Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20171208

Into, we havent yet engaged the Mayors Office. The timing is perfect introducing the topic and report in draft form should be in the official form by the end of the year, which is coming right up. But we would look to you supervisor and other members of this board on how we can best communicate to the Mayors Office to include in his initiatives this element. I know the need is so great but you have identified where there are other needs and we think it should be included as well. What is the department of Public Health Patch Program . Can someone explain that to me . Im not an expert but ill take a stab. For patients in our system of care we have Transitions Division to move from acute to lower levels of care. As part of the patient flow, some patients are placed in Residential Care facilities in the county and out of county. And so many of the patients do receive Social Security income benefit. On top of that, they provide an additional subsidy to have access to facilities. I thought it was the reimbursement to some of the rcfes that make up for the revenues they need to operate since ssi its an additional payment on top of an ssi benefit. So that Certain Services can be provided for certain populations. Has that been going up in recent years or i dont have the data but i will follow up. Any other questions . Anybody have remarks . And wrap it up. Supervisor fewer and i are looking at each other and feeling a little depressed as i know many of you are and its hard to find the optimism when these problems are so deeply rooted in a very unjust system we live in in the united states. We are not a system that thinks about care over profit. I just want to thank all who came out, to the worker who came out and spoke about her care for her patients i want to thank you so much and wish we could get some of that passion and attitude into some of the politicians in washington who are currently cutting the taxes that allow us to provide that gap funding and to come up with solutions at the local level for these problems. Its just sitting here as a local politicians knowing the limits on our budget and how every single day as the feds pull away from caring for the majority of us in cities and towns across the country to benefit rich friends and corporations that fund their campaign, it feels helpless. Hearing you gives us more strength to keep fighting and speaking truth and keep telling the stories that make absolutely no sense. We know how to fix these problems. Its called single payer healthcare and its called fair taxation, progressive taxation so we can take care of everybody and make sure were all safe in our communities. They have done it way better than us in europe. This is not rocket science. This is not hard to know how to fix. We just need to have the political will to do it. I want you to know most of us here at the local level have that passion and political will. We just have to keep continuing to fight and in the meantime, well join together supervisor yee, ill join with you, to push our Health Department to push our local Hospital Council, thank you david for being here. We need to see you put some pressure on cpmc to keep open swindel. Theyre closing the subacute unit at saint lukes. Were grateful theyre keeping the current families there, theyre moving them to the davies campus but they need to be part of the larger issue. It doesnt reflect well that theyre closing two units and time and time again we hear heart breaking story after heart breaking story and theyre making substantial profits. We need to see them giving back and giving back in these critical areas we need it the most. I dont know all of the answers but i know you have moved me and i thank supervisor ye for being a champion. Thank you supervisor yee. Supervisor ronen and i were looking at each other in a depressed state, me more than her because im 60 and seeing the writing on the wall and i cared for my mother at home, knowing what effort that takes where i had to leave my employment for a while, take a break. We were fortunate to have those resources but my heart goes out to those who dont. I think from looking at this, and hearing the hearing we had on Skilled Nursing beds, the idea that people are getting discharged from surgeries and then going to Skilled Nursing facilities but we dont have Skilled Nursing facilities, we have heard time after time public testimony about people in Skilled Nursing facilities after and their recovery was so good they could return home and age in place there. I think the direction that San Francisco has taken around the housi housing and whom we have built for and continue to build for and continue to have resources for, the most healthy probably the most investing in much younger people and much healthier people. I do feel seniors that is the largest population in my neighborhood. I actually serve the people of district one, the largest population growing in my neighborhood are seniors. I understand for people to age in place, without having people in their lives it prohibits them from living a full life because of the social isolation and i wonder if we can use the homes into Supportive Care and cut a deal with them and the Mayors Office of housing to provide more Residential Care places in Single Family homes to be divided up into different bedrooms and beds and then have those people who need higher care transition turn into more Supportive Housing for seniors that can no longer live by themselves or need more medical attention. We have been talking to the hospital around this and post acute care collaborative. I think its time for the department of Public Health to work with advocates and to work with the families and come to a solution and recommendations for the Hospital Council and what they can do to help with the situation. It is worrisome when i hear that its being closed, my question is, was is the plan for the patients that have alzheimers at swindels. Can anyone tell me what the plan is for the patients . Is cpnc here in the room. Can they tell me the plan for the patients . There is no plan. So that is completely unacceptable. I think for these people who have relied on the service for so long for loved ones, to simply say were closing this and theres no alternative, we have no plan for you is completely unacceptable and heartless. And so i think it is time the department of Public Health working outside of the Hospital Council get together with family and advocates and see if we can come up with a plan for longterm care for our seniors and what responsibility the Hospital Council has for this and the members. Im not saying in such just one individual hospital but all hospitals now i think are, when we hear there are no subacute beds, the