Transcripts For SFGTV Fire Commission 20240713

Item 2 [agenda item read]. Thank you madam secretary. Is there any Public Comment at this time . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Please call the next item. Item 3. [agenda item read]. Thank you. Commissioners, i dont see any one listed there. Thank you. Moved by commissioner cleaveland and seconded by Vice President feinstein. Any Public Comment . Seeing none. Public comment is closed. All in favor say aye. Motion passes. Next item please. Item 4. [agenda item read] for the time being, we will skip this item. We are expecting former commissioner veronese to attend. Former commissioner hardeman has sent his regrets regarding his ability to attend today. We will move to the next item. Item 5 [agenda item read] thank you. Any Public Comment on this item. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. We will now have a presentation. Good morning commissioners. Assistant fire marshal rich brown, chief. Im here today to present and discuss our proposed Fire Department 2019 administrative bulletins. In your packet you received an executive summary. I would like to read couple of paragraphs into the record for that to get started. I presented this item three years ago as well. Every three years, International Code counsel updates their codes. California and San Francisco codes follow the same cycle. This is also the time to review and update our bureau of Fire Prevention administrative bulletin. We call them abs for short. This new code cycle, reflect 2019 year and in their titles. This year, five new additional administrative bulletins were added. The Fire Department is authorized to issue administrative bulletins that establish or clarify requirements under the fire code and set policies and procedures of the bureau of Fire Prevention. These bulletins are posted on the Fire Departments website. The purpose of the administrative bulletins is provide clarification, interpretation regarding the San Francisco Fire Department enforcement policies and procedures. All materials contained in the bulletins is published for the benefit of the public to help promote expeditious plan review and applicable code compliance. The proposed 2019abs were posted on the sfd website on december 13, 2019. That was a 30day viewing on our public website. A public hearing was held on january 28, 2020. In response to Public Comment, a few edits were made to the administrative bulletin. Ill detail those later. The Fire Marshal Office presents the 2019 administrative bulletin for review and approval. I can take any questions you have. I didnt want to get into every detail in your executive summary. But i can. Well go from there. Thank you. Fofor the citizens at home, coud you tell us the top two important changes or additions . Sure. We added ill go over four or five we added new and couple of major changes. Two new additions would be they are numbered ab2. 17 and ab2. 18. They deal with guidelines for cannabis and plant cultivation and plant extraction facilities that have started up here in San Francisco. We seen quite a few of these operations taking over in the bayview and other factories that use this type of production. The purpose of these two was to provide consistent methods to assist designers and engineers and the permit submittal requirements for all cannabis and plant cultivation and extraction facilities. Theres a lot of Hazardous Materials involved with this operation. The content of these administrative bulletins were actually information sheet that we published about 18 months ago because of the volume of work we were seeing and these operations come into light. Were putting them in our administrative bulletins for more clarity and another way to point the customers in the right direction. The other new one we have is a ab3. 08. As you recall, that was around in the three or four years ago, the ordinance that the supervisor and mayor signed by sleeping area requirements in residential apartment buildings. The purpose of that administrative bulletin is clarify the requirements to satisfy the ordinance specifically regards to audible firearms, appliances and residential sleeping areas. We call it the 75decibel test requirement. We get a lot of questions where i work at plan review on how to enforce existing buildings to be compliance. Theres a date in it ordinance that needs to be done. Its in 2021. I believe its in june of 2021. That all the apartment buildings that are required to have a fire alarm upgrade their system to meet the 75decibel. The other brand new administrative bulletin, its ab5. 14, removal of fire smoke dampers from hvac penetration and fire resistant rated corridors. Its intended to detail requirements for fire smoke dampers that are required to be fire resistent. You have to have a damper to close off any transfer smoke or fire from one compartment to the other. Theres a way to eliminate those. Theres some equivalencies involved. Its mechanical piece of equipment overused and underused to this mechanic call piece of equipment can cause problems. Theres a way to do that per our administrative bulletin, per our code to remove that. One of the changes to your executive summary that i sent is that in the new bulletin, the fifth one, administrative bulletin 5. 15, i want to remove that your consideration. During Public Comment we had many Public Comments from a concern designer about 5. 15 use of passive method for required smoke control systems. Very technical. Smoke controls in highrise building. We decided to pull that back from your consideration today. Well keep it under revision, meet with the concerned citizens and we want to get it right and move forward from that. Other change from the executive summary is change to administrative bulletin 5. 05, but the title of that one is, Fire Service Access elevators and occupant evacuation elevat elevators. Little complicated. Fire Service Access elevators are required in all highrise buildings built to todays code for the last three code cyclings, this has been the case. This new code cycle comes along and in the International Building code, there was kind of a major change as firefighters, there was an issue. It had to deal with when you install Fire Service Access elevators for the last three code cycles, every floor served in the building had a lobby and a Fire Service Access elevator. That means below grade. Whether its a parking garage. This code cycle, the Building Code, which we dont have jurisdiction over, came along and changed it to eliminate the below grade Fire Service Access elevator lobby at those levels. We felt that was that was an issue for Fire Fighting suppression and purposes. We tried to change it with the city attorney. We cant touch the Building Code in the normal fire code way. We try to put it in our bulletin. We removed the simple line that said, when Fire Service Access elevators are required. Well remove, they shall serve all four levels of the building. We had to remove that sentence. We have to go with the code how it was approved legally and adopted from the state. Thats where were at on that. I can take any questions if you want. Thank you for highlighting those areas. Is there any Public Comment on the new code . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. I will go to my fellow commissioners beginning with commissioner rodriguez. Commissioner rodriguez i think you answered the first one. You said 53 changes and 5 new ones. Does that come through the state Fire Marshals Office . You can try to adjust it . Administrative bulletins are a local jurisdiction. Does not have to be a statute, code or ordinance. If you read in the scope, its really clarification and how we interpret the code for our local jurisdiction. Thats why we have to get it out to Public Comment because anything we change could affect designers and ultimately money. Some of these have been around for so many years that no one complained or changed them. But the ones that were Public Comment we had to look at because it affected their design. Commissioner rodriguez other question i had, i guess ab4. 09, just curious about the reason for removing the cabinets. After that one, ab4. 27, adjustable sprinkler heads. 4. 09 has been on administrative bulletin for at least a dozen years. In the old days, lot of buildings were built without sprinklers. All they had was host cabinets with house lines in the hallway for the residents or business folks that worked there to use the house line. We kind of want to get away with that. The code is changed for fully sprinkler buildings. What happens is, those older buildings come. They take out a permit that last 5, 10 years. They slowly put in sprinklers in their building to make it fully sprinkler. They get the declaration from the building and Fire Department, signed off by the inspectors and they are allow to remove those class 2 hose liness that are no longer needed anymore. Its an automatic system now. The other one, commissioner, 4. 27. Flexible hoses sprinklers. Sprinklers in the older days used to be hard piped all the way. 5 or 7 years ago, came along a flexible hose that you can go from a hard pipe down to your sprinkler head. Saved lot of man hours and construction cost. We had to make sure that the hose was listed for the p. S. I. Needed. Only change we made to this, we were concerned about existing hose sprinklers, flex heads we call them. If anybody moved them existing ceilings. That would require permit. Very easily moveable by a janitor, by whoever comes along. We just wanted to put it out there, hey customers if you you move it you got to get a permit. Commissioner rodriguez thank you. Thank you commissioner rodriguez. Commissioner cleaveland. Good morning. Quick question on the fire service elevators. It was required they service all floors of new buildings. Then it was changed by the International Building code i assume. What was the rationale . I think the rationale according to the code commentary was that in general, firefighters wouldnt use elevators to fight a below grade fires. They would use the stairs to attack a fire like that. Thats the reasoning. Commissioner cleaveland you disagree with that of course. I can go either way. Im more concerned on consistency built in the city for last 12 years that weve been doing it one way and all of a sudden we change it. How does that bode well with the training for Fire Suppression folks. Something to think about. Thank you commissioner cleaveland. Commissioner nakajo. Eir got ti got to ask questi. This morning were in here to adopt these requirements. All the codes change every three years and so do the standards. National fire protection, Association Standards and sometimes the sections change. What we cited in the last years code cycle would change. Its off a digit or section. Its really that kind of editing that was involved for 90 of these. Commissioner nakajo when you say 90 , all those ap square reviews three years ago will go to modification. You have five new additional administrative bulletins . Well take back one of those. Commissioner nakajo i want to have a clarification question. Ab2. 15 and ab2. 