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- good afternoon. and welcome to the land use and transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. for today, monday, february, 3, 2020. i am the chair of the committee, aaron peskin joined by committee member supervisor dean preston to my left, our clerk is ms. erica major, ms. major, could you please make any

announcements? >> yes, please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included as part of a file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you. could you please call items 1 through 3 together. >> item number 1 is a resolution declaring the intent of the board to order the vacation of the sidewalk portion of streets on the south side of mission street to allow a structure upgrade of 301 mission street high-rise building known as the millennium tower and setting the hearing date sitting as a committee of the whole. item 2 is an ordinance ordering the vacation of sidewalk portions of streets on the south side of mission street to allow a structural upgrade to 301 mission street, high-rise building known as the millennium tower, rededicating the area to public use and adopt the appropriate findings.

item 3 is a resolution approving and authorizing a trust exchange agreement with the california state lands commission that would remove the public trust from certain transbay streets and impress the public trust on certain fisherman's wharf street and adopting appropriate findings. >> thank you, ms. major. so obviously all three of these pieces of legislation have to do with the sinking, tilting millennium tower at 301 mission in addition to river a from public works and from the port, we have deputy city attorney john to answer any questions that we have. i believe that public works has a presentation. so mr. rivera, the floor is yores. >> good afternoon. from the department of public works. the department of building inspection has reviewed a

proposed design to structurally upgrade the 301 mission street tower. it was determined that the structural upgrade will require infrastructure to be placed under what is currently public right of way along mission street and fremont street. this piece of legislation is really more of a legal exercise than a standard street vacation. when streets are typically vacated, the vacation area is removed from the public right of way and it becomes a city-owned parcel that can be retained by the city or conveyed to a third party. when the city retains ownership, the city has the ability to grant a lease or an easement over all or a portion of the vacated area. this street legislation or this legislation approves three phases. first, portions of mission street and fremont street will

be vacated, starting from the sidewalk level down to a depth of approximately 300 feet. this will split off city-owned parcels below grade while keeping the above portion in the current street status as shown on the screen right here along mission street and fremont street. the second portion of this legislation will be an easement that will be granted from the city to the inner of 301 mission street over portions of the below-grade vacated street. the easement areas can be seen on the screen and on file on pages 2 and 3. each one, page two, shows mission street's easement area, and page three shows the fremont street portion of the vacation.

finally, after the easement is recorded, the vacated property will be restored to public right of way with subject to the easement. the street vacation was processed as required by local and state law. no objections were received from the city agencies, public utility companies or private fronting property owners. it is important to note that this is a conditional street vacation, and it will not become effective until the board of bof supervisors has approved the following three items. first, the vacation area is currently right of way that is subject to the public trust doctrine. the public trust exchange legislation must be approved and effective. second, the settlement ordinance related to the 301 mission street litigation must be finalized and effective. this ordinance will be introduced at a later date to the board of supervisors.

finally the board of supervisors must approve the easement for the structural elements in the vacation area. this legislation will also be introduced at a later date. if you have any questions concerning the vacation process, i'm here to answer them. >> thank you. are there any questions for mr. rivera with regard to the vacation below ground? the construction period will last how long approximately? >> i believe the last i heard was 18 months, probably two years. >> if there are no questions for mr. rivera, would you like to come and tell us about the public trust exchange? >> i'm with the port. i want to talk briefly about the trust exchange. the port is requesting that the board of supervisors approve

trust exchange for property in the transbay area, streets in the transbay area as well as the fisherman's what were area. the trust exchange would relate to the project that was just described. it would allow for the construction or improvements for the millennium towers project at 301 mission, but it would also allow for the consolidation of the site for the transbay transit center. so let me focus more in that since you've heard the presentation about the millennium tower. brief background, the transbay authority was created in 2001 to build a new transbay center. in 2010, the caltrans transferred the original

caltrans term gnat site to the tjpa for the construction of the facility, but it did not include air and substructure rights for fremont and mission street. so the city could not transfer the entire site to the tjpa. so related to what's being requested now, we are talking about an exchange that would permit the consolidation of the transbay term gnat site in addition to the towers development. but the streets are subject to this. the property is transferred originally to the city based on the act approved by the state in

1968. and so the port owns title to those streets. and the burden act does not allow the city or the port to transfer any interest in those streets without state approval. and so to consolidate the site or to make the permanent easement available to the millennium towers association, the trust would have to be removed. now, the state does allow for the city to remove the trust. there are a number of conditions. the primary condition or key condition is that the property that's being swapped or transferred into the trust must have a value equal to or greater than the property that's being removed from the trust. so the fremont and mission streets, that land must be --

can't be more valuable than the streets that are being swapped into the trust. in this case, that's bay beach and hyde streets and the the fisherman's what were area, those streets allow access to the waterfront and will be a positive addition to the port and to the trust. the streets that are getting removeed, they are cut off from the bay are no longer of value to the trust, and that's the reason we are proposing this swap. square footage, and this was the basis of the port commission action, the square footage of the streets in the fisherman's what were area that would be coming into the trust, 152,000 square feet that would be removed from the trust, 143,000

square feet. the original apray sal process that's going on -- appraisal process that will verify the values. at the time the commission took its action on january 14, that appraisal hod had not been completed. so the commission took their action and on january 14, approving and authorizing the executive director to sign a trust exchange agreement between the port, the city and the land commission subject to the board of supervisors approval and of course subject to lands commission approval. this map, if we can show the map on the computer here.

>> on the overhead or the laptop? >> it's on the laptop. >> here we go. >> this map is showing the streets that will be removed from the trust. they are shown in red. again, it's fremont and mission streets. i'm having trouble getting to the next map. okay. the streets in green here are the streets to the fisherman's what were beach hyde and bay, they will be where the trust would be applied, and these

would be part of the trust. >> and what are the lands transferred to the united states of america and retained by the city? in parcel r? >> this map is showing more than the trust streets. i'm not sure why that area is listed there. i don't know if the city really has any idea about that area. >> the streets totaling the 34,000 square feet plus 119,000 square feet >> is what's in green, and that's what's being swapped into the trust. >> john, do you understand what these retained by the city, transferred to the united states stuff is? is that from a different swap? >> john from the city attorney's office. to be honest, i'm not exactly sure what that area is. i think it's down near the

aquatic park area, there's some federally-owned land. that's the way i've always read it, but i don't have a specific answer for you. >> okay. but they are not implicated, even though the legend says, the key says proposed trade-in lands, and then there's these other two categories that don't seem to be the act lands. >> right. it's just an adjacent property. >> got it. any questions for mr. rhett? if you have any questions you can come on up and testify. we will open up public comment. >> not for this but to help me understand, when the port takes over a street, does this mean that any businesses that operate on that street have to get permits then from the port to do, like, get a new plumbing

thing in for their restaurant? or how does that work? >> i would love to explain to you the history of the public trust doctrine and why it is that these lands as a matter of development of land use history in the state of california are lands of the people of the state as opposed to lands of the city and county of san francisco. but in 1968, john burton was able to pass legislation wherein those lands are, that historically were state lands, they are still state lands, but they are stewarded by the port of san francisco in trust for the people of the state of california as parts of the public trust. but as a practical matter, not to engage in dialogue and get in trouble with the city attorney, it has no actual effect on the

