CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
SMALL BUSINESS COMMISSION
City Hall, Room 400
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place San Francisco, CA 94102
MEETING MINUTES
Monday, October 29, 2007 5:30 PM
Small Business Commissioners:
Michael O'Connor, President
Jordanna Thigpen, Vice President
Florence Alberts, David Chiu, Gus Murad, Richard Ventura
Executive Director – Agnes Briones Ubalde
Commission Secretary – Martha Yañez
Members Absent: Commissioner Ventura (excused)
Call to order:
Item 1 - ROLL CALL
The Small Business Commission special meeting on Monday, October 29, 2007 was called to order at 5:36PM.
Item 2 – APPROVAL OF THE SEPTEMBER 10, 2007 MEETING MINUTES
Commissioners pointed out typos on the minutes and suggested edits to the minutes.
Motion to approve September 10, 2007 minutes pending edits (Commissioner Alberts)
Second: Commissioner Thigpen
Ayes: All
Item 3- GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
There was no public comment at this time.
Item 4 – COMMISSIONER AND STAFF REPORTS
The upcoming Small Business Procurement Workshop scheduled for Monday, November 13th from 4-8PM in City Hall was announced and it was reported that the Commission had received over 40 RSVP's to date. Commissioners discussed the city's contracting process and concerns about the lack of contracts awarded to San Francisco small businesses were raised and the Commission discussed inviting representatives from key city departments to address this issue. Commission staff was asked to issue a save the date for tentative meetings of the Commission as soon as a date is likely due to concerns expressed by the community about the short notice given for the current meeting. The Commission discussed initiating some environmental issues in the near future and expects to work more closely with Department of the Environment. A status update on the Mayor's Executive Directive requesting departments to assign a liaison to the Commission was requested, and staff reported that 35% of departments had responded, and said full compliance is expected by the date of the Procurement Workshop.
Item 5 –PRESENTATION ON THE INDEPENDENT LIVING RESOURCE CENTER (ILRC)
Lana Nieves of the Independent Living Resource Center (ILRC) presented to the Commission the ILRC's latest campaign. The campaign is aimed at encouraging merchants to be more user friendly. It was reported that the issue came about due to a lack of accessibility in the small business community and a number of related lawsuits that ensued as a result. The goal of the campaign is to deal with the issue not in an adversary way, but in a positive way. The campaign is an attempt to educate business owners about accessibility and how lack thereof directly affects their bottom line. The campaign includes postcards to be mailed out depicting a woman in a wheelchair outside of a second story business not able to get in. ILRC sought the support and an endorsement from the Commission for this campaign.
Motion: Small Business Commission to endorse the ILRC campaign as presented (Commissioner Thigpen)
Second: Commissioner Chiu seconded.
Ayes: All
Item 6- PRESENTATION ON MEANINGFUL PAYROLL TAX REFORM
There was a presentation by the Tax Collector David Augustine, and Ted Egan of the Controller's Office on the city's tax system, specifically addressing the Commissions desire to look into a possible gross receipts tax structure as opposed to the current payroll tax. The Tax Collector's office reported that they added a gross receipts question to the business registration renewal form for 2006 tax bills. The idea was to get some much needed data in hopes of being able to determine next steps. The responses they received exceeded economic predicators and they decided to drill down further. For further analysis they eliminated taxpayers who reported over $5 million in gross receipts per employee and then calculated gross receipts/employees factors for each industry. The factors were applied to known employee totals for each industry, obtaining total gross receipts estimates for each. Conclusions and next steps were discussed and explained and it was suggested that any tax system analysis should take into account revenue generation, and also fairness, simplicity, neutrality, administerability, progressivity, incidence, effect on economic growth, and minimization of noncompliance. The process for such analysis should include stakeholders from community, business, and City. Analysis should also examine other alternative to payroll tax, including modification of payroll tax, local income tax, and others. The scope of work and time constraints for any consultant analysis should be clearly defined and agreed upon before work commences. Public comment was taken and included comments in support of the idea to move forward and issue an RFP to hire a consultant to do further analysis and make recommendations. These comments were taken from Jennifer Matz of the Mayor's Office, and Julian Davis of the Revenue Coalition. Nathan Naman of the Committee on Jobs and Rob Black of the San Francisco Chamber both expressed their interest in the issue, stating it is nothing to take lightly and suggested forming a group of stakeholders to discuss and come up with the scope of the RFP before issuing it so that it is equitable for all. After public comment the Commission discussed creating a stakeholder taskforce to come up with a scope of work for a consultant to further look into the possibility of reforming the city's tax structure.
