space that you have in this exhibition space and thanks for helping san francisco stay safe. [pledge of allegiance] >> clerk: this is a reminder to silence all electronic devices. our commission regular meeting, wednesday, august 8, and the time is 9:03. roll call. >> clerk: president ken cleaveland is absent. vice president steven nakajo.

commissioner francee covington, commissioner joe veronese alioto? item number two, general public comment. members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole. commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with the speaker. the lack of a response by the commissioners or department personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during public comment. >> is there any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> clerk: and please note that president cleaveland has arrived. >> thanks to traffic. >> clerk: item three, approval of the minutes, discussion and possible action to approve the meeting minutes of july 25,

2018. >>commissioner cleaveland: is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? >> so moved the minutes, mr. chair. >>commissioner cleaveland: moved by commissioner hardeman. do i have a second? >> i have a second. >>commissioner cleaveland: thank you, mr. vice president. all in favor? [voting] >> clerk: item four, chief of department's report. report from chief of department which will be given by acting chief of department, mark gonzales, on current activities and events in the department since the fire commission meeting july 25, 2018, including overall field operations, greater alarm fires, emergency medical services, bureau of prior

prevention and investigation, and airport division. >>commissioner cleaveland: good morning, chief. >> good morning, president cleaveland, commissioners. working on the budget, working with mark corso. mayor breed signed the budget. 124 academy's final week. the graduation will be on august 10, 9:30. 125 academy projection is early 2019. we're also planning a bump up class in the early fall, a projected class of 30 people,

20 of which will be entry level ones, entry level twos, ten of which will be firitiers to entry level three. we're also going to have an academy in late fall, projected class of 24. mayor's office update, request from mayor breed's office to the safety policy summit recommendations. we're working on the responses due august 28. on july 26, we had a wildfire deployment, mutual aid request. we had o.e.s. personnel on the state rig led by lieutenant asplan. they went to the cran fire down south. we also sent a strike team. team leader was brian reubenstein. they were called back up north and are at the mendocino

complex right now. the strike team leader stayed -- he elected to stay. the actual strike team members were replaced on sunday. they might be coming back today. more update on that later. we also sent two engines and one strike team leader assistant with another strike team leader from another department and three other engines. they also went to the mendocino complex fire. and if you want to see a map of that fire, i recommend that you look on cal fire incidents -- you look at some point, and they show you all the incidents around california, whether it's their incidents or u.s. forest, and they show you the map. you can probably see in the paper, as well. the whole fire itself is ten times the size of san francisco. it's pretty epic. on july 26, the chief met with

supervisor rafael mandelman, district five supervisor. on july 28, there was the mayor's three on three basketball tournament. this was the first one we didn't win. they won the state medal for fire olympics. that's the most important one to me. three on three is less important. on july 31, fire marshal cascio and chief hayes-white met with the state officials. on august 2, the chief met with d.b.i. director hui and staff regarding the accessory dwelling units. firefighter ocascio was there. i think the fire marshal's done a great job putting together the profor the contractors or

existing building owners to convert these to legal a.d.u.s and it was comprehensive. he can show it to you at your convenience, but it was really well done, and for the most part, the building department is on board. on august 3, there was a homeland security executive committee meeting. august 6, we saw an ambulance viewing. it was, i would say medium sized, in between what we were looking at, the smaller -- the smaller versions we saw, that we really liked the mercedes. this was in between our existing box ambulances and that. the concern with the real small, which was -- it was very stream lined version of an ambulance, but our -- our units and our personnel, our personnel, safe -- for safety reasons, inside the ambulance itself, if we have, for most part, 80%, 90% of the calls, it