adjoining property owners and is merely a paper swap. so with that, and subject to approval by the state lands commission of the state of california, ms. jennifer presiding, there are a couple or members of the public who would like to testify on items 1 through 3? seeing none, we will close public comment. there are a couple of housekeeping matters in item number two, the piece of legislation that is before you, this is the street vacation matter refers to a yet to be introduced settlement ordinance. and the amendments which are on pages five and pages six, you will see, strike the words, the settlement is on file with the clerk of the board of supervisors and replaces it with

language as language that says that this ordinance will not be operative unless and until the board approves the yet to be introduced settlement. so those changes are set forth on pages five and six. and then with regard to item number three, while the public notice was technically sufficient, i thought that it was important for the public to know that as we have discussed in this hearing, that item number three is correctly related to the millennium tower settlement. and so i have -- i would like to make an amendment to item number three to clearly show in the short title and the long title that is related to the millennium tower matter. so i would like to make a motion to amend items two and three as i've just discussed or moved by supervisor safai, we have been

joined by supervisor safai who has made those amendments which we will take without objection. and then, colleagues, i would like to send item one, which is the resolution of intent for the street vacation to the full board. >> mr. chair? >> yes >> we need to add the committee of the whole date to item one for the resolution. >> thank you, ms. major. and we have an amendment to item number one, which is the resolution of intent for street vacation, which of course will require a board of supervisors hearing. and what date, ms. major, should we insert for that? >> march 3, 2020 >> so we will include the hearing date of march 3, which will be a committee of the whole, on march 3, 2020. and we will add that to item number one. that amendment we'll take without objection and send item number one as amended with the march 3 date to the full board with recommendation as a committee report for hearing tomorrow. and items two and three as

amended will go to the full board on february 11 without objection. >> mr. chair. >> yes? >> item two will need to be referred without recommendation. >> you are right. because item number two requires the public hearing. so we will send that without recommendation. and item number three we will send with recommendation without objection in the normal course of business. madame clerk, would you please read the next item? >> yes. item four is an ordinance approving an amended and restated land disposition and acquisition agreement with 2000 marin property l.p. for the city's transfer of real property at 639 bryant street under the jurisdiction of the san francisco public utilities commission in exchange for real property at 2000 marin street, subject to several conditions, including the reimbursement of certain transaction costs. >> mr. carlin. >> chair peskin, supervisors,

i'm here on behalf of the san francisco public utilities commission. i'm the deputy general manager. this item we have been working on for several years. it's an exchange of our brought at 639 bryant street which for exchange. it is based on fair market values. there is no cash being exchanged but there are other considerations part of the development deal with the developers. there will be tenant improvements at the port. there will be moving costs absorbed by the developer. and he's helping us to secure a tank site for hydrogen peroxide tank for border patrol and our sewers. so i'm happy to answer any questions, but it's pretty self explanatory in the material that was developed for you. >> are there any questions for mr. carlin? this has been discussed by this committee and the board in the

past and was actually once considered as 2000 marin as the temporary site for the flower mart, but as we all know, they ended up with a different proposed site. supervisor safai? >> i just wanted to point out to the clerk that the item on the screen is not representative of the current item >> that is true. and that is actually sfgov tv, because item 4 -- item 5 is -- they keyed up the wrong -- >> thank you. >> thank you for that comment. you are right, we are on item 4, amended and restated land acquisition agreement, exchange of 639 bryant for 2000 marin. are there any members of the public who have any comments on this item? seeing none, we'll close public comment and colleagues, if there is no objection, we will send

this to the full board as a committee report with recommendation, without objection. madame clerk, please read the next item. >> item five is an ordinance amending the administrative code to classify certain types of unlawful detainer settlement agreements as buyout agreements, require the rent board to provide more information on the disclosure form that landlords must give to tenants, require landlords to give the disclosure form to tenants a certain number of days before the buyout agreement is executed and allow tenants to invalidate any provision of the buyout agreement in which the tenant waived their rights if the landlord did not timely file the buyout agreement. >> thank you. this legislation is sponsored by supervisor ronen and cosponsored by any number of supervisors including myself and supervisor preston. and from supervisor ronen's office, ms. amy is here to

present. and we have robert collins from the rent stabilization board. if we have any questions for him. and i know ms. amy has a couple amendments which i am handing out to you for your review, and we will discuss. the floor is yours. >> thank you so much. legislative aid, supervisor ronen's office. good afternoon, chair peskin, vice-chair safai, supervisor preston. the legislation before you today will amend admin code section 37.9e to tighten the regulations on landlord buyouts of tenants and protect tenants from being subjected to high pressure to get them to leave their homes. with speck at a live rents and sales continuing to rise, landlords have a powerful incentive to remove and replace long-time tenants. no-cause evictions are allowed under the state act and move-in laws but some landlords see a cash buyout as a way to get tenants to move out quickly and

avoid restraints on condo conversions. supervisor passed a regulation in 2014 which established annual reporting. there was 379 buyouts in neighborhoods throughout the city but some advocates estimate there may be as many as three untracked for every one that does get filed. we need to be sure the laws are being followed. what this legislation will do is the following, it will ensure the tenants are informed of their rights. currently, we are seeing landlords deliver required disclosures to tenants after start of negotiations or not at all, the amendments will require a landlord file a declaration under penalty of perjury prior to commencing negotiations providing evidence of disclosure and method of delivery. it will give tenants time to decide landlords often use high pressure, take it or leave it

deadlines that leave tenants no times to reach out to legal support or their advocate assistance. the amendments set a minimum of 30 days between the initiation of buyout negotiations and the execution of an agreement. it will phosphorus landlords to file. they sometimes file in order to recharacterize a buyout agreement and bypass the filing in subsequent condo conversion restrictions. it is filed within 120 days as a buyout agreement, subject to regulation. lastly, the amendment will push landlords to file by waiving any waiver of tenant rights if a landlord does not file on time with the rent board. so we submitted several amendments, actually at the request of the regular board, and each of these together are

intended to help make sure the recording is done in a way that's easier to track. on page one, lines eight through 10, it will note that we now require landlords to include in the final buyout agreement identifying information about the location of the unit, same thing continues on page four, lines two to three, it specifies the agreement will show the parcel number. on page six, line six and seven and nine, reiterates the same, and lastly, page nine, line one and six we've deleted the march 1 operative date so it becomes effective 30 days after enactment. we have heard criticism from some interested parties that this legislation will discourage buyouts, and that is in some way, disadvantaged to tenants. on behalf of supervisor ronen, we want to make sure the goal of the board should be to preserve tenants in rent-controlled units.

tenants who quote ask for buyouts are usually misinformed and terrified. it's not the job of the city government to enable buyouts which would essentially spell the end of the tenants ability to end in san francisco. i would to say thank you so much from robert collins from the rent board, our city attorney and from the advocates who we have worked with closely to structure this amendment. so thank you. i'm here for my questions. >> anything you want to add? >> thank you supervisor peskin and safai and preston. , no, i wanted to thank amy and supervisor ronen for taking into account amendments that we requested which go to making sure we have the correct unit identified. that's been a challenge that we have had that was brought up from staff.