Motion: Direct staff to develop criteria for the creation of a taskforce, and to ask the Tax Collector, the Controller and the Mayor's Office to work together to propose the contours of an RFP (Commissioner Chiu)
Second: Commissioner Thigpen
Ayes: All
Item 7- EMPLOYEE COMMUTER BENEFITS PRESENTATION
Supervisor Mirkarimi presented his proposed employee commuter benefits legislation to the commission. The intent of the legislation is to require San Francisco employers with 10 or more employees either to offer their employees (1) the option to use pretax wages to purchase IRS qualifying transit passes or vanpools charges, (2) employer supplied transit passes or vanpools charges at least equal to the value of a monthly MUNI fast pass, or (3) employer supplied vanpools or buses. It was said that there is some interest in the community to amend the legislation to raise the number of employees an employer must have to be required to provide the benefit, as well as to amend the timing of it. It is intended to encourage commuters to use public transit by lowering the after-tax costs of transit passes, lowering the payroll taxes for employers and removing an obstacle to commuters who fear being stranded in the City without access to private cars in case of family illness or other unexpected event. Questions were raised about the requiring non profits and city agencies to comply, and it was reported that the city currently provides employer commuter benefits, which seem to work quite well. It was not determined if the legislation would apply to non profits at the time. Public comment was taken and it was suggested that employers could potentially benefit from this cost savings program if enough employees took advantage of it. After some additional discussion and public comment from Rob Black of the Chamber of Commerce who expressed support for the legislation, the Commission unanimously approved the legislation.
Motion: Approve the proposed Employee Commuter Benefits legislation (Commissioner Thigpen)
Second: Commissioner Chiu
Ayes: All
Item 8- CENTRALIZATION OF WORKFORCE EFFORTS
Supervisor Mirkarimi presented his proposed workforce legislation which would centralize the city's workforce efforts under the Department of Economic and Workforce Development. It was said that the city's workforce dollars are currently spread out amongst 11 agencies, creating a disconnect and thus a need to reorganize. Under the leadership of the Mayor's Office new Workforce Development Director, Rhonda Simmons, these agencies will continue to administer workforce programs, but they will now be accountable and will be required to work more cooperatively. For example, First Source, one of many workforce programs has been unmanaged since the retirement of the program manager over two years ago. It was said that the entire system has been out of focus and the legislation is an attempt to centralize the efforts and create economic empowerment in doing so. Discussions of the benefit of centralization ensued, including keeping workforce in San Francisco. Questions and comments from both the Commission and the public were taken, including comments from Mr. Rob Black of the Chamber of Commerce who expressed the Chambers support for the legislation, including the complimentary piece to the legislation. After public comment and more discussion it was suggested that the legislation include language on the future of workforce in the city.
Motion: Support proposed legislation to centralize workforce efforts under the Department of Economic and Workforce Development with a friendly amendment to include language to suggest the future of workforce. (Commissioner Chiu)
Second: Commissioner Thigpen
Ayes: All
Item 9 - PRESENTATION AND UPDATE ON THE SAN FRANCISCO ENTERPRISE ZONE (EZ)
The director of the Commission, Agnes Briones Ublade informed the Commission and the viewing public about the city's Enterprise Zone (EZ), stating that there are various tax credits for businesses if they locate in the enterprise zone. She presented a map of the EZ as well as an informational sheet on the EZ and provided a number in case anyone had additional questions or needed more information.
Item 10 – NEW BUSINESS
The Commission discussed tentative dates for the November meeting since the regular meeting date fell on the Veterans Day holiday. They discussed scheduling a status update on the Department of Public Works Construction Contracts Improvement HRC Subcommittee, and introducing a resolution for commercial purchase of hybrid vehicles.
Item 11 – GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
Janet Clyde, owner of Vesuvio Café in North Beach asked the Commission about a proposed special hearing on the Health Care Security Ordinance. She said the ordinance is of grave importance to her business once they hit 19 employees, and said she wondered if the Commission would be discussing things about the ordinance that were not fully vetted prior to it being placed on the ballot, and said if so, she would like to participate in any such discussion.
Item 12 - ADJOURNMENT
Motion: To adjourn meeting (Commissioner Chiu)
Second: Commissioner Thigpen.
Ayes: All
The meeting was adjourned at 8:01PM.
