a teacher to effectively do their job, then we can, we can focus on other areas. but there is a lot of money

going to administrators who don't focus or work with children. and a lot of people on the board who don't know what they do. so it really does take investing in the classrooms first, and ensuring from educators who know what is best. >> thank you very much. and karen? >> we do have a structural budget deficit, because the cost of our retirees and our expenses keep going up. we have to figure out how we can address thish. we have a structure deficit because we have proposition 13, we capitalize property tax sxz start building all of these prisons and the amount of money

we spent on prison went up and money we spent on universities went down. this is what we have chosen as a state to invest in young people. so we need to reform prop 13 and ensure that we have the adequate resources for education. it's reactive, if you don't assess students early and start intervening early, that saves money. if you wait until problems develop, it costs more later on. same thing, we have a tremendous amount of litigation, what are we learning from the lawsuit to see prevent a further lawsuit. >> thank you. lany. >> so we're a governorance force, we're not a legislative force. we have fiduciary

responsibilities. le i was there as co-chair of the committee, advisory committee that i was on. and i said during this, we need to stop the spending resolutions that the board keeps putting forward and we need to review our spending. that does not happen. that is happening now. so we are hiring a new auditor for years. i think the laziness, thankfully as stressful as having the department of education working for us. and understanding what are the normal, what is normal spending and what we should be expecting as far as budget reporting. we need to move the curio

budgeting so we understand what we're spending and we also have to review our curriculum introduction. >> thank you, and lisa. >> thank you. i'm also, going to get into the weeds now. having sat on the board for 7 months, we joined the board when the district was facing a deficit with protected 125 million dollar shortfall. and i think there is a number of action decision that created that access. with 10,000 being assigned per student. it's been a loss of 25 million. additionally, we were not and have not been strategic when it comes to spending money, one time versus on going funding. and there has not been a thoughtful analysis of how we're spending money. i believe that our budget

reflects our values and we need to be intentional on how we're spending the money. i'm proud that one of the early things we did was talk about a short budget. and the general fund was nearly 22 million. a revised budget brought that shortfall to one and a half million. with an additional on our una shined balance. and our budget showed us surplus. so we're going to see changes to that. we just approved a 6% increase for our teachers but we need to be findful of the funding. >> thank you very much. and our next question, how do you plan to recruit and retain top educators and administrator for sfusd? and we'll start with anne. >> like i said, we approved the

6% salary increase for our teachers. i actually had proposed to our superintendent that we may want to make some adjustments to benefit salaries or have shift some of the benefit to the salaries because salaries matter more to younger teacher so we can attract more of them to come. i remember when i was 20-year-old, i didn't care about retirement and any need my help with benefits. but those are the things that we need to think about for way to see recruit and retain teachers. and one of the ways for me being in the citizen bond oversight committee, we have a lot of properties in the school district. 165 pieces of property to be exact. some of them can be turned into teacher housing. one we just broke ground on

shirley village, teacher housing that took 13 years to come to fruition. we need to speed that up. and one of the proposition is to speed that up so we can build housing for our teachers. >> thank you very much. gabriela. >> so this is something that really personal for me given i've lived through a lot of it. i think there is a culture of respect that is lacking across the city, across the country when if comes to educators. but one thing that we need to remember is our teachers are human, and they're holding so much during a time when nair being forced to take on so many more. there is a lot of suffering that has been happening because of some of the issues. so starting there is a priority. as work that i do at the university of san francisco with future teachers, is really

implementing the various ways that at the state level, are making it easier for people to become educators and for them to be in sfusd schools. soy get work with teachers who are clearing their credential who are paying for the exams and take advantage of state that is providing future teachers so we can focus on the learning and caring that they need to better support our students. and not have to jump through the many barriers in order for everyone to come. >> thank you very much. karen? >> we need to pay our teachers and provide benefits and not only our teachers but also our sciu members who support our schools, our administrators. i spoke this morning with one of the star trin als in the district and likely to leave because she has not had a raise

for four years. even though she has been knocking it out of the park. i also think we need to develop from within. we use today have a partnership between usf to help parents become educators gave them an off to study. and i've spoken with many educate of color about what kind of support they would need. in the city of new york, they have a special anyoner tiff within the mayor's office to develop more educators of color. and i would like to see that here, that provide spiritual, financial and academic support to our educators and develop them from within. i want sfusd to be the best place to teach. we're the safe place for lgbtq and all of these make us stand out and it's about housing. >> thank you very much, lany.

>> i guess the way i think about it, our student place is our educators work place. so if we're going to focus on students, we need to support our educators so they can focus on our students to be successful in supporting our students. two big things, biggest one, is pay roll debacle, we inherited three of us coming in, the ramifications of it insufficient contract and scope of work, that was coupled with cutting of i.t. and pay roll staff. we're now working really really hard. our former superintendent was very uninterested. we have a new superintendent who has been from day one and

brought in i.t. crisis management who is meeting with us regularly. the other thing is work place condition. i hear loud and clear, we need to do pay benefits no doubt. but we absolutely have to improve the supports that we're giving around literacy, behavioral intervention, math intervention, the things that support our teachers work in the classroom. >> thank you very much. and lisa? >> thank you. i would say, i would focus on i would agree on all of that. one is attract city. and in the area, and you need to come pen tate.

--compensate >> cut or not be sure whether benefits are still in tact. i think that salary is a thing of respect and increasing salary. it is not only, where we live in the bay area. the building of more affordable housing, teacher focus housing. we start today break ground on the first site that anne mentioned which is really exciting. and low morale, we need to make sure that they feel respected and welcomed and values. >> thank you very much. arleta. >> yes, everything everyone has said. there is a saying that all you have to do is drive ten miles

in any direction and you can make more money. coplanning time with their fellow educators. like i said earlier, more social workers, more school psychologists and i know this question is geared towards teachers. but i have to say, our parent educators are the backbone of our school. and our parent educators only are given 6 hours a day. and in high schools and middle schools where the school day is longer, that's a big problem. that's a big problem, that's part of the reason why we have 100 open positions. we are doing some work, we've got our pathway programs that are amazing that we're trying

to recruit more bilingual special education teachers. it's really hard to make your way through. when you're in class and you're teaching at the same time, we should do more to support our teachers in our programs as well. >> thank you very much. our next question, if we continue to see a decline in enrollment do you support closing some schools in san francisco? if you do, how would you decide which schools to close? and gabriela, you get that question first. >> i don't support closing schools that's where i'm going to start. i don't trust that the school district has enough information and trusted people to gather the information need today make that decision. and we have seen who, what areas in the city are targeted when we're talking about closing schools. i believe that would be the southeast side of san francisco

and we want to ensure that schools are protected across the city, so that's not an initiative that i would, pursue and i would learn other ways to go about fixing the issue but not closing schools. >> thank you very much, karen? >> i agree with gabriela i would with not pursue closing schools as a revenue. i would pursue making our schools more attractive to attract more students and give parents and families confidence that they will--that their students will succeed in our school. >> thank you very much. lany. >> closing schools is not on the table, that is not what we're focused on. we're very very much focused on getting the district in better shape so it will attract students back to the district.

there is plenty of kids to fill our schools. so the work is to recruit them back by rebuilding trust. by showing that we're teaching kids to read, that they'll be successful in math. so the emphasis is attending to the differed maintenance that has occured in our district for far too long. and also modernizing the building. we're recognizing also that our facilities need attention. >> thank you very much. and lisa? >> thank you. the answer is a yes or no question, i say no. i agree with a number of comments made, including where our focus is making sure that

they're filled and space that's are clean and lovely to be in with educators that are excited and supported and feeling valued there. we've seen the harm that it has, the disproportion impact that it has on our marginized communities. i'm also very concerns and weary about a pact that looks at school closures. >> thank you. arleta. >> well like i said, enrollment increased.

but closing schools needs to be off the table. we just hired a new auditor as lany mentioned. we're in the process of hiring a new auditor who will will take a closer look. we need to look at programs that we have. we need to add to the stem programs that attract the families. and we need to address the disparities in our schools. talks about a lot of educational confusion, making sure that we've got the same programs available from school to school to school. we're not going to have language in special education in every schools but we need to have academic rig or that is going to attract and going to make sure that we have the

program in place to close our opportunity gap. and that we are doing everything we can to make sure that all of our families sees that when they're students comes, they're outcome are going to be better than theirs were. >> thank you very much and anne? >> closinging schools, we would not sustain ourselves because of too many schools. but if we do, and as arleta audit and i am fellow board members will look at the expense and what programs are working and which one right side not. if we can get our house in order without closing schools, that is the way to do. we do want to benchmark across other school districts across the state as well as the across

the country to see how they're doing with the number of students enrolled and teachers. we do want to take a look at that so we can learn from them and improve our own practices. if we can balance our budget, without closing schools, certainly, that is what we should do. >> thank you very much. and here's our next question. at present, one of the highest performing high schools for low income black and latino students in san francisco is the kip system of charter schools. are there lessons to be learned from them to support our most under served communities? thank you i knew i would get that out. karen you get to start. >> so i worked for you're up, which is predominantly black, latinx students. and the lesson that i learned there is when you provide high

expectations and high support and when you have a staff that is very culturally competent and competent is rewarded and you create a learning community that students feel very safe in, where they are valued, seen, respected, where when they're not present, somebody calls them and notices. and there are incentives like going to a summer job. that is very highly motivating for them. it's also when learning is relevant. when a young person feels connected to what they're learning and when they see that as a result of learning this, i'm going to do, i'm going to be able to do something that i've always wanted to do. that is going to keep them

coming to school. and i think all of those things can be applied to sfusd. >> thank you very much, and lany? >> i have this very curiosity. so i sat down with kip to understand what you do, how is it your schools are pulled. more demand than seats. and it was fascinate iting, the work that they're doing was, i, i was. data on a daily basis, backwards math assessment. for english, high school students come in, they map curriculum from the 11 a p exam in order to get all students prepared.