so i just want to thank supervisors for taking those amendments into consideration. >> thank you. are there any members of the public who would like to testify on this item? please come forward. >> thank you, supervisors. my name is sarah. i'm here from housing rights committee of san francisco. by also pushing out tenants who want to stay in a unit and stay in san francisco, we've made it hard in san francisco to just evict tenants for no other reason beside that you want more money. it isn't impossible. but it is -- we've made it a little hard. but we have tenants coming to our office all the time with buyout offers saying that they have no other choice beside take this buyout. a lot of tenants want to stay. and the tenants who take the buyouts, often the money is

gonna couple years with the new expensive rent, first and last, for tenants who are on disability benefits or other benefits sometimes it's counted against them. most often tenants come to us way too late. they've already signed the buyout agreement. they've already largely in the process. they've already had months of landlords and their landlord's lawyer lying to them, harassing them, threatening them, bullying them. tenants who get a call every day with the buyout and will they take it. tenants who receive letters saying if they didn't take the buyout, they will be hearing from the lawyer. sometimes with a sample ellis act attached. thank you. i have a tenant i worked with on market street who took a buyout thinking told have to leave and

ended up living on the street in front of his build building that he used to live in as a rent-controlled tenant. tenants we get to are more able to stay. this legislation isn't enough ultimately, but it is a big step. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is jennifer and i'm a tenant at 1900 jefferson street. and reside in supervisor stefani's district. the building was sold in 2018 to someone and is managed by jim and carol of peak realty. after the sale, construction began to convert all units from one bedroom to two bedrooms to increase rent from approximately $3,100 to $5,200 per unit. since the sale, tenants have been embroiled in a rent eviction nightmare, and some

have been approached for buyouts by jim and their attorney andrew zacks. tenants were given deadlines and told by not taking the buyouts or relocating to other buildings, their rents would be raised. in one case the lawyer insulted the tenant's responsibility as a parent for not taking a buyout. this harassing and threatening behavior is unconscionable. this is why i support legislation to strengthen tenants protections against buyout bullying and harassment from attorneys. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, i'm born and raised in the mission. i'm organizer and counselor of housing committee. we get a lot of tenants who come to the office telling us they've gotten a buyout notice, and they actually see the buyout as an eviction notice.

and many tenants are scared, they feel threatened. these are tenants who are part of the most -- population, tenants who have been there for 30, 40 years, and they're scared. and they tell me, they say i'm only being offered $5,000. what can that get you in san francisco for $5,000? it's really -- they're scared, they get threatened by ellis, they get threatened, some of these buyout notices, they are not even notices, they are actually verbal conversations with the tenant saying you have to leave, we are offering you this amount of money. they are selling the building, it's coming into san francisco to our community to take over that building and displacing that tenant with the merely pennies in comparison to how much housing costs in san

francisco. it's very crucial this legislation is not -- it is going to support the tenants. we need something more to help these tenants out. tenants who have no voice in san francisco. tenants who are born in the mission, living in drastic conditions where that buyout might be, but it's not. they are displaced to the east bay, they are displaced to down across the state. we need to keep these tenants in rent-controlled buildings. please support this legislation. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> supervisors, our efforts to provide anti-eviction representation to those who need it still remains a work in progress. i have a lot of empathy for, i do, i'm at the housing rights commission a lot with a lot of

issues. i have a slightly ancillary approach to this. i imagine there might be general comment to this committee, but there is none, so i'll do it here. it does go with this insure. what i noticed is there isn't any committee assigned to global climate change. one of the biggest issues of our time. and of course this committee is the closest thing. global climate change is connected to land use, the same thing as our housing jobs linkage is. and i'm wondering if we could do something, maybe get it put in the name or somehow -- if we had a better understanding of how land use affects to meet our need for global climate change,

in our land use issues like this one, we would start to see a lot more land use issues but that are resolved in favor of antigentrification and in favor of neighborhood preservation, and we are not seeing that, and this certainly is one such issue. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon. if you know me, and i know you do. i'm an advocate for other groups of people and i never thought i would be in here advocating for myself. my name is sherry lord and i live in north beach. i've lived there since december 2009, and i'm 71 years old, not sure how that happened but it's true. and i'm disabled. in the ten years i've lived in this building, it's been sold four times and we've had six property managers. in the building is tenants who are disabled, and they have been

there 30 years. they had the flu and couldn't come today. the last two years, we have been through owners that have wanted us to leave with a lot of pressure. in august of 2019, the building was purchased by hans. his first act was to enforce the tenant to move out. he offered them $35,000, and justin had been there ten years and moved. did the owner move in? no. did he file an owner buy out with the city? no. he put the building up for sale. the tenant at the same time the owner offered the tenants, myself and the two elderly people in unit a buyouts. and we both said no. and then he kept at it and at it. it got to the point where he would call us weekly and say i have a buyout for you, and then it got to be daily, and then it got to be the day before the

sale of the building, he called us that day and we said no. so the new owner is starting the same tactic, and he's only been in here since november. i think i got lots more but i'll leave it at that. i'm not sure what to do at this point. but when i was advocating for homeless, i never thought that i would be homeless myself. i may not be better off after all. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm a long-time voter from district 5. and i'm a member of senior and disability action. i'm here to support supervisor ronen's legislation on behalf of many seniors. seniors, we are highly vulnerable, we have very few resources, very few options, very limited incomes.

we live in isolation. we have no plan b. what does that mean? pretend that i'm 85 years old. i live alone. i've been in my rent-controlled apartment 40 years in an old victorian. my husband died, my children live thousands of miles away. my friends have died. the shopkeepers i used to know and talk to every day, they're gone. i only go to the grocery store, maybe on a good day. one day, the new landlord knocks on my door. i've never met him. he says he has to have my apartment. he'll give me $10,000 or he'll take me to court. he says i have ten days to decide. all i know is what he tells me. all i know is what he tells me. supervisors, we need you to

support this legislation. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is marvin green. i have lived at the residence intent in the san francisco bay area for the past 30 years. in the past several years in the mission district. these stories you hear are just the tip of the iceberg. for every one person that's here there's probably 200 people who have stories about how landlords and how speculators abuse, bully and use the system against them. what this bill does is help to level the playing field. on one side, you have speculative real estate people who have years of sophisticated, years of legal training, years of legal support. and years of planning to do this against people who find out

about it ten days, two months beforehand with no real sophistication, with no real estate background in most cases, and with no support system. what this does is helps to tighten up the loopholes that the sophisticated, well-background, speculators are using against citizens of san francisco. so i urge you to pass this bill and refer it to the full board so they can pass it so that we can try at least a little bit to level the playing field to give those of us who rent and live and contributed in san francisco an opportunity to at least stand up for ourselves. thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is letica and i'm the ss lead housing organizer with just

