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Mayor Lee updates Board on small‑business digital tools, pledges more analysis on permitting consolidation
Summary
Mayor Edwin Lee told the Board of Supervisors his administration is continuing work required by Proposition I and highlighted near‑term tools (Enterprise Zone web app, Smart PDF, Pay online) and a mapping effort toward an online business permit portal; he said the comprehensive Prop I report would take additional time to ensure usefulness.
Mayor Edwin M. Lee returned to the Board chamber for his final 2012 "question time," providing an update on the city’s work to implement Proposition I (an office of small business) and on broader efforts to diversify and support local jobs.
Supervisor David Ch u opened by noting the Proposition I requirement that the new small business office produce a comprehensive report within four months analyzing the permitting and regulatory landscape across city departments. The mayor acknowledged the deadline had slipped but said work was underway and emphasized tangible near‑term digital improvements already launched.
Mayor Lee described a suite of steps his administration has taken to reduce friction for small businesses: an Enterprise Zone web application that replaces a paper process for business tax credits; expanded use of a Smart PDF tool to let businesses complete forms online; departments such as Tax and Treasurer and the Entertainment Commission accepting online payments; and the mayor’s request that permitting departments produce an extensive mapping of permits and programs to support an online business permit portal. "The mapping and analysis of permitting data from the departments has a target completion date of the end of this fiscal year," Lee said. He added the city will pilot a base permitting tool—“Lisonbee 123 SF”—as a first step toward a more comprehensive online portal.
On the parallel topic of economic diversification and job creation, Mayor Lee noted the city’s job growth since 2008 and cited numbers for the technology sector (about 1,700 companies employing roughly 39,000 workers) and TechSF workforce training plans, which he said aim to train and place 2,500 San Franciscans in technology jobs over five years. He also praised voters’ recent approval of business tax reform (Proposition E) and celebrated the November passage of the Housing Trust Fund, which he said commits approximately $1.2 billion over 30 years to affordable housing programs to preserve a workforce housing stock.
Supervisor Norman Yee (District 11) pressed the mayor on strategies to grow living‑wage jobs in local‑serving industries; Mayor Lee pointed to major development projects (Treasure Island, Park Merced, CPMC rebuild, a proposed arena) and programs such as SFMADE for manufacturing and TechSF for tech hiring as parts of a broader approach.
Lee closed by asking for continued Board collaboration on executing the permitting mapping and the business portal, and by promising a fuller Prop I report once the mapping and departmental inventory are complete. "A plan is less important than action," the mayor said, noting that several online tools are already in operation.