and just the level of much coordination among staff content level is what i've been talking about as of sfusd. right now, there is very little level to have educators talk about cohear enter and grade level coherent. i've taken a lot from that conversation and there is a lot to learn from successful charters such as kip. >> thank you. lisa. >> so i'm a big proponents of not work ining silos and learning from others and replicating from where ever it can be, if things are working

let's see why. can those things be incorporated into this district? that would be great to know. i think there is other right spots that we can highlight. we saw with the pilot of a new program among african-american students at john mirror and thanks to dcsf in the city, it's now being expand today sanchez and flynn and malcolm x. we need to stop working with

the silo in our own districts and replicate what is working really really well. >> thank you. arleta. >> as a member of the chart committee, we do a lot of work. it's great to hear about the high outcomes of kip. but it's not fair to compare this apples to apples. kip does not have special day classes. they have a very low percentage of students who are in foster care or experiencing homelessness. there are antidotal reports of former board commissioners, cook used to talk all the time about family members who have been pushed out of kip because, because of behaviors or not meeting academic expectations. so about four years ago, i wrote an op-ed about the labron

james i promise school which he had just opened in akron ohio or he dumped a basillion dollars. and the premise of that was, oh my gosh if folks would bring this money that they're putting into charter schools and put back in the public schools, how successful can we be together. >> thank you, anne? >> i've already heard very good things about the kip review charter schools. and i talked to a number of people including the community members who send their communities. kip has higher expectation, high expectations for their

students and for their parents. so that is it's engaging the whole family. both academically and behavior. charter schools whether it's kip or lisa mentioned earlier, other public schools, that are successful in whatever programs that we have, we definitely need to treat them like start ups in the business world. because they try new things and sometimes it works, and if it works, some larger company comes and buys them. in our case, we should implement and scale them up for the rest of the school district. >> thank you very much. gabriela? >> so i do want to thank you arleta for bringing up points,

charter schools are infamous for pushing students out. i'm curious as an educator who observed data, what are we analyzing to get these results? what are tests that people are looking at? and as a standardize, what do we know and have understanding around them that shares a lot on how we're examining students. i believe charter school exist to provide innovative ways for students to learn that other schools don't do. one example of treasure island academy they provide housing. that's something that we cannot tap into but that's why charter schools should exist. we have come to a place where they're now taking students from public schools or school grounds, having a lot of

negative impacts that don't support negative learning. but what is working within our public schools and different school communities since we're serving the same students. >> thank you very much. our next question. what is the specific changes will you make to e pc. since i didn't know what it meant, it was the educational center to parents that they will not get their first choice school. so we're going to start with lany. >> dear lord, 75 seconds, does not even. i mean. so s i mean like i said, i've been a parent in the district. i have spent, i'm going to say at least six hours at epc in battle maybe.

we need have a much simpler system of communication. every year it changes, when the applications are due, how many rounds? , how many schools you should put down. how you tour sites? is it in-person, is it this? is it the other thing. i have been told that i need to prioritize my feedback for epc. and also recognize that there is a review around our enrollment system. but i'm going to say this. there is a different enrollment system for elementary schools. there is a different enrollment system for our middle school. there is a different enrollment for our high school. there is a different enrollment for early education centers. we have to come correct and put our students and families first if we want them to musle through our system or pre-k through 12. >> thank you. lisa.

>> we're going to come quick. as a parent that has lived through the lottery, and freaked out when i saw friends and their excel spreadsheets, i honestly don't know where to begin. i appreciate that the lottery system that epc is attempting to implement for years is to create create integrated schools with choice. the reality is they're not integrated. people don't feel that there is choice and the process is is not transparent or acceptable. so i think that one of the changed is around, what do our enrollment systems look like. we're the prior board and now we're looking at changes to the enrollment with elementary schools. i think that will if it's done right, will allow for schools

with meaningful choice and choice to attend schools and there is parity within the choices that folks have. but right now, it's not accessible and i think that's one of the reasons why we heard that folks are leaving the district. >> thank you. aleta? >> so it's important to recognize that we have about 120 schools in our portfolio schools, about 60 are elementary schools. and if you go to any of the message board, the k file you hear about the same, probably dozen schools over and over again, right? so, one of the things that i mentioned earlier, education cohetion, god love them but they're a system of a larger program. if you've ever been to epc the week before enrollment, you probably get through dmv faster without appointment. so there is a lot of work that

we have to do in customer service. but i think we also really need to be focusing on the programming at our school and making sure that all of our schools, have the programs, the academic rig or, the everything that is attracts families in and makes them willing to attend whatever school they get into instead of fighting or gaming the system or whatever to get into maybe building those top sibs or dozen schools that they heard about. we have a lot of great schools out there. >> thank you. anne? >> the two most important factors that i hear from families, one is quality of schools whatever that means in each parent's mind. and the other one, for a lot of immigrant is the language pathways. so a lost chinese parents, they

want their children, elementary school children to learn chinese and they will willingly drive across town from where ever they live to put their children in those schools. does not even the quality factor, they just want the language. so as we, exam our portfolio of schools and as we move to a new assignment system, i think it's now postponed to 2026, or so. before we institute a new zone base, we need to balance out the quote unquote quality along with the language pathways. so that when a family is limited to a zone, then there are, all the schools should be high quality and there should be language options in every job. >> thank you, agreeabla.

>> thank you, so the first place is the first center that our families remember and an experience that they remember as negative. i have hope now that we have a new head of enrollment, their approach is building with the people that we're serving, ensuring that they feel they're part of the process and they have the information they need and we can connect with nem on a human to human level. it should not be this really negative experience when this be is beginning with the school district as they're trying to get their child to a safe learning environment. bed programs should be available for families and can they get to the school? is transportation provided and if it's not, what are these factors.

thank you. karen. >> yes, i agree with what's been shared. i'm an attorney and i was so confused with the education, i really feel for people who are not native speakers and never even navigated a bureaucracy before. i've been thinking about this, that we need to have om bisman office so parents have a place to go to help them navigate these things. i think that would help tremendously. and i'm very concerned that our schools, i think you saw in the chronicle recently.

that 60% of our schools are segregated. it's not only sfusd seth policy, it is also about families taking accountability for their choices. we know that integrated schools benefit everybody. i want to work together to create that experience for young people. i think it would be fantastic for everyone. >> thank you very much. and our next question which may also be the last question, aren't you all excited? do you have a longer term strategic plan to refurbish older schools and enrollment was boosted to build new schools? and we're going to start with

lisa. >> you said longer plans. >> to refurbish older schools and if enrollment was boosted to build new schools? >> thank you. it's a very timely question part of our six-plus-hour board meeting last night was provided detailed list of the state of our schools and the amount of money that it would take to refurbish slash build new ones. so there are questions, we're going to need a generous. it's important that in order to be thinking about how this infrastructure, this money comes in to make sure our school sites, our sites our kids want to be in.

if we're going to sit in to support a bond, we need to be building trust. we need to be that we're accountable. i think the plan needs to take into account where we need to focus our energy? >> thank you, lisa. aleta. >> oh yes. so first of all, like i said before, we have a lot of squaolz that have been passed over for bond money. we need to get our schools retrofitted. we have kitchens that are not functioning and we're in the food mecca of the world. having great food programs.

i like focus and career ready. the beauty of new mission bay school and that whole, one of the early designs included not just in elementary school but also a tech hub, a partnership with ucsf where high school students can come in and earn credits and work at ucsf and work that work experience? why aren't we doing that with a lot of our tech partners? there have been talked about moving soda downtown near all of the performing arts building. so our students have access to professional artist. the world is our oyster.

count me in. >> thank you, anne. >> i was the chair of the citizens bond oversight committee which is a mandated committee that watches overall the bond committee and for the past two bonds, total 2 billion dollars. and we're looking at a new bond but before that can happen, we need to be more accountable to the spending. and i think the district has a lot of work to do to provide more transparency to the public so that we can be confident enough to vote for another bond. and something i want to mention, there is a lot of office building empty, let's think outside of box. can we have a partnership to use those buildings for our schools?

i think we're the innovation capitol of the world, let's think about other options than spending money and building a new building. >> thank you, gabriela. >> so some of the facilities in sfusd, are worrisome and families have been advocating for improvement of them for what seems like decades. so is ensuring when we're investing in schools, how are we making sure that families get clear information about that process. i'm still hearing that does not happen. we should be taking advantage of programs that could be implemented at the local level.

and learn from that will better support our district. our families have made clear, they want and could be a priority to rise and help them have access to resources that are outside of the school district per view. and last is building the connection with to help students as of with college credit. >> thank you. karen. >> so improving the school physical infrastructure is imperative as has been discussed. some of our schools are in very poor condition. there is a list on the william list which is the school's with the worse test scores, 35 schools on the williams list.

and sfusd has contract with ain respect or that reviews the school and marks on the review, this school is in good review but we know that the schools are not in good repair. the lighting is broeng, functioning of toilets are not good, broken windows. and all of these problems, inhibit issues. my son used to hold it so he would not go to the bathroom and hold it until he came home because the bathroom is in bad condition. i want to make sure that we're renovating. >> thank you, lany?

>> before we went out, we did not have facilities inventory. we had looked at a facility and had a state of repair plan that informed a decision making. you may imagine that politics became infused in the decision making of different types of politics. there was also a self imposed limit without recognizing that our high schools are larger than our elementary schools. so one of the things that we're talking about is when we go out for another bond, fingers crossed and we have to instill confidence that the district is capable of managing money well first is have a plan that is color coded and complains why

we're prioritizing some programs over others. but we have nutrition services and the facelift of a lot of schools since many of them were built long long ago. and i was pushing to ensure that the difficult products don't get delayed because they're difficult. >> thank you very much. and now we come to the candidates closing statements. >> we said it all. there is no more. we'll dot closing statements in resource alphabetical order. you have 90 seconds. we'll start with lisa. >> thank you again. i spent over 16 years challenging an awful inhumane immigration system. i've had stamina to work

alongside of community to improve the lives of others. over the last nearly 10 years, of teaching law students, i say be careful, when you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. some of the most affective change is listening and talking. and after having many many conversations with parents, it is clear that at the core what we want is what is best for our kids. and i'm committed to what i want for my own kid. this is a shift what we want, we have to be willing to want for each other's children that's the place where we start our conversation. we start our conversations from a place of common ality, not a place of difference. i'm really excited about the unique position and the positionality that i bring to this board as a mayoral

appointee, i have the backing and support from the democratic party. i have over two dozen democratic clubs and union supporting and endorsing me because they understand i'm engaged in students and not politics. and i look forward to put our students first. >> thank you very much. and lany. >> thank you for your time and i hope the last couple hours, you heard my commitment and competency. i was appointed in march as one of the mayoral's appointees and i came to do the work. i'm focused on the student success and fund go prioritize our students needs as educators. again, the primary focus, priorities of our students success, fiscal responsibilities and rebuilding trust.

