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Pursuant to Charter Sections 2.103 and 3.100(7), and Administrative Code, Section 2.11, the Mayor shall answer the following eligible questions submitted from Supervisors representing Districts 3 and 11. The Mayor may address the Board initially for up to five minutes. Discussion shall not exceed five minutes per Supervisor.
1. Mr. Mayor, in your March appearance before the Board, I asked you about Proposition I, passed by voters in November 2007 to create an Office of Small Business that supports small businesses in complying with the laws administered by 14 City departments. Prop I specifically stated that within four months of the Office's opening, the Office "shall issue a report that analyzes the existing laws, regulations, roles, procedures and responsibilities of all City departments that impact small businesses and make recommendations regarding the streamlining and consolidation of such departmental functions under the Office of Small Business."
You committed that this report would be completed by June of this year. As of today, no report has been published and no overall recommendations have been made to streamline and consolidate the functions of the 14 different City departments from which 80,000 small businesses seek approvals to do business.
Mr. Mayor, I look forward to continuing to work with your administration on a wide variety of efforts to assist small businesses. Will you re-commit to carrying out this mandate of Prop I, and when will this report be forthcoming? (Supervisor Chiu, District 3)
2. I recently asked the public to suggest questions to ask you, and I received a number of responses through Facebook and Twitter. Several of them were concerned about diversity in our local economy, such as the following from local comedian, Nato Green:
“What does the Mayor propose to promote a diversified economy in San Francisco, so the City is not simply high paid high finance or tech jobs and their low wage servants? Also will the Mayor crash the real estate market to make San Francisco affordable again?”
To elaborate on this, the 2010 census showed the largest population growths in the City were in very low income households and upper income households. In this year’s “San Francisco Economic Strategy Update: Phase 1 Findings,” the City’s Chief Economist wrote that “the industries that create a more balanced distribution of job opportunities are, generally, in the local-serving sector of the economy, which has largely declined in recent years.”
What is your plan to create living wage jobs in local-serving industries to prevent the City’s middle and working classes from being displaced by people moving to the City for new upper income jobs in the creative (including high tech), financial, and professional service industries?
(And unlike Mr. Green’s facetious remarks, I would prefer options that do not include crashing the real estate market.) (Supervisor Avalos, District 11)
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