would work, but for your trauma, heavy trauma incidents, where you're working on this patient, there's bodily fluids everywhere, you need some space to work. we have to think about the safety of our personnel as well as vision zero goals, and we want to meet both, so i think this medium size ambulance is a good compromise, and i thank cd 3 for going down to take a look at the ambulances in l.a. they're doing a good job in getting what we need for our tailored operations as well as vision zero goals for the future moving forward. also on august 6, the chief attended division or department head meeting with mayor breed. cd 1 is currently in dallas at the fire rescue international conference. the chief was selected as the

iafc's career fire chief of the year. very impressive. she was nominated by former mayor mark farrell, dianne feinstein, as well as george shulze and charlotte shulze. i'm honored to be working with this chief for so long. she's been a chief for 15 years for this department. it's a tough job. you have to work well with politicians as well as the members, and i think she's done an excellent job. so congratulations, chief. onto my report, operations, for the month of july, there were two greater alarms in the month of july. first one was a second alarm on monday, july 2, 2:52 in the morning. this was in golden gate park, 940 47th avenue. this was the golden gate park, the clubhouse.

stand-alone structure, it was fully involved when members got there. they had some problems with water supply. there was just one little low pressure hydrant with low pressure. the police ended up blocking it. sometimes the police meanwhile, when they get there first, they block it. we have worked with them. they understand that -- they need to understand we need access to the streets or any of the roads in front or near the fire buildings, and we also need access to these hjdrants. sometimes they've done good jobs as fires where they've made rescues, but sometimes they get in the way, so we need to find a happy medium with them. but they did an overall good job with this fire. temporary chief yee does a good job when he's in division. also, i would like to commend at this fire, it was casper, mark casper, he told the crews,

get out, it's not worth anything to safe, he made a good decision. second grade alarm was a third alarm at 3313 columbus. assistant chief baker was the division two that day. he did a good job. that was one of his first greater alarms he did as a assistant chief. he made sure he had the personnel there he if needed them. there was a little bit of fire damage to the brave exposure, but they did a really good job. there was heavy fire in this at particular, and they did a good job in keeping it from spreading to the delta. onto the notable incidents. there was a bay rescue on july 2. 50-year-old male fell into the water at pier 37. on the 2nd as well, fire alarm rescue, 357 ellis, one victim was pulled out of there. he'll be okay. fire started in the front room.

it's under investigation. -- they had to mitigate the situation. we were told by the p.u.c. that it wouldn't be used, and they'd watch it, but then we had to go back there on sunday, in a following sunday, as well, and do it again. so then, we said listen, you need to do something better than what you did on friday, so they emptied the tank now, and they're going to have to get a new tank. so hopefully, this won't happen again. on july 2, there was a cliff rescue, nonthreatening life injuries, female fell, transported to a local hospital. on july 2, # 88 howard, interior fire, no injuries. on july 30, a five vehicle

collision with a rollover on the bay bridge. one victim required extrication. it was a joint response. some of the functions last month, fire station 16 showed some fire guests from the netherlands our departments as well. on july 18, the canine officers conducted training, which we promoted on social media. as usual, our outreach, multiple public safety announcements have gone out fore the month. for more real-time announcements, they can follow us on twitter at@sffdpio. as usual, i'd like to notify

the public for emergency notification, you can text a-l-e-r-t-s-f to this number: 888777. we've also started to promote safety messages with smokey the bear for messages for youth. it's good -- it's actually good. you're teaching the kids at a young age, and it sinks in. we've also teamed up with d.e.m., department of emergency management promoting when to call. it's to help reduce the 911 calls. some of the 911 calls should actually be 311 calls and just trying to educate the public on which is which. other events, i'm going to show some pictures on a powerpoint at this time the the third

alarm fire, that was the one at fiddler's green, no injuries, no one displaced. that was a hazmat, one of the incidents out at p.u.c. go a little fast, andy. slow down -- as well -- go ahead. next one. there was down at the airport, u.s. coast guard joint training. did a good job. i'd like to show some fireworks here, 4th of july. that was engine five. next. this is chief cochran went to this, as well as who else, mike, went with you? [inaudible] >> lieutenant kerouani also went. this was the actual rescue at mile rock, which i spoke of