cause. in the mission we offer counseling for tenants facing eviction, harassment and these verbal buyouts that we keep seeing which we see often in our clinic. and i am here in support of these amendments, to close the buyout loopholes in the legislation. like i said, we see tenants coming in with verbal buyout offering on a regular basis. and landlords are simply not following the law by issuing the prebuyout disclosure forms. and when they do share these forms, it often comes with serious threats of eviction if the tenants refuse to negotiate a buyout agreement. just a couple of weeks ago this past month in january, we had an entire building come in from the mission for counseling support, because a landlord invited them

to a meeting on a saturday, surprised them with a presentation for a verbal buyout and threatened an ellis if they did not agree. they received a prebuyout disclosure form after the meeting, not before. and when they came to our clinic, we supported them with a letter refusing to negotiate a buyout, and then they got issued an ellis act eviction. so tenants, when they are exerting their right to say no, they are being seriously threatened with these buyouts, i'm sorry, with these evictions whether it's ellis or owner move-in, and it's not in good faith like the notice says. so we support this amendments to strengthen tenant protections. until then, tenants are going to be harassedd with buyouts and with evictions unless we are able to enforce that landlords file these buyouts. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon. kelly hill with united to save the mission. first i want to thank hillary ronen's office for bringing this important legislation to you. today i want to talk about my own story, which is kind of a harassment displacement story. in early 2000 our landlord put our building up for sale, a two-unit building near hayes. we lived through two years of harassment. back then it was a little harder to get ahold of legal help. it wasn't financially feasible. we lived through two open houses a week for two years. we had just started our business. we eventually took a tiny buyout to get out from under the harassment. basically that small buyout barely paid for the moving expenses and a couple of months of the rent increase. we lasted six months at our next place and that trajectory led to years of housing insecurity. this legislation is super important. i have a couple of things that would make it more of a dream

legislation, some of these things may not be possible. we have firsthand knowledge of the predatory behavior taking place in the mission. we are tracking case studies two blocks from my house of multiple buildings being harassed in this exact same way. we are seeing the same serial predators, people like michael camp sini and the big time folks like veritas changing the landscape. i would love to see a longer deadline of giving people to decide. is there a way to prematch tenants with counsel before the negotiations commence, remove the stress. i've seen this. we help with tenant work when we know their buildings are going to be predatory upon. is three a number of hostile attempts by the same people? we live in an age with no

horizontal mobility. our rent is going to triple for people all over the place. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. supervisors. district 8 tenant anastasia. a rental unit that's been vacated is worth more to a landlord or real estate speculator than a building that's empty of tenants. and a building that's empty can fetch a higher price in today's speck at a live housing market. it's vital to preserve our city's rapidly-depleting rental controlled housing stock and keep tenants in their home. to this end i fully support today's legislation that will close tenant buyout agreements including classifying certain types of unlawful detaper settlements, agreements as buyout agreements and requiring the rent board to provide more information on the disclosure

forms landlords must give tenants before buyout negotiations commence. tenants need to know they are not compelled to agree to sign the disclosure form or agree to a buyout of their tenancy that they can seek advice and have time to consider the buyout offer or to reject the offer. and landlords must file all required forms timely or tenants would be able to invalidate any waivers of rights agreed to. i'm so disheartened by the taxes a developer investor miller used to force my neighbor, a retired legal secretary, to give up her rent-controlled flat on chattanooga street. she got a disclosure form two weeks after he bought the building in 2016 and then had sac's law firm send a letter telling her she had to move out

because the landlord was constructing an adu below her, which was b.s. because he hadn't even gotten the permit approved. then he harassed her with phone calls and raised a noise campaign above her till she finally got -- >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you for having this hearing. i support hillary ronen's legislation. and we can make it even stronger in making howing as a human right. and we should not be treated like a commodity. i live ad 698 bruce street. this property in december 2019.

and i was hearing a conversation between a prospective buyer and a real estate agent, and he was telling, oh, you buy this, we can get rid of these old-time tenants. and i hear it, you know? and they didn't know i was listening to them. but this is their model. now, veritas sold the building to another speculator, russ, he was my landlord 30 years ago, and he bought it again. and i know what his game plan is. i heard have a real estate broker talking to them. and this eviction is imminent. and i've been there for 48 years. and i came in that building when i was full hair and now i'm losing my hair. and i want this legislation even stronger. and i would like to see we have a tenants rights people here.

i would like to bring this in the city and county here so we can even make it better. thank you very much. >> thank you. good to see you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm with our mission no eviction. i'm a volunteer with housing rights committee. and i'm here to support this legislation. but to echo that it doesn't do enough. and one of the things that i think that should be amended in this legislation is the time period between the notification and the agreement. 30 days is just not enough. and i'll tell you why. i just recently worked with a woman who had been given a buyout notice. she had been in her unit for 48 years. her mother had died in that unit, and she was terrified. she had a nervous breakdown. she had to get on medication.

30 days does not allow enough time. it took -- she wanted to fight. she got a lawyer, she's still in her place right now. but to do all of this and to organize tenants in the building, 30 days is just not long enough. and i know that you know the difficulty, the number of lawyers that we have can't even keep pace with the number of tenants that need assistance. and then i also want to echo the concerns that kelly raised. we are seeing neighbors in our, just our block, we think we have lost close to 70, that are being evicted under the table. they are threatened to take a buyout under the table and then when they leave, the places immediately are serial permits are used to completely renovate the spaces and to be leased at market rate or flipped. and we need to do something about this situation, because we

are losing our immigrant neighbors at a very rapid pace. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is scott weaver where the san francisco tenants union. i'm sure you are all aware of the vulnerabilities of the population that is subject to these buyouts. and the shock that they feel when they receive a letter from an attorney saying we may ellis the building, my client is considering owner move-in eviction. immediately, there's one foot out the door. immediately. and that's why we need this 30-day cooling-off period so that we don't have people making sudden decisions, so we have people who have the ability to go to counseling organizations to be able to do that before

being scared so much that they will sign an agreement. i think as we talk about buyouts, we underestimate the displacement effect that buyouts have. if we were to count the number of buyouts that really happen in the city, they will exceed any single cause for eviction. they probably exceed any two causes for eviction combined. this is a big deal in terms of what is happening right in front of us. and landlords have been very open about not filing these things with the rent board. almost to the point of bragging about it. and if we are going to actually make this ordinance enforceable, then we have to prohibit or invalidate any waiver of rights that a tenant will have in a buyout agreement if a landlord

doesn't file with the rent board. that's the only way to put some sting into it and to allow tenants to file with the rent board. and that's the only way that this city is going to get on any kind of profile of what -- >> thank you, scott. next speaker, please. >> hi. from the san francisco tenants union. thank you, supervisors. and thank you so much hillary ronen for putting this legislation together. every month in our coalition, the antidisplacement coalition, we review the biggest threats to tenants in the city. and almost without fail, buyouts makes the top of the list every month. and we've also known the buyouts are the primary way we are losing affordable housing in san francisco for years. this is why we introduced the original buyout legislation. it was actually hillary ronen was the aid who worked on it with us. so she was our natural choice to lead this effort to fix the