and delivering trust, to provide quality education to all of our students at all of our sites. our budget needs to follow our student priority. and i just want to outline that in the last 7 months, we hired a new superintendent that i have great confidence in. we balanced the budget, rescinded teacher layoff. help to shore up financial resources, committed to focusing on student success. we've commit today governorance training, we're now reviewing the facilities, we're look at curriculum and instruction. we're doing things that have not been done in the district for 15 years, 20 years and sometimes no one remembers ever doing something like this. so i'm committed to be part of a board that comes together to do a work for all students and families. and students will not benefit until our adult behaviors change and i believe my

experience and commitment has shown that i'm willing to serve and i'm going to serve for all of our students. >> thank you very much. and karen? >> the theme of my campaign is, unifying san francisco for san francisco unified. all of us in san francisco have eye stake of the success of our public education system a safe and prosperous, begins the same high quality public 'eming occasion for every young person. i know from my 20 years of youth development experience that all young people love learning, all families love learning. it is a responsibility of the board of education to provide learning environments where all students can thrive. i'll use my experience work withing immigrants, preparing young adult for success and college and careers and healing divides to bring our school system together and to get our

communities working together in service for all of our students, really emphasizing how we can prepare and connect all of our high school graduates to college or careers. my priorities are to invest in social, emotional well being and academics to provide budget transparency and accountability and to provide collaborative decision making. thank you so much for listening to us. and i forgot to mention at the beginning, i live in d5 in the fillmoore. >> thank you. gabriela. >> thank you, everyone, for hearing us and for being here tonight. i'm here to hear the people that are often left out. i'm an educator, i have vast experience and a level of expertise that has not been involved at the board of

education level and that extends from prison education, to bilingual education. my priority includes increasing school funding and resources, expanding math reading and science opportunities and investing in college preparation across the school district. i'm an advocate for education in my current roles and will continue to be as i'm able to connect with the community with the work being done in education and decision making. we're in a critical moment in education. i'm passionate about this work. i learn from previously serve ising, i've grown from it and i'm ready to continue advocating for all of us to better serve our students. >> thank you very much. anne?

>> i'm the only immigrant on the board. there is a significant population of immigrant students and families in our school district. and i understand ho they feel and what they need. and i'm prepared to help them get that support from the district. and i'm also a business person, i think that unique perspective could very well help us move in the right direction with some fiscal discipline and operation. i have qualified background to run organizations, my prior pits on the school board are students achievement and academic excellence, safe schools emotionally and physically for students. i'm here to reform and to get the politics and for to us

focus on educating students. >> thank you very much and aleta. >> so it's been a really tough couple of years in san francisco between the pandemic and recalls and everything. so first of all to former president lopez, thank you for your current service, to our three commissioners, thank you for your service and to our--environment, thank you all. i'm running because of my experience advisory committee, i'm running because of a day job. as a special education advocate, nobody hires an advocate to come into a meet when a student has what they need. they hire an advocate when they need it. and when you bring in more supportive services for one

student, the entire classroom benefits. that's the universal design for learning. we have to do it from a student way, and we have to do it from a place of collaboration and respect. and that's what i want to bring back to our schools. my dad always jokes that he votes to cancel my mom out because he's a republican and she's a democrat and they've been married for many years. we can do this, and we can build great outcome for all of our students. thank you. >> thank you very much. and ladies, i want to you know, i applaud you all forever taking time of our lives to run for office. sometimes not, people are not out there say yay, but you're

doing, we appreciate it on behalf of our children in the city of san francisco. so now, i shall close. on behalf of myself and the league of women voters of san francisco, our thanks to the candidates for participating and thanks to each of you for taking the time to to yourselves about your choices on the november 8 ballot. please remember to register to vote. if you are not already registered, and aren't already registered and urge others to register also. if you changed your name or you moved, you need to register again at your new address. and if you'll be voting my mail this year, and i believe every resident of california has the opportunity to do so please be sure that your vote will count by ensuring that your ballot is

mailed or dropped off at a ballot place or voting center early. again, thank you, good evening, take care, stay safe. thank you very much. ♪ >> it is unclenate's creativity time. welcome to uncle nate.

we are are going to draw bubble letters. you need supplies. you need a pencil, markers, something to color with and a few pieces of paper. gather up supplies and meet me back right here. all right. let's go. got all supplies out. draw your name lightly in the center of your page. give yourself room. give each letter a little room. all right. now, i want you to draw around each letter like you are driving a car around each letter. next, let's erase the center. take away the original outline and then we will be left just with the bubble letter.

make sure you get the center part out of there. okay. we will touch it up. time for color. i chose yellow, orange, and red. yellow at the top, then the orange in the center, and i am making a stripe right through the center all the way across. last, my red, which makes a cool fade. time for the outline. unclenate's creative time. figure it out. now we are going to do a drop shadow. a shadow underneath each letter and to the side. it is really going to give it a 3-d look.

wow! great job. i bet you didn't think you could draw that. now you can draw bubble letters you can use it to draw things for your friends, cards. it is really useful. i hope you had a good time. i will see you next time on uncle nate's creativity time. ♪

>> welcome to the small commission meeting on october 11, 2022. this meeting is held in person in city hall, room 400 and broadcasted live on sfgov tv and available to view online or listened by calling 415-655-0001. as authorized by california government code section 54953e and mayor breed's 45th supplement to her february 25th, 2020, emergency

proclamation, it's possible that some members of the small business commission may attend this meeting remotely. in that event, those members will participate and vote by video. the small business commission thanks media services and sfgov tv for televises the meeting on sfgov tv dot org. we welcome the public's participation during public comment. there's an opportunity for general public comment at the end of the meet and an opportunity to comment on each discussion or action item on the agenda. for each item, the commission will take public comment first from people attending the meeting in person and then from people attending the meeting remotely. members of the public who will be calling in, the number is 415-655-0001. the access code is 24832908494. press pound and then pound fen to be added to the line. when

connected, you will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star three to be added to the speaker line. if you dial star three public comment is called, you'll be added to the queue. when you're called for public comment, mute the device you're listening to the meeting on. when it's your time to speak, you'll be prommed. to do so. public comment is limited to three minutes and a timer will alarm. speaker was are requested to state their name but not required. >> the san francisco small business commission and office of small business staff acknowledges we're on the unseated land of the ramahash

people. [reading land acknowledgement] please call item two. >> item one, roll call. >> commissioner carter? >> here. >> commissioner dickerson? >> present. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> here. >> president laguana? >> here. >> vice-president zouzounis is absent and commissioner zouzounis -- >> next item. >> next two.

>> this is a discussion and action item. the the commission will discuss and possibly take action to approve legacy business registry applications. we have rick with the small business of -- >> good afternoon, president laguana and city staff and members of the public. i'm richard, legacy business program manager. i would like to acknowledge michelle reynolds who helps with marketing and communications for the office of small business. michelle was instrumental in helping review, colate and process the business registry applications before you. sfgovt tv, i have a powerpoint presentation. before you today are six applications for your consideration for the legacy business registry. each application includes a staff report, a drafted resolution and the application itself and case report and resolution from the planning department. the application were submitted to

planning on august 24th and heard by the historic preservation commission on september 21st. item 2a is blazing saddle and bike rental tours and it's a bike rental and tour company with multiple locations in fishers mans wharfing. blazing saddle was found theed under that name in 1994. in 2002, the business was sold to american scooter and cycle rental inc which was founded in 1988 and has a history that extends back to 1982. the official lien age of the businesses consider the blazing saddle lien age, and the americans scooter and cycle rental is a critical component of the company's history. playing saddle has the largest fleet of rental bikes in california and the recognized leader in bike tours over the golden gate bridge. riders can follow self guided tours or join

guided tours led by blazing saddle staff. the businesses actively involved in the community and has been partners for many events. four featured tradition, the business must maintain to be on the business legacy is tour companies featuring bicycle rentals. item two b is cafe la boheme and the business was founded in 1973 for poets, dancers, politics and activist. it's a driving culture -- experience the living art of the mission through poetry performances and local art exhibitions. cafe boheme offer food and beverage menu item that's have changed throughout the years. sometimes referred to as a living room of the mission,

cafe boheme attracts a diverse base and popular for tourist and the population alike. it must be maintained as coffee shop. item two c is club deluxe. the business is a live music and cocktail bar founded in 1978 near the intersection of heeight and it was a gay bar. it was renamed club deluxe and it's an important part of the live music scene and it retains the 1930s to 1950s oasis with wood panel walls and circular mirrors and cafe style mirrors. and dior style. they announced their closure due to then ability to

agree on a fair lease with their landlord and after mediation with district five supervisor preston on august 22nd this year, which included mentions of the legacy business program, club deluxe on the property owner reached an agreement allowing the jazz and blue club to remain in its home and the core feature tradition of the business must mean tame as bar. item two d is hotel boheme. it was established in 1991 and inspired by -- with the interior of the hotel designed as a recreation of the late 1950s. recreation of the late 1950s. the rooms are thoughtfully arranged with cast iron beds and large mirror am mores and beach generation. there's 35 museums taken in north beach in the 1950s and 1960s by jerry stole.