Skilled Nursing beds are minimal, its a responsibility for all of us who operate in San Francisco and we depend on our hospitals to serve not only those who are having children, which i had three. But also to serve those people in the community most ill. Those most vulnerable and those who dont have the options to mend at home. I think its time to come up with a longterm solution, send recommendations to the board of supervisors but also to the Hospital Council and what is their responsibility in this. As we close hospitals and units, i think we cant just think about the profits of building a new building that will serve a slew of people but no acute beds and the alzheimers unit, i dont know what the families are going to do. My recommendation is department of Public Health work with advocates and the families now, which are very organized and understand the problem before them. And to come with solutions and bring them before the board and also those solutions should include the responsibility from the Hospital Council and the members of the Hospital Council. Thank you. So i lost my father to alzheimers and that was a long difficult process. The stories i have heard today remind me of that process. And i was especially struck by the Public Comment that recognizes which, i know all too well, that a change in environment has dramatic consequences for someone living with alzheimers. A loss of familiarity leads to a declining condition at least from my experience that you never recover from. Im struck once again that were in a situation where it seems like the care of the patient is very its secondary to economic considerations. Because if the patients that were in care at swindels were the primary focus, you would not consider moving them. I know that moving them, even if its a beautiful lovely facility will be damaging to their care. No matter what you do when you make the change, change alone is so harmful to these patients. With my dad we were at a point without other options to move him out of home but it was traumatic and im sure individuals have had to experience making changes because you had no other option but you experience the impact of the people you love. And so, again im just struck that were in the same situation, we had similar conversations about subacute care, that patients are not the primary focus of caregivers in San Francisco. Its really incomprehensible to me. Especially when use the word nonprofit and how can a nonprofit not have as their primary mission, how can doctors not have as their primary mission to provide the best possible care to patients. I think that as my colleagues have said, theres a longer and deeper discussion we need to have about the specific case because i its incomprehensible to me. What does the oath mean, first do no harm, when you know youre going to do something that causes harm [indiscernible] and its hard to feel theres resource limitations when giant buildings are going up. Thats the first thing. The second thing, just for us as we age, i do think we drop the ball. As i mentioned before when we have talked about this, i was part of the rebuild laguna honda campaign. It predicted where we are today. We dont have enough across the entire spectrum of care for people as they age. We havent built the infrastructure or capacity. So i do hope, i like the idea of working with the Mayors Office of housing as we build new housing to try to catch up, but, again, like my colleagues, this is incredibly depressing that we have not put in place the resources we need in order to maintain care for the people who have really made this city the place where all the world seems to want to be right now. Those folks were abandoning at the time they need us most. And just for the department of Public Health, i am still trying to process this. It just happened that we got from the controller, performance report and i was struck from laguna honda that one of the metrics that theyre failing is theyre not getting people out of there in 60 days or less. That was not my understanding of what it was supposed to be. Thats a weird metric. Can we get people in and out in 60 days or less. So im baffled by that, too. The idea of trying to process patients like cattle seems bazaar. Especially when its seniors. As a community and city we need to work at how were going to help our seniors. I admire supervisor yees leadership and foresite and bringing it to our attention. Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to say one thing, this is a problem that is not going to go away. This is a problem as a public speaker said that is going to get worse. This is a problem that is going to just compound other issues that we have, too. This is not going to go away. This is this is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Supervisor yee, im happy to work on this and support you on it. I want to thank all my colleagues for comments and they certainly sort of resinate with me. One of the things i dont get, it seems like a long time ago, people in this country cared about their parents and the seniors and certainly i still have that in me. And i dont know what went wrong in the last few decades where all of a sudden, our federal government doesnt want to do anything. And our state doesnt seem to be doing any better. And it in San Francisco, theres a good chunk of us that still care about the seniors and so forth. One of the things, this is a bigger issue, how do we in society in the u. S. Rediscover the value of seniors taking care of aging adults. I asked for the hearing and i thought it was going to be the only hearing on this issue and i guess the last meeting had a subdivision of this. And i realize earlier on that there was probably just these issues at every level, were losing ground in San Francisco. Were losing ground and we cant just do nothing. When i started asking questions about these issues, many people thought there this is like a familiar discussion. A little over two years ago talking about housing and much of the discussion i didnt hear anybody talk about Family Housing, Affordable Housing or market rate and people thought, even city planning thought it was a little crazy asking for a report. And i talked to developers, why dont we build for families, and it was an eyeopener. The developers basically said were not building it because the leadership here tells us that we dont need any in San Francisco. That didnt make sense to me. Fast forward, i think we have gained some momentum around that issue. Im hoping that what i was able to do with Family Housing discussion, well have the same type of momentum in the next six months to put this back up to the top where it should be in terms of the issues. Whether its acute care, subacute. Two months ago i couldnt tell you what these