bottom half of page 27. [please stand by]

>> chief hayes-white: it comes from the larger developments. that has worked out really well. and then you have got a summary of what is happening at the port for the month of august on page 30. what's happened to the bureau fire investigation. captain coughlin at the port and during the month of august, the fire investigation unit responded to 19 incidents. and then on 31, similar to having a single point of contact for the large community developments, we designated and it is funded through the mta, the addition of chad law who works closely with mta on any sort of street decision projects and closely with our fire marshal to have one single point of contact is helpful. both captain pat and captain law are relatively new in their roles have not only extensive

fire prevention but operations experience. kind of a win-win and that has worked out very well. i can tell you i have greater appreciation for chief gonzales because this is a long report. [laughter] >> chief hayes-white: if he is watching, i hope he is feeling better. airport division the activities during the month of august that chief ali put together. i highlighted the fire burn training at half moon bay. that was new for us, this site. typically at least on a three-year basis, fire burn is needed for our members and we had been sending them to texas, which is no longer an area that we send our employees to because one of 12 states this city does not encourage or stimulate their economy. and there was another site in

utah that has been closed. annually, we do a refresh and we have been using moffet field and there's some challenges with that. this was with a new site for us and it seemed to work out very well other than the medical incident that was experienced by lieutenant johanson. but it worked out well, the week-long training. and also listed during month of august total run volume of 490 incidents that were responded to. and then last few pages are standard but just updated the activity summary report. and that on conclude the operations report. happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> president cleaveland: thank you, chief, on the operations report. is there any public comment on that report? seeing none, public comment is

closed. commissioner veronese. >> commissioner veronese: chief, thanks for your report. i really appreciate, especially i appreciate you looking -- pointing out certain things in this report that is showing that the department is evolving and evolving in a good direction, such as the 911 response calls. i think that's a huge testament to your efforts and the department of emergency management efforts to step that up. as well as i believe that began under mayor lee, correct? >> chief hayes-white: correct. >> commissioner veronese: so, it is a testament that mayor lee is alive and well with us in these statistics. that's really nice to see. along those lines on page 19, it is actually 18.12. you have the no home address statistics. i thank you for including those.

it seems as though there has been a -- it seems as though it is actually pretty consistent, these numbers, month to month. thank you for showing us the last three months. but i'm looking at a few of the stations such as station one, which has 387 no home, station 3, 471, station 36, 333. and i'm just wondering, those are -- if you look at that, that's nearly ten calls a day from each of those stations. some of them more. and i'm wondering now that we have this information we're gathering this -- i think we have been doing this for probably more than eight or nine months, if there's anything that we're learning from this information and in there's any way that the department is, for

example, evolving now that we know that these three stations have more than ten calls a day? and you don't have to answer this now but maybe in a future meeting, if you could take a look at these numbers and tell us what the department is learning from these numbers and how perhaps it could evolve in the future to better serve the people, and for that matter, how we're using this information to educate other departments, including the executive and legislationtive branch -- legislative branches of the committee. >> chief hayes-white: certainly. we can come back to you with that. i know that those three areas, oak and franklin, 5th and pa paulson, busiest areas in the city. that's where we have concentrated the e.m.s. six resources and we have two quick response vehicles. but to your point and i have

noticed as well that those responses remain pretty much consistent. so, i would like to see the numbers maybe come down a little with -- from the added resources. it is something we will continue to review and get back to you. >> commissioner veronese: thanks for looking at that. the e.m.s. six calls, i can't tell from this, but are they down? are they up? >> chief hayes-white: you are looking at page 19? >> commissioner veronese: is that 19? the page after 18. i think actually 19 is several pages later. but anyway, the page after 18. >> chief hayes-white: yeah. it looks to me as if we were noting 249 in july and 115 in august. so, that is a decrease by the month. but i think that they noted --