18. Were talking about cultivation plants compared to storefronts or retail . That is correct. This is the operation of the function of extracting oils from the cannabis. Commissioner nakajo i know theres new legislation that permanents cannabis within the city and county in terms of information and in terms of cannabis plants. How many would you say are in operation that require us to administrative bulletins. I would say at least a dozen. Commissioner nakajo where are they located . Mostly in the Old Industrial warehouses. Those are considered an f occupancy, f for factory and cultivating and extraction fall in the same occupancy class. Its an ease change of use permit for the city. Commissioner nakajo based upon the geography of that warehouse that are no longer in existence, it satisfies the code change requirement. Thats why theres more in bayview . Correct. Commissioner nakajo do you anticipate an increase more of these plants throughout the city according to whats vacant . I havent seen one come across our desk in about three or four months. I cant answer that question. Theres a lot of capital needed to start these processes. Commissioner nakajo all right. Just as point of curiosity, these plants, they are products, they are are retailed to the local retailers in San Francisco or throughout . I dont know what their business practice is. I apologize. Commissioner nakajo no need to apologize. That helps me with that one. I got an understanding on a ap3. 08. What number again . Commissioner nakajo you cited ab3. 08. As a new. You cited ab5. 14 as a new. Yes. Commissioner nakajo all right. In terms of the removal that commissioner cleaveland asked, the elevator. Who came up with that recommendation . The International Code council which is in charge of the International Building code. In Fire Service Access elevator requirement for highrise building, lives in the Building Code. Commissioner nakajo is that a San Francisco jurisdiction . We ended up adopting it, correct. Commissioner nakajo in terms of who made that evaluation, its not us the department. But in terms of complying with that, im going to paraphrase, we have no choice but to accept . We have no choice according to the city attorney. Thats correct. We should have maybe identified this back in july and went a different route and tried to get help with our brothers and sisters at the department of building to come on board and support us and not adopt it through their Building Code. Commissioner nakajo im trying to take this slow in my mind. Some of this conversation has arrive during highrise fires. The discussion is how do you attack these fires in the highrise. We went through years of talking about the members taking the stairs, versus elevators. We talked about oxygen station stations. Basically in terms of the department, as we have have to live with this change of code, how does that operationally affect us in terms of highrises . Very good question. Since this decision came down from the city attorneys office, i reached out to the chief and let him know that this could happen. Anything that comes across our desk, we would know which buildings will be affected by this new code. Meaning, this new building at 444 main street, whatever, would be concerned. We can put it as a hazard in our dispatch. 911. Im encouraged by the fact that ive heard for the state fire marshal, theyre allowed to change the code every 18 months, not just three years. They called code cycle change. They are actively pursuing a change to that specific requirement to go back to how it was. That will be an 18 months from now. Jazz i commissioner nakajo this department has various committees. I know highrise is one. Im glad you brought that up. I know its an operational issue as well. I know its a training issue as well. I wanted to make sure that we have some comprehension how do deal with this. One point more clarification. Is there only applicable to newer buildings rather than older buildings . Thats correct. Anything thats permitted after january 1, 2020, highrise building. Commissioner nakajo we the department has to have a pretty good understanding what the landscape is with these various buildings, whether they are new irconstruction or older construction. Is that fall under the department . Is that part of the fire marshal . Its a joint effort of communication. Thats the chain of command here. Its great that few years ago, we started having our inspectors meet weekly with the battalion chiefs and assistant chiefs for anything thats going on in their districts. Im a good friend of the chief. I let him know about this stuff all the time. Its all about dialogue. Were not keeping secrets. Lot of the things are moving parts here that are beyond our control. Commissioner nakajo i appreciate that. Im going to not let this go. Im going to move on. Its just another comprehensive task that we the department have to be aware of. Im at the level if theres a box, and somebody communicating with somebody its a highrise as to how to attack it, the fire. Im paraphrasing it. Thank you very much. Thank you commissioner nakajo. Thank you to all the commissioners for your thoughtful questions. Do you have anything you like to add . I would like your approval to move forward and approve these so we can post them and theyll be effective tomorrow, friday, monday, whatever we decide. Basically just changing couple of those from your executive summary. Thats my recommendation. Thank you. Im looking for a motion. So moved. I have one from commissioner cleaveland. Do i have a second . All in favor say aye. You have your vote unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you for your presentation. Madam secretary. Item 4. [agenda item read] thank you very much. I see you back there commissioner veronese. Hiding behind chief cochran. [applause] i understand that this is where i can pick up my final paycheck. Thats why im here. 40 right . [laughter] those of you who know me, know i dont enjoy this ceremony, especially if it has to do with me. I did want to come here today and thank you guys. Thank you all, thank you first to mayor lee for allowing me to serve on this commission. Also to mayor ferrell for allowing me to continue to serve and to mayor london bree for allowing me to finish the threeyear term. Commissioners, i loved working with every single one of you. To the new commissioners, i dont know you. You have a Great Institution that youre now part of. Once you are commissioner, i understand youre always a commissioner in the Fire Department. You will find it to be a family of people that if they take you in will do anything for you and its just one of the greatest institutions. Commissioner feinstein, i know you come from a great family of service here in San Francisco. I never met you before, but i heard lot about you and i read about you and i read your bio. Im honored that you taken my seat on this commission. Those of you that study San Francisco history, would see little bit of irony here as to a feinstein taking this position on a commission, nonetheless. [laughter] you come from a great family and im honored that youre on this commission. Commissioner feinstein thank you. I appreciate it. We are san franciscans. Commissioner rodriguez, you have big shoes to fill as well. Commissioner hardeman is and was a character on this commission as the other commissioners will tell you. There was a lot of surprise with him. Hes an authentic man, hard working man and man who loves this commission and department. I enjoyed working with him. I wish you all the best. Commissioner cleaveland, you and i will be good friends forever. I really enjoyed our times that we got together over meals. They will continue to be meals conspiring to do better for the department as we did in the past. I love forward to an amazing relationship with you. My president , commissioner nakajo. One thing that i didnt understand at first when i met you and were all characters at central casting on this commission, thats what my grandfather would say, youre a man of great tradition. You are a quiet man in many respects but very honorable man. I really enjoyed serving under you. One thing as you get to know some of the commissioners here, if this commissioner ever invite you to coffee, just know that there maybe beef in that. We sat for coffee one time in japan town and we ended having shavoo for about two hours. I walked out of that full of meat. I will miss those breakfasts and i look forward to doing it again. Commissioner, president , madam president , covington. I really enjoyed working with you. You have a great spirit. I am so happy that youre the president of this commission. You know that when i first joined the Fire Commission, im a man of swag. I enjoy the swag. I hope that you extend the invitation for them to get one of these coats. They are pretty amazing. One of the other things i did, i believe commissioner cleaveland was president at the time, i got the gavel that you have there. If you take a look at the gavel, i had engraved on the gavel, mr. President. Do you see that . Does it still say mr. President . Let me see. Yes, it does. I will have you know that i foresaw that you will be president of this commission and if you take that gavel and swivel the head off it, that medal says madam president on the other side. I hope that you will do that quickly. Somebody will show you how to do it if you cant do it yourself. Im honored that you are in this position. I know you will go far. Chief, i love you. Youre great. Youre great for this department. You are going to do amazing additional things for this department. Im so happy to worked with you. I hope to continue to work with you. You all know that i started the National First responders fund. Im working with the department and i look forward to continue to do that. Over the last three years and into the end of this year, we will have raised almost a Million Dollars in that fund. We spent some of it outside of the city. But we will continue to spend it on members of this department and members of the fire service as well as the police service. It will be something i continue to do. Im honored to do. Its become wan become one the t gratifying things i done. I do want to leave you with a few parting words especially to the new commissioners. If i may, in the three years that i served on this commission, i learned a lot about this department and it took me three years to learn some of the things about the department. I hope that you will continue on in your service towards making this department, i know you will, a better place than it was when you first got here. Just a few of the things i want to mention, cancer in all Fire Services, 61 of in the line of duty deaths are caused by cancer since 2002. That has risen to 70 . Thats a big number and something we need to do something about. I have written a resolution that that i will pass on to you. I hope this commission will take action on it. It calls for the department to purchase p. P. E. S, which is the personal protective gear that the firefighters wear. I was shocked to learn that gear has cancer causing chemicals in it. It took me couple of years to finally learn that. Im shock that we continue to buy gear that has cancer causing chemicals in it knowing that the cancer rate is high in the department. I hope theres action on that. We passed a resolution, unfortunately, they are a draw and people of San Francisco cannot be trusted to be safe on those cliffs. They cant be. Unfortunately, its drawing our members of the department to those cliffs day in and night. Theres action that needs to be done there. We did pass a resolution there calling for greater attention. We have to keep our eye on the cliffs. Data we had called for better Data Collection in the department. I think that we need to grow on that as well. Were tracking narcan. How many times were using narcan. Please stay on that. Also the homelessness. People without residents content. Thats something we started. It needs to continue. Its a good marker of where homelessness is going in San Francisco and its great data to share with other departments. Technology, drones, we