earlier. this was the group that john was talking about. it's a group of one, it looks like, from the netherlands. i think the rest of the group was camera shy, but there was an actual group. multiagency disaster transit drill. same drill. rescue captain shows up in that picture. the district five safety fire, where we showed consumer products safety joins or district fairs. keep going. i'd like to show you -- see in the picture, this is also the safety fair, but you see to the right hand, upper corner, that's an old fire house. that used to be 1051 mcallister, it closed in 1951. i noticed it earlier. i saw it, i'm like, what is that? it looks like a fire house. what they did was they just -- they kept the front, the facade. that's an entrance to a parking

lot that goes between those buildings, but when you drive by there, take a look, because you won't see it if you're not looking for it. and district five hands on, only c.p.r. for the kids. this is great training. s.f.o. marine drill, another picture. lieutenant baxter had to get his picture in here, community outreach. community center. those are our guys and galls, mutual 522 a, mendocino, and they're breathing that for weeks. that's just at one of our incidents, we got a photo from the public. and there's an upcoming event, i think the gotc, guardians of the city, are having on august 23, and that's it.

thanks, andy. i think a question was asked last commission about the fire reserves, the application process, we put something in here, in the report itself. also, a write up of the san francisco black firefighters youth academy. i think there was a question of that -- units like to give a little blush there. san francisco fire youth academy started in september 2003. we have 27 youth and have funding for 30. we serve youths ajd 13 to 18 years. under the current funding cycle, we fund youth who live in san francisco or attend school in san francisco unified school district. we are currently on a pilot program running from march through november . this may revert back to our normal schedule of september through june. this program covers the basics of firefighting, first aid and

general youth development subject matters. and in order to reach that, you'd have to -- you can visit the website . very enriching program. onto e.m.s., medical incidents of note, on july 22, crews responded to gun shots at hyde and golden gate. one patient transported to hospital, another patient announced unfortunately dead. general activities, that happenings for putting this, andy. we all attended the awards ceremony for commissioner nicasio. that was very nice, and you deserve it. that's a great honor. i know it was a great honor for you. we love going to that, because

that's where they filmed "bulli "bullitt," so thank you. i'd like to thank sffd for their help on the mayorial inauguration. ambulance design, as i stated before, we're going to go with the mid-sized. hopefully, that's what we're going to go with us. it looked good to us the other day when we saw it. dr. ya and captain pang are doing refresher training. the identifiable home address listed here for you, commissioner veronese, we got

the actual locations of the stations entered this time, so you can actually understand which neighborhood we do more calls where they have done identifiable addresses. also attached to the report is updates possible permits, violations. they're doing a good job with their outreach, as well, and they're doing more updates with the violations they put in place, our b.f.i., their open incident reports, open investigations are at 62, which is good. there's also an update from michael pat, captain pat, from -- he's doing our large development projects, including sunnydale, hope, potrero hope,

treasure island, 8,000 units, park mer set, hunter view, candlestick point, visitation valley. also attached is the port update, as well as the tasc update, transportation advisory subcommittee update. there was something where we got a letter from a citizen that really commended one of our bike medics, rescue captain choker. he did a great job on some just customer service wise. it wasn't that it was a dire call, but he was just there, and just patient contact, which was really good, so he did a good job. that concludes my report, and i'm available for any questions. >>commissioner cleaveland: great report, chief. thank you very much.

is there any public comment on chief gonzales's report? seeing none, public comment is closed. any questions from the commissioners? i see no names up here. vice president nakajo. >> commissioner nakajo: thank you very much, president cleaveland. thank you very much, chief gonzales. i know that you're interchanging for the chief in terms of the chief, as well. i don't have any particular questions in terms of the chief's report. i have a couple of things in terms of your report, but in terms of the chief's report, it wasn't mentioned, but i understand there's a new chief in charge of emergency management services that was named, and i just want to be able to get a -- an occasion where this commission might be able to be introduced and be able to establish some communication and report with this new director.