let's see. it was 50% reduction on page 20 in 911 utilization of individual at the top of the july present utilizer list. that might have brought the number down. am i understanding that correctly? in 2017, this particular individual used s.f.f.d ambulances 207 times. it is the first bullet under highlights. but i think by -- it looks as if that person may have been directed and helping being managed by the sobering center and that may be the result of -- these numbers could be more than -- they are not individuals. they can be one individual with ten calls. so, it sounds like just in this one instance the number dropped

significantly because there was some intervention in a positive way for this one individual. that is off the fly. chief zanoff, is that accurate? do you have the numbers to look at? >> good morning. >> chief hayes-white: that would be my interpretation. >> good morning chief and commissioners. what you see in these statistics and we give them to you month by month, we rate the top 20 callers every month. we have been give the top ten and now the top 20. what we are seeing across the month of july is there's a definite reduction. they are calling less in the month of august. we can create a chart that may show you the number more clearly month to month. e.m.s. is making an impact on these people. what we are showing you in the

far right column is the number of decrease that each of these unique individuals is calling, the number of times they are calling the system. this month in particular, there's a huge amount of decrease. some of these people that we are seeing is 100% decrease. literally their call number went down to zero with the way captain pang is being e.m.s. six, they are able to manage the patient better and we are dealing with what we call the whole person care. so, a care plan is being made for each of these people. obviously what is happening is they keep calling 911 because whatever their need is not getting met with defibrillators and tubes. dr. ya and his staff have come up with a way to evaluate what the person needs and try to address that. >> commissioner veronese: and i acknowledge a lot of these calls, many of them are not just

from my experience -- riding with the e.m.s. six, some of these calls are not related to medical issues. it could be loneliness and other issues. i acknowledge e.m.s. six is subjectively treating people who are frequent callers and not necessarily -- i don't want to confuse the issue with the other issue i brought up which is the nonidentifiable home issue. i'm wondering if -- maybe you can take a look and let us know if there's a relationship between the two. e.m.s. six calls are down. i know there's a frequent flyers on the 911 system. but the homeless related calls are consistent. by looking at those two numbers is there something the department can learn? is there a relationship? maybe there's no relationship at all. but i think it's worth the effort to look into the numbers and see if there's something we are learning from it. >> if i could comment, commissioners.

good morning, chief. i think it is a very good question you are asking. i think that when you point out some of the geographic variations to people have no identifiable home address, i think you hit the nail on the head. with e.m.s. six we are looking at some of the highest users and what you are seeing in some of the responses and various geographies is the people in the area and instances comes up. just overall number of incidents our unit are able to respond. e.m.s. six is not able to respond to every location at all times. and i think -- i would be interested in trying to answer that question. but i suspect the relationship is going to be very weak between interactions between e.m.s. six and then affecting the overall volumes of some of these heavily impacted patients because of the number of clients that e.m.s. six could ever see. to your other observation about

the decrease in calls, the chief is correct. there have been some notable successes about some of our highest, most challenging users. but i would caution there's a lot of factors that play into this. unfortunately, we have had a couple of acute hospitalizations of people who were pretty sick on the street. if someone is in the hospital, again, they are not out in the system requiring additional 911 care. so, that can be also an effect. i would also emphasize as chief zanoff mentioned where e.m.s. six is involved with a lot of other projects, we recognize the department can't handle nor do we have the resources to accomplish a lot of the care that is required. some of the things we are doing involves a lot of collaboration with places like the zonering center but also in terms of finding stable housing and outpatient behavioral healthcare. these are the things that really make a difference in a lot of these clients' care and e.m.s.