things were. But there are solutions. We cant solve everything but im not as pessimistic about this as one may think. There are things my colleagues and i could work on. The issue or discussion with the Mayors Office, of housing. I have had this discussion, not a full discussion but i sat down with them and said this will be something that we need to address. I was looking at the report earlier and i said look, one of the things we need to start considering when we build housing, we need to carve out some of the housing for the range of things that we need. I also want to say, i probably shouldnt yet, because this is nothing baked yet, i would love to see us do some comprehensive facility where you have a range, not just one particular thing you could do in a facility but a range of care from nursing to just Residential Care. And look at the open space, look at the area we have at the laguna honda hospital, we have space there to build, we just need to have the will at this point. Im having im beginning to have that discussion also. So all in all, thank you, i really want to thank everybody for coming here. Also want to thank my supervisors for cosponsoring this hearing. I really hope that we can use this energy that im seeing today, to Work Together. We have to find we cannot do nothing. We have to put our heads together, and im including hospitals, people in the community, families, all of us need to Work Together on this issue. And we will reverse i feel we can reverse the trend. Were not going to get to the top of the order right away, but for us to continue to lose on these issues is ridiculous. We continue to lose it, we have to do something about that. Again, thank you colleagues. I hope we can Work Together on this issue. Thank you very much. Thank you supervisor yee. Would you like to continue this hearing to the call of the chair or yes. Can i get a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair. So moved without objection. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Mr. Clerk, can you please call item three . Clerk agenda three, hearing on the pacific gas hang on for a moment. Sure. Hold on one second. Hi everyone. Im sorry, we have more items on the agenda we need to hear. If you could take the discussions outside, i would really appreciate that. Thank you so much. We have people waiting here to speak on the next item. So if you could move discussions outside we would appreciate that so much. Thank you. If everyone can please make your way outside as quickly as possible, we have other items. Mr. Clerk, im going to ask you instead of calling item three, can you call item four to have a possession to continue. A hearing on anti lgbtq hate crimes in the city and county. Thank you. Can everyone make their way outside. We need to continue working and please dont speak until you get outside. Thank you. Supervisor sheehy. Thank you, could i make a motion to continue that item four . The motion would be in order pending Public Comment on the item. Okay. Okay great. So were going to open up Public Comment for item four on the motion to continue the item. If anyone would like to speak on the motion to continue item four, please come forward. Okay. Or close Public Comment if theres no one here. I didnt realize there were people waiting outside. Thank you. Because of the timing, yeah. Im going to call Public Comment on item four one more time. We theres a motion to continue this item, if any member of the public wants to speak on the motion to continue, please come forward. Seeing none, Mayors Office<\/a>. The timing is perfect introducing the topic and report in draft form should be in the official form by the end of the year, which is coming right up. But we would look to you supervisor and other members of this board on how we can best communicate to the Mayors Office<\/a> to include in his initiatives this element. I know the need is so great but you have identified where there are other needs and we think it should be included as well. What is the department of Public Health<\/a> Patch Program<\/a> . Can someone explain that to me . Im not an expert but ill take a stab. For patients in our system of care we have Transitions Division<\/a> to move from acute to lower levels of care. As part of the patient flow, some patients are placed in Residential Care<\/a> facilities in the county and out of county. And so many of the patients do receive Social Security<\/a> income benefit. On top of that, they provide an additional subsidy to have access to facilities. I thought it was the reimbursement to some of the rcfes that make up for the revenues they need to operate since ssi its an additional payment on top of an ssi benefit. So that Certain Services<\/a> can be provided for certain populations. Has that been going up in recent years or i dont have the data but i will follow up. Any other questions . Anybody have remarks . And wrap it up. Supervisor fewer and i are looking at each other and feeling a little depressed as i know many of you are and its hard to find the optimism when these problems are so deeply rooted in a very unjust system we live in in the united states. We are not a system that thinks about care over profit. I just want to thank all who came out, to the worker who came out and spoke about her care for her patients i want to thank you so much and wish we could get some of that passion and attitude into some of the politicians in washington who are currently cutting the taxes that allow us to provide that gap funding and to come up with solutions at the local level for these problems. Its just sitting here as a local politicians knowing the limits on our budget and how every single day as the feds pull away from caring for the majority of us in cities and towns across the country to benefit rich friends and corporations that fund their campaign, it feels helpless. Hearing you gives us more strength to keep fighting and speaking truth and keep telling the stories that make absolutely no sense. We know how to fix these problems. Its called single payer healthcare and its called fair taxation, progressive taxation so we can take care of everybody and make sure were all safe in our communities. They have done it way better than us in europe. This is not rocket science. This is not hard to know how to fix. We just need to have the political will to do it. I want you to know most of us here at the local level have that passion and political will. We just have to keep continuing to fight and in the meantime, well join together supervisor yee, ill join with you, to push our Health Department<\/a> to push our local Hospital Council<\/a>, thank you david for being here. We need to see you put some pressure on cpmc to keep open swindel. Theyre closing the subacute unit at saint lukes. Were grateful