Businesses — large and small — are the backbone of our city. Unfortunately, too many are struggling, closing, or relocating. This is a major threat to our local economy and our city budget.

Owners and employees find themselves responding to drug overdoses, mental health crises, and crime, on top of navigating an opaque and inconsistent regulatory system, and a slow pandemic recovery. This has contributed to record-high vacancy rates.

If city leadership does not address the crisis of safety, the city cannot expect business to return.

I have created an ACTion Plan to support small businesses and downtown revitalization:

• A – Addressing public safety
  • Fully staff the Police and Sheriff’s Departments
  • Use technology to keep drug dealers out of current hot spots
  • Build more treatment beds
• C – Certainty in dealing with City Hall
  • Streamline permitting and inspection processes
  • Establish maximum permit review times
  • Eliminate business license fees and lower permit fees for new and existing small businesses
  • Explore rezoning certain areas to allow for more live music permits
• T – Transforming downtown
  • Create smart investments and a vision for economic recovery that builds on the talent of our local small businesses
  • Form the “Mayor’s Competitiveness Council”
  • Appoint a deputy level position to oversee downtown’s recovery
  • Remove bureaucratic red tape and roadblocks
  • Reimagine spaces and collaborate with entrepreneurs
  • Consolidate City Hall’s available tools and resources

We know this type of change is possible. Yet it will never come from City Hall insiders, who were trained by the system to add layers of bureaucracy and accept a corrupt permitting process. City leadership must do its part before it’s too late. Together, we will start the San Francisco comeback.