six just coordinates care and mak makes sure these things are happening. it is a team effort. a lot of the pressure that e.m.s. six is able to bring is on the other healthcare stakeholders to make sure the right things happens for the clients we are seeing a lot. just to respond to that observation that some of the numbers are going down. a lot of it is success and a lot of it is requiring other stakeholder participation. >> commissioner veronese: thank you for that. chief, just to finish on a separate topic. i don't know if it is in here. the accessory dwelling permits. the numbers that i know that you guys are now -- sounds like there's -- no pun intended, but there's a fire put in at the prevention department and this is being attacked aggressively. that is great news. it would be great if we could track that success. so, if it is in this report if

someone could point it out. if it is not, maybe at the next first of the month meeting if it could be in there so we can track that success and we can show other departments that are wondering that we are doing our part here. >> chief hayes-white: no problem. >> commissioner veronese: thank you, chief. that's it. >> president cleaveland: thank you, commissioner veronese. commissioner hardeman. >> commissioner hardeman: thank you, mr. president. i'm just going to bring up about the on time ambulances. i wasn't going to speak except my recent trip talking to so many people who love san francisco. every person talked about the problem with panhandling and dirty streets. every person brings that up immediately. that brings us to where all

those people are with the streets being torn up and the traffic. they bring up that. for the ambulances to get around and with all the -- besides our natural geography with the density and so crowded. and then to even be close to being on time is very commendable. so, that's terrific news. proof of it was the busiest stations in the country where a lot of the street construction is going on besides. very good. great report by your cd too as usual. we really love that, the commissioners. thank you. >> president cleaveland: thank you commissioner hard than. commissioner covington. >> commissioner covington: thank

you for delivering chief gonzales' report. you did very well. [laughter] >> chief hayes-white: thank you. >> commissioner covington: chief hayes-white, i wanted to ask you about the -- let's see. i guess it's page 2. the wild land committee. can you tell us who is on the wild land committee? the members of that committee? >> chief hayes-white: we have several department committees. i don't have the members in front of me. i could probably get that. >> commissioner covington: it is just within the department. it isn't a larger committee? >> chief hayes-white: it is all internal department members. did you want to talk about -- we have division chief brook baker. are you one of the chairs? you are the chair? >> commissioner covington: please come forward. >> chief hayes-white: that's what you get for raising your hand but i appreciate it.

relatively newly appointed division chief brook baker. you were deployed as well. oh we didn't. >> not yet. not this year. i just wanted to help answer the question as to the committee. >> commissioner covington: congratulations. i didn't see you hiding behind the other chief. [laughter] >> commissioner covington: congratulations on your appointment. my question is how large a committee is it and how often do you meet? >> right now we are meeting about every other month. and there's -- the committee is comprised of approximately ten members. i don't know all the names off the top of my head. it is an active committee. we remain in communication between meetings. there's a lot of work that has been going on because of the

business of the season and it is an active and productive committee. >> commissioner covington: are these strike team leaders primarily or -- >> many of the committee members are strike team leaders. but we have committee members that are at all levels of the department from firefighters all the way up to assistant chiefs. >> chief hayes-white: and all of them have been through the wild land training. >> absolutely. >> chief hayes-white: i believe that's a minimum requirement. they receive the training and are subject to be deployed. it is comprised of all ranks. >> commissioner covington: it is good that it is comprised of all ranks. how do you become a member of the committee? is it at the invitation of the chief of the department or you or someone else? >> no. it is ultimately the chief puts together the committee members annually i believe last year you

put on a general order asking for applications and then the chief makes the selections. >> commissioner covington: i think it would be helpful for us as it seems we no longer have a fire season that is like year round now, i think it might be good to have the wild land committee do a presentation as to what it is that you're doing over the long haul. okay? >> absolutely. >> commissioner covington: we will see you at the podium again. [laughter] >> all right. >> chief hayes-white: thank you. >> commissioner covington: that's not a threat. thank you very much. >> promise. >> commissioner covington: yes. let's see. on page three, this first alarm at 848 avenue, i would like to get a little more information about this particularly as it

relates to the source of the fire or the cause of the fire. because this seems to be an ongoing problem. and perhaps it's something that our fire marshal can speak to. chief de cossio. >> i don't have details to that fire at this time. >> chief hayes-white: i believe it is still under investigation. >> it is but i can gather details. >> commissioner covington: yes. it is the overloaded surge protector. i'm asking this question because i think people really have to be reminded of how important it is not to over load the system. so, that's why i would like for you to deliver that message since you are the city fire marshal.