and it fails me, at this point, as to who that person is. and i knew it was in the paper, but -- >> i think it's mary ellen carroll. she worked with some of our chiefs on the rim fire. she actually went up to hetch hetchy. she's worked well with the fire department in the past. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. and this is mary ellen carroll -- is it the new director of emergency fire services? >> yes, she'll be in charge of the d.e.m., the position that ann kronenberg is going to retire. >> i'm glad you mentioned ann cronenberg's name. all

right. and then in terms of a question, this particular second alarm write up, who wrote this up, particularly? was this -- do you know what the author of this summary was? >> of the greater alarm summary second alarm, that was ken yee. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. it's interesting to the various cheefz, depending on the write up, it's interesting how comprehensive the write ups are depending on who the chief is. i believe i've never seen a write up written up by assistant chief ken yee, but depending on who it is, the details are very clear, so for

those of us who don't respond to the fire, for the details, the clearer it is, for miself-it might take quite a skill level to maintain a memory of what occurs at the fire and then try to recapture that in a summary format. i would believe that's challenging. i think at some point, we had -- i don't want to use the privilege, but we had chief aides were, and they were the operators that drove the various chiefs to the fire, but also, assisted the chief, correct me if i am wrong, in terms of the command structure of detailed information as to what units and what trucks and what engines and who was where and what. again, in the old days, you would come to a command fire, and you would see the chief aides out there with a board so even i would know what engine responded, what truck was there within that. so again, with the elimination of that due to previous budgetary requests, it must be

quite a challenge for the various chiefs to be able to write that. i say that because at 2:30 in the morning, being the golf club -- i guess, what is it? the golf club -- what is it? >> clubhouse. >> commissioner nakajo: clubhouse, the decision was made to pull the members out because basically -- >> it was fully involved. they started to put it out, and they want today see if they could save the structure at all. even the little bit of fire they did put out, the rest of the structure was ungulfed enough where the risk wasn't worth the reward. >> commissioner nakajo: yeah. i think it deserves to be reinforced, the role of the safety officer, if there are no lives to save there, still,

despite the property is valuable, we pull our members out. i was curious with the role of the san francisco police department, and you mentioned something of the blocked cars in terms of the hose lane as well as coordination of rigs coming in. >> right. if you read, temporary assistant chief yee did a very consistent narrative. i didn't want to read it all. but a lot of lanes, what truck went there, what engine went where, i was just trying to give you a snop tuesday. but for the location of the clubhouse, there's one road that goes in, the little archery there. they have a road that goes by the clubhouse. i think the hjdrant, if my memory serves me correctly, there was one hydrant between the archery and the road. they had to be moved. i mean, they did report the

fire, so it's just a matter of them understanding look, report us to the fire, lead us to where it's at, but move your cars. in other occasions where it's in regular city streets, we don't want you to block us for regular apparatus placement. once we do that, yes, we appreciate them directing traffic around the incident at that point. but the question is -- it was the question of the low pressure hydrant, too, that had he -- we had a problem with was p-u-c came on scene, they especiallied up a grid nearby, which gave us more pressure, but they were considering doing a pump relaying, where they would pump from a hydrant outside, and pump to where the members were putting the fire out. >> commissioner nakajo: thank you for that clarification.