gaps. what is a buyout? it's when a tenant sells their rights for the sake of a bit of money and a bit of certainty about the day they have to move. sells their rights. basically they are giving up the chance to enforce the rights they have that you all passed, that we passed as a city of san francisco to protect their housing and to protect this affordable housing for everyone here. i don't blame individual people who do that, because they are scared, but it is our responsibility to make sure that that is as hard to do as possible and that we save that housing. in the intervening years since we originally passed the legislation, we were able to -- it worked to a point. we were able to track some information, we were able to incorporate that information about buyouts that happened into the housing balance report to show us how much we were losing. knowing we were losing a lot more than that. but we knew we were falling way

short of what was going on, based on storying we were hearing in our clinics, reports from the courthouse about fake lawsuits being filed so people could get away with not filing. and from tenants about their own neighbors. this legislation has been designed to fill those gaps, to stop the fake lawsuits and raise the stakes when landlords break the rules. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is peter. i'm a proud member of north beach. my family established residence there in the late 1800s. i live at 646 lumbar street. my wife, directly across from me. i'm in the pool five days a week, 5:30 in the morning, because i'm disabled. i have a good work out there and i can't stay on my feet. i've been there for 23 years my

aunt rose, lived there 21 years before me. i've seen a lot of changes in north beach. and i don't like what i see. aaron peskin has stepped forward and put a big effort to help us out. my wife and i, we don't want to move. i don't plan to move. i'm a north beach boy, and i'm going to stay a north beach boy. my grandfather, i was born in the house, 165 165valpraiso. he built two bungalows there in the early 1900s with his little 28-foot fishing boat. i was born in the family house in 1940 by the county midwife. i'm a true son of the beach. thank you. >> [laughter] thank you.

good to see you. next speaker, please. >> i'm peter's wife gail deluca. we got a new landlord. this was the third since our wonderful john passed away who lived in the front unit. [please stand by] -[please stand b

>> since they've been in, we were offered a buyout which we turned down, but we were given, like, i think about 10 days for us and the tenants below us to either accept or reject the buyout. once this started happening, i can't describe the kind of turmoil, the fears, you know, and you can't think. you know, you don't know where to turn. it's just all so sudden. in responding to the buyout

offer, i basically said we would need more time to move out. they've given us three months to -- >> you've got to wrap up. >> [ indiscernible ] -- >> gail, i'll tell you what, i'm

happy -- you know where i live. you know where my office is. we can meet offline. i'm happy to continue talking with you. >> good afternoon. theresa flederick, senior and disability action. i live in north beach. i know of 39 households within four blocks of where i live. and within two blocks, 39 households are being asked to take buyouts. i know of on alta street, for example, the senior there, diane, was not given the seven-page pamphlet on her rights. she was asked to take a buyout which she declined, and then she was told they could l-sat her. she's lived there for 50 years. another man because of the flu he was extremely disappointed

that he couldn't come today. and, in fact, he sent me -- if i could have the overhead, he sent me this image in a text, saying that he was so sorry that he could not come because he so wanted to speak and tell his story, which is that they lived there for over 33 years. both him and his wife are disabled. asking them to take a buyout, and they said, no, we're going to decline that. this is the second landlord in the last nine and a half months. he said, no, we don't want to move, we want to stay here. the new owner said, i will lsat you or i could move in a relative is the other thing. what i know is this is happening all over. i know that people are threatened. there is a harassment through sudden renovations. i hear these stories all the

time. this legislation is going to fix a lot of those loopholes that have been used, abused, and hurting so many people. we also then lose these affordable housing as these units are turned into luxury units -- >> thank you. are there any other members of the public that could like to testify on this item number 5? seeing none, the matter is back in the committee's hands. supervisor preston. >> thank you. i would like to thank all the folks that came to speak on this. this is a big step forward when the buyout legislation was initiated. it was the first buyout legislation of its kind in the state, if i'm not mistaken. some other jurisdictions have followed suit since then. but i want to thank supervisor ronen and others for their work

on this measure. i think there is -- probably nowhere there is a bigger disconnect in the housing world between what academics, media, and other pundits look at around evictions and the reality that folks who are working on the ground, like a lot of our speakers today are, in terms of perception and numbers of evictions. as some of the speakers noted, this is the leading form of eviction. buyouts are essentially de facto evictions. this is not just in san francisco. i personally as a tenant advocate for the last 20 years have done state-wide and national research on evictions. you realize when you run those numbers, you're dealing with a tiny fraction of the number of people who are actually displaced. in more cases it's more advantageous for a landlord to

threaten they are going to drag a tenant through the eviction process and get them to surrender their rights without going to court. in san francisco it is the same with the eviction notices that are served. two aspects i want highlight on this particular legislation that i think are really essential. the most common thing that i hear from tenants in san francisco, particularly in district 5, are that they are given these false, very threatening and scary deadlines. we will give you this much if you respond by monday or in a week. these are entirely false deadlines. you just want to be clear for folks that are not here and are watching this on tv, when you get buyout offer, you have absolutely no obligation or requirement to respond. usually the threats that those offers will go away are false and usually taking the time you

need is to your advantage. so i think the -- providing the 30-day window here is absolutely an essential part of this legislation. it's going to have a big impact. and the other side is the attainment process. and the previous legislation, the bou buyout legislation, we landlords would get creative. one of the bad-faith ways is to try and dress up buyout efforts as a part of litigation in order to avoid obligations to go ahead and file these. so i think closing the unlawful detainer loophole here and forcing landlords to file those buyouts as well is absolutely essential. i'm going to be supporting this and thanks to supervisor ronen for her leadership on it. >> thank you, supervisor preston.

i concur with those statements, which is precisely why i am a proud co-sponsor and also want to add my thanks to the community and supervisor ronen for bringing this forward. we have some minor, non-substantive amendments that are before us as to lot and block numbers spread out. can we take those amendments without objection and then, as amended, we will send the item to the full board with recommendation without objection. colleagues, i have been informed that there was actually an intended small amendment to the previous item, so if i could make a motion to rescind the vote on item number 4, we'll do that without objection. and then add on page 11 a subsection b that says, within 30 days of the amended agreement

being fully executed by all parties, the sfpuc shall provide the final amended agreement to the clerk of the board for ininclusion into the official file. so that language we will amend into item 4 and then send the item again as amended with recommendation as a committee report. madam clerk, could you please read item number 6, our final item. >> clerk: yes, item 6 is a planning toad ordinance amending the planning code to enable the use of development project sites during the project approval and entitlement process by authorizing the planning department to authorize certain interim activities at development project sites as temporary uses for up to 36 months, subject to extension at the discretion of the planning director in increments for up to a maximum possible total of 24 additional months; adopting the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act; making findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101.1; and making findings of public convenience, necessity, and welfare under planning code, section 302. >> thank you, ms. major. we have heard this repeatedly. we had an amendment that the city attorney deemed to be substantive, so it required a one-week continuance. is there any public comment on

this item? seeing none, can we send this item that has been heard repeatedly -- wait winning supervisor preston, do you have a comment? sorry, i didn't take you down from your last comment. to the full board with recommendation without objection. that will be the order and we are adjourned.