>> absolutely. and again, we have a lot of structures that are older. we have older building in san francisco. the infrastructure wasn't designed to support the type of density we have today. not only that, electronics, et cetera. if you are lacking an electrical distribution within your house, you use extension cords. where you run into problems is if you are using extension cords attached to major appliances. that's a significant draw and that's where we have our problems. so, extension cords are not designed for permanent wiring. they are designed for temporary wiring. it is a violation in the fire code to use it as permanent wiring. the solution is not just to run extension cords throughout your house. the solution is to get a permit and expand upon your existing electrical distribution within your building.

>> commissioner covington: it is very unfortunate that one of the occupants of this residence had to jump from the third floor. that's not something anybody looks forward to doing. this kind of thing can be avoided. repeating this message about not overloading the system and being cognizant of the fact now everybody has a computer, everybody has a phone that needs to be charged. all these things we didn't have 20 years ago. it isn't necessarily safe to have everything plugged into the

outlet. >> and extension cords are temporary wiring. it is not a permanent solution. when we use it as such, that's where we run into these problems. >> commissioner covington: i think this message along with close your door before you doze, we need to highlight those two messages in our public campaign. because close the door before you dose gives you time. if you close to door before you go to sleep at night, it figures still it could be a thousand degrees on the other side of that door whereas in the room you are in, it would only be perhaps a hundred degrees. that gives you a chance to come up with a plan, deploy your

emergency ladder out the window. these are small rules, but they are very important. and we are all about safety and keeping people alive. hopefully the department, chief hayes-white, will really make those two messages very important. >> and our community outreach team has a presentation. we go to different groups throughout the city and that is part of the messaging, closing your door, use of electrical extension cords. >> commissioner covington: certainly i know that. but in the absence of any face to face communication, we can do this on social media and other means as well. >> agreed. >> chief hayes-white: i'm happy to reiterate that to our public information officer. >> commissioner covington: thank you. i also had the same or similar reaction to the figures regarding no identifiable home

address. i think that this is very helpful for us. it really gives us context as well as detail regarding the challenges that members of the public who are not currently housed face, along with the challenges that the department faces. and i was particularly surprised on page 2, which i guess would be page 20. it's page 2 of three of this report. station three i knew was very, very busy and station 13 and then my home station on oak street, 862 medical calls. that's quite a lot. and i'm wondering if the

personnel in particularly these three stations have been de-- with this new knowledge if there's been any increase in the number of people. >> chief hayes-white: so, no. our department has minimum staffing and it's fixed to the apparatus that exists -- resides in station. so, for example, engine 36 on oak street has an engine company. so, that's one officer and three firefighters. it also has a battalion chief and aide. so, these are for the most part unless they are sort of very new employees, these are voluntary assignments, houses that they choose to work at. we don't beef up the staffing based on the call volume.

periodically what we will do is, for example, when station four was built, a brand new station in mission bay, we took a look at redistribution of the calls based on its proximity to say station eight. so, the members that choose to work at the busier stations, they go in sort of eyes wide open knowing what their day will be like, which will be very busy. and that's something through the memorandum of understanding and by seniority, you choose where you want to work. we don't necessarily beef up the staff. they know when they come to work they are going to be going out the door many times if they are working at any of those three stations. >> commissioner covington: i know that. i'm not saying i received any complaints or that sort of thing. most members of the department like being busy. but with that call volume, it

seems to me that a call may come in that would order theirly go to 36 -- ordinarily go to 36, but it doesn't. it goes someplace else so that people have to travel harder to get -- >> chief hayes-white: correct. it would be the next closest station. and that happens frequently throughout the city. >> commissioner covington: well, i can see that it must because this is hard -- every time i'm at 36, if i'm having more than a ten-minute conversation, it is got to go, commissioner. and so, i just didn't realize that it was that high. i can ask you additional questions. >> chief hayes-white: sure. >> commissioner covington: at a later date. other commissioners may not be as interested in this as i am. i also wanted to make sure that i compliment members of the

department on the good news with the on time figures. that's very good. because two years ago we were in the dull drum -- doldrums it seemed. thank you. >> president cleaveland: thank you commissioner covington. i have questions for dr. ya and chief zanoff regarding e.m.s. six. it is my understanding that you qualify a few frequency caller if it is someone who contacts the fire department four times within 30 days or twice within a two-hour period. that's what we call a frequent flyer using the system. correct? >> chief hayes-white: twice within a 24-hour period. >> president cleaveland: right. so, i'm trying to understand.