the building that houses hotel boheme was constructed after the earthquake in the architectural style and the tradition and business must maintain is hotel. item 2e is lrarkins brother company and established in 1950 when found, they sold new and conditioned tires until 1967 many the business expanded to include full ought motive services and thanks to a loyal customer base the store is open six-days a week to serve the san francisco bay area. many of these employees stayed with the company for 20 to 30 years. the business has been able to establish a customer account with the city and county of san francisco, servicing their service vehicles. the core

feature tradition of the business maintained is automotive services. item two q is mayor po that yacht lub and the organization is a nonprofit membership club dedicated to selling and community service in the greater san francisco bay area. mariposa hunters club was established in 1974 when mariposa ramp club and hunters point yacht club consolidated under the goals of promoting good sportsmanship and providing docking and arranging cruises for (indiscernible) and other activities that increase interest and small craft boating. the roots of the yacht club date back to 1932 in the mariposa book club and ramp club was pounded. mariposa hunters point yacht club represents 30 to 40 members and guest per day that may utilize the club's boating facilities, patio and atmosphere clubhouse to host or

attend indoor or outdoor events. the organization is a member of the pacific inter club yacht association which fosters communication cooperation among the 100 yacht in northern californias. the court featured tradition the business must maintain is recreational boating. all byes met the cry tear -- all businesses met the criteria and received positive recommendation from the historic preservation commission. staff recommends adding the businesses to the registry and drafted six resolutions for your consideration. a motion in support of the businesses should be framed as a motion in favor of the resolutions. thank you. this concludes my presentation. we're happy to answer any questions and there are business representatives in the room and possibly online who would like to speak on behalf of the applications during public comment. >> there we go. great. thank

you, rick. commissioners, do we have any questions? >> okay. is there anyone -- if there's anyone who would like to make public comment on item no. 2, approval of legacy business registry. >> stand up on the line until it's your turn. >> i would like to welcome small business commissioner steven adams. please steven. >> good evening, president laguana and it's great to see everybody back here in city hall. commissioner dickson, i get to see you live and in person. it's great to see you. and executive director tang, welcome. it's a pleasure to be here and also to rick curlio, i'm in support of larkins brothers tires and south van ness. jason here in the room

purchased the business from his father who bought the business from the larkins brothers in the 1980s that business starts in the 1950s but the business itself goes back into the 1860s. that's truly a san francisco legacy business and i'm so proud of jason and all his four barriers are looking down, that he kept this business in san francisco and most of his employee was from the neighborhood and from san francisco. it's awesome. and so, i'm here that you approve larkins tire as a legacy business, thank you. >> thank you. >> is there any other public comment? please. >> hey commissioners. i'm jess from blazing saddles, bikes and tours. first i would like to say thank you to supervisor peskin for nominating us for this

legacy business dez nag and thank you richard and michelle for helping us navigate through the application process. they really did a good job. thank you very much. i appreciate it. and back in 1978 when i was in high school at george washington high school, my mother was able to get me a job at fisherman's wharf as a crab cracker to help pay the bills and do my share and that was my introduction to the tourism industry in san francisco. my wife and i were married in the early 80s and immediately started a bicycle business shortly after that down at the wharf and we've been there ever since. our son has recently taking over the management of the business and

he and his lovely wife, sean, they are expecting their first baby. that's four generations here. and we're exciting that they are expanding their family and we look forward to having them run the business and us having a little more free time, so thank you for considering our nomination. >> thank you. is there any other public comment on item no. 2. >> we have callers online? >> if there's a person in the room, please come up. >> okay. >> take your time, no rush. >> good afternoon, i'm margarita tourist, the accommodate of the yacht club. we're 90 years and we do, besides the boat and maritime which is what we're focused on, we do a lot of community outreach and donations

to, once a month to a particular charity and i'm proud to say this month, last saturday, we raised over $2,000 for muttville so our charities range from red cross, muttville, junior giants, women on water and all these other maritime thing so we're very proud of our thumb print and want to stay by the water and be part of san francisco. thank you so much for considering our application. >> thank you. are there any other public commenters in the room? okay. we'll go to the callers, please. >> hi. my name is saleba abdul. i'm speaking on behalf of cafe la boheme t. was established in 1973 and the few san francisco

coffee houses left in the mission. my family (indiscernible) just a year before i was born and on the night of my birth, my father was hosted what would be the poetry readings. and since our ownership, la boheme has been a place for not just my family by the san francisco community. a place where poets, activist and politicians alike all meet and prepare for their readings, marches and campaigns and (indiscernible) embody the roots of our city and everybody is welcome and everybody is family and everybody needs to stand together. we believe (indiscernible) against the massive gentrification that's happening in the mission district. as we continue to (indiscernible) to be the original 1973 living room that was established. as immigrants themselves, my parents, (indiscernible) and jackie built la boheme as a place for everyone to feel welcome and safe from book choreographers

and examines and a place for everyone to come and put amazing work enjoyed by people in the city and country and around the world. la boheme has been the backdrop for my families and extended families memories from weddings, to wakes and community knows they have a place at our table at la boheme. thank you. >> thank you. are there any more callers? next caller, please. >> hello, my name is carolyn monte and president and ceo of san francisco heritage. san francisco heritage is proud to support club deluxe legacy business application. this is a well-deserved recognition of their contribution to the cultural heritage of the height neighborhood. we were honored to partner with the city's legacy

business program and supervisor dean preston's office to support the owners of club deluxe with their business application. we fully support their joining the legacy business registry. thank you for the opportunity to call in and provide this testimony. >> thank you. next caller, please. proceed. >> hi. hi name is luna and i'm calling to support wawad and his family and cafe la boheme. i want to say how much of a staple it has been to the mission, myself and at latino community. when i first moved back to san francisco, i want to say back in

2007, it was a space that my parents found community, joy, last ter and more. we made lifelong relationships with those who came religious to la boheme. it's afternoon place to my self but those finding a home far away from the home and the community gathers there to have beautiful events that are later shown at la boheme or shared through the rest of the neighborhood which is really important. it's a safe space to plan and execute community gatherings and wada and his family given back to the community by letting us gather there and be amongst each other. i could go on about how this is a staple to the community but anyone who has grown up in the mission has worked and will tell themselves how this has been a safe space for artis -- event

planners and thank you for listening. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hello commissioners, my name is la lay and i'm the daughter of (indiscernible), the owners of la boheme. they have been serving the mission district for a little over 45 years and out of those 45 years, i'm blessed and honored to be present for half of that time. my family took ownership of this cafe and i was three years and for the last 27 years, we call this our second home and my dad loves to call this place his third child and cafe la boheme raised me in so many ways and i have met poets and authors to politicians and professors and businessmen and women who had a hand in building who i am today and the woman i am today. if it weren't for this cafe the community and the culture, i would not be as rich in knowledge. getting the cafe to be a legacy business would mean the world to not only

my family but the san francisco and bay area as a community. a community i would like to refer to as my second family and acquiring this legacy bid would be the icing on the cake to the -- thank you for considering our application. >> thank you. is there any other caller. >> >> there are no other callers. >> okay. commissioners, do we have any comments on our legacy business nominees? commissioner ortiz cartagena. >> i just want to thank all the applications, all the people that called in, all the people who took the time. two special shout outs, cafe la boheme and i mean, that's our babysity hall on 24th street. like, so much stuff gets born, gets activated out of that space and the ownership, i mean, that family has been always beautiful to the

community and that's what, that's what small businesses, like a place where community can thrive, have a place to be nourished. it's just a beautiful space, so i'm so excited that it's here today. larkins, i met the owners and it has been a staple. and i hate to say it, i peel out once in a while so i need tires. [laughter] y'all have always been there and since i was a little kid, that was a place to get your tires so i'm excited for both businesses and all businesses here today. >> thank you. commissioner huie. >> i also wanted to congratulate all of you for being in business for so many generations and i work and have always kind of worked in family businesses in our family businesses and it's a special place to raise my kids, kind of starting from, i think

as soon as you can start doing anything, you're kind of tasked to do something and you know, it really shows them what community really is and i like to be able to come into the store and into the office or into the shop or into the restaurant or wherever it is and feel like all those people around them are home is a real gift, so thank you very much for thriving in san francisco, growing your business here, being committed here and yeah. it makes me excite and proud and i love this portion of our meeting. thank you very much. >> commissioner carter? >> i want to congratulate the legacy visitors here today to make it this far in san francisco and being a part of the fabric of what makes san francisco san francisco. this is

my favorite thing to do. i'm a city kid and i love mom and pop's so congratulations again to all of you. >> thank you. commissioner dickerson? >> definitely congratulations to all of you. as a small business here in san francisco, you all are like the people that we all look up to, the small businesses that had been open for two years, five years, ten years and i want to just honor your persistence, your commitment. i know sometimes it feels like i got to do the job because i've got to pay bills but i want to broaden your perspective of these small businesses, you no, they by a lot of value to the community and for people to be able to keep coming back, being able to depend on you, being able to know that when they need that bike to ride or they need that coffee to sip, they can come back and see the same

people and you can ask about the kids and the family and the dog, all of those things are so important to the city of san francisco especially, so i just want to say congratulations, thank you for your persistence, perseverance and long suffering and the joy you bring, the assets you bring to the city of san francisco. so, thank you. >> thank you. you know, i think, first i'd like to give a shout-out to the two companies that are really on this list that are helping to attract people to come to san francisco, blazing saddles and hotel boheme. blazing saddle in particular, you have such a visible presence in this city and makes a huge contribution to the experience that visitors have. you can't drive down golden gate bridge without seeing your bike fall all over the place and even in the

salsaly dough and it gives visitors something to do. it's on the leading edge of bike culture and more sustainable future for this city so i can't commend the work that you've done enough making the city a more fun place to visit and i appreciate everything you guys have done. i want to echo commissioner ortiz cartagena about cafe boheme. we're so lucky to have these community spaces that help bring people together, to connect people together. it has been an extraordinary contribution to the mission community, so many ideas as commissioner ortiz cartagena mentioned, have come out of there, so many important changes to our city. so much important community building and it's so lovely to see that kind of business thrive and succeed

for such a long time. with respect to hunters point yacht club, i want a job there because i want to become a commodore. that's the most exciting job i heard here. it's so rad and it's an amazing place for people to gather and for san francisco. certainly in my mind, not least, if there's one busy have personally probably spent more money at than any other business, it is larkins brothers tire company and i want to give a big shout-out to jason and his brother-in-law randy who, you know, for those that don't know, i run a little van rental company and i've been, our vehicles have gone there for tires off and on, now approaching two decades. i recently seem to be running over

nails over the time so i take my personal car there all-time. it's a quick turnaround and great staff and everybody there is fully professionally. what i really appreciate about you guys coming up today in particular is it has taught me i should never rent a van to commissioner ortiz-cartagena. [laughter] because my goodness, that's our worst nightmare. so, with that, congratulations to all of you. it really does -- as some of the other commissioners mentioned, this is the highlight of our work here. oh, and club deluxe, before i forget, the legacy business appointment for that business in particular was critical to that business's survival because they were on the verge of losing their lease

with their landlord and i want to give a shout-out to supervisor preston and the legacy business team for working very hard to get them through the processes as quick as possible. so rick, thank you for all your hard work on that but this legacy business appointment soon to be, hopefully, pending a vote, was a critical part of them being able to renegotiate a lease with their landlord and continue on as a business and that was very much in doubt and for the music community, of which i consider myself a member, that would have been a terrific and horrendous loss so it's legacy business at its best and i want to thank bos staff, supervisor preston and rick and your team on the legacy business

team. thank you. and club deluxe, we're very excited that you're here before us today and excited to see you downpours. so with that, do we have a motion? >> i make a motion to approve all the legacy business -- >> sorry, i didn't see your name. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena, did you -- oh, okay. got it. >> should i -- >> go ahead, please, i'm sorry. >> i make a motion to approve all legacy business applicants. >> uh-huh. >> i'll second that motion. >> i'll call the roll. >> commissioner carter? >> aye. >> commissioner dickerson? >> yes. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> yes. >> president laguana? >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> yes. >> vice-president zouzounis is absent. motion passes. >> great. thank you, everybody.