>> it did take a village. i was really lucky when i was 14 years old to get an internship. the difference that it made for me is i had a job, but there were other people who didn't have a job, who, unfortunately, needed money. and they were shown to commit illegal acts to get money.

that is what i want to prevent. [♪] today we are here to officially kick off the first class of opportunities for all. [applause]. >> opportunities for all is a program that mayor breed launched in october of 2018. it really was a vision of mayor breed to get to all of the young people in san francisco, but with an intention to focus on young people that have typically not being able to access opportunities such as internships or work-based learning opportunities. >> money should never be a barrier to your ability to succeed in life and that is what this program is about. >> there's always these conversations about young people not being prepared and not having experience for work and if they don't get an opportunity to work, then they cannot gain the experience that they need.

this is really about investing in the future talent pool and getting them the experience that they need. >> it is good for everyone because down the road we will need future mechanics, future pilots, future bankers, future whatever they may be in any industry. this is the pipe on we need to work with. we need to start developing talent, getting people excited about careers, opening up those pathways and frankly giving opportunities out there that would normally not be presented. [♪] >> the way that it is organized is there are different points of entry and different ways of engagement for the young person and potential employers. young people can work in cohorts or in groups and that's really for people that have maybe never had job experience or who are still trying to figure out what they want to do and they can explore. and in the same way, it is open for employers to say, you know what, i don't think we are ready to host an intern year-round are all summer, but that they can

open up their doors and do site visits or tours or panels or conversations. and then it runs all the way up to the opportunity for young people to have long-term employment, and work on a project and be part of the employee base. >> something new, to get new experience and meet people and then you are getting paid for it you are getting paid for doing that. it is really cool. >> i starting next week, i will be a freshman. [cheers and applause] two of the things i appreciate about this program was the amazing mentorship in the job experience that i had. i am grateful for this opportunity. thank you. >> something i learned at airbnb is how to network and how important it is to network because it is not only what you know, but also who you know to get far in life. >> during this program, i learned basic coding languages, had a had to identify the main

components and how to network on a corporate level. it is also helping me accumulate my skills all be going towards my college tuition where i will pursue a major in computer science. >> for myself, being that i am an actual residential realtor, it was great. if anybody wants to buy a house, let me know. whenever. [applause] it is good. i got you. it was really cool to see the commercial side and think about the process of developing property and different things that i can explore. opportunities for all was a great opportunity for all. >> we were aiming to have 1,000 young people register and we had over 2,000 people register and we were able to place about between 50 and did. we are still getting the final numbers of that. >> over several weeks, we were able to have students participate in investment

banking they were able to work with our team, or technology team, our engineering 20 we also gave them lessons around the industry, around financial literacy. >> there are 32,000 young people ages 16 and 24 living in san francisco. and imagine if we can create an opera skin it just opportunity for all program for every young person that lives in public housing, affordable housing, low income communities. it is all up to you to make that happen. >> we have had really great response from employers and they have been talking about it with other employers, so we have had a lot of interest for next year to have people sign on. we are starting to figure out how to stay connected to those young people and to get prepared to make sure we can get all 2400 or so that registered. we want to give them placement and what it looks like if they get more. >> let's be honest, there is always a shortage of good talent in any industry, and so this is

a real great career path. >> for potential sponsors who might be interested in supporting opportunities for all , there is an opportunity to make a difference in our city. this is a really thriving, booming economy, but not for everyone. this is a way to make sure that everyone gets to benefit from the great place that san francisco is and that we are building pathways for folks to be able to stay here and that they feel like they will belong. >> just do it. sign up for it. [♪] [♪]

>> people often ask me if i had a favorite tree in the city as the urban forest are, and after this planting today, i can say that i do. [♪] >> we have just completed planting a signature tree in honor of an individual as part of our annual celebration. he was the founder of the first poet laureate. he was considered by many to be the grandfather of the beatnik

movement and he will turn 100 next weekend. >> it is a local treasurer and an international treasure. the defender of freedom of. >> speaker-10: defence. >> we wanted to under him today with a beautiful olive tree which is a symbol of peace. it is also a native to the mediterranean, and that seems very fitting for san francisco and this north beach neighborhood. it was a beautiful event with lots of moving tributes to him and his work. [♪] >> welcome to the tuesday, during her 21st, 2020 meeting at the san francisco entertainment commission. i am the commission president. if you are a member of the public and would like to speak, there are speaker forms you can fill out that are located upfront or you can come up when we call you for public comment. we do ask everyone turns off their cell phones are put some on silent, including commissioners and staff.

i want to thank san francisco government tv and media services for sharing this meeting with the public. we will start with a roll call. [roll call] >> all right. the first order of business is general public comment. this is public comment for any item not listed on our agenda. do we have any public comment for nonagenda items? seeing none, public comment is closed. let's get into the regular agenda flow. the next item is number two which is approval of the minutes for january 7th, 2020. do we have a motion to approve the minutes? >> i moved to approve. >> second. >> is there any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. [roll call]

>> the minutes have been approved. the next item is a report from the executive director. >> thank you and good evening. this meeting, the president asked i provide an update to all of you with where we are at with some of our current projects and goals during quarter three, just so you're all aware of all of the other work going on behind the scenes beside from enforcement and permits that you will hear about tonight. this may interesting to some of you, or maybe you can put the snooze button on for a couple of minutes. but just going through this, if crystal, if you could pull up the powerpoint. there are slides in your binder if you want to follow along. or you could just listen. we have these buckets of goals, five goals in which we tried to link a lot of our work.

so these are relative to our five year goals that we submitted a couple of years ago. in goal number one, free, sustain and support affordable arts infrastructure. we are working with oewd to support and implement the music venue assistance program and this is the sound mitigation funds that we brought up two months ago. you will be receiving your presentation and update from them on march 3rd at a hearing about this. we are really excited to share more about this with our permit holders and we are hoping to educate them at our summit this year about how they can apply. our deputy director is also conducting an entertainment training in march for planners at the planning department which we are excited about. we have never done that before. we're doing that to try to educate them on our permit sites and to help streamline the approval process and to minimize the hours spent on entertainment

approvals. we are also restarting our 11 districts of entertainment program and this is some of which is coming out of our retreat and doing our promotion. we are going where we left off. last year we only did districts one and three. this year we would like to hit all of them if we can beginning with district two in february and we have a couple of dates out there for supervisor stephanie right now. senior analyst rice will be working on putting those together with me. we are exploring grand programs to support businesses that hosed local live music offerings. so ben had also put together another proposal last year that wasn't picked up in the budget. we are hoping potentially this year it will be and we are also hoping we can support that when it comes along. undergo a number two, promoting equity and quality in the industry. the senior analyst is working

together to outline an outreach program to get out in communities and present about our l.l.p. permit in other accessory permits that are easy ways to provide entertainment to communities that are currently lacking arts and entertainment opportunities. under goal three, ensuring public safety and welfare in all neighborhoods. we are planning our permit officer training, which has been a long time coming, but we have a pretty quiet beginning in the beginning of the year right now. we are starting to prepare for that to occur before the end of the fiscal year. that is something that the deputy director will be managing , but we will all play a role in presenting to the permit officers and captains, and hopefully also a.l.u. if you'd like to attend, i'm sure that would give us some credit as well. the training will focus on enforcement and incident