we had 952 frequent flyer calls in the month of august. from 54 individuals, which means that's an average of about 17.62 calls per frequent flyer. is that true? i'm trying to understand that 54 individuals actually generated 952 calls to our department in the past month. >> i don't think -- that's not quite correct, sir. so, the total number of unique individuals engaged means those are the high frequency callers who were engaged by e.m.s. six. >> president cleaveland: just by e.m.s. six. >> correct. >> president cleaveland: so, there were actually more -- >> there are. if you use that definition that we have defined -- and you are correct. those are the criteria in which we have instructed the field to

notify e.m.s. six if they encounter these individuals, there are many people in the system that e.m.s. six is not able to ever engage with. >> president cleaveland: right. >> because they either are too busy or they are seen during times when e.m.s. six is not available. so, that is correct. >> president cleaveland: i'm trying to understand. do we actually have more than 952 frequent flyer calls in the month of august? >> let me take a look at this. this i believe -- the total number of calls generated from high frequency callers, that does not look correct. you want to comment on that, chief zanoff? >> that's an incorrect number. we will get you a correct number. >> president cleaveland: i think it is important that the public understand that we have a huge burden here, financial burden that the fire department carries for the general well-being of the city. we are spending over a hundred million dollars a year in 911 calls that we cannot collect.

a hundred million dollars a year out of our budget. i think it is important that the public understand a lot of that is people using the system over and over again and how many people are doing that and how often? what is the average number of calls forefrequent flyer. i think that's important information that we need to know. >> we can get that information to you, president cleaveland. >> president cleaveland: it is a huge financial burden on our city. >> right. and i would add part of the reason for that is because our traditional services it causes them to recycle through the system. that's true not just of us but within the hospital and elsewhere as well. we don't do a good job providing some of these things and that's why individuals continue to cycle through our system. >> president cleaveland: in your experience, dr., what are the

top three reasons you get a frequent flyer caller? >> that is tough. i think there are two ways i would classify this. one of which is to be sure and also to be clear to the public, many times people contact 911 several times even to meet those criteria for acute medical issues. just got discharged from the hospital after pneumonia, you might require an encounter with 911 more than twice in 24 hours and more than four times in 30 days. but to answer your question we have done research on high users that frequently have to do with issues having to do with like acute substance use disorders, including alcohol. but including other drugs. and acute psychiatric disorders.

>> president cleaveland: it would be helpful if you could include the major reasons, the top five or whatever for the calls for the previous month moving forward. if it is overdoses, if it is alcohol pass-outs, we need to know so we can reach out and treat these people. >> absolutely. i think the commissioners, members in this audience, probably the public also knows these are some of the most difficult issues to deal with. >> president cleaveland: no question. a large proportion of these frequent flyer calls are probably from our homeless population. thank you very much. i see commissioner veronese's name pop up again. >> commissioner veronese: yes. i want to point something out. i have said this in the past and it is somewhat controversial. i think e.m.s. six does an

amazing job, but i think if we look at -- if we answer some of the questions that the commission president is asking, we are going to find there are other city departments that would better serve this population. e.m.s. six while it does an amazing job shouldn't be existence because we are filling a void that should not be filled. but you are going to find mainly by other departments. i know we are all one city family and we all do our best to serve the people of san francisco, but the mission of the s.f.f.d is to provide emergency medical care and we are doing that to this population because they are not getting it or some other department or their own resources, their own family, whatever it is that is happening in these individuals' lives, we