i wanted to make recognition for assistant chief ken yee's description. again as we respond to numerous alarms, it's amazing the coordination between the fire department and the police department, the fire control. >> at one time, all ten about tallian chiefs had operators, and the assistant chiefs are operator, so when assistant chief ken yee got there, he had his assistant chief. so i'm assuming abobatallion sn and batallion eight, those are the batallion chiefs were there. the first chiefs on scene, when they're doing their accountability and when they're giving their directions before the division chief gets there, it's going to take a while for the division chief to get from either division at 47th avenue, so these batallion chief right

si side -- chiefs are there without an operator, and they have to make all these decisions of where things are going to go, and they have to keep all that in their head, as well as decisions rest on their shoulders. it's much safer for our personnel if the chiefs have operators to take that burdens off, especially during critical times because you're making snap decisions in an emergency, and it's either our citizens or safety that could be in jeopardy. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. thank you for that. i think it's important for us as a commission to hear that. i think this's important to hear what the chiefs did in terms of job duties. i think it's a budget question. i think it's a futuristic question. if the chief's trying to answer a call to an alarm and having all these things going on as you narrated, and i appreciate

the write up because it showed how difficult it was. even though it was a clubhouse, i think we're fortunate that it was an isolated building in golden gate park. golden gate park is a lot of trees. the way things are going nowadays, it just seems important for us to be able to get to it, find our water source, make our mechanics and be able to get to that. so i appreciate that. i just have a few other questions. in terms of your reference, in terms of your differentiation between 911 and 311, do you know, chief, if the public is being more educated in terms of the usage in the differentiations of that that the public is utilizing more 311, so the 911s won't get clocked out or overwhelmed, chief? >> i believe 311s also part of educating the public, but we, fire, police are also working with d.e.m. to also educate the public, yes.

>> commissioner nakajo: okay. i think we really need to do a concise effort for all of us in public service to be able to educate the public out there. i don't know if you know this, but a lot of 311 calls are for anybody on the street or something that you see unusual. there's a wide respond, and i think at some point, we need to be cognizant of that, as well. all right. thank you very much, chief. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you, v.p. >>commissioner cleaveland: thank you, vice president nakajo. commissioner hardeman. >> commissioner hardeman: thank you, president. chief gonzales, as usual, wonderful report that you tried to skim through. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> commissioner hardeman: we try to get things on record. one thing that i see that we don't ever talk about, and i don't think we -- the 12,500

calls, which is typical for each month, but then, you turned to vehicles, 26,500 vehicle calls, so i think there's a lot going on monthly out of each station. but i wanted to talk about our chiefs being honored, which is a real tribute to terrific. i mean, the chief, in her own right, but this is just -- we have the first u.s. senators, where they come from, woman -- two women from the same state, right out of here, even though barbara lived in the north bay and works in oakland, but she was a congress woman, and then a u.s. senator. dianne, our mayor, and now u.s. senator. nancy pelosi, speaker of the

house. we have a woman ran fire department. it's amazing, this city -- we have an african american mayor, and a president of the board of supervisors, african american in a city that has under 5% of the voters that are black. we're an amazing city, and i like to brag about this because i'm just -- i'm just proud of what we've done in this town. there's no city that can standup to us. and our chief being honored, largest fire department in the world has a woman chief. most fire departments get rid of a chief every five, seven years, because they want to. that's typical. but we're not typical in san francisco. under a lot of pressure, and -- because of the normal practice of rotating chief, this city chose not to do it, and it was

very difficult to put the people in control in that position. but that's the way we are. we're just not like everybody else, and it's great -- great to be part of this -- this team. it's a very -- big compliment to the commissioners. we just sort of try and assist with what everybody's doing and our command staff. we're pretty cool, and that's -- i just think it's fantastic that chief hayes-white is being honored. i'm just real proud, so i just wanted to get that all on the record. and as far as golden gate park, i don't know about anybody else in the audience, but that's the first place i ever played golf. there was a driving range top of diamond heights or up on portola and shawnessy. there was a driving range

before they built the school of the arts. but any way, that was the first place i hit a ball. but yeah, golden gate park, i never risk -- i like that not risking any firefighters health, safety, for that little building that probably will be rebuilt and risking any injury to a firefighter, that was a good call not to do that. we see what's happened around the state and how many firefighters have been injured and lost their lives recently. very, very sad. probably close the meeting in honor of any firefighter that have lost their life, mr. president. might be an idea. any firefighter. i don't know if we'd have to name them. very sad. any way, just bragging, it's great. nice time to be a commissioner. thanks, chief. >>commissioner cleaveland:

thank you, commissioner hardeman. commissioner covington? >> commissioner covington: thank you. >> i want to apologize, commissioner covington, my report is not paged. my assistant went to hawaii, and i was not able to edit it as much, so if you have questions particular to a certain page, just try to describe it. >> commissioner covington: well, as vice president nakajo was speaking, i was wanting to shout page, what page? and then, i noticed there were no page numbers. i go okay, this is why we have page numbers, but that's all right. i understand your plate is very full. >> thank you. >> commissioner covington: so next time, i look forward to the pages. >> you'll have pages. >> commissioner covington: thank you. can you tell us more about the accessory units and the plans being put together? >> i don't know if you've seen it yet, his -- the flow chart,

and it's just really impressive, but he can get it later to you after the meeting, but to address actually the a.d.u. question, he'd be the guy. >> chief fire marshal, good morning. >> good morning. >> commissioner covington: if you could begin at the beginning as to what the intent is and how the collaboration is taking place, that would be great. >> so the intent and one of the main goals in the city is to increase the number of affordable housing units. in doing so, there's a -- kind of a push and a drive to increase the number of accessory dwelling units. so basically, what that is, most often, it's in apartment buildings -- it can be a private residence, as well, but most of the time, we see them in apartment buildings. most of the time, they're in the ground floor, which contains the garage, so they're developing the ground flar and changing the space from a

garage space to a residential space. so when we change space, we have to meet the code. we have old structures, we have zero net lot line set backs. so it's not so easy just to meet the prescribed code, and in all practical terms, and develop these units at the same time, so what do we have to do? we have to come up with offsetting measures, equivalencies, that for any deficiency, you provide an enhancement that offsets that deficiency. the intent is to the same level of protection or safety in the building. >> can you give us some -- give us an example of an enhancement? >> our biggest challenge is four single exist exception. so for -- exit exception. so for most occasions, there are two exits out of every

floor in a building. there are exception. most of these cannot meet single exit exception. you have a minimum width, 3 feet minimum corridor or passage way. if you have a pretty narrow lot, that pretty much eats up your whole ground floor space, so to meet that, you have to fully sprinkler the building. which again, we're talking about, that's a great challenge in itself, so what we -- this is only ground floor units. you look at the design, how does that impact existing buildings? are we maintaining the same level of protection for all occupants in that building? we will maintain at all costs the same or increases level of

protection. so we sprinkle the ground floor unit, we provide a one more passage way, we provide -- quite often, we have to -- they have gas meters that are going to have to be relocated or put into a separate gas meter room. we -- and also as part of the enhancement, a manual fire alarm is required throughout the building. so in my opinion, with those provisions in place, we have a much safer building after this is implemented than before, whether we had a garage there or not. the big challenge here was to get on board with the building department, because both fire and building reviews these applications. so if fire thinks this is a reasonable equivalency, this is what we're going to go with, if the building department disagrees, we grind to a halt. the problem we had is the building department thought our requirements were to strict, to conservative in our approach.

we looked at this thing every way, every angle and spent a lot of time on this and came up with these solutions. not only that, we created a flow chat. we went back and said okay, what is required, what is written in the code? once we agreed on what is required for these units, we said okay, if we can't meet a specific prescribed requirement, what is the enhancement to offset that deficiency? so that is what we did. we went back to the beginning and worked through this with a flow chart, and i think we've all come to an understanding, and hopefully, we'll come up with a document by the end of this week that fire and building can sign off on. >> commissioner covington: excellent. thank you so much. and don't go away. i may have some follow up questions. but this all ties into -- very well ties into the policy summit that mayor breed put together and that the department is now going to be

responding to. so this is not -- i want to say that housing is not just for the people who -- as a category, not just for people who are involved in housing, per se, day-to-day. housing involves everybody. this crisis situation that we find ourselves in with the homeless population, with people who are artists and people who are marginally employed being pushed out, this is how the fire department has a role to play in making sure that as many of our citizens are housed as possible. so i really look forward to hearing more about this.