theyre keeping the current families there, theyre moving them to the davies campus but they need to be part of the larger issue. It doesnt reflect well that theyre closing two units and time and time again we hear heart breaking story after heart breaking story and theyre making substantial profits. We need to see them giving back and giving back in these critical areas we need it the most. I dont know all of the answers but i know you have moved me and i thank supervisor ye for being a champion. Thank you supervisor yee. Supervisor ronen and i were looking at each other in a depressed state, me more than her because im 60 and seeing the writing on the wall and i cared for my mother at home, knowing what effort that takes where i had to leave my employment for a while, take a break. We were fortunate to have those resources but my heart goes out to those who dont. I think from looking at this, and hearing the hearing we had on Skilled Nursing<\/a> beds, the idea that people are getting discharged from surgeries and then going to Skilled Nursing<\/a> facilities but we dont have Skilled Nursing<\/a> facilities, we have heard time after time public testimony about people in Skilled Nursing<\/a> facilities after and their recovery was so good they could return home and age in place there. I think the direction that San Francisco<\/a> has taken around the housi housing and whom we have built for and continue to build for and continue to have resources for, the most healthy probably the most investing in much younger people and much healthier people. I do feel seniors that is the largest population in my neighborhood. I actually serve the people of district one, the largest population growing in my neighborhood are seniors. I understand for people to age in place, without having people in their lives it prohibits them from living a full life because of the social isolation and i wonder if we can use the homes into Supportive Care<\/a> and cut a deal with them and the Mayors Office<\/a> of housing to provide more Residential Care<\/a> places in Single Family<\/a> homes to be divided up into different bedrooms and beds and then have those people who need higher care transition turn into more Supportive Housing<\/a> for seniors that can no longer live by themselves or need more medical attention. We have been talking to the hospital around this and post acute care collaborative. I think its time for the department of Public Health<\/a> to work with advocates and to work with the families and come to a solution and recommendations for the Hospital Council<\/a> and what they can do to help with the situation. It is worrisome when i hear that its being closed, my question is, was is the plan for the patients that have alzheimers at swindels. Can anyone tell me what the plan is for the patients . Is cpnc here in the room. Can they tell me the plan for the patients . There is no plan. So that is completely unacceptable. I think for these people who have relied on the service for so long for loved ones, to simply say were closing this and theres no alternative, we have no plan for you is completely unacceptable and heartless. And so i think it is time the department of Public Health<\/a> working outside of the Hospital Council<\/a> get together with family and advocates and see if we can come up with a plan for longterm care for our seniors and what responsibility the Hospital Council<\/a> has for this and the members. Im not saying in such just one individual hospital but all hospitals now i think are, when we hear there are no subacute beds, the Skilled Nursing<\/a> beds are minimal, its a responsibility for all of us who operate in San Francisco<\/a> and we depend on our hospitals to serve not only those who are having children, which i had three. But also to serve those people in the community most ill. Those most vulnerable and those who dont have the options to mend at home. I think its time to come up with a longterm solution, send recommendations to the board of supervisors but also to the Hospital Council<\/a> and what is their responsibility in this. As we close hospitals and units, i think we cant just think about the profits of building a new building that will serve a slew of people but no acute beds and the alzheimers unit, i dont know what the families are going to do. My recommendation is department of Public Health<\/a> work with advocates and the families now, which are very organized and understand the problem before them. And to come with solutions and bring them before the board and also those solutions should include the responsibility from the Hospital Council<\/a> and the members of the Hospital Council<\/a>. Thank you. So i lost my father to alzheimers and that was a long difficult process. The stories i have heard today remind me of that process. And i was especially struck by the Public Comment<\/a> that recognizes which, i know all too well, that a change in environment has dramatic consequences for someone living with alzheimers. A loss of familiarity leads to a declining condition at least from my experience that you never recover from. Im struck once again that were in a situation where it seems like the care of the patient is very its secondary to economic considerations. Because if the patients that were in care at swindels were the primary focus, you would not consider moving them. I know that moving them, even if its a beautiful lovely facility will be damaging to their care. No matter what you do when you make the change, change alone is so harmful to these patients. With my dad we were at a point without other options to move him out of home but it was traumatic and im sure individuals have had to experience making changes because you had no other option but you experience the impact of the people you love. And so, again im just struck that were in the same situation, we had similar conversations about subacute care, that patients are not the primary focus of caregivers in San Francisco<\/a>. Its really incomprehensible to me. Especially when use the word nonprofit and how can a nonprofit not have as their primary mission, how can doctors not have as their primary mission to provide the best possible care to patients. I think that as my colleagues have said, theres a longer and deeper discussion we need to have about the specific case because i its incomprehensible to me. What does the oath mean, first do no harm, when you know youre going to do something that causes harm [indiscernible] and its hard to feel theres resource limitations when giant buildings are going up. Thats the first thing. The second thing, just for us as we age, i do think we drop the ball. As i mentioned before when we have talked about this, i was part of the rebuild laguna honda campaign. It predicted where we are today. We