management involving entertainment venues and events. i am also working closely with the deputy director assessing potential changes to not only municipal police codes but sections of admin codes that are relevant to the department. we are hoping to improve our enforcement in some of the other issues that we have run into along the way. our next step, because it's kind of a massive amount of language and a lot of it is, frankly old and convoluted, is to bring this to a small working group of commissioners and a couple have already expressed interest including commissioner thomas and others. from there, we will share with the city attorney and hopefully have it be considered in the legislative process for fiscal year 20222021. -- 2020-2021. this is a really big one for me. i think everything that we do we should educate the public and

our constituents about. it should never be a surprise. so you will kind of see education as a theme throughout all of this. some of the specific ones are the annual summit which i am going to pick a date very soon. this year i am very thankful to have the support of senior analyst rice and helping me event plan. we are looking at the end of april 2020. we will send around a calendar to you soon. we're looking at exploring the topic of homelessness and public safety and how it relates to our entertainment venues and events, but we are open to ideas. i have a lot of other little ideas that we can definitely discuss. and for consideration by oewd in the next fiscal year, we had presented an idea to director torres last year about considering it workforce program

that would provide great -- job training to industry workers and early and mid level careers as well as preprofessional young adults. he thought it was a fantastic idea, but it wasn't fully baked at the time and we were already past the budget cycle. so this is something we want to push for again. this is fun if you can, please save the date for our holiday party, which we have already scheduled. it will be in lieu of our first december hearing and december 1 st, 2020, and it will be at great american music hall. this will be a really great one since we have so many months to plan, and i'm hoping our 11 districts of entertainment can culminate in this big party. and finally, goal number five, improve regulatory coordination and customer experience. as you all know, both senior analyst rice and my time were

widely taken up over the past six months in a very invigorating process with other city departments around how we support special events. this came out of a mayoral directive that was issued in july. we are finally at the editing phase of the report that we are going to be sharing with all the committee members and the mayor in the next few weeks. so we will be having a presentation from ben who was one of the working group cochairs and julian johnson who wrote the report. she is from the permit center team. i believe that is scheduled for march 3rd. february 18th. there you go. you will be hearing about it very soon. we are continuing to work closely with digital services agencies who have been amazing in integrating all of the permit applications into a digital,

user-friendly format that crystal has greatly appreciated. it has improved and made her processes much more efficient. so we are excited to say the soundtrack permit, which was our last piece, was great in getting that towards the finish line. we will have all of our one-time event applications live online within the next week. this doesn't include our southeast permit for one night dances, but stay tuned as that is likely going away. we are also working with them, just so you know, many other city agencies rtas were doing the same a transitioning our website over to a new platform. we will have this beautiful new landing page that you will see in the coming weeks and jordan has been working hard on making that happen. last two notes, we are

digitizing and archiving all of our paper permit files, which is a beast of a project. the deputy director has been managing that process and she has recruited help from both jordan and lynn to archive our paper permits. we are about 800 permits in. that is fantastic. we still have many more to go. once that is all done, we will get everything sent over to be scanned and digitized into a backend system that will you will all have access to and we will not be bringing paper files to our move to van nuys, which is our last bullet point. it is happening and of summer and beginning of fall for our office, although it is tough to have an opening. we will invite you to the opening party, as i am sure will be part of planning it and enjoying it. if anyone wants to join me for a

tour of the new building in the coming months, let me know. that is it. >> i have one. good evening. regarding the move to 49 van ness, and this could be completely ridiculous, but was there any thought of putting commission rooms there? could we do hearing is there or will everything come back here? >> we will remain in city hall. they don't have hearing rooms, they have large -- >> a three-story, brand-new building. they could have. it seems like with all the agencies there, it would have been a great opportunity to build out a modern technology room to actually -- >> you don't like mating and c.d. -- in city hall? >> i love it. but the spirit of making this easier for clients, our taxpayers, people generating the revenue, that would have been an opportunity to do just that. >> i will follow-up. i could be wrong. >> we are at early stages. >> we are preparing by buying

evening a carrying thing for crystal so we could bring all the things of the street. rainy days like today will not be part of your binder. maybe we will digitize your binders by that time. >> maybe we will get laptops by that time. >> we will get everyone laptops. [laughter] >> thanks. >> no problem. >> have you put any thought into where you will have the 2021 and 2022 holiday party? >> absolutely. >> that's great. >> we are planning through the decades. we can talk off-line. >> thank you for the update. is there any public comment on the executive director's report? public comment is close and we will move onto the next item which is number four, which is a report from our deputy director. >> thank you. good evening, commissioners. we will go ahead and go through

the enforcement reports. i have highlighted the notes here in yellow. starting on page one, i want to mention 26. i bring this up because we are still receiving complaints from the same neighbor and we are continuing to monitor this location every weekend and work with sfpd station and supervisor ronan's office. i have spoken with the complainants complainant directly and we have a meeting scheduled with the owner and sfpd mission station representatives coming up at the end of january to resolve this ongoing issue. if you flip to page five, i i've highlighted the independence and -- the independent and i want to bring to your attention, we did receive some sound complaints about the independence of we have been responsive to this location. upon investigation from our enforcement team, we have found the independent and complains about their sounds limit.

we are continuing to monitor this location, but we have determined that the neighboring place of entertainment, emporium , has also been having d.j.s or did upon the last complaints. that was determined it may actually have been a different location. and the director, is there anything you'd like to say about that? >> did you mention the neighboring business that is not in the entertainment business that may be generating complaints? >> we have discovered that there is band practice occurring on the corner of the block in an auto body shop. that does generate a lot of sound, as you can imagine -- >> the doors were open? >> it's a full band going through band practice. we are addressing this holistically and we will keep you apprised of that.

the last note that i have is on page 10 and that is about beauty bar. we did issue a notice of violation for beauty bar. as you recall, we did bring them back into hearing to amend their permit conditions and so we did a follow-up site visit to see if they were abiding by any of those permit conditions and we did find them out of compliance with quite a few of them. we did issue a notice of violation and we will continue to see how they are doing with those permit conditions. that is all i have highlighted. i'm happy to answer any questions you might have. just let me know. >> very brief, and you may not know the answer. i'm looking at may's on polk street. do we know what the 311 complaint was? if we don't, it's not an end all it's just in your brief narrative and it responded to a 311 complaint. i'm leading -- leaning towards noise or something, but i was

just curious. we can follow up off-line if you don't have it. >> the complaint was tracked in the previous enforcement report and we didn't have time to follow-up between that report and now. we are falling up to the previous complaint. i believe it just said loud noise. >> gotcha. thank you nice report. >> i did have one question about bottom of the hill. i know bottom of the hill had new developments. we ascertained the noises coming from one of the newer developments. >> is coming from an older building. it it's not a new development. >> perhaps the same complainant as last time that has been following up on that complaint. >> they have all been anonymous so we believe based on the

language they are coming from the same person. >> all right. thank you very much. is there any comments on the deputy director's report? we can move along to agenda item number five, which is hearing and possible action regarding applications for permits under the jurisdiction of the entertainment commission. i will ask -- ask the deputy director to introduce the items on the consent agenda for this evening. that is it. >> thank you. we just have a one permits on the agenda -- we just have one l.l.p. permit on the consent agenda this evening. it is an accessory use permit. there was no opposition and mission station approved this permit with no added conditions. i'm happy to answer any questions if you have any.