fire marshal, i understand that you're a very hard working person, and i'm sure that you've brought all of your gray matter to the table for this. and so do you have any plans on how you're going to share this information with the commission? >> well, i hadn't gotten to that point. i wanted to first clear the hurdle with the planning department. we're going to come up with a joint information sheet that will be signed with both building and fire. once we complete that, we can come and provide an update and kind of walk you through the process. >> commissioner covington: and that would be very good. also, the commission is planning a retreat regarding some of the things that were brought up in the various work groups, the transition work groups. specifically, public safety and housing, so perhaps it would be good to have that before our retreat. we haven't locked down a date

just yet, but it will probably be in september. >> thank you very much. >> commissioner covington: is there anything else upted to add? >> we have created a separate team that is dedicated to just reviewing these accessory dwelling unit does. it's comprised of -- we have a captain, captain mike pat, fire protection engineer kamal, and we have an inspector, jason wu, is on board of that. so it'll live in the same spot, and it'll help with expediting the process and in the messaging and in review. >> commissioner covington: is there any estimate as to how many of these units could possibly be going on-line at some point? >> well, we have -- in our bin right now, about 60 units. i was told that the goal -- the goal is about 3500 units a year, so i think in the perfect world, that's the target. i think right now, through

applications through the planning department, there's five or 600, i believe. so it starts with planning, then goes to building, then goes to fire. >> commissioner covington: well, that's a good neighborhood. in my neighborhood -- i lives in hayes valley, and in my neighborhood, there are two apartment buildings that used to have ample ground level parking, and they both converted to units -- you know, housing units on the ground floor, and somewhere, slightly below grade, which i found to be very interesting. >> and the other thing we look for is not just for egress for the occupants, access fore the fire department, access to the units, access to the rear yard. >> commissioner covington: well, these are all great things. and i really appreciate that, you know, the level of

protection for these new units since there may be just a single source of vendor, but a

slightly -- not as wide. i believe there was a two-inch reduction in the width of the current vehicle, but the length and the height were similar. the vehicle that we looked at on monday is actually the same chassis that we currently have, but the box, which is called the module, is actually shorter in length, shorter in height and narrower in width, which equates to approximately a 1,000 pound weight reduction for the chassis to support. and also, the vendor that is constructing in this ambulance used ten mounting points for the module or the box, which is more than what we currently have on our vehicles. what we have been experiencing is premature cracking of the

cab and certain areas of the frame. i believe it is due to not only the unique topography of san francisco, but also the size and weight of our current ambulances. so the bureau of equipment support services has been working with e.m.s. to try to designate or find a vehicle that will fit our needs. we've been in a lot of communication with other fire departments, privates, just seeing what's out there, what is the standard. it seems like a lot of fire departments are going to a -- what's called a type one, which is called a truck chassis, because it's much stronger. and because of the length, it actually distributes the weight on the chassis. that probably will not work for san francisco because we have a lot of very tight turns and steep grades that we need to get over, so we're looking at kind of reducing the profile of

our currently ambulance design so it's just a little more able to get around in a lot of these areas in the city where it's getting a lot tighter and restrictive. >> commissioner covington: so we're still looking for the ideal ambulance? also in the current ones, didn't we get 20 ambulances that had a smaller profile? >> so we purchased two pilot program smaller profile ambulances that have been -- being evaluated by e.m.s., and we're finding out that under certain circumstances -- for instance, a full resuscitation, it is extremely difficult because of the restrictiveness of the rear area, to, you know, fully complete tasks. and it was just really, really