dont have enough across the entire spectrum of care for people as they age. We havent built the infrastructure or capacity. So i do hope, i like the idea of working with the Mayors Office<\/a> of housing as we build new housing to try to catch up, but, again, like my colleagues, this is incredibly depressing that we have not put in place the resources we need in order to maintain care for the people who have really made this city the place where all the world seems to want to be right now. Those folks were abandoning at the time they need us most. And just for the department of Public Health<\/a>, i am still trying to process this. It just happened that we got from the controller, performance report and i was struck from laguna honda that one of the metrics that theyre failing is theyre not getting people out of there in 60 days or less. That was not my understanding of what it was supposed to be. Thats a weird metric. Can we get people in and out in 60 days or less. So im baffled by that, too. The idea of trying to process patients like cattle seems bazaar. Especially when its seniors. As a community and city we need to work at how were going to help our seniors. I admire supervisor yees leadership and foresite and bringing it to our attention. Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to say one thing, this is a problem that is not going to go away. This is a problem as a public speaker said that is going to get worse. This is a problem that is going to just compound other issues that we have, too. This is not going to go away. This is this is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Supervisor yee, im happy to work on this and support you on it. I want to thank all my colleagues for comments and they certainly sort of resinate with me. One of the things i dont get, it seems like a long time ago, people in this country cared about their parents and the seniors and certainly i still have that in me. And i dont know what went wrong in the last few decades where all of a sudden, our federal government doesnt want to do anything. And our state doesnt seem to be doing any better. And it in San Francisco<\/a>, theres a good chunk of us that still care about the seniors and so forth. One of the things, this is a bigger issue, how do we in society in the u. S. Rediscover the value of seniors taking care of aging adults. I asked for the hearing and i thought it was going to be the only hearing on this issue and i guess the last meeting had a subdivision of this. And i realize earlier on that there was probably just these issues at every level, were losing ground in San Francisco<\/a>. Were losing ground and we cant just do nothing. When i started asking questions about these issues, many people thought there this is like a familiar discussion. A little over two years ago talking about housing and much of the discussion i didnt hear anybody talk about Family Housing<\/a>, Affordable Housing<\/a> or market rate and people thought, even city planning thought it was a little crazy asking for a report. And i talked to developers, why dont we build for families, and it was an eyeopener. The developers basically said were not building it because the leadership here tells us that we dont need any in San Francisco<\/a>. That didnt make sense to me. Fast forward, i think we have gained some momentum around that issue. Im hoping that what i was able to do with Family Housing<\/a> discussion, well have the same type of momentum in the next six months to put this back up to the top where it should be in terms of the issues. Whether its acute care, subacute. Two months ago i couldnt tell you what these things were. But there are solutions. We cant solve everything but im not as pessimistic about this as one may think. There are things my colleagues and i could work on. The issue or discussion with the Mayors Office<\/a>, of housing. I have had this discussion, not a full discussion but i sat down with them and said this will be something that we need to address. I was looking at the report earlier and i said look, one of the things we need to start considering when we build housing, we need to carve out some of the housing for the range of things that we need. I also want to say, i probably shouldnt yet, because this is nothing baked yet, i would love to see us do some comprehensive facility where you have a range, not just one particular thing you could do in a facility but a range of care from nursing to just Residential Care<\/a>. And look at the open space, look at the area we have at the laguna honda hospital, we have space there to build, we just need to have the will at this point. Im having im beginning to have that discussion also. So all in all, thank you, i really want to thank everybody for coming here. Also want to thank my supervisors for cosponsoring this hearing. I really hope that we can use this energy that im seeing today, to Work Together<\/a>. We have to find we cannot do nothing. We have to put our heads together, and im including hospitals, people in the community, families, all of us need to Work Together<\/a> on this issue. And we will reverse i feel we can reverse the trend. Were not going to get to the top of the order right away, but for us to continue to lose on these issues is ridiculous. We continue to lose it, we have to do something about that. Again, thank you colleagues. I hope we can Work Together<\/a> on this issue. Thank you very much. Thank you supervisor yee. Would you like to continue this hearing to the call of the chair or yes. Can i get a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair. So moved without objection. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Mr. Clerk, can you please call item three . Clerk agenda three, hearing on the pacific gas hang on for a moment. Sure. Hold on one second. Hi everyone. Im sorry, we have more items on the agenda we need to hear. If you could take the discussions outside, i would really appreciate that. Thank you so much. We have people waiting here to speak on the next item. So if you could move discussions outside we would appreciate that so much. Thank you. If everyone can please make your way outside as quickly as possible, we have other items. Mr. Clerk, im going to ask you instead of calling item three, can you call item four to have a possession to continue. A hearing on anti lgbtq hate crimes in the city and county. Thank you. Can everyone make their way outside. We need to continue working and please dont speak until you get outside. Thank you. Supervisor sheehy. Thank you, could i make a motion to continue that item four . The motion would be in order pending Public Comment<\/a> on the item. Okay. Okay great. So were going to open up Public Comment<\/a> for item four on the motion to continue the item. If anyone