had to create this unit to deal with this population. i think if we answer those questions the commissioner is asking and take a look at the statistics and we engage the other departments to do a better job, encourage them to do a better job and perhaps even though them how based on what we are learning from dealing with this population, from servicing this population, i think we will see the numbers continue to drop as we have in the past several months. i have seen this these reports attributions working with other departments seeing the numbers come down. if we continue to do that, this rapid response vehicles will be deployed to service some of the other stations, busy stations that actually will need it. they need it now. but with less of a need on this population could service those people better as well. just wanted to point the obvious out and i will continue to do

that. but congratulations. it is a great program and i am a big supporter of it. i don't want you to think that i'm not. >> president cleaveland: thank you commissioner veronese. madam secretary, call the next item, please. [reading agenda item] >> president cleaveland: any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners. commissioner veronese. >> commissioner veronese: i wanted to -- we had as was mentioned, our second annual stair climb this last saturday. i know chief, you had a family event in tahoe and you couldn't make it. but i know you are a big supporter and you were there last year and were able to say some words. i want to thank the department for its role in success of that program through the climbers and especially through chief zanoff

and chief cochran. you guys are stellar. you are a huge asset to this department, to this city and the way that the event went off in large part was a huge success to how well organized this department is. and i really wanted to thank you very much for your efforts and the efforts of the department and support of the chief and chief gonzales as well. i want to point out that chief cochran -- i mean, chief nicholson was there. she did the climb. thank you so much. you are a huge personality. you beat me. [laughter] >> commissioner veronese: that will not happen again. but i appreciate -- >> president cleaveland: oh yes, it will. >> commissioner veronese: it may actually happen again. i have to say it won't. but it may happen again. but thank you for your participation, your encouragement and support of

this important cause. we had close to 400 climbers that day. we raised close to -- so far close to $140,000 for first responders with ptsd. that money is available and now my next challenge is to let people know and break down those barriers so we actually receive those phone calls and put that money to use, which i found to be my biggest challenge from the money we raised last year is to get people to make that call and to step up if they need the help so that they can use those funds because it is there for them. and so again, thank you so much to the chief and to the support from the department. it is an important cause. >> president cleaveland: thank you, commissioner veronese. commissioner hardeman. >> commissioner hardeman: not a big issue.

i was curious about the city that is working the departments together to come up with a drone policy. not having any guidance on it is probably not good. i heard the millennium tower had a drone accident. a drone that was investigating the broken window crashed. that is sort of sad. i'm a drone component. whatever rules we can do to help protect the citizens of san francisco and particularly the members of this fire department,

there well-being. i know on that mission fire it would have been nice to have a drone. you had to make tough calls how to attack it and a drone would have been a perfect way to view it. that was it. just the drone, when we can get a report back on that at some point. next meeting. if not, the following one. just generalizations. thank you. >> president cleaveland: thank you, commissioner hardeman. commissioner covington. >> commissioner covington: thank you, mr. president. yes, i would also like to thank my fellow commissioner veronese for having the foresight to put together the stair climb. it was really a very fun event. and chief nicholson was hardly winded when she came out.

[laughter] >> commissioner covington: chief cochran and i were there at the finish line and so many people did so well. it was very, very impressive. and chief zanoff before the climb oriented me to the emergency plans and i am always heartened to hear about those. so, that was very good. and the $140,000 is more than a drop in the bucket. that's a sizable chunk of change. and it is available and hopefully people will apply for those funds. so, i look forward to hearing more and this was the second annual. and i have had 100% attendance at all of -- well, there were only two. i really hope that this is going to be a long herm activity. thank you. >> president cleaveland: thank

you, commissioner covington. vice president nakajo. >> vice president nakajo: thank you very much, mr. president. i got about three items. i also wanted to thank commissioner veronese for your leadership in terms of this fundraiser that you had last saturday with the pleasure of working with you for two years in a row, commissioner. but to see you hit the ground running and start this and now have a successful fundraising event for the tress unit, i know that the concept is the peer group support and again, in terms of our colleague, commissioner covington, the money raised is quite significant. i'm in our standard of raising dollars. and so, i thank you for that and look for your continuing support for that. i also wanted to mention in commissioners report, to support comments on the 911 ceremony we all attended yesterday at