>> congratulations. [applause] >> next item, please. >> item 3, board of supervisors file no. 220970. waiver of permit, license and business registration fees for certain small businesses. this is a discussion and action item. the the commission will discuss and may take action on an ordinance amending the program established in ordinance no. 143-21 waiving certain first-year permit, license, and business registration fees for certain businesses, retroactive to november 1, 2021. and we have anna, ledge slabtive aid to supervisor ronan. >> hello. >> welcome. >> good afternoon. first time here. i'm getting used to this echo. >> yeah. >> good afternoon commissioners, thank you for having me. my name

is anna herrera and legislative aide for hillary ronan and i'm here to talk about legislation that supervisor ronan introduced to expand the first free program. you heard about it last month when amanda freed and (indiscernible) from the treasurer and tax collector's office presented to you so hopefully this is a hopeful refresher. as you know, first year free is a program to support and reviefsh small san francisco businesses as the city recovers from the pandemic. the program waived the cost of initial registration fees, lie fees and first year permit -- license fees and first permit and the program enrolled 1700 businesses and waived over $375,000 in fees since it began last november. by all accounts, the program has been very popular and successful and supervisor ronan would like to expand the program so even more businesses can qualify. based on

feedback from the treasurer and tax collector's office along with the office of small business, the legislation will do the following, it will extend the qualifying enrollment period through june 30, 2023. it will also expand eligibility for small businesses from $2 million to five million and max gross receipts and it will eliminate the ground floor limitation so businesses such as food trucks can also qualify. the treasurer and tax collector's office estimate that over nine hundred businesses will benefit from the changes and we're excited that -- we're excited for this and overcoming the pandemic can be done in one year alone and we know several of you on the commission have been great supporters on the program from its inception and provided feedback and outreach when it first began so we're looking forward to your continued support and i'm here if you have anymore questions. >> great! commissioners, do you have any questions?

>> commissioner huie? >> thank you very much. thank you for being here today. i don't really have any questions necessary, but i wanted to just kind of share, i guess, recently there was a, i guess, an aspiring young business who had reached out and she has this, like, almond butter business she started during the pandemic and she was excited about it and she was hoping to kind of formalize her business even further and somebody, like, her -- she hasn't found a kitchen, like a commercial kitchen yet but she wants to become a small business and so, i was encouraging her to look into san francisco as the place to register her business because you know, she kind of has choices, right. she has choices to be able to register in south city or daly city or

other municipalities and but her hope is really to grow a business in san francisco. would her business be a first year free business in the expansion? i have a question. sorry. i had a story and then question. >> yes. because we're -- currently, it's slated to end this month, so this will expand it through june 2023, so i think as long as she registered within this period and files during this period, she would qualify. >> okay. even though she doesn't have a brick-and-mortar, i mean, she -- she's hoping to -- i mean her business is best catered for farmer's market or other types of collective selling probably since it's a product. >> yeah. i don't, oh, amanda is here. i was thinking, i wish amanda was here.

[laughter] >> hi. good evening, sorry. i came in just a little late. amanda freed from the treasurer's office. yes, with the proposed legislation, the definition is expanding so currently, it's very specifically for ground floor commercial use, which is really more like a retail or restaurant kind of defined. there is a proposal to expand that more generally, so something like a commercial kitchen as long as they are under the gross receipts threshold would likely qualify. i say likely because there's always specifics, so there could always be a reason and we're happy to go through some -- a specific case with a business but we just want to make sure they register within the time period is the most important thing and that they, you know, don't say i actually started in 2020. that would disqualify them. >> no, yeah. i think, you know, after having had this experience

speaking with her and, like, she seemed really excited about this program and i just kind of thought about how businesses of her scale and starting in this period, it would be like an ideal kind of situation to attract a business like that, you know, because waiving the first year fees would be really significant for somebody who is just kind of taking a leap and you know, she may not have a straight site presence but she's going to be in farmer's market so in your expansion, i was hoping to put that in your ear that there's a lot of business in general where in the past, san francisco has felt like a hurdle and i would love for them to be more just attracted to the idea of coming to san francisco and registering their business here, not to take away from any other municipality, but i do

love san francisco, so.... thank you. >> thanks, amanda. [laughter] >> are you done, okay. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> ana, thank you for the presentation. i want to thank commissioner ronan. this has been a dope program and i know sometimes the fee seems nominal but it helps a small business like you know what, it must be a team. it's a sign. if the fees are waived for retail and it doesn't have a big financial impact but it's a push, like, if the city is with me on this. and my organization especially restaurants or cafes, this is a huge financial burden is lifted. like those $20,000 that -- dpg and all the run around, that's significant. that's really significant and it has been

really the, just that little extra help, that little extra push that the city needs and needed at such a critical time and you know to me in my head, it's not even like we lost fees because for 1100 businesses, let's say half probably won't have started a business without this legislation and think about the sales tax revenue we generated and the jobs we have created and the vacant storefronts with very activated in the mission. this has been huge. this has been huge and i wish we could do more but this is just awesome and i want to say that. >> thank you, commissioner. >> thank you. commissioner carter? >> i just want to say how much i love this ordinance. this is great for marginalized community and for my nonprofit, sfgov black street. we're starting on

our third cohort and this will mean so much to very small businesses to not have to worry about those fees and we also should be doing more to make san francisco easier and welcoming for small businesses for people to want to do business in san francisco so that we can have more legacy businesses. you know, it also diversify what our small business, our small businesses look like in community, so i would love to see this extended. i would love to see, where is it, number three. where did it go? number three, yeah, to remove the requirement that the business be located on the ground floor. i would love to see that removed. but yeah. >> hopefully if this happens, it will be. >> this is really great, so thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. >> thank you. director tang. >> thank you. i really just

wanted to echo everyone's comments here and appreciate supervisor ronan office and you of course, ana, for spearheading this expansion and extension legislation. we probably, and i also want to thank my permit center team because this is the top question they ask of every business, have you heard of first year free and they check their eligibility and it's a life saver for many businesses and an incentive. we were thrilled when we heard supervisor ronan was going to introduce this to continue the program. we're grateful for your partnership and working on additional amendment to broaden the scope to be covered even more than the current program. thank you and thank you to amanda and the treasure and tax collector's office. >> thank you. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> i want to say amanda is god sent. you have been the only one

in your department that has the empathy to understand a small business so it's like you were the perfect person from your department to do this and i want to highlight this because if anyone has dealt with your department, they know. thank you. >> so i want to echo everybody's praise of supervisor ronan and the work that she did getting this legislation across the finish line. thank you as well for your work spearheading this on behalf of the supervisor and for coming down and speaking with us today. a big thank you to amanda at tax and treasury for all the work that you've been doing even while on vacation when i pestered you about stuff, so that is very much appreciated. you know, a couple things, first of all, the expansion is absolutely very much welcome. i also appreciate

your receptiveness to possible amendments. i don't think, i won't speak for my other commissioners but i think we're inclined to be supportive in this hearing, knowing those conversations are on going. but i will say, i think for benefit of the public some of whom might be listening in or review this later, the fees that get waived by this are typically not the lion share of the fees. it's -- there's some pretty significant fees that are not waive-able under this legislation. five million was originally budgeted. 12 but before it passed -- by the time it passed, i think it was at 5 when the budget was finally done, so you know,

spread across 1700 businesses that applied for this, it was an average of $220. the expansion of 900 would potentially, i mean, assuming that average held up which it might not, i mean, presumably businesses with larger gross receipts might have larger fees but if we extrapolated that same 220 across 900, we're talking about another 200,000. we're still under one million. if that five hundred or five million was the final budget, we actually have room to include or cover another 20,000 businesses if we could expand it to just all businesses that were applying for these permits. now, giant caveat, i recognize the fees aren't always going to average out to $220 but you know, i think that there is

a lot of room for expansion here. also, you know, i think you might have heard about this but i become aware of businesses, even some in of the supervisor's district that had started the permit process before the pandemic but weren't able to complete and then the pandemic interrupted their plans for lack ever a better word. interrupted all of our plans to be honest. so they put everything on hold and when they heard about this program, they got inspired and excited and thought that it would be a good time to pickup the (indiscernible) again. because they filed for the original permit prior to the dates on this time, that they weren't able to avail themselves of it. and even though the benefit is fairly modest when you're

looking at fees. every little helps and it's critical we get our economy back and going and encourage every business that we can to get back up and going because we are trailing the rest of the country in terms of new business openings. we're still, i think, operating at a net loss, that we're losing more businesses than we're actually gaining so i had a conversation with controller rosenfeld earlier today. he recommended, amanda, that i speak with you and that maybe we start to zero in on what the total universe of fees that we collect, how much does that total out to. like, over the past, i don't know, trailing over 12 months. and start to get our heads around the fact about whether we can

afford or potentially have room to expand it even more than what's contemplated. but again, just kind of putting this out there because i know there are some folks paying attention to this hear and i want them to know that they've been heard and that we're engaged with this process. i can't commend you and your office enough for your willingness to listen, supervisor ronan absolutely led on this issue. i have sung her praises from the high heavens, you know, as much as i can and will continue to do so because i think this is absolutely the right direction for us to go right now. given the current economic climate and everything that you all have done has been wonderful and appreciated and i hope i don't seem like i'm gifting like (indiscernible) towards the mouth but i do want to take advantage of the opportunity to try and do