fly any drones yet . Not yet. We will be flying drones. I first started on the commission, its going to turn out to be something something just short of that. Then cpr technology. Theres work to be done there. Communications. I was shocked to learn that firefighters have very Poor Communications with each other. That its something that we need to invest in. I have two more here. I think it is essential that we hold other departments accountable for the work going on in the city. It is absolutely essential. I was outspoken for it. I will continue to be the department of health and other departments that affect our ability to do our job in San Francisco that increase our loads that increase the stress, decreased the morale. These are departments that we have to hold accountable with our data and with our advocacy. That is also in the private sector. The staffing at hospitals is something we have to pay great attention to. We started tracking with data how much time ambulances are sitting at the hospital. Its something that we need to be tracking as well. Station 49 is the youre telling me to keep it hes going to let you know, im almost done here station 49 is the workhorse by the numbers of this department. The moral is low there. They are the hardest working people. They are hard working people in this department. We need to pay special attention to those people. Then, finally, posttraumatic stress. I constanted a foundatio i Sa Foundation over this. Its something that requires special attention. I hope you learn more about it. They say that 30 of all fire people in the Fire Services have it of the people that have it, half of them have considered suicide and of those, half of them have attempted. Its a big number and its a killer. There are more people that die in line of service from suicides in Fire Services. Its something that we need to pay special attention to. It is something that i am dedicated to continue on. Finally, i found myself to be a man of action. I really hope that you all continue to take action. An action with purpose or purpose with action. Without purpose, without action, theres no purpose. Without purpose, theres action. Its just waste. I hope that you guys will continue to actually take action. Not taking action is the equivalent of indifference. That is very hurtful. To all the members that are out there, thank you for including me in the Fire Services family over the last three years. Thank you for allowing me to be part of it. I hope that my service made the department in some small way better than it was when i got there. I look forward to continue conto working with you all. I will continue to hold you all accountable in ways that are important to this department. I love this city. I love serving on this commission. I wish you all the best. I truly do. Im so happy to have the men and women of this. Department on the other end of 911. Theres no other department that would rather to be there for me. Thank you all commissioners, chief, i love you. Thank you so much for everything. I look forward to my continued relationship with all of you and i appreciate you not holding me to that three minutes. Thank you guys. [applause] commissioner, please stay at the podium. We have party favor parting. Theres some people who would like to make a comment or two. Beginning commissioner cleaveland. Commissioner cleaveland than k you very much. Needless to say, its been a pleasure to serve with you, commissioner veronese. How do i describe you . Legal mind. Very sharp. Energy, caring heart, resourceful, definitely tenacious, absolutely, a real doer who put together the foundation that raised a Million Dollars now to do research and to assist ptsd for firefighters and other first responders. Your concern for the safety of our citizens and our city, with your recommendations for safety on our coast, for your recommendations for getting drones in the air to save our citizens from cliff rescues, from fires. Youve been outspoken if your support for the citizens of this city and their safety. I appreciate it. I know all of us as commissioners appreciate it. Every man and woman in the department appreciates your support. You left a major mark on this department. Speak from my heart, i appreciate your service. Well miss you on the commission. We will continue to have you as a good friend. Thank you commissioner, appreciate your friendship. Thank you. Commissioner nakajo thank you very much madam president. Its such a pleasure commissioner veronese to serve with you in the present tense in terms of the honor and the enjoyment of working with alioto in this beautiful city and county of San Francisco. You said a lot, you had goals and mind of leaving this department in a far better place. In the three years and not criticizing any of the other commissioners who served in this commission in terms what theyve done and contributed, you have contributed. The words that commissioner cleaveland spoken about your character and your will are very clear in terms of whats accurate for myself, the subject matters in terms of accomplishment are put in our Fire Department in terms of skills, levels as well as access to the public drones, Mental Health, peer group, health and safety fundraisers with the stair climb peer support, even the remarkable support that you advocated for. In terms of what that meant to the members of 49. Meeting all levels of the department that youve touched over the great dedication. Your serious nature how you approach issues and also the advocacy for us to work within the departments within the really trying issues of the homelessness and in terms of Mental Health issues. I personally wanted to thank you as well being member of this Fire Commission. What a great honor. Thank you so much for your contribution and your dedication and your love for this department and the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you commissioner nakajo. Chief of the department, nicholson. Thank you president. Our former commissioner, joe alioto veronese. I want to say thank you for your advocacy, for your love of the department and the men and women in it. Were meeting with Cancer Prevention foundation to talk about p. T. E. Theres new things on the horizon. Thank you for the classes that youve been providing us for Mental Health. Were also advocating for more of that in our budget in terms of personnel. We signed an m. O. U. With the spca for animal assisted therapy visits and drone pilots are in class. All these things are moving forward and just thank you so much for everything youve done and will continue to do. Ill be at the stair climb whenever you say. September 12th, chief. Thank you so much. I appreciate your support there. Commissioner veronese. , my turn. It has been a pleasure to know you. You are just a remarkable citizen. I probably all your help and tenacity. You never just sit on the sidelines and complain. You g in there and you try to make necessary changes. You have done a remarkable job in the way we track the number of people that were helping on the streets with our homeless crises. The stair climb is just brilliant. Its just wonderful. I have my stair climb badge. Youre always handing out swag at the stair climb. [laughter] im mr. Swag. Its all about the swag. I appreciate that. Just the idea that over these three years, you have been able to raise a Million Dollars. People come from all over the world and there are people who do stair climbs everywhere they find them. They can get the climb off work. There are lot of people that come to the stair climbs here. They wouldnt be coming if not for you organizing these things. You get the publicity. You get the d. J. , you got all of these teams that Work Together. Its just fabulous. I went to the first two, didnt make the last one. Im just impressed every time. Your attention to so many things that are challenges for the department, p. P. E. S to the cliffs of San Francisco. I must tell you that the drone School Begins on tuesday and will continue the following tuesday. People will be certified. Theyll be tested and they will be certified and finally, we will have our drone. We need another one but we will have one in the skies. Station 49, you know, amnesty for another cap. We never received as much mail on anything having to do with department that we received for edna the cat. Hundreds of people from around the world who said, edna should return. The chief of the department has been working with the spca to make sure that there are animals who are available to the members of station 49. Edna is not there, but shes got good representation. I want to just thank you again, very much. You are the only one on the commission who still working. The rest of us are retired. You committed so much time and effort. Thank you very much again. Im going to come down there along with the other commissioners with your certificate. Im sorry, commissioner rodriguez. I thought i called upon you. Commissioner rodriguez as a native of San Francisco, and actually a new kid on the block on this commission, i already shared this with a if you, few people. I never realized how much work goes into having this department work. What it entails and its a constant struggle im learning. I never also knew how much work the commission has to really do. I can see how dedicated you are. Thank you as a native for the work that youve done and thank you for being an example to me. After listening to what you said and what seems like youve done, i do have a good example to follow. Thank you very much and continue the good work. Commissioner, i welcome a lunch at some point. If theres one other thing i could share with you, theres one thing this department is really good at and one thing the department is not good at, theyre really good taking care of the public. In many respects, they are not good at taking care of themselves. You all are the stewards of that. I know that youll do good work and im confident of that. Thank you. Shall we go down commissioners . Lets have a photo op and shake hands. Thank you so much. [applause] is there any Public Comment . Seeing none. Public comment is closed. Commissioner veronese, you look like youre running for office down there. [laughter] thank you. Madam secretary. Moving on to item 6. [agenda item read] thank you. Welcome. Good morning president , Vice President , commissioners, chiefs. Im here to review the next item which is a proposed draft of the departments budget for discussion and approval. I have a brief slide show i wanted to walk through it and walk through the document and answer any questions that you may have and go from there. Heres just a brief overview. Lot of weve discussed before but give high level review of budget instructions, time lines, etcetera and whats included in the budget from the beginning, additional changes where we go from here and whats before you and answer any questions that you may have. Brief overview. 3. 5 equates to approximately 2. 7 million for the department. Over two years is about 5. 