would like to speak on the motion to continue item four, please come forward. Okay. Or close Public Comment<\/a> if theres no one here. I didnt realize there were people waiting outside. Thank you. Because of the timing, yeah. Im going to call Public Comment<\/a> on item four one more time. We theres a motion to continue this item, if any member of the public wants to speak on the motion to continue, please come forward. Seeing none, Public Comment<\/a> is closed. Can i take the motion, continue the item to the call of the chair. Can i take that motion without objection . Without objection, that motion passes. Can you please call item three. Clerk the hearing of city gas and explosion reporting on the cause, protocol for monitoring prevention for future disasters, outreach and support for residents before and after the incident and other pertinent information. On november 17th, a monday morning after thanksgiving, i was alerted to a gas explosion on missions street in my district. I remained in touch with Emergency Responders<\/a> for updates. This time thank goodness there were no injuries but the incident was terrifying nonetheless. Forced evacuation and disrupted heat and cooking for households and left people displaced. I have asked pd a pg e on wht happened, the longterm accountability. I appreciate several representatives that serve as Emergency Responders<\/a> are here. Thank you. Hi francis of the department of Emergency Management<\/a>. Rex hail of fire, thank you all for staying for so long. And ben aims of the Human Services<\/a> department. Thank you all for sticking it out. I really appreciate it. Im very interested to hear from all of you, what you witnessed, your participation in the response and recommendations for preventing incidents like this from happening in the future. With a 10 minute google search, it is ridiculously easy to find a terrifying record of pg es failures. Were all aware of the devastating explosion in 2010. Pg e was found guilty of violating before the explosion and misleading investigators of how it identified high risk pipelines. Pg e agreed to pay 86. 5 million. Earlier this year, a gas explosion left two injured, one man with severe burns. The investigation just wrapped up on that one, that pg e had faulty regulation. A 2016 transformer explosion left many without power and shut down bart service and a home exploded in 2014, thankfully the cottage was vacant but pg e settled. In addition, there have been fires at transformers and substations and transformer explosion that injured two men, one with severe burns. Based solely on the concerns of neighbors of the construction of an underground pipeline. We sent the project back to create a plan that would require pg e to provide detailed information about the underground line and clear plan for oversight and monitoring. The explosion on Mission Street<\/a> revived my concerns about pg e accountability. My foremost concern, my constituents and the families affected by the emergency. I need to know theyre taken care of and their housing is stable. This incident opens how were overseeing and regulating pg e which is a monopoly. This is the first step in the process of investigating this incident. I expect excuse me. I expect digging further and expect a report back on the findings. I want to thank supervisor sheehy for cosupervising the hearing and wanted to see if the supervisor had a few opening words as well. Given the lateness, i wont echo much of what you said. But obviously theres a problem. I think the one thing were right next door to each other and i think the entire neighborhood was impacted between 8 and 9. One of my big concerns is why it took so long to shut off the gas. It took hours to shut off the gas. The street had to be jack hammered open for them to open up the street and given that many gas lines have been replaced in the city, i know in front of our house it happened a few years ago, im wondering if part of what pg e is doing is allowing us to turnoff gas. The idea that you would have a gas leak that blew up a house and you couldnt turn the gas off for several hours, in an earthquake prone area is more than a little alarming. So, thank you for calling the hearing. Good afternoon supervisors. Im ramneck saini with pg e. Senior director of gas Asset Management<\/a> and system operations to talk further about the details of the incident that happened november 27th. First of all, i would like to thank our First Responders<\/a> including the San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department<\/a>, the San Francisco<\/a> department of Emergency Management<\/a> who worked with our crews to safely secure the area on the day of the incident. We understand that this emergency deeply you know, deeply affects the families if the neighborhood and we are fully here and committed to provide any assistance. Were here to take any questions. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. At pg e safety is our top priority. Were grateful for the collaboration and hard work of the San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department<\/a>, police department, San Francisco<\/a> department of Emergency Management<\/a> and San Francisco<\/a> Human Services<\/a> agency during and after the incident. On monday november 27th just after 10 00 a. M. Pg e crews reported to a gas odor on Mission Street<\/a>. While on the way to the scene we received the report of the explosion. Between 10 20 and 10 35 crews arrived on scene and more dispatched to help and we worked with the San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department<\/a> to make the area safe. There was a high concentration of gas in the area. We assessed the situation and came up with the plan to stop the flow of gas. We came up the strategy of digging up concrete to physically squeeze the pipe in the area to shut off the gas. Since pg es gas system is connected grids, it often requires more than two squeeze points to stop the flow of gas at a location. Once the flow stopped, we started the process of excavation, performing pressure tests on the pipelines in the area, determining the location of the leak and then making repairs. Crews completed this work on tuesday. As our crews worked, our Customer Care<\/a> representatives started to support our customers impacted. Customer care representatives canvassed the area to make sure the immediate feeds of the customers of apartments damaged and those temporarily without gas service were taken care of. Shutting in the gas impacted 470 customers and by tuesday night, gas was safely restored to all who were able to receive service. Pg e called in other services from the bay area. For the residents of the building damaged, our report has temporary housing, Financial Assistance<\/a> through