station seven. i also wanted to remark it was quite an honor to have the mayor of san francisco, london breed, participate. our department has been honored because the last many years, mayor lee when he was with us, participated on a regular basis. so, for us to have the mayor of san francisco with the members of station seven and what really enhanced it was the members in participation of reserves. i wanted to remark on that. i think those kind of annual traditions are important for us to physically stand there and have our members read the names of those firefighter men and women first responders. the second thing i wanted to say and this again on the basis of annual participation was the police and fire mass. as chief hayes-white was remarking about going to a

relative's wedding, i also thought about in terms of the 911 because i had some issues that maybe i may not make it. but it becomes a tradition because i have never missed a fire and police mass as a commissioner. what was truly effective at this last ceremony was for lack of a better description, the sermon that was contributed by one of our members. and i know you weren't there chief hayes-white. and i had his name down in my mind but i'm looking out there at the command force that was there -- >> chief hayes-white: lieutenant steven mcguire. >> vice president nakajo: thank you for that. that was very moving in terms of his remarks because it took it in terms of what the mass purpose was, police and fire. but also to 9/11. but he personalized it talking

about a couple of members in our department that recently passed. so, i wanted to comment on that. my third item and i didn't know particularly how to handle this. but i wanted to talk about the retreat because i have been in communication two the president. and i know that commissioner covington has been designated and i appreciate that you have always been there for any kind of questions and such and we have had an opportunity to dialogue a little bit on it. the reason why i particularly didn't follow up was because i thought i had a good comprehension of what was going to occur. even though i don't have a verbatim agenda in front of me. but i had some concerns. i decided as a commissioner with oversight and responsibility to bring up these issues that i thought were concerning to me. and this usually happens in my bail because i know that this

event is september 25th, which is next tuesday. and usually when things go along at a certain stage of the game, you pretty much cooperation and participate. and i'm trying to participate and be there. in my terminology we say, i just don't feel it. not that i don't want to participate. but basically as i understand it, this session retreat, quote unquote is going to be held in open session. that helped me clarify. for some reason i thought we would go into closed session and do a closed session retreat. but in this particular session, it is an open session. an open session just like we are having particularly now. and part of that was that i was not quite clear, though i am, that the agenda items were broken off into a full day on

the 25th at a site that's not here for at headquarters. also i though that the morning agenda -- and i'm looking for some feedback in terms of it -- pretty much is a -- i believe a summary or a report on what was submitted during our summit in terms of recommendations. second to that, i thought there would be some time probably to dialogue on our department's response that we just received in this package that i started to read but i haven't completely finished reading. and then in terms of the afternoon session, i didn't quite understand what that was. i know it is some reference of -- i'm not quite sure. what occurred to me and the reluctance of bringing this up

was i didn't want to disrupt any of the work that you have done, commissioner, and what we're doing. but at one point what did pass in my mind was i didn't understand whether or not we had the necessity of an open meeting titled with the retreat based on the subject matters that we are to discuss because i thought that every one of those subject matters whether it is the summit recommendations, which we refer to, we haven't had a session on the department's response. but i thought that that could all be done in open session or at a commission meeting. and now realizing that it is going to be happening within open session, i'm a little clearer in terms of that. but the concern that i have is that substance and i'm concerned with -- i understand we have a facilitator we are going to pay a certain amount of dollars to. i think i brought up at the last

commission meeting that the facilitator is going to be costing so much dollars. i know there's some range in there. but i'm having a problem with that if it's an open session because our chair at these commission meetings, the president, usually facilitates the meeting. so, i myself didn't understand why we needed to have a facilitator at open session based on these subject matters that we've had somewhat. these more substantive talk we can do with that but i didn't quite grasp at all. i'm open to dialogue in terms of an open meeting on subject matters i think are in front of us, but i'm not real clear as to what the need of the facilitator is, what the cost of the facilitator is, who the