5 million. Anything that will be added at later date to a departments budget must be in line with mayoral priorities including state streets, homelessness, health and safety of city workers, etcetera. Theres a number that was outlined by the Mayors Office. Heres a high level review of the remaining budget process timeline. Budget for discussion and potential approval, february 21st is the date for submission of all City Department to the Mayors Office. Lot of cases the work really begins at that point. Thats where we begin the negotiations. Weve been working very closely with the Mayors Office over the past few months. The chief has expressed her priorities and needs to the Mayors Office. But those negotiations will pick up. Just kind of discussion of whats before you. As we talked about last meeting, the current budget is basically the city doesnt roll twoyear budget process. First year of the twoyear budget was approved last year. Theres changes due to fringe rates, m. O. U. Increases, any known salary or benefits. Those are incorporated into the budget. Any previously approved initiatives for example, for us our continuation of our hiring plan, those are rolled into the budget as well. Then over the next weeks, were working on some of the finer details of the budget before we submit to the Mayors Office. Theres no material changes and no programmatic changes before we submit to the Mayors Office. Getting into a little bit of the changes, ill start on the revenue side. Theres a small increase in certain Fire Prevention to align with projected and current activity. For the most part, were anticipating relatively stable low activity going into next year. Its still pretty busy. We have a lot of work i heard from assistant fire marshal brown. Lot of projects going through, lot of activity that is continuing. Were currently monitoring workload to ensure that we have sufficient resources to do the plan reviews. We want to balance it and make sure that we have sufficient resources to finish that work that we have been obligated for and next fiscal year, were continuing to work on potentially deferring some of that revenue to next year. Thats a work in progress over the next few months. And we have updated all salary and benefits. Were continuing to work with the Mayors Office on our staffing model and making sure all impacts from the m. O. U. Are incorporated into our budget. You may see a large source reduction for equipment and planning. For example, we were funded last year in this category for 4 million. It looks as if there is a shortfall there. That was just a onetime allocation that we were allocated for the upcoming easter bond. If there is something that looks like a large reduction, that has been planned for. For example, as we retire our civilian fire inspector classification, those are being converted to uniform h4 inspectors as that classification is being phased out. So some of those technical adjustments have been made in the budget. In the operations side, just a few changes to annualization of any f. T. E. s in the current budget are relating to five of the new e. M. S. Positions we received. In addition, the airport has requested a couple new h2 positions as they receive a new apparatus. They are not general fund. Thats why were including them, but those are at the request of the airport. As i mentioned, were continuing to work with the Mayors Office on staffing models and balancing that salary level. Then were also working closely with the Mayors Office on some type of continuation or commitment on our equipment and fleet plan. Mayor lee adopted a fiveyear equipment and fleet replacement plan. The first year of the twoyear budget coming up is the last year of that commitment. So were working with the Mayors Office to expand and extend that multiyear equipment pl plan. For Fire Prevention there was an item noted in the budget. Were establishing a Fire Prevention community fund. It was set forth in the most recent statement of adjustments. The idea is that the fees and revenues collected will go to a special fund to Fund Community outreach and education initiatives. Weve set up a specific fund to capture that so we can be able to use those revenues specifically for purposes. One of the main projects i know theyve been working on is the onestop city permit department. One of the goals was to have one place where all members of the public can go for any type of permits. There is quite a bit of work that needs to continue as we move staff and infrastructures over there. Were continuing to work with our partners d. B. I. , city planning, Mayors Office over the next six months. With regards to the actual Budget Proposal before you, currently the department is asking for a commission to support and approve a Budget Proposal that does not meet target reduction requests. The Budget Reduction requests are coming to all City Departments, but specifically the Fire Department, where were looking for an increased demand in services for services to be provided. We have a difficult time meeting the demands. A lot of our Budget Allocation is focused on salary and benefits of frontline staffing. So without reducing that, theres very limited reductions elsewhere in the department. So weve also identified in addition to maintaining the current level of service, weve identified additional funding needs that we would like to that we have been discussing with the Mayors Office and have been continuing to do so. I want to emphasize we will continue to work with the mayors Budget Office over the next few months. There is significant work that needs to be done and weve started those conversations. That will ramp up as we submit our budget to them. Weve provided education on a lot of our needs and priorities. I just wanted to highlight the document before you, an overall detail of salary, benefits, expenditures, and revenues are included in the budget before you. In addition on page 97 we have an overview of the departments equipment and vehicle requests. So in line with the updated vehicle replacement plan. We have been tracking what we have been allocated versus what weve been requesting on an annual basis. While we definitely have made some improvements over the past five years as a result of the equipment and fleet replacement Plan Incorporated by the Mayors Office, we still have a long time way to go and quite a bit of backlog that we need to address. We have a number of vehicles, both frontline and relief, that are in need of replacement. We would continue to work with the Mayors Office on that. We have a number of equipment needs and vehicle needs that are outlined here. It is more than just vehicles, as we have a variety of complex and very important equipment that we use on a daytoday basis. On the next page, on page 98, is a review of the Capital Planning request. This is an overview of what is anticipated not to be under the ecer bond requests. We still have 100 million in deferred maintenance and repair that is needed at our facilities. This is a portion of that that is being requested. On page 104 is an overview of a few of the i. T. Projects that were requesting. So both capital and i. T. Go on a separate budget process. Capital goes through capital commit. Same with the i. T. , it goes through a committee on information and technology. Those projects will be vetted at that point and incorporated into the budget at the end of the day as well. Then on page 106 is kind of an overview of some of the Additional Needs we will be working with the Mayors Office on. These have been identified by the department as a priority. A lot of this has been communicated already to the Mayors Office. Weve provided some information. We will continue to work with them, provide Additional Data and justification and walk through this with them as they ramp up their budgetplanning process. Just touching on this briefly, ill walk through the list shortly. An overview of some administrative list support. The new upcoming c. A. D. Project is listed there. Some additional f. T. E. For health and wellness. Additional staffing for fire investigation. Weve also been looking very closely at additional ambulance staff to meet the current shortfall. We currently have an optimized schedule that we work closely on, but we have problems not having enough staff to meet those shifts. In addition to being able to backfill for current employees to provide mandated and required training. Currently we dont have the bandwidth to take those employees out of the 911 system. We also need some Additional Support for the e. M. S. Training. We are requesting a restoration of the incident sports specialist for the chiefs that dont have one. Some additional Logistical Support for the new ambulance deployment facility coming online and also in general for the trades on a daytoday basis. Weve requested some additional training, Incident Management Team training, Leadership Development and command training, some allocation for funding for officer academies that would be on an annual basis as well and just some Additional Resources for the training st f staff. With that, i open it up to any questions you may have. Thank you. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item . Seeing none, the item is closed. Ill go to my fellow commissioners. Thank you, mr. Corso, for not only your presentation today, but for this document. Very detailed. I actually made my way through it. Im not sure how much i comprehended yet, but im working on it. I had one question that came out of your handout today, but coincidentally i marked it when i went through the document itself and it has to do with the e. M. S. Revenue. I was having trouble seeing the projection of the revenue. I understand i dont know what you want to call them, the adjustment and allowances, the deals that get made, the settlements that get made in terms of payment for Emergency Services and ambulances, but you have ambulance billings not going up at all over the next two years, Fire Department charges not going up. Im not going to suggest i know what miscellaneous hospital Revenue Service is, but its not going up. Assuran insurance revenue is not going up. And then on todays handout it says stabilization of e. M. S. Revenue with changing healthcare demographics working on additional supplemental reimbursements for e. M. S. So im a little bit confused as to what the vision or the plan is for the department as it pertains to what appears to be an increasing demand or area of demand for service. Absolutely. So just to clarify how thats broken down in the budget, so the first two lines that youre looking at, the contractual adjustments and the ambulance billings, the net result is the e. M. S. Revenue. The net billings is the total billings based on the charges. And as you mentioned, the charges are due to writeoffs or adjustments with medicare or medical. So were currently working on a number of initiatives to increase that revenue through state programs and supplemental programs. They havent been formalized, but we anticipate they will be in the next few months. We dont have anything as far as solid numbers at this point to incorporate into our budget. Weve maintained there is a small increase of 45,000 included here in ambulance revenue, but that is mainly to maintain the stability of the revenue based on the negating factors of small increase in demand, but also changing demographics where were not getting reimbursed from private insurers and as we see more people become uninsured as far as our demographics go. All right. Thank you. Thats the wrong direction, but i realize thats not youre not the cause of that. Thank you. My latest question deals with the billings on Ambulance Services. Obviously we bill out about 150 million and we write off a little more than 120 million. Thats a huge variant. I dont know how we can overcome that kind of variance. Im sure youre working on that and looking at ways we can recover our costs. Whats the average ambulance run cost . Its about 2,200 is our fees. I do want to clarify that too. Part of that is a structural issue. Given we have over 50 about 60 of our patients are medicare or medical. 