everything we can to make it as invite and enticing as possible for new businesses to open because we're still struggling. >> yeah. i appreciate the feedback and we've been having conversations with director tang about additional amendments and we're working with city attorney's office on those so we're hoping to have additional language by next wednesday when it's budgeted and finances. >> there's a legal aspect and administrative aspect so you have to make it possible for the departments to execute on this stuff so i know it's -- you got zeroing in between those three things can be challenging but again, thank you very much for all the work that you're doing on this. is there anybody else? okay. is there any public comment? >> there's one caller on the line. >> okay. caller, please proceed. >> hello. my name is joey mucia

and i'm a small business owner here in the mission district. i run an arcade rental business. i started about ten years ago so it's inspiring to hear these legacy businesses talk about their 40-year anniversary and i'm just part of the way there but i have been renting arcade games out to the bars and restaurants for the last decade and the game plan has been to open my storefront and i've actually kind of been working on a permit since 2018 and met some red tape at the discretion of review and then the pandemic hit and people weren't allowed to go into bars and restaurants and touch arcade games so i got put on hold and then helped to serve on the business of merchant organization and i heard about this program and it got me fired up and i'm a big megaphone (indiscernible) so it's inspiring to see this support from the city of small

businesses. but then i went to look at the verbiage and found out and i applied and (indiscernible). i haven't gotten the building permit yet. i'm waiting on the invoice from the city but my rough calculation says just my permit fee might be in the six-figure range which is wild because it's just a tenant improvement inside of an existing building that's 2600 square feet, so just, you know, i'm really inspired by the first year fee program because kind of in this we're spot where i won't benefit from it so hopefully there's an amendment to accommodate my business and keep pushing this program forward, thank you so much. >> thank you. so, commissioners, i think it's a time for a motion. i'll move to approve the

ordinance amending the program with our banks and gratitude to supervisor ronan. >> motioned by president laguana and seconded by commissioner ortiz-cartagena. i'll read the roll. commissioner carter. >> dickerson? >> yes. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> yes >> president laguana? >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> yes. >> vice-president zouzounis is absent. motion passes. >> thank you, ana. >> thank you. >> i appreciate you coming and thank you amanda as well. next item, please >> item 4, draft rules and regulations of the legacy business historic preservation fund. this is a discussion and action item. the commission will consider the adoption of amendments to the rules and regulations of the legacy business historic preservation

fund grants to landlords. presenting today we have richard, legacy business program manager with the office of small businesses >> hi rick. >> hello. good evening commissioner laguana and commissioners and staff. my name is rick, business legislation -- sfgov tv, i have a presentation because i don't like the camera on me. >> grants to landlords. administrative code section 2a243c, grant to landlords is commonly known as the rent stabilization grant and the amendment was minor but it's important to ensure that rules are monitored regularly and improved when needed. article one section two of the rules of order of the san francisco small business commission requires a ten-day public notice for all

rules and regulations prior to action. and we did do a ten-day public notice hearing for the amendments. rule 11, notification of funding allocations to prior year qualified landlords. we are proposing to change the date from july 30th to august 1st, so the rule will read, on or before august 1st of each fiscal year, the office of small business should notify qualified landlords from the prior fiscal year of the grant -- (indiscernible) will notify the legacy business of the grant amount the landlord will receive. the annual city budget is passed by the board of supervisors by july 31st, not july 30th. and it makes more sense to reach out to the rent stabilization grant landlords and legacy business tenants the date after the budget is adopted which is why we're picking

august 1st. rule 12, receipt of grant payment. we're changing the world vendor to supplier, making grammatical changes and the vendor has to -- the rule will read, to be paid, grantees must be city suppliers and the legacy business program manager may assist application in completing registration requirements for becoming city suppliers as needed and when the city went live with the new financial system five years ago, vendors became suppliers and becoming a supplier is the only way a landlord can receive the rent stabilization grant. we don't always have a third-party. so getting setup as suppliers is mandatory. i would like to take this opportunity to say that the supplier setup process has proven to be difficult and time-consuming for many business owners which is not consistent with the city's equity goals and

they hire third-party so grantees can get paid easily. city departments go through time-consuming procurement and contract processes to hire third-party organizations, then spend city funds to pay those organization to get through the city's difficult process. sometimes that means less grant money available for small businesses and a simple solution is to have a financial system called grantee. in addition to the existing supplier and better categories and the third-party organizations we're paying are requesting w the from grantees so why can't the city department do it selves instead of using third-party to do that. it would be an easy fix in the financial system in my opinion so it might be perhaps the small business commission can take up this issue as an action item in a future meeting. rules regarding the historic preservation fund is subject to disapproval of the board of supervisors. the board

of supervisors can introduce an ordinance within 30 days of delivery to the clerk of the board and act on it within 90 days or the rule will go into effect. i'm available for questions, thank you very much. >> >> commissioners, any questions? is there any public comment? >> there is none. >> >> rick, i want to thank you for your work on this. it's a set of rule change that's will make the program he can kwbl -- more equitable and sufficient so i'm inclined to support this. i will make a motion to approve the regulations as drafted. >> second that. >> >> moved by president laguana and seconded by commissioner carter. commissioner carter? >> yes. >> commissioner dickerson?

>> yes. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> yes. >> president laguana? >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> yes. >> and vice-president zouzounis is absent. motion passes. >> thank you. >> thank you, rick. next item, please. >> item 5, resolution making findings to allow teleconference meetings under california government code section 54953e. this is a discussion and action item. >> commissioners, any comments or discussions on this resolution? seeing none. is there any public comment? >> there's none. >> seeing none. public comment is closed. i move to approve. >> >> i'll second. >> motion by president laguana and second by dickerson. commissioner carter? >> aye. >> commissioner dickerson? >> aye. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> yes. >> laguana? >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz? >> yes.

>> vice-president zouzounis is absent. motion passes. >> thank you. next item, please. >> item 6, approve of draft meeting minutes, this is a discussion and action item. the council will discuss and possibility take action of august 12, 2022, and august 22, 2022, draft meeting minutes. >> commissioners any questions or comments on the minutes? okay. seeing none, is there any public comment? >> >> yes. >> please proceed. >> hello. i'm mike patrelis and i want to address the draft minutes. as you know, your first attempt at the draft minutes from august 22nd, you totally omitted what the public had said. that was unacceptable. and

the buck needs to stop with the president, sharka luna. it's outrageous that the minutes or were prepared without our comments and i believe if i had not shown up at your next meeting, that you would have okayed the minutes where all you did was list the names of the public speakers without the content of what we were saying and of course, what we were addressing was the castro theater and effort by the people at another planet entertainment to rip out of the seats of the orchestra at the castro theater and my sign refers to saving the seats and i really don't think the minutes adequately reflected

the trauma of those of us who were here from the castro trying to save the seats. that's really outrageous that our trauma was not recognized and that the president said things like, oh, this is just a placeholder, don't get too concerned about the language of the draft. it really added to the trauma that was in the community at that .7 months after the announcement was made that a was taking over the castro theater. so, ooip i'm glad you have corrected the omission and have included the content of what we were saying. i want to address the minutes from the following meeting and it says that i read a written statement into the record. i

gave you a 150-word written statement. i did not read it into the record. and i do not see that statement here in your minutes as you are required to include it by city law. so i hope that you will take all of this into account and better preparing your minutes in the future. thank you. >> thank you. >> noted. just, i have the minutes and i have injure statement on the website -- i have your statement on the website from the meeting. >> okay. i'll make a motion to approve the minutes. >> second. >> motion by president laguana. seconded by commissioner carter. i'll read the roll. commissioner carter? >> yes. >> commissioner dickerson? >> yes. >> commissioner herbert is absent. commissioner huie? >> yes. >> president laguana? >> yes. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> yes. >> vice-president zouzounis is absent. motion passes.

>> great. thank you. next item, please. >> item 7. general public comment. this is a discussion item. >> is there any member of the public who would like to make comment s items not on the agenda -- comments on items not on the agenda. mr. patrelis. >> how i want to show one-page from the br-a- newspaper. should i do it here or the web? >> could you start the clock. hi, michael patrels again. i'm asking the sfgov tv to show the bay area newspaper and i'm going

to read the headline from their october 6th story. castro merchants group declines to endorse another planet theater plans. this appeared on the bar website and in the newspaper this week. back to me, please. sfgov tv, so, what we have here is proof that sharky laguna misspoke. he may have lied when he said the small businesses of the castro were in favor of another planet. they, the businesses did not endorse another planet letter calling for support of them ripping out the seats, so it really needs to be addressed by this commission.

what you were attempting to do on august 22nd on behalf of the small businesses in the castro was, as i've said, traumatic and as we see, did not have the support of the small businesses. on october 6th, the castro merchant's association rejected another planets proposal. if you guys had passed your resolution, it would have been at raul odds to put it mildly with -- real mildly what the businesspeople in the castro feel like. i'm asking luna to resign and he was appointed by the mayor to submitted an updated residential nation letter. why did he do that? it calls into question his independence from the mayor

and calls into question the integrity of how he has conducted himself as the president of this commission. it's really unacceptable that he did not disclose his submitting an updated letter -- un-dated resignation letter. regarding another planet, one of the things that was in sharky luna's resolution, he misspoke and said that another planet was having town hall meetings. they've held one. since then, they've not had any transparent communication with the community. they had a serious setback at the castro merchants association. they've also received a six-month continuance from the historic

preservation commission because they don't have community support. they don't have their act together and we in community are asking for the historic preservation commission and the planning commission to put the castro theater on their agenda now. we have waited in the castro, in the gay community since january to have the matter of apes plan abated here at city hall. right now, we are going to wait another six months, march of 2023 is when the historic planning commission will finally consider the matter. that's six months of more trauma, of more controversy, and as we had seen

since the beginning of this year where ape has not shown movies, there aren't going to be movies shown at the castro theater. we're not going to have folks coming there going to the bars, going to the small businesses and spending money. this is really unacceptable. [timer] so, if this commission wants to make a mends, i don't think sharky is going to give me the apology that we deserve but if you would like to make a mends for what has been wronged up to now, put it back on the agenda. ask the small businesses of the castro to come here and explain why they rejected apes proposal. finally, here's my new statement to be included in the record, 150 word statement to be include. thank you. >> thank you, michael. i'm note