claims and more to address a more permanent solution. We have engaged a specialized Third Party Engineering<\/a> firm to help determine the cause of the incident. These type of investigations typically require researching records, testing evidence and other steps. We have noticed the cpnc of the incident and support their investigation as well. As we do with all incidents of the nature, we worked closely with First Responders<\/a>, including the San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department<\/a> to make the area safe and with the Emergency Management<\/a> of response and recommendation. We coordinated with the San Francisco<\/a> red cross. I wanted to talk about the work we do to ensure the safety and integrity of gas lines. Our program governs the approach we take for knowing our assets and the condition of our assets, what threats and risks the assets pose and then developing mitigation strategies to address the risk. Through that program, were constantly rooking at the pipeline to reduce risk. Enforcing quality standards and conducting leak surveys on a frequent basis. In fact it was surveyed in july of this year and none were found. For us its having trained and confident personnel, best in class tools and proper procedures in place. When something goes wrong, we figure out why and how to prevent something similar from happening again. Well continue to support our customers. Thank you for providing us to present and im happy to answer questions. So, you dont have a preliminary theory of the cause of the explosion . Not at this time. Its under investigation with exponent and we expect to have that investigation completed over the course of the next month or two. And so when you arrived on site there wasnt anything that was obvious to the crews that might have caused this rather dangerous incident . That we can know youre taking steps to make sure it doesnt happen anywhere else in San Francisco<\/a> . So in determining the source of the leak, we were able to determine that the leak was coming from an offshoot of one of the six inch mains that runs down Mission Street<\/a>. The main is a six inch steel Line Installed<\/a> in 1992 and the source of the leak was actually from a plastic off take from that line. We do know where the leak occurred but in terms of cause, that aspect is what is under investigation from exponent. So the steel pipes have off shoots and thats where the leak occurred . Yes. And the explosion occurred when someone in the home then tried to light their stove or i dont have any information on that aspect of the investigation. I would think the Fire Department<\/a> would be investigating that. But i dont know for certain. How common is it that you when an explosion occurs or when theres a danger, a leak is identified that you couldnt turnoff the gas using a value, that you actually have to dig up the asphalt in the street . We frequently have to dig up asphalt to squeeze our pipelines to make an area safe. Based on the configuration of the distribution network, we look at multiple different alternatives every time we have to shut in gas due to a leak. We evaluate options that are squeezing pipes, isolating values, larger zones of our system to determine which one could be executed most quickly and while preserving customer service, while also preserving the safety of our public and employees. So in this particular case, the initial isolation strategy that we developed couldnt be executed because of the fact that our employees couldnt safely access the area because of the gas in the area. Thats why we had to step back and develop alternative strategies and the one we selected was two value and two squeeze points . Do you have statistics about the average time it takes to turnoff the gas when theres an explosion. Is this an unusual case or par for the course . We do track that information, i dont have the numbers with me. We could certainly have that discussion with you about average time for shutting in the gas. This was not extremely extensive because of the access to the area and having to shift our isolation strategies, it did take a little longer than typical. But not significantly extended. Was there a Warning System<\/a> that the leak was happening in the first place before the point of explosion . Or did that notify them there was a situation . We had an employee on the way to the site when the explosion happened. So how was the Fire Department<\/a> aware . Did they get a call, that someone smelled gas, is that what it was . Yeah. Theres no alarm system in place. It would trigger someone to investigate. That didnt happen in this incident. There was no alarm in the control center, it was triggered by a phone call. Thats really worrying, that there was a gas leak large enough to cause an explosion and that damaged several houses but pg e wasnt aware of a major leak in the system until it was reported. That is not comforting to residents of San Francisco<\/a>. I would appreciate if you could follow up with me, im surprised you didnt come prepared with that information. I think supervisor sheehy hit it on the head, the biggest concern to us other than the wellbeing of our constituents that were impacted is three hours is unacceptable time to shut off the gas when theres a leak that caused an explosion. You know, were lucky no one was injured here. But it certainly is not comforting to us. We dont know the cause but we know where the leak came from. We know it wasnt possible to cut the gas off quickly. Our decision to ask for residential review, a pipeline on a development on a steep hill was absolutely the right thing to do given that these circumstances exist with the company. I hope you will work with a project sponsor because i know the project sponsor has had a very difficult time getting pg e to work with him to get him the data he needs to come up with a true safety plan in the unfortunate event that any gas line is disrupted when the project is built. And im looking at both of you and asking you with that homeowner who wants to build a house. That you work closely. Im not going to green light this project especially after this incident until we have a safety plan in place. Leading from the big pipe to the building or was that connected to several buildings . That was a section of pipe leading off of the main pipeline. It wasnt actually connected. It was a separate piece of pipeline. What did that lead to . Nothing, cut off. A natural leak took place. Just a pipe to nowhere . As it exists now, yes. So, seems pretty clear to me that that wouldnt be the building owners responsibility, right . I i mean this is its our assets. Its your assets. Its pg e assets. What happens to the families who have been displaced. Are you taking responsibility and making sure theyre housed . Absolutely. Our Customer Care<\/a> team has worked to place them in temporary housing providing Financial Assistance<\/a> and currently working through making sure they have what they need, at this point in time and for Permanent Solutions<\/a> going forward. Youll make a permanent solution for them. How many of these pipes to nowhere do you have in the city that might potentially blow up a house . So its part of the investigation thats underway. Theyll look for what actually caused the event and the next step after that is for us to look more broadly at where else might we have a similar situation in our system and to remedy that across our service territory. Whenever we do a causele investigation or incident investigation of something that happens on our system or in the industry, we take that and apply it apply the learnings to our entire system. The result of the investigation we received from exponent, well do an extended condition analysis, to allow us to evaluate our system for that particular issue and then go through and do whatever action is necessary to address that issue. So plastic pipes, i mean, carrying gas, was that Industry Standard<\/a> . Yes. Really . Underground plastic pipes that dont link to anything i mean, im just trying to understand so i think the results of the investigation will help us really understand what led to the incident and what the corrective actions need to be. I think there still needs to be a lot of information gathered before well be able to really say what caused this event. And to know what needs to be done to remedy it going forward. So, obviously this i know, its happened and i kind of mentioned this, theres been pipe replacement, repairing the infrastructure that makes a lot of sense. This obviously hasnt been part of the process or has it . The pipeline was installed in 1992. In the new pipelines that youre laying, do we have plastic pipes to nowhere . The new pipelines that were laying are mains and services to customers homes. Are they plastic . Plastic and steel depending on the environmental conditions. Are they easier to shut off . Theyre shut off via values or squeeze points similar to theres no process improvements it sounds like its fairly standard you have to dig up the street to shut off after a gas leak. It is a Standard Practice<\/a> that is part of our emergency response. We shut values or dig them up. This is not something you remedy when you put in new pipes in San Francisco<\/a>. We install values, using values is not necessarily faster in every case for shutting in gas than digging up the street and squeezing the pipe. Im trying to understand, we were changing all the pipes in the city, block by block. I will say you guys are incredibly professional when you did it. I dont see cause for complaint. It seems theres a weakness in the system, at least from my point of view, if you have gas leaking for three hours, that you may want you know, you may want to address when youre laying new pipes to make it easier to shut off pipes, were if an earthquake zone, so i would have thought that might have been considered as you lay new pipes to make it easier to access to shut them off when theres a leak. Its certainly considered as the way we design the systems and install new systems. However, we do still view digging and squeezing as one of the tools in our tool kit as we look at how we isolate a system when an emergency happens. This will be the last i have one more after this. Perhaps you could follow up on us the types of measures for resilience are being built in in a city like San Francisco<\/a> thats dense and prone to earthquakes, three hours of gas leaking is a challenge. And given that you still have more to replace obviously because this block has to be replaced. So going forward, if theres a way to strengthen the system so we dont end up in a scenario of three hours of gas leaking, that would be good. I want to check on the notification process, who is in charge, how long did it take. Were people notified quickly . What was the surrounding area, were you certain when you made the notifications that you had you notified enough area that people could get out, there was no i dont know the detail of the customer notification that took place. I cant thats fine. Thank you. Okay. We might have additional questions after hearing from other speakers and Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you. So next i wanted to call up sorry, im looking for my list here. Well start with the captain. Jack hart, if you want to make any statements . Thank you for your time. Im the captain of engelside police service. My officers were involved assisting with evacuations. Listening to the comments, one of the concerns is not just the three hours it took to turn it off, but the three hours it took for the gas to dissipate. Pg e was great being embedded with the Fire Department<\/a> to go and measure block by block and area by area to determine the concentration of the gas, to determine if additional evacuations needed to take place but this is a great reminder to me, i have been in the events before, large scale events requiring evacuations in a short amount of time and confusing situations. I wanted to say the department of Emergency Management<\/a> did an excellent job of sheltering in place and evacuation stuff. But its a reminder to us as well to be more proactive, just the basic neighborhood. Several of my School Resource<\/a> officers got phone calls from area schools. Not that they were within the immediate area of it but hearing the helicopter overhead brings concern wondering what the situation was. Its a repineder to me and my team to be more vigilant to push out notifications to as many people as possible in short element of time as possible and overlapping with the Fire Department<\/a> and in the police department. I also want to make a shameless plug for the Neighborhood Empowerment Network<\/a> and block champion programs. One of the heroic actions of the Fire Department<\/a>, they assisted with the evacuation of an elderly gentleman that was blind and deaf. And the ability to track that person down was difficult. We werent sure how many people were hearing the messages to leave. You know, dm blasts out evacuation orders in different languages which is great, but what about the folks we dont know about, that are trapped in and reminds me of your first item on the agenda. I would be concerned about folks without the where with","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800401.us.archive.org\/28\/items\/SFGTV_20171208_000000_Government_Access_Programming\/SFGTV_20171208_000000_Government_Access_Programming.thumbs\/SFGTV_20171208_000000_Government_Access_Programming_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240630T12:35:10+00:00"}