50 . Yes. So what that means is we are capped with the amount of reimbursement we can recoup from them. Regardless of our fees and if they go up with medical c. P. I. , thats not changing the amount of reimbursement we get. On the medicare side we get 420 per reimbursement and on the medical we get about 125. That is a huge proportion of that disallowable percentage there. A lot of the rates are determined at the state and federal levels and are out of our control here. This is not just an issue for the Fire Department. You collect from medicare on a single run no, in general, if medicare is the primary insurer, medical will not pay on top of that. Its either or, not both. There is some recognition that the level of reimbursement for medicare patients is quite low. There are a few programs that are going through or have been or are in the process of being implemented or already have been implemented that allow jurisdictions to submit additional costs to show that the costs are way outweighing the reimbursement. These rates were set nationally at least on medicare and they dont make allowances for highercost states like california . Correct. There are a few fluctuations for urban or rural areas, those kinds of differentiations, but its not a material difference. Whats the average percentage increase in our salaries . I believe for the terms of the m. O. U. At least for the uniform side, which is the predominant portion of our department, its about 3 . Theres some additional increases related to premiums. Then on the other side there is health and Retirement Benefits that are anticipated to go up as well. That wasnt clear in the presentati presentation. Earlier it was mentioned that the communication between the department and the fire staff is behind the times. We need to upgrade our comms systems. I would defer to the chief on this question. Good morning, commissioners. Were looking at replacing the scbas. The market is coming up to an integrated system. We tested some of them via bluetooth. They didnt work that well. We want to make sure the systems are fully integrated before we provide them to the firefighters. Were looking at a whole replacement of our scbas. At this time there is nothing in the market that is safe enough for us to say the firefighters can go inside the fire building and they can use it. Were looking constantly into that. Thats good to know. Thank you. In terms of the Capital Budget request, were requesting somewhere between 50 million and 55 million plus next year. What is the likelihood of getting a dime of that . I would say our Capital Budget has been between 1 million and 3 million. Our baseline for approval based on the capital plan is about 900,000 for Facility Maintenance in general. That is for 50 facilities. So obviously thats about not that much per thats pretty pitiful. In addition to that, we have been funded for some specificscope projects. We have some Capital Funding were using now. To the extent we can leverage the funding we are getting, working with the p. U. C. , working closely with d. P. W. , looking at grant opportunities, et cetera. We try to make every dollar go as far as it can, but we do have a large deficit in terms of repair and maintenance of our facilities. I hope you invite a commissioner to these Capital Budget planning meetings because i think the urgency of our upgrades can no longer be ignored. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much. Budget changes on page 8, your information about airport for new apparatus. Any additional h2 out of the airport comes out of our budget and not from the airport budget . It come out of the airport budget, but the airport budget is in our overall budget. Its just funded by the airport. This request by the Airport Division would then be granted through the airport budget and is there a Good Opportunity for that to occur . Yes, past precedent is because these are not general positions and given the health and activity at the airport and with the changing needs, this has generally been funded and not been an issue because its coming from airport funds. Thank you very much. Commissioners, in terms of of the Vice President s comments, at some point youre going to be able to go out to the airport, which is a huge world in itself. Thats a great place to be able to increase our comprehension base. That took me a long time to understand. Age 9 in terms of Fire Prevention, you talk about establishing Fire Prevention Community Development funds related to outreach as a result and changes to fire codes. I know weve done this previously because of the good work out of the fire martials unit. Are these line items and a matter of change, or how does this apply . This would be essentially new funding. The structure for charging fees for the administrative hearing process is relatively new. Its a new process as a result of some city legislation a few years ago thats been kind of set up. Theres significant research. Theres a significant amount of work on our staffs part to make sure and prepare for those hearings. So the goal of that language that was included in the fire code was to set up recoupment for services with regard to the resources that are being used for these hearings. And then also to extend and reallocate those funds to make sure they can be earmarked for community and the expenditures. Weve set up a separate committee to do that. Is this work being done by existing staff . Correct. The point about the new commissions, is that not the position we took last year . Correct. Thats been the position weve taken in the last few years. In light of the increased demand for services and the current need to the department, it hasnt been feasible to propose reductions in that regard. I just wanted that reinforced due to the clarification that it was two years in a row that we took this position. That means we are taking this position this year as well so that the cuts of the projected deficit, we the department are standing fast in terms of not meeting the target reduction. Just as a point of comprehension on that. I wanted to comment on the questions commissioner cleveland asked in terms of reimbursements of Ambulance Services and such. The scenario that the director gave us in terms of limited reimbursement from the state and from the feds, in terms of a department has always been the case since ive been on here for 25 years. Weve always run into that harsh reality of the department making it up or eating it. Its a big issue. Again with the demand that we have and depending on who you are as a citizen, whether medicare or medical, the citizens have to be transported. Were not in a noone situation, but we have to deal with these services and dont get a reimbursement close to it. Somewhere on the state line, theres got to be some adjustment somewhere or some new form of how to deal with this. This is a black hole. Again, i just wanted to talk about this in the perspective of some information because its going to be an ongoing problem for years and years. The other question i have in this budget, when we talk about our membership, does our membership get a cost of living increase . Generally, yes. Thank you. I see that dr. Yea is here. Thank you for being here. Can you come to the podium, plea please. I just wanted to know if there is anything in particular on the medical side that you would like to highlight today. Of course. Good morning, commissioners. Dr. Yea for the department. I would just generally thank you for the opportunity. I would just generally support some of the expressed needs already included in the budget in terms of growing volume and the ongoing need for patient care resources. I think our system is continuously a very busy and strapped system. Some of the things that we anticipate and dont anticipate in terms of either momentary surges, emergency needs, or the change in circumstances, sometimes these cant be figured into an ongoing budget if were already strapped. I think this is not a new concept for this department, but i think we ongoing have staffing needs. That would be my biggest emphasis is that we need to really achieve our fundamentals. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Commissioners, this is an action item. I will entertain a motion at this time. So moved, madam chair. Thank you. And we have a second, commissioner cleveland for the motion and the second from Vice President feinstein. Did we vote . We did not vote. All in favour say aye. Aye. Thank you. Next item, please. Item 7, chief of departments report. Report from chief of department, jeanne nicholsreport on current activities and events within the Department Since the Fire Commission meeting on january 22, 2020, including budget, academies, special events, communications and outreach to other Government Agencies and the public. Report from operations, deputy chief Victor Wyrsch report on overall field operations, including greater alarm fires, emergency medical services, bureau of Fire Prevention investigation, Homeland Security, and Airport Division. Jeanne nicholson report on current issues, activities and events within the Department Since the Fire Commission meeting on january 22, 2020, including budget, academies, special events, communications and outreach to other Government Agencies and the public. Report from operations, deputy chief Victor Wyrsch report on overall field operations, including greater alarm fires, emergency medical services, bureau of Fire Prevention investigation, Homeland Security, and Airport Division. Thank you. Good morning, again, commissioners. Chief jeanine nicholson. This is my report. Lets see, i have had several meetings. I met with jeffry tumlin. We have a quarterly meeting now that we do with police and department of Emergency Management. We are this meeting was talking about future combined trainings, leadership, active shooter, disaster training, and the like. So were going to be following up with them on that. We all need to be able to Work Together in a large incident and not in our own separate silos. So some good is really coming out of these meetings. I spoke at the sf travel policy meeting and spoke about some of the challenges that the department has right now. That really lines up with what we are concerned about as well. We have conducted interviews for the physicians position. We have conducted four and have one more to go on thursday. Then we will forward some names to you. Thank you, commissioner cleveland, for being a part of that. More to follow on that, but were really excited about moving this Physicians Office forwa forward. Ive been working with the Human Rights Commission sheryl davis on opportunities for all as well as e. M. S. Core that i spoke about at the last meeting. Having Productive Movement on both of those things. For those of you who dont know, opportunities for all is a program of mayor london breed to give opportunities to High School Students in different work settings in the department. Myself and the two other chiefs have been meeting with employee groups, asian firefighters, united fire service women, s. F. E. M. S. Officers and s. F. Fire chiefs association. Weve had good dialog with them. Coronavirus has also been on the radar. Weve been working with d. P. H. And d. P. M. To keep our own members safe if and when we respond to someone with coronavirus. I have continued visiting the stati stations. I visited station 3 and station 6 since our last meeting and i have one more to go. The command staff is diligently going out and meeting with our members and i believe chief de witt even brought one of the people on her team with her who does a lot of our repairs out to the station to talk to folks about just that. I also met with this is not news to some of you, but i met with our new Vice President feinstein and new commissioner rodriguez one on one in cd2 and 3 to give them a lay of the land. We have some more to go, but to get them up and running. I want to thank commissioner cleveland again in terms of moving us forward with the guardians of the city, the gotc, on solutions to housing our antique rigs. Theyve located a place to store some of our pieces. The mayors Lunar New Year event i attended as well as the parade this past weekend. Thank you for your attendance as well. Last, it is black History Month and i did go to an event at city hall this past last week. Happy black History Month to all. And then the one last thing is we are meeting with the Cancer Prevention foundation to move forward in terms of putting together specifications for our next p. P. E. R. F. P. , request for proposal. We want to get all those toxic chemicals out of that equipment. So we need to drive the industry is basically what it is. Weve got a great partner with the Cancer Prevention foundation. Were really grateful for them. Again, just thank my command staff for working as hard as they do. Im taking years off their lives. That concludes my report. Thank you, chief nicholson. I hope its just a few days that youre taking off, as opposed to years. On that happy note, yes. Oh my goodness. Chief of the department. All right. Is there any Public Comment on chief nicholsons report . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioners, do you have any questions for the chief . Any comments . All right, chief. I just have a question regarding any new Safety Measures or protocols that are being employed now that we are facing the coronavirus and it seems like the incubation period may be as long as 21 days. So you have no idea if youre coming into contact with a person who might later on develop it. What are the new protocols, if any . Let me just say the next week is really important in terms of whether we see a rise in cases in the country or not. There are only, i believe, 12 confirmed cases in the country. So we are acting with an abundance of caution ourselves, d. E. M. And d. P. H. The department of Emergency Management has questions their calltakers are asking people that are calling 911. There is that screening. We are also when we meet folks at the door, we are asking some questions. We have also put out i know chief tong has put out some literature for folks on how to respond and how to decontaminate ourselves. We are acting with an abundance of caution. Were really looking at the next week to see what happens. Weve had a couple of possible folks who turned out to be negative. We had one person who came out on a plane who was known to have it and was transported by a private ambulance from the airport to Travis Air Force base. Im not i just want to reassure the public that we are absolutely doing everything we can. It is still only 12 throughout the country. All right. Well, since we are an international destination, i think its good to know exactly how if the once the cases begin, they increase exponentially. So thats why im asking the question. Do we have enough masks . There seems to be a mask shortage. Yes, there is an n95 mask shortage worldwide, but we have adequate supplies for our members and we take precautions with patients in terms of surgical masks or a nonrebreather mask with oxygen that we would put on them, yeah. All right, chief tong or dr. Yea, is there anything you would like to add . No, okay. Good morning again, commissioners and chief. Thank you, i think that was a perfect summary from the chief. I would also just reiterate to your concerns, president covington, this is something about International Concern about the development of the coronavirus. It is something that locally were keeping a close eye on. I want to reiterate to the public that currently this is being seen as a low risk to residents here. There is not a recommendation for the public to be using masks at all. All of our members, weve kind of taken precautions before. We deal with Infectious Diseases and take care of sick patients all the time. Our usual precautions are in order. Unfortunately in situations like this in the last few years with ebola and mers and sars, we are keeping an eye on it. At this point there are a lot of precautions that are going on at the screening process, but the risk to the public and our providers is very low. Thank you for reiterating that. At this time i understand from a lot of medical professionals that you are more at risk of getting the flu than you are of getting the coronavirus. So if you have not had your flu shot yet, it is still not too late. Thank you for your report, chief. Madam secretary. Clerk Operations Report. Welcome, chief wyrsch. Good morning. This is my Operations Report for the month of january. I usually start off my Operations Report with the suppression section. In suppression i oversee six assistant chiefs, two a day, one in division 2 and one in division 3. Today we have two chiefs with us. Ill begin with the greater alarm report. We had a second alarm on the 26th of january at 1437 hours at 1270 la playa. This was an acting assistant chief ken yees fire. As you can see by the fire building, if you study and look at it a little bit, we had a few different challenges. Because it was seen from so far away, there was many different phone calls that gave different addresses. We were on the scene and called a working fire at 1441 hours. We came across a fourstorey building with fire showing in more than four windows. A second alarm was called at 1446 hours by the 1st battalion chief. As you can see in the picture here, they were unable to use an aerial because of the wires and the fire impinging on the fire escape. It was decided to throw a 50foot ladder on the building beside. There was six adults and two pets that were displaced. This was a coordinated aggressive interior attack to the top floor of the fire. We used 3inch large lines inside the building. Theyre usually placed on the floor below the fire. Off of that large line, it will y off to two smaller lines. We had two large lines to the smaller ones at the top floor. We had a coordinated roof opening. The truck on the roof opened a 4by4 hole directly over the fire. That releases the heat and the fire and the gases. They have to penetrate the ceiling with ceiling hooks and it makes it easier for everyone inside to fight the fire. They conduct a primary and a secondary search, extinguish the fire. A fire like this travels the attic very quickly. The ceiling hooks knocks it down. The companies did a fantastic job and put the fire out quickly. In the month of january, we also had 16 other working fires. We kept those fires at first alarms. One of the fires that you may have seen on tv was a vehicle into the holding tank, where a vehicle went full speed into a gas fume holding tank. They were able to get on scene very quickly, extinguish the fire, the victim was trapped. With the use of the rescue squad and accompanying members, they were able to cut off the roof, put out the fire, and extricate the victim. They did a very good job. In january we had six water rescues, where we saved six adults. Cliff rescues, we had four different cliff rescues where we saved two adults and two kids. We also did a highangle rescue where we saved a dog and an adult. The p. I. O. Lieutenant john baxter also starts the list here with his many functions. Hes very involved and has a list of those for you. Some of his social media responses, hes the one in charge of our social media and he monitors those and gets information out to the public. The functions, youll see on the 26th we had a drill. We did three different bart drills in the month of january. Thats suppression and e. M. S. That were involved in that. Next im in charge of the e. M. S. Division. Who oversees that is assistant deputy chief sandra tom. We went over the coronavirus, so well just talk about we have what we call are rescue captains which are paramedic supervisors. Theyre now in their second week of training. We have three new members coming. Then also we have new members coming for our e. M. S. Six. They will be out in march 20 and i believe they start on the 26th of march. Theres a lot of data in here, as we talked about, about the identifiable home addresses and nonidentifiable home addresses. The e. M. S. Six report which is on page 9, section chief simon pang is in charge of that. Id like to get him in here to do a nice presentation for the new commissioners and really get into the weeds. Basically in the month of january we had 293 encounters engag engaged. As you see the breakdown on page 14, of those 293 engagements, 100 referrals were made and we were successful 48 times, so 48 success rate. So our top 20 call volume percent changes minus 56 . If you move on to page 16, excommissioner verniers narcan report is very important. This goes up and down as you can see. January was a high month. Weve included the narcan use by battalion. The red line is battalion 2. That is the corridor between stations 1, 3, and 36. Even though station 3 is in battalion 4, the bottom of station 3 that they cover, the lower tenderloin, is actually battalion 2. That is the area that covers the lower tenderloin and the south of market area. Thats why thats so high. The next highest would be battalion 3 and thats all south of market, stations 8 and 1. On the following page is our Narcan Administration by doses. Again, we had a high month, but if you see on the far righthand corner, mostly its all a single dose. The highest that we had was five doses for an individual. Next is a bureau of Fire Prevention investigation. The fire martial is usually here, but we have the assistant fire martial who spoke earlier and can answer any questions that you have. Theyve been keeping busy with the calls and training. As you can see on page 20, they had a total of 2,983 inspections that they completed in the month of january. The total overall complaints on 21 and 22, these are complaints that come in from either our inspections that we do, our r1 or r2 inspections, or they come in from tenants. A lot of them are coming in from the use of the 311 number and other city agencies, such as a d. B. I. Of those complaints, there was 297 complaints, they were able to close 193 of them. So theyre doing really well there. Then we get to on page 24 the community outreach. Our community outreach, we basically cover all over the city, try to cover as much as possible. Theres a little bit less this month than in the previous months. As you can see here, we reached 542. But because of the code changes and the workload, that had something to do with the amount we were able to get to our outreach. These areas that we go to outreach, it was asked before how they were chosen, and usually its the supervisors. A supervisor will bring up a place of interest, bring it to our attention, and well go out there and do an outreach when requested. The plant check and operational permits on 26 is done by the assistant fire martial. The large Community Development projects on page 29 is led by assistant fire martial pat. You can see the developments hes working on. On page 30, captain chad law has been very important for us because especially with he oversees tasks, the transportation advisory safety committee. In that, he is basically looking for Fire Department access. With all these new street closures, oneway streets, bulbouts, bike lanes, we have to take into account that because of the street lines, power lines, and muni lines, we have to have access for our trucks. So hes been on top of that. On page 31 under bart, it has taken dan decosio to acquire