for the record my last name is pronounced laguana. item or yeah, there's no action required. next item. >> item 8, director's report. this is a discussion item. >> good evening commissioners so a couple of updates. one regarding legacy business programs especially since we have legacy businesses here. early october the mayor signed an ordinance that we had worked on with the (indiscernible) peskin to waive the $50 application fee so you won't have to pay $50 to apply to be on the legacy business registry, so that was exciting news, so thank you rick and michelle for working on that in our office. the second update, just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of shared spaces program and somethings happening coming up soon, so this week starting this week, businesses are supposed to

start receiving the compliance advisory which many of you got a presentation on this and it was called a clean bill of health at that time but now it's a compliance advisory so it will go out in batches this week but we hoped this will go out to businesses earlier so they would understand what they needed to do to meet the design guidelines and then as a reminder, november 11th the deadline for businesses -- november 11th the deadline for businesses to submit an application to say they would like their shared spaces continuing on a permanent bases and there's concern and the compliance advisory going on so close to the november 1st deadline, so just as a reminder that march of 2023 is actually when businesses need to comply with the design guidelines for shared spaces. that was in the ordinance, however, november 11th to submit the application. so that you're paired with a case manager from

the sheriff's spaces team that will then -- shared spaces that will communicate with you and back and forth about your particular shared space and the need so i wanted to make sure that was on your radar because i do imagine once the notices will go out that we'll hear a lot of questions and concerns from the small business community. and then also, i wanted to update everyone that as we continue to make additions and improvements to our osd website, we added to our starter guide section, two new starter guys and one for popup events and another 1 for street activations so it was our attempt to try to get our minds around all the permits required for the two types of activities and so i want to thank kerry and michelle and our small business permitting team, morgan and rachel for their help on this and working with different departments on getting this information and it's a work in process certainly, so hopefully

people will benefit from these guides to get you started. on another note, i wanted to share that at the state level, we had been working on advocating for a continuation for local jurisdictions to receive $4 of every business registration in the state. and this previously it was $1 that we received and it went towards the disability access fund, so we are thrilled to share that the $4 which was the increase in fees, it was going to expired and we advocated for it to be continued in perpetuity and what this means for us, we'll offer our disability access grants for small businesses, currently offered up to $10,000 in reimbursement for businesses to make accessibility improvements and we'll continue that for as long as the funds are available so we're really thrilled about that given the huge need right

now for grant funding for accessibility. to update on the legislative and policy front and you heard about first year free and expansion legislation and we're continuing to work on that as an office and through some of the commissioners to continue working on those amendments and then also i wanted to point out there was legislation recently sponsored to address the rolling gates that are on storefronts existing rolling gates. that may not meet planning code transparency requirements and those potentially would be grandfathered in, so i know there's been some interest on that front, whether grandfathering or moving forward but this particular legislation addresses those that's in existence already. those are my updates and happy to answer any questions. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> thank you, director for such

an efficient report but those, you know the popup guides, amazing and i want to give kudos for the street vendor things. that's what we use on the ground. that was so sufficient. i was in a meeting and somebody said look what dpw did. i said uh-huh, their was kerry from the office of -- this was kerry from the office of small businesses and it creates good content and we do tik tok and blast them and it's commonsense and people understand them. thank you. keep them coming because you're simplifying and demystifying the complexity of doing business in san francisco. [whispering] [laughter] >> thank you so much and again, great shout-out to kerry, our policy analyst to digest complicated information across

agencies and uncover the mystery of doing business in san francisco. >> commissioner carter? >> following a new business that opened on third in the bay view, we have talio coffee and tea open for business at 4732 third street and also cafe envious that's open for breakfast at 9:00 a.m. the old monte carlo. >> great, thank you. >> commissioner huie? >> yes, thank you. i was really excited to see the e-mail in my inbox about the popup guide and things like that, so straight activations have been my joy and my pain this year as we have been producing artwork sf and you know, my goal for that and

our organization goal for that has been help communities build capacity create street activation on their own and for street activations to be of different scale and sizes, right. because i think it's one thing to produce a big music festival and another to have a block party and they are all super important right now and i think what we have learned in the past year of putting these things together is one, it requires a tremendous amount of resources in terms of volunteer hours and even financial resources. so, you know, all of that information, i've kind of put together and i'm happy to share and continue to share. the other thing that i've learned is that people are so hungry for more of these, so we just finished 1 on clement street, and outer sunset. were you in outer sunset. i heard from many people you were there.

[laughter] and you know, i think every politician who came to stage that day was very excited to see more of this and to see more, six like, more frequency, more neighborhoods and everything so hopefully this guide will help not just this program but this type of activity to really scale. we have been getting from request from people who are neighbors and groups of neighborhoods who want to see their small businesses grow and thrive and so some of the best practices that we've seen is really to encourage people to have a meal in the restaurants that are nearby. simple things and you know, it actually really does help, so thank you very much for putting this into a format that can be shared with so many different groups and you know, then i don't have to go to 20 meetings each month to talk

about these things. we can have a starting block for this. so thank you very much. >> great. it looks like all questions are done. is there any public comment? >> there's none. >> okay. seeing none. public comment is closed. no action items here, so i guess next item. >> item 9, commissioner discussion and new business. this is a discussion item. >> great. commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> director, i had a question. i know the city -- citywide we have implemented equity in every department, our department as an equity subcommittee, commissioner carter and myself, we serve on the equity council for planning and what -- i just want to know, like, if we get updates from other department s

their equity initiatives as it pertains to small businesses, planning is just like -- in our eyes, it's leading the way and typically historically in community, planning has been one of our biggest them says for a lack of a better word and they are changing the culture from the director down and it's excite and refreshing and they are outlining planners to underserved communities and if we had an exan indicter or land use attorneys so it's -- it's nice and refreshing but what about our other departments, sf mta, the tax collector's office, dph. i'm really concerned or curious. i don't know yet, right. i would like to see if our office can reach out to these departments and just see and i know we're all at capacity

so i'm not trying to, you know, put it in that or frame it that way but i want to see what's going on. >> and if i may respond, perhaps this is also worth a conversation with the office of racial equity which is overseeing all department in our racial equity plans. if it's worth a conversation with them outside this meeting or here as well, wherever i think suits your interest level, so just want to put that out there. certainly that's what that office was created for. we are, obviously happy to have these kind of conversations and i think we were just kind of half joking about how kerry put together all this information, demystifying information. that is truly a part of being equitable in our services. if people can't understand it and get passed maybe english is not their native language, we have

to make things simple and easy to understand, so certainly, how should i say it, we understand that even if we don't see it coming from certain departments that our job then is to help play that role too. >> if i could encourage here. the more the merrier, the more times they come here. this should be an on going -- i feel our department, may i have a bias but i think we're leading wait, demystifying information. i know kerry personally, you fought to translate information around the street vendor legislation, so like things like that. i want to hold us accountable obviously because that's our purview by other departments because we intermingle and intertwine and like you said, director tang, most businesses are multilingual and what are you doing for us

and i want to hear it here and hold people accountable on the record. >> thank you. commissioner huie? >> just jumping off of that for a second. i also want to say that even just simplifying things in general, even if it's not a language barrier, i mean, i feel like there's so much jargon for people to understand that it is intimidating and like most people i don't think speak the same language spoken at city hall and i think, you know, our commission really does have kind of a unique place where we kind of operate in both spheres and so i find myself opt times kind of translating, okay, this is what is happening and, like, bringing that forth into the community and so, i think if we could, you know, kind of have

some mechanism to run it by people and say does this make sense and does it seem readable or understandable to you, i think it would be really -- it would make a world of difference. i do think that what we have is readable and for us to continue on that path. and -- >> are you saying our office is the best in the city? [laughter] that's what i understand. >> we're not.... not saying that. >> i'm definitely saying that. [laughter] speaking of our office, one of the things i was curious about because i have gotten a lot the inquiries about this and i kind of bring it up a lot in conversation, i'm curious to see how we can support the vacancy mitigation work that our office is doing? i would love to help

support that, understand where there might be areas that we or our networks could really help with that and is there a way to amplify the work that they do. and also wanted to get everybody up-to-date on the survey that the survey so far has been super successful, i think, in my mind. i think kerry, we have maybe like 700 plus respondents so far and pretty wide range of people and i'd also like to note that kerry has been (indiscernible). she probably called 700 and something businesses, so thank you very much for your outreach and you know, your persuasion, your gift of -- i'm excited the survey will close october 17th and after that, the team at san

francisco state and our team here will kind of go through dissecting that information and we'll have some really nice things, so i think also whatever information is kind of interest to you, feel free to bring that forth because i think we're just going to have a lot of stuff. from last time you can look at it one thousand different ways. >> yeah. i had a reporter asking me about that survey and i said it takes a while to digest because all the different ways you can cross tab the data is, you know, can really lead you in different directions. you know, commissioner huie, you and i were talking over the week about this but for the rest of the commission, we are seeking more outreach and involvement from the latino community, from the african-american community. we can use more native asian speakers. pretty much just

everybody that is not an english speaker is highly encouraged and english speakers are also encouraged but that's not where we're weak right now. maybe weak is a strong word but it's not as an big area of opportunity in terms of survey outreach. over the weekend, i reached out to several supervisors -- solidify their engagement. i echoed that call, i think would be very welcome. we have about a week or so, less than a week now, six-days until we're closing the survey. i think this last time around, as far as i know, the biggest survey of small businesses that has been done in san francisco, many attempts but ours was the biggest. their is

going to be bigger than -- this is going to be bigger than that so i have a stretch goal of, can we get it up to one thousand businesses which i think would be pretty significant. and i think we can do it if we just do one last big push, so i want to encourage everybody to help get the word out and because i think that this can -- this information is used by legislators and aides for coming up with ideas, last time around it has been a talking point for many bids ever legislation that came out of this survey and i want to thank commissioner huie for her leadership on this and doing such an incredible job of getting it up and going again and steering it and working with professor chateri and her team and creating that partnership to begin with. i think it has been

a real benefit to the small business community, reflects well on this commission of which i'm very proud to be a member, so thank you. commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> i was going to bring up something else but i want to tell you commissioners, thank you -- the last survey, that data was just, i have never seen data like that. i'm a data freak so that was really helpful. kerry has brought it to our attention about the latino community and we have brought it up twice in the latin -- latino task force and we did a tik tok. >> i want to see that tik tok. >> we're going to try and hit the floor because we need that data because if it doesn't represent us, then we're excluded from the data, so i want to make sure the population i represent is in that because it's a dope survey and when we have all the data, seriously, it