facilitator is, what's the role of the facilitator and if that's all the case, i quite don't believe we need to have a quote unquote facilitator. we should be able to indulge the president to do that task. i guess i'm trying to save money or be part of oversight. i know that the figure isn't quite clear yet and i will stop at some point to get some concrete information as to what the facilitator will cost. but that's what my concerns are. i almost felt like maybe i should go to the altar and get married commissioner. but i decided at this point in terms of going through with something that i'm not quite sure if i want to be able to be part of that i should maybe bring it up at this particular point before it ends. i'm not quite sure if you have offered a contract to the facilitator. but these are the many questions that i had this morning. thank you for indulging me and

perhaps there could be some information provided at least to the recommendation of a justification of the cost of the facilitator. mr. president. >> president cleaveland: thank you, mr. vice president. i think we will let commissioner covington address some of your questions. >> commissioner covington: thank you, mr. president. in terms of commissioner nakajo just going to the altar and getting married, i'm sure your wife would be interested in knowing that. and i'm a widow. i was happily married for many years and i'm not looking for a husband. [laughter] >> commissioner covington: let's just get down to it. i wish you had called me with these concerns and these questions and i am ready to answer them all. we do have an agenda. it was just completed yesterday. the president was in iceland for a while.

i was visiting nebraska and iowa for a while. so, we were in two different places at two different times. and so, the clock was running down. we have -- we have to have a substantive conversation about these two items. the overview of the mayor's policy summit areas are included, public safety and you are on that transition team. and a lot of things came out of that particular team related to organization and administration,

operational matters, financial matters, facilities and equipment and legislative matters. those are all things that came out of your team that were recommended to the mayor in terms of her consideration going forward. for the fire department. now, each one of these organization and administration, operational, financial, facilities and equipment and legislative could if we are doing a deep dive after skimming the surfaces of these topics, each one could take an hour if we are doing our due diligence as commissioners to have an overview of where we are together as a team of

commissioners and as a department, to have an overview as well as going into where we are, where we want to be and how to get there. we have not had that discussion as a commission. this is not a look at the clock, is it almost noon and we have to vacate the room kind of a discussion. not if we're being serious. not if we're being serious about getting to know what the vision of the new administration is and getting to know what our own individual visions are. when commissioner veronese came on board, he mentioned that he didn't really have an understanding of what the vision of the individual commissioners were related to the department and at that time, i suggested perhaps we have a retreat.

a retreat is a more relaxed setting. it's more of a round robin give and take. it's a put it on the board and let's see if there's some connective tissue between these ideas. we can't do that in this formal a setting. i have been on numerous board. i was on the fort mason board of directors for 13 years. i was on the san francisco aids foundation for many years. i was a redevelopment commissioner for almost ten years and i have been on this commission for quite some time. this is the only body out of all of those bodies that i have mentioned that has never had a retreat. a retreat is a place where you put forward your best ideas,

your wildest ideas, your hopes and dreams for the department, the non-profit that you love and that you work so hard for, for free. for free. we devote many, many hours to our efforts. i will speak for myself. i devote many, many hours of my time, my talent to this department. i want to be able to talk about these particular things that a group of other committed fellow citizens came up with for this department. these things should not be done in a vacuum. i was on the housing transition team. on the surface you might say what does the fire department have to do with housing other

than putting the red stuff on the red stuff? we have a lot to do with housing. there's permitting. there's forward thinking on what other kinds of housing might be useful. whether it's modular housing or if it's, you know, repurposing shipping cargo containers. there are a lot of different ideas out there that we need to discuss and we need to do it together as a team. we are not in isolation. we don't exist individually, no commissioner is above the other. and this department is part of the city family. we are all cousins, auntties, uncles. some of us are grandparents. we can't just be in our own silo doing our own thing. we are all interconnected.

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