bart. We had our first inspection on bart. It was a jurisdictional fight that they had. The fire martial went up to the state capital and fought for it. Because its a place of assembly, its now ours. We had our first inspection. Now we can control it, oversee it, and make sure its safe. Next is the airport. The Airport Division is overseen by the deputy chief. We have two new training specialists. At the bottom of the page youll see our computeraided dispatch total. It gives us 475 runs. The one below that is the bike medics. They had a total of 281 runs. Today myself and chief cochrane are going to go to all three stations at the airport and visit with them today. Next is Homeland Security. It is overseen by mike cochrane. This has been a busy beginning of the year. Mike does all the action plans for the major events. Of course we started off with new years eve. We had the super bowl. We plan for the super bowl afterparty or parade, but that ended up not happening. The Chinese New Year parade takes up a lot of time and effort. We make a plan so everyone is on the same page. Weve been working closely with p. D. And its been a good relationship. He has been giving out the f. D. O. Tours. Our Fire Department Operation Center is on the second floor of headquarters. You should come and get a tour. Thats where our incident Management Section goes. Our backup to that is in the chiefs quarters. The there are three backups in case we need them. All week weve been working with battalion dispatched based protocols. For a week weve been Training Battalion chiefs, assistant chiefs, captains, and lieutenants how we do the 103 in our disaster preparedness. Thats been working well. You spoiled my surprise about the drones. That class started yesterday. There are 15 members. It will go for another week and then theyll have to do their testing. The ham radio class, we had our Incident Support specialist and some chief officers take that. Thats in case we have our communication breakdown. Thats our backup in case we lose our communications. We need our Incident Support specialist and we need them to be trained so we can use a ham radio as a backup. And then also for the fuel group one of the things weve been working on is a way in case of a disaster we lose the ability to get the fuel out of the ground. So we have developed and you see a pump on the screen. Each vehicle can hook up to that pump. I have battalion chief pat darcy overseeing our radio. We are working closely with d. M. To start practising with their dispatchers to train them on battalionbased control. We have another meeting on friday with the d. M. Well get that training with the dispatchers. Well do that training with the dispatchers in the field. At the end youll see a breakdown of the run summary. If you have any questions, im open for questions. Thank you, chief wyrsch. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. I will go to the Vice President. I did go through and Read Everything and cannot represent that i understood everything. I had just a couple of questions for you. I think ill work backwards here. Regarding point a to an emergency room, there is some transportation or youre going to have some where they really need medical care en route. Correct. Some is just a ride sometimes. Thats what im saying. Good morning. In general we have two rates for e. M. S. Response and one is a transport rate and one is a nontransport rate. What we have done is rolled up all the costs of providing e. M. S. Services in total and applied that based on the anticipated number of runs to get our pertransport costs. Rather than itemize each item thats been used or things like that, weve essentially took a look at the entire cost to provide services and averaged that out. All right. Maybe i should direct a followup question to you. If someone is insured or their Insurance Company is going to pay for the transport, pay for whatever medical care and the cost of medical care that needs to be provided en route, shouldnt that be at a higher rate than medicare or i mean, the medical rate that was just cited is i mean, it was stunning to me. 100. You cant uber that cheaply. So im just trying to wrap my head around this and i need some help here. Absolutely. Im happy to send you some information and walk you through. It is a complex issue that we are dealing with. In general to your question, yes, absolutely. The private insurance reimburses at a much higher rate. Weve seen kind of some changes in insurance with many policies having higher deductibles for people. That has changed the Way Insurance had paid. For the most part, we dont have a contractual relationship with any specific providers. That is more on the hospital side than the e. M. S. Side. Not just for us, but industrywide. Weve worked closely to identify insurance and do the outreach. A lot of that writeoff too is people that are uninsured, that we end up eating those costs and writing those costs off as well. Thank you. Now a fire question. Looking at this fire on la playa and having read your summary, i think the video was very different from looking at the still pictures. Looking at the video, that looks like a very fierce fire. Its so it felt very aggressive and black and the amount of smoke coming out the top floor of that building, is that normal . Do i just never see a fire . Thats normal. Ive got to ask my question somewhere. Has a cause been determined . I know you said it was under investigation and i know that assistance was declined by the occupant occupants it is under investigation still. Usually our greater alarm reports because i do it right after. Its within the month. We dont get the results unless its something obvious right off the bat. This one is undetermined at this point. This is a pretty aggressive fire. If there was floors above it, then it would have been onto a third alarm because its what we call auto exposing to the floor above. We would have had to send the same number of companies to the floor above. Because it was a topfloor fire, and they did everything right, they kept it at a second. If you saw the picture, the entrance was in the rear, you fight a fire from the insideout and they were able to push it out. Thank you. Those were my two questions. Thank you, madam Vice President. Commissioner cleveland. Thank you, madam president. Thank you, commissioner feinstein, for bringing up some of the issues i wanted to bring up, including that la playa fire. When you do find out what the cause of that fire is, i wish you would bring that back to the commission and educate us so we can educate the public on what causes these fires. Looking at page 9 where you talk about the incident distribution by station, some stations do an inordinate amount of calls compared to other stations. So those people two or three or four or more times than the more quiet stations shall we say. Do you staff up stations 1 and 3, do you staff them up differently . Do you have double shifts waiting . Do you have several ambulances sitting nearby waiting to jet out to pick up somebody on the street . So we do have posting stations with your ambulances. And of course the posting stations are more condensed in that area. So there are more ambulances in that area. We also have what we have a q. R. V. , the Quick Response vehicle. That vehicles responsibility is to take some of the call load off of that corridor. They stay in station 1 . Correct. They stay in that area. They take a lot of the code 2 calls to keep the numbers down. Engine 3 runs almost nonstop. They are very proud stations. Thats like their house and family. They work very, very hard from what i can see from the number of medical calls in just one month, its just astronomical. Station 1 had 1,021 medical calls, of which 32 were from unidentifiable addresses. Obviously people were living on the streets. Different population to deal with on a daytoday basis. No doubt. Its just heartbreaking to me and many of my fellow commissioners and most of San Francisco to see so people on the street in use and in need of our services. It just breaks my heart. Weve put so many resources into so few people, its just amazing, its just amazing. The board agreement that you talked about, why was bart concerned about us responding to fires or medical incidents within bart . It wasnt about us responding to incidents. It was who was in charge of inspecting. Maybe rich brown can talk a little bit more about it. There was an internal fight with the different agencies that we ended up [ indiscernible ] versus responding to a fire. Correct. We do inspections and our battalion chiefs go down and we have drills down there. They do runthroughs and walkthroughs and sometimes we were seeing fire exits that were blocked. Who was the competing agency . Good morning, rich brown, assistant fire martial. That was the question. It was really slipping through the cracks. How this started is we got multiple letters of complaints and city agencies didnt know how to deal with them, so it ended on the Fire Departments lap. Therefore, we started this conversation with the state fire martial who has jurisdiction at bart because they travel through multiple counties. Four or five years later, its our responsibility if it lands in our county. So basically its Fire Prevention complaints. Thats what weve been seeing. Overcrowdedness, broken and altered exits, like the escalators or doors or locked doors because they have a lot of fair thieves. Those are on our radar. Now we have an enforcement tool to move forward and protect the public. Too bad it takes five years to make a simple decision like that. Its pretty obvious to me, but what do i know . You had one thing on your list of complaints. You had like 555 complaints that were of no merit. Was that a typo . What page are you on . Oh, 21. No merit right. I would get back to you on that one. That had to be a typo perhaps. Whats the most common complaint thats found at no merit . I have to get back to you on that, commissioner, i apologize. Thats not my section. Thats all my questions. Thank you both. Thank you, commissioner cleveland. Thank you very much, chief wyrsch, on your comprehensive report. Traditionally what happens is i go through this document and it enables us to comment not only in terms of the report but also to recognize the various divisions in the report. Chief, this is the first time ive seen a cover. I try to get better every month. I understand that. No pressure on the chief of administration, but there is a cover. I acknowledge the little pink tabs. Not only do we have pictures, but we have little pink tabs. And those tabs relate to another cover. Chief, youre burning the midnight oil as well as the rest of the command force. I just want to comment that on your Operations Report and your detail in terms of the la playa fire, in terms of the Vice President s comments as well, the still pictures really help, but the video increases that. As a prerogative, commissioners and colleagues, we commissioners have the prerogative to respond to any fire out in the field. Thats why we got this these phones that alert us about whether its one alarm, two alarms, three alarms. I wanted to remark on la playa and the description. Because of your experience and as you narrated it out, it made it clearer for the commissioners about exactly what goes on. When youre talking about the roof and making a whole in the roof with a certain diameter, in terms of what the purpose of that is, but it also is important to hear your narration on lines, line 1, 2, 3, and where its going. Also, commissioners, you talked about a 50foot ladder that were distinctly known for. So again, if you