guides policy and legislation. with that i was going to say, i don't know if dr. (indiscernible) and maybe this is to director, this is changing from the survey but i know we have teddy, but he's an economicist but maybe reaching out to uc berkeley, business school of house, there's latino and african economist. i brought it up and bringing the (indiscernible) to speak here. she's local. why not. well, if you're saying the millions and millions of viewers, make sure your federal reserve comes to the small business of office to speak. seriously. our communities -- it's a different -- our inflation rates are higher than whatever the inflation are. our unemployment is always higher historically. and in our small businesses, we don't have the same access to

resources, capital, et cetera. that would be great to have a different kind of presentation and you know i love ted. when he speaks, that's truth and i love it but we need something for our communities. >> agreed. director tang? >> i was actually going to respond to commissioner huie's question about how the commission can support work in commercial, addressing commercial vacancies. so i neglected to mention we are in the process of hiring a commercial vacancy specialist that would be housed within our office. we've never quite had that position and i don't know that owd has a specialized dedicated position on -- on this topic so we're excited about it. the first step get the data points that's currently available which are not comprehensive on their own and really consolidating that and creating a much more

comprehensive database so we can do better match making when entrepreneurs want to open up in a vacant space. we can look at what is the business proposed use and what is on our list of vacancies and the zoning already allows for say someone who wants to open a restaurant and maybe there's already restaurant equipment there and we don't need to make that applicant or that business owner go through all these different hoops in order to get the business that they desire. so that's just one example of how we hope to use that data so i'll keep you posted once we are able to hire this position and start creating some of the tools that will help us with better feeling commercial vacancies in the city. >> great. commissioner huie? >> just speaking back to a possible guest speaker. do you remember, i attended that virtual conference or online presentation from, i think it was researchers in berkeley, right, where they did the, i

think it was asset funders. it might have been and then i think urban displacement project. they did a whole data survey on businesses owned by bi-pock owners and it's not ready available. this information is hard for them to find and so they kind of did almost like a heat map type of thing and they came out with all sorts of different types of information from that. i can find that, i know kerry, you have the presentation. we can maybe watch it again and see if there might be some things we can bring forth to this commission and see if they might have, you know, proceeded to do more research in that direction since then because that would be really helpful. >> definitely. i remember that helpful. just again to forecast because you know, as 2023 comes

in, you know, (indiscernible) indicators, there's a lot of data and a lot of stuff out there but not how it pertains to our community. usually we get stuff reactive after the fact but i want to show economic indicators before then. i know the doctor and her network and she's dope and maybe i'm asking too much. >> i think it's good to be proactive and i don't -- because if you start looking at economic kind of trending and for the general public kind of thing, small businesses are going to reflect the same kind of thing. i think it will be more polarized and we see that in our small business community now, so i think the more support, the more that we can kind of understand. because it's also nuance too, i think. things will not, i don't see that a blanket

solution as everything is the way to go. so if we can tease out the understanding it's to our benefit, i think. >> great. anybody else? so, i want to bring up something to everybody's attention. all out sf dot com. it's next week, 16th through the 23rd. on day two, we are having small business flash mobs. so, organizing flash mobs to go to small businesses and just buy the heck out of everything in there. super fun. super cool. you can sign up for it at all out sf dot com. and there's like an event bright thing and one in every district and there's captains and commissioner huie, are you a

captain? i'm going to be an a commodore. >> well, i don't know who ranks higher but -- [laughter] >> i like the sound of commodore. it was probably ranked lower but -- [laughter] one other thing. i don't have tik tok but i have instagram reel, so i thought for the survey, we'll start it right now. i'm at the small business commission meeting here with my fellow commissioners and director tang and secretary byrne bock whose name i garble. i want to tell everybody about the small business survey which we have over 700 responses but we need more, particularly from non-english speakers so if you're saying this instagram reel, we need you. >> (indiscernible).

>> i'll figure out how to do that later. [laughter] so, okay. >> i want to plug clement street since you're talking about all out. i'm going to be on flag mob and a captain. we'll be starting at golden hour and then we'll be moving to park life and then to green apple and having drinks afterwards at high treason. that soundses fun. i don't know where sharky's is going to be. >> i think i'm going to take the recommendation to resign. [laughter] and join your -- >> join my flash mob on climate street. >> i like the drinks in particular and green apple. i can't go into a notebook store without walking out significantly poor. okay.

anybody else? commissioner ortiz-cartagena? >> i would like to request if possible if we can make memorandum for the victor hernandez who park passed a -- who passed away. >> brother of the mayor of the mission. i'll let you make that closing note. do we have public comment on the commissioner comments? >> we do not. >> okay. that item is closed. next item, please. >> item 10, adjournment. sfgovt tv, please show the office of small business slides. >> we'll end with the reminder that the small business commission is the public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies effect 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, continue to reach out to the office of small business and we will close today with commissioner ortiz-cartagena comment. >> this is for rual hernandez. you'll always be missed. thank you. >> thank you. meeting is adjourned.

>> i am iris long. we are a family business that started in san francisco chinatown by my parents who started the business in the mid 1980s. today we follow the same footsteps of my parents. we source the teas by the harvest season and style of crafting and the specific variety. we specialize in premium tea. today i still visit many of the farms we work with multigenerational farms that produce premium teas with its own natural flavors. it is very much like grapes for wine. what we do is more specialized, but it is more natural. growing up in san francisco i used to come and help my parents

after school whether in middle school or high school and throughout college. i went to san francisco state university. i did stay home and i helped my parents work throughout the summers to learn what it is that makes our community so special. after graduating i worked for an investment bank in hong kong for a few years before returning when my dad said he was retiring. he passed away a few years ago. after taking over the business we made this a little more accessible for visitors as well as residents of san francisco to visit. many of our teas were traditionally labeled only in chinese for the older generation. today of our tea drinkkers are

quite young. it is easy to look on the website to view all of our products and fun to come in and look at the different varieties. they are able to explore what we source, premium teas from the providence and the delicious flavors. san francisco is a beautiful city to me as well as many of the residents and businesses here in chinatown. it is great for tourists to visit apsee how our community thrived through the years. this retail location is open daily. we have minimal hours because of our small team during covid. we do welcome visitors to come in and browse through our products. also, visit us online. we have minimal hours. it is nice to set up viewings of

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files

of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families together and if we can bring that family to your business, you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e community. >> we have a ten-person limb

elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting. >> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat.

it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful murals. >> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local people will spend their money as well. i hope people shop locally. [ ♪♪♪ ]

>> it's great to see everyone kind of get together and prove, that you know, building our culture is something that can be reckoned with. >> i am desi, chair of economic development for soma filipinos.

so that -- [ inaudible ] know that soma filipino exists, and it's also our economic platform, so we can start to build filipino businesses so we can start to build the cultural district. >> i studied the bok chase choy heritage, and i discovered this awesome bok choy. working at i-market is amazing. you've got all these amazing people coming out here to share one culture. >> when i heard that there was a market with, like, a lot of

filipino food, it was like oh, wow, that's the closest thing i've got to home, so, like, i'm going to try everything. >> fried rice, and wings, and three different cliefz sliders. i haven't tried the adobe yet, but just smelling it yet brings back home and a ton of memories. >> the binca is made out of different ingredients, including cheese. but here, we put a twist on it. why not have nutella, rocky road, we have blue berry. we're not just limiting it to just the classic with salted egg and cheese.

>> we try to cook food that you don't normally find from filipino food vendors, like the lichon, for example. it's something that it took years to come up with, to perfect, to get the skin just right, the flavor, and it's one of our most popular dishes, and people love it. this, it's kind of me trying to chase a dream that i had for a long time. when i got tired of the corporate world, i decided that i wanted to give it a try and see if people would actually like our food. i think it's a wonderful opportunity for the filipino culture to shine. everybody keeps saying filipino food is the next big thing. i think it's already big, and to have all of us here together, it's just -- it just blows my mind sometimes that

there's so many of us bringing -- bringing filipino food to the city finally. >> i'm alex, the owner of the lumpia company. the food that i create is basically the filipino-american experience. i wasn't a chef to start with, but i literally love lumpia, but my food is my favorite foods i like to eat, put into my favorite filipino foods, put together. it's not based off of recipes i learned from my mom. maybe i learned the rolling technique from my mom, but the different things that i put in are just the different things that i like, and i like to think that i have good taste. well, the very first lumpia that i came out with that really build the lumpia -- it wasn't the poerk and shrimp

shanghai, but my favorite thing after partying is that bakon cheese burger lumpia. there was a time in our generation where we didn't have our own place, our own feed to eat. before, i used to promote filipino gatherings to share the love. now, i'm taking the most exciting filipino appetizer and sharing it with other filipinos. >> it can happen in the san francisco mint, it can happen in a park, it can happen in a

street park, it can happen in a tech campus. it's basically where we bring the hardware, the culture, the operating system. >> so right now, i'm eating something that brings me back to every filipino party from my childhood. it's really cool to be part of the community and reconnect with the neighborhood. >> one of our largest challenges in creating this cultural district when we compare ourselves to chinatown, japantown or little saigon, there's little communities there that act as place makers. when you enter into little philippines, you're like where are the businesses, and that's one of the challenges we're trying to solve.

>> undercover love wouldn't be possible without the help of the mayor and all of our community partnerships out there. it costs approximately $60,000 for every event.

undiscovered is a great tool for the cultural district to bring awareness by bringing the best parts of our culture which is food, music, the arts and being ativism all under one roof, and by seeing it all in this way, what it allows san franciscans to see is the dynamics of the filipino-american culture. i think in san francisco, we've kind of lost track of one of our values that makes san francisco unique with just empathy, love, of being acceptable of different people, the out liers, the crazy ones. we've become so focused onic maing money that we forgot about those that make our city and community unique. when people come to discover, i want them to rediscover the magic of what diversity and

empathy can create. when you're positive and committed to using that energy, >> what i will bring up my lovely cohost and i realized we went to the same high school in sacred heart the lovely of the bay area! >> i love that you did an amazing job after all the year its is a pleasure we never cohost third degree event. i'm thrilled to be here with you yoch excited, this is the first