hard. >> commissioner covington: so it's only two. >> it's only two. >> commissioner covington: i thought there was a trial period, and others were ordered, but -- >> so in anticipation of possibly the approval of these two type one ambulances, we were about to purchase more ambulances. but because of the comments that we received, we kind of -- and i don't want to say we went back to the drawing board 'cause we've done a lot of ambulance research, but i think we're getting very close to where we're ready to pull the trigger on some new ambulances. >> commissioner covington: so the moneys that were earmarked for the ambulances after the initial trial period, that money rolls over into the next budget? >> that is -- that is correct. >> commissioner covington: okay. >> so it's basically unspent funds that we will be spending. >> commissioner covington:

okay. i think we need to make a decision because remember five years ago, there was a human cry about moneys for ambulances that were not spent -- i mean, for engines -- ambulances and engines that were not spent, so we don't want to be in that situation again. >> i absolutely agree with you, commissioner, and this is a priority for support services and for e.m.s. and we're in constant communication, and i believe we're very, very close to making a decision on future ambulances. >> commissioner covington: okay. thank you, chief. >> yes. >> commissioner covington: okay. and let's see...could you talk a little more, chief gonzales, about the conversations that are being held with the police departments concerning blocking. >> so i've spoken to deputy chief redmon, as well as

assistant chief saenz regarding -- it happens in spurts. it doesn't happen every incident, but especially incidents that happen, you know, after midnight, when the cops are out there, and we're responding from station, and there's no traffic out there, they get there quick, and they tend to sometimes block up the street. and when they do that, as i said, at the it's very importa us to get our apparatus placed. i had a.c.l. to put a memo together to work with deputy chief redmon, as well, so it's an ongoing project. >> commissioner covington: when will the project be concluded in terms of a mutual understanding? >> you know what? i'm a realist. i think that we put procedures and we put general orders out there, they do the same thing. it's when they see fire, they see this thing, they're not

thinking. so they know it. we told their captains to tell them. it's just a matter of, you know, it's sinking in, and them understanding when it happens because it doesn't happen every day, right, that they're going to see a fire. it's just sometimes that he blank out and they put their car where it's not supposed to be, but we will reiterate with them what the expectations are. >> commissioner covington: okay. thanks again for your report. >> thank you, ma'am. can i comment on what a.d.o. nicasio was talking about? i'm very confident that as a resident and a member of this department, of the document with building. this is something that's a no brainer. he need the equivalency. you need to be as safe or safer. we are absolutely on board with the mayor's goals of more housing, it just needs to be safe. thank you. >>commissioner cleaveland: thank you, commissioner

covington. commissioner veronese. >> commissioner veronese: just follow up on the -- on the presentation that you gave earlier and the comments to the chief. i think it would be really important to hear from not just the building department, but also from the stakeholders because one of the greatest frustrations that the stakeholders and the public have when they go to apply for these permits -- and it's happened to me before in a different county, and it's extremely frustrating, is that when you have the agencies, they get together, they try to find solutions, they find solutions that are self-defeating to the entire proposal of trying to get more housing. let me just give you an example. let's say flor example, you require two exists, you're going to give an exception to the two exists -- exits, but that exception requires the

builder to put in a sprinkler system that costs $.5 million that compromises the entire project. i'm not saying you should sacrifice safety, but i'm saying if there's 60 applicants right now, let them all into a room and let them know what you're going to do and have them come up with if there are any -- this is a self-defeating proposal. because you could find that you're imposing these restrictions, and you could find that these 60 applications turns into zero because nobody wants to do it because of the restrictions that are on there, and now you've got the mayor's office who's trying to do more housing and there's no applications. so i just think government just generally -- i'm not talking about the fire department because i think the fire department does a really good job of not getting in the way. just historically, i've heard really good things about the

fire department. i want to make sure that we don't step in that in going through this process with the building department and that we're being thoughtful of the interests of the stakeholders, as well, who are actually going to be creating this housing. because the end goal is to create the housing. let's make sure that we're incentivizing people to do that. safety