want to see the members in action, if you want to la playa, and on various days, i think its mondays, theres drills at various houses, the captains decide if theyre going to deal with the 50foot ladder. That thing in terms of observation at a fire, thats what were there for, what are the members doing on how are we doing it. Everything that were dealing with, we the commissioners have that responsibility in approving it in process and budget, as well as when we go through these members of the board, the justification of that need is real strong. So i just wanted to remark on that, that that really helps in your description of it. When it says the p. I. O. With a tab and a recognition of, again, lieutenant baxter, again a new page but it says e. M. S. Division with a tag that talks about all of the areas that chief tong is involved with. I know i wrote some notes in terms of my questions, but also what came up with our colleagues. We talked about ambulance and ambulance costs. We talked about reimbursement of medicare and medical, depending on who you are. I worked for 45 years with c. U. S in japan town. I knew seniors who were hurt or injured and didnt want me to call an ambulance. Didnt want to bother. In the back of their minds, depending on how much coverage they had, there was always a cost associated. At one point another c. U. Would ask me a question, and im telling her, you have to get into an ambulance and get into a hospital. She remarked back to me, how much is it going to cost me . In terms of patients and recovery, there was some talk about passing on cost savings to patients. There are capabilities for this in some situations and in others there is no capability. I want to remark on that particular area as well. Again, i appreciate chief dicasio and fire martial brown, the work that occurs in that, the Airport Division. Chief cochrane in terms of special services. I want to remark that these are all areas that are helpful for us, the commission, to be able to realize and comprehend. You are talking about we the department are going to be doing training at dispatch in terms of that. It has never occurred before where we the department are able to train dispatchers. I want to say how good i think that is because of the nature of a police or fire response with civilian dispatchers. At this particular time, chief, do you know how the employees in terms of dispatcher, are they sufficient in their dispatch numbers because there was some time in there where it was hard to maintain the dispatch numbers. Do you have any information for us in my opinion . I can speak to that. Yes, there was a time when they had a difficult time because they were short, but theyve staffed up over the last few years. If i may, in terms of training, weve done trainings with the d. E. M. Before and with dispatch before. This is just a different type of training in relation to disaster preparedne preparedness. Thank you very much, chief, for that clarification as well. I again appreciate yourself in terms of all the work thats put behind this. I know this only represents all of the members of the department that have to submit this in a somewhat timely manner for us the commissioners. Thank you very much for that report. Thank you, madam president. Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner rodriguez. First of all, thank you for your report. Getting back to bart because i know theres been instances at bart before and people do not know who to go to to get answers. From understanding if this is correct, if there is any life Safety System or anything that entails the safety of the public at any station in San Francisco, then we would reach out to the Fire Department . Correct. Thank you. If i could just say, yes, what this specifically was about was who is responsible for sort of making the rules or the codes in terms of access and egress and the like at bart stations. Everybody was doing this. Thank you, chief, for your report. I love the graphics and the layout. I think youre becoming quite the design expert, which is nice. You had a hand in it even if you didnt do it personally. I had a question regarding the ham radio class. How many attendees were there for that . We have a total of eight. So thats just the Incident Support specialists. We also had some chiefs that attended just on their own. But were focusing on the incident Sports Specialists because theyre the ones that are going to be in the Communications Room with the ham radio. We drastically need them. I know that nert also had a ham radio component. Do we know how many people there are certified through nert as ham radio operators . I dont know the number. There are more and more people who are using ham radios. I mean, its not a lot. Its still kind of a geek thing, but nert does have classes available for that and i think people should know that. Okay. There was Something Else i had to oh, i just wanted to basically give a shout out to fire martial decosio for going to sacramento and getting everything straightened out. I want to thank him and his team for making sure that jurisdictional issues were very clear and that we were able to prevail in that matter. Im sure hes watching, but ill make sure he knows. Good. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments . No. Thank you, chief wyrsch. Sorry to have spoiled your surprise about the drones, but i was excited. Clerk item 8, commission report. Report on Commission Activities since the last meeting on january 22, 2020. Thank you very much. Is there any Public Comment . Did i ask for Public Comment on okay. Is there any Public Comment regarding commissioners who are out and about . All right. Public comment is closed. Commissioners, what have you been up to . Thank you very much, madam president. I just wanted to acknowledge that i also attended with you, m. D. President and chief of the department, at the black history celebration held at city hall. Very important celebration. Thank you for that. That was a totally enjoyable afternoon as well. The other thing is we all celebrated Chinese New Years last weekend. There were members of the fire reserve there and fire cadets that joined us that evening as well. I particularly wanted to acknowledge chief tong and chief cochrane because i made the request through the chief of the department to go out early to station 49 as part of the briefing that we go through to prepare for big events like the chinatown parade as well. Perhaps, chief tong or chief cochrane, if you can help me describe what was out there that day. Could you describe for and i know i was part of that as well. I wanted to remark one of the things that occurred out there is we have ambulances and we also have gators out there. Just for the other commissioners, how many ambulances did we have and how many gators did we have. Yes, i can take that question. One of the responsibilities of Homeland Security is special events. There are literally hundreds a year. We do the larger events. We call it the event pox. Whenever there is large crowds, there is the possibility for multiple medical calls or for something to go wrong. We prepare for that. Chinese new year, we had the mass casualty unit and bus, four gators, and i believe two ambulances. We bring as many resources as we can next to the event box. Before we do that, we do a briefing, communications, locations, whos in charge, wheres the command post. We dispatch out of there. Our gators we use to transport people in the incident because theres such large crowds. We establish crossover points, but its better if we bring everything there. Thank you for coming out and seeing the briefing, sir. Thank you very much. I wanted to acknowledge chief tong in terms of this as well, but i also wanted to acknowledge kent and andy zanoff who coordinated the efforts as well. This is the wonderful nature of this department that were able to go through all of these various events. I wanted to remark that a mass casualty is a muni bus converted for our usage. And i wanted to remark, chief nicholson, that i met a physician that day who was scheduled do you remember his name, chief cochrane . Id have to look it up. I would like to thank them because they both work fulltime jobs. They take a lot of stress off the 911 system. They can determine already if people need an ambulance. The sheriffs provide protection for the buses. I want to thank all the agencies especially the doctors. New years eve from what i understand because we brought the mass casualty bus out there, there were a lot of members who were in a celebrational mood, so to speak, and it just helps us to transport them from the gators to the bus and the doctor is there on the scene dealing with it and discharging the public as well. When you go there and witness it and meet the physicians who are dedicated individuals doing this service, its something that again the commission should be able to acknowledge at some point. If i may, it was dr. Jeremy lacoffe. Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I did attend the black History Month celebration at city hall. It was very, very nice. A lot of participation from young people showing their talents. The mayor, mayor breed, gave an excellent speech. The event was organized by the africanamerican historical and Cultural Society there on fulton street here in San Francisco. It just brings to mind i dont know how many people know this, but black history is not only american history, but its also fire science history. The very first breathing apparatus which is now scotts pack, was invented by Garrett Morgan way, way back when. You can look him up online and learn more about it because its changed everything regarding public safety. He also had the patent for the stop light. So he held the patent for the breathing apparatus and for the stop light. So kudos to a very, very talented inventor Garrett Morgan as we celebrate black History Month. I was also participating with my colleague in the Lunar New Year Chinese New Year parade. I was so glad we had so many people in the Department Come out because the crowds were very thin this year. Ive never seen it like that before. We were there and our numbers were just happy to see the people who did come out that eveni evening. Thank you all for that. Anything else . No. All right. Thats our report. Clerk item 9, agenda for next and future Fire Commission meetings. Okay. What do we have possibly on the docket so far, madam secretary . Clerk we have a presentation from lieutenant baxter on the Public Information officer and sfice. Okay. Is there any suggestion for other things . No. All right. I would like to in concert with the chief of the department, chief nicholson, to come up with a plan to make sure that we are passing on as much information to our new commissioners as possible in an organized fashion. I think that giving them more information i know that they have been briefed and debriefed privately, but as we go forward i would like us to have more emphasis on background and nomenclature and all of that. And i think it would be very, very helpful for our fellow citizens who are watching at home to do that. So even though im not proposing a particular subject today, as we go forward, please look forward to that. And if there is anything in particular that you would like to have more information about or have it on the agenda, please feel free to call me at any time. That goes for the oldies too. All right. Thank you. And Public Comment . Okay. No Public Comment. Public comment is closed. Clerk item 10, adjournment. All right. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favour . Aye. We are hereby adjourned. [ ]