>> i don't have any questions specifically. >> move approval of the consent calendar. >> i second. >> is there any public comment on the consent agenda? public comment is closed. [roll call] >> congratulations, it has been approved. please follow up with our deputy director at your earliest convenience. good luck. all right. now we can move onto the regular agenda, which our deputy director will also introduce. >> the first permit on the agenda is the change in ownership for a place of entertainment permit for that karaoke previously known as kate not karaoke. the space has been a karaoke

business since 2010. the new owner has experience in the karaoke businesses he previous they operated a location in the south bank. intent -- he intends to run the businesses a karaoke venue and does not have a liquor license at this time. the applicant submitted letters to stakeholders in the community and distributed copies of the informational flyer included in your file for surrounding businesses. the owner has also been attending the park sight sums that meeting. the station approves this permit with no added conditions. and here to tell you not more is the owner. >> good evening, commissioners. 870 tara vale street was owned by wendy's saying and she had it from 2010 to just recently. johnson purchased the business,

contacted me and said, i have to go through process, do you want to help me out? i said if you listen to me, you will be in good shape. this guy listens. first i said you have to be a fabric of the community. let's go talk to the people at parkside and let's canvass the neighbors. he will talk to everybody that lives within the 500 feet of this proximity. also there is a property owner whose mom owned two businesses there who used to be with the p.d. and he wants to make sure his neighbors are safe. i wrote him a nice letter telling him if he had any questions that we are open to comment. the other thing is, we also wanted to cut the policy sheet -- to a couple policy changes. at some point we may want to pursue a beer license, but that

is not something that will be given easily. they want to have every patron sign a form there is no i didn't know. everybody that he hires, including himself, will have a guard cart. you can't have enough education going along with your employees and everything else. third thing, is, some of the other neighbors said they were worried about the transients because we have a fire exit and sometimes there is people there.

[indiscernible] >> i do all the cosmetic construction there. just cosmetic things. and i bring the new system there

the sound improvements is all brand-new. the sound selection has all the touchscreen right there. it's very fancy. it's very easy to use. >> also, commissioner, we did have a sound test. there would be a limit by whatever is done by the sound inspector and we will follow that. >> all right. i just want to see if there is a new sound system. is it capable of being louder? are these rooms -- do you meet them at the door? >> they have the windows for transparency. you don't hear anything about -- outside. the way the building is constructed. and currently above it is for lease. there is nobody living above it. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you for coming in. you said there is some cosmetic changes that you made to.

if it was needed, we would have done it, but it is not. >> can you give us an update on your neighbor outreach? not just businesses, but actual residence. >> one thing good is she is getting out in the community and attending events. not just people in the parkside. so just exponentially he has had a lot of residents that live nearby come by and visit the space. they are encouraged by the fact that he has put nice wallpaper up and the rooms are really nice it is a warm and inviting place now. >> finally, can you give us a little bit about your experience and being able to manage the and

entertainment space like this? >> the first thing is safety things. so for -- we need to write a new emergency plan for that. second thing is how to get the communication and be the customer and the community. it's very important. also the neighbor. i need to keep the city for all the neighbors right there. and to do this through the media to make more people know us. that will be all. >> thank you. >> good evening. a few questions about the design of your premises.

the individual rooms, will there be locks on the doors? >> there are currently no rock -- no locks on the doors right now. >> i'm glad you guys conferred on that. >> it will get easier from there it will be okay. what about interior surveillance what do you guys do and as each room have cameras? >> we will put surveillance cameras in. that is for our purposes, too. they are just good. my experience with them is by having those, you're protecting yourselves even from your own employees sometimes and the general public. if there is an incident, we want to know what happened before, during and after. we will share those. if that needs to be condition, we have no problem with it. >> no, no, i am just trying to understand. as i recall, you have a lifetime of experience in that neck of the woods. you're putting your name on the line here. >> if there is litter in front of the building, he has the

broom in his hand. >> gotcha. and then, you definitely have some intrigue when you mentioned to me about everyone will come in and sign a document. i'm curious if you are doing that in your location or if that location has alcohol. it doesn't have alcohol? >> is it effective? >> yes, but he because he also takes i.d. we also want to let people know it's accountable. >> i get it, but even me coming from a law enforcement side, i can see pushback. it's a bit of a set. i'm not rejecting it. do you get people every now and then who aren't comfortable signing this? and then what happens? >> you just have to have a nice conversation. and we need to protect the interest of the establishment. we have all been around and there are people who sometimes

we'll try to sneak something in. >> sure. >> you just have to tell them, hey, this is not tolerated here. >> okay. wow. thank you very much. >> i don't have any questions. thank you very much. you can have a seat. let's start with public comment. is there any public comment on this item? seen none, public comment is closed. >> thoughts? dreams? motion to approve? [laughter]. >> second. [roll call] >> congratulations. your permit has been approved. please follow up with the deputy director at your earliest convenience. >> best of luck.

>> onto the next one. >> the next permit is for an extended hours permits for the midway located at 900 marin street. midway has held a permit since 2015. they currently host d.j.s, live bands and host events. they are playing for them to have entertainment daily until 6:00 a.m. until -- instead of applying for one-time permit. the a.g.m. e-mailed the seven surrounding businesses introducing themselves, sharing their plans for the permit and offering to answer any questions from the neighbors. there is a copy of the e-mail in the file. there was no opposition for this permit in the station approves the permit with the condition that they send their monthly calendar of events to the station, which is something they already comply with with their permit. here to tell you more is the owner. and the assistant general manager. >> thank you so much.

good evening, commissioners. as the report stated, i have been operating since 2017. prior to that we had a couple of years where we were trying to keep the lights on while the planning department had their way with us. so we pulled one day permits for entertainment and public document -- occupancy to do events. all in all, around four years of operating at the location. it has been great. we get along fabulously with our neighbors and when we were planning for the place of entertainment, we initially applied for the after hours, but at the behest of bayview station , we dialled it back and did not want -- they wanted us

to take a bite of the apple and get it down and then apply for the after hours. here we are. >> i have a quick question. on the application it says you want to go 6:00 p.m., but it says indoor and outdoor. we are not doing outdoor? >> we are not. we have a patio where we do have a mobile sound system and we bring it up on the large events. it's very rare that we ever go past this. >> do you want to have the leeway to have an outdoor system at 4:00 a.m.? >> they always apply for a one-time permit. >> i think the regulations or the interpretation has changed. for outdoors, there is a one-time application. >> you always do the one time -- pardon me, i was not part of this application process.

did you amend your application to include outdoor for this? >> i thought it was already included. >> no. you apply for a one-time for the outdoor. you may be back here and we may want to include your outdoor because that way you wouldn't have to get one times for that. >> that would be fantastic. we recognize this is a very short-term thing. sooner than later we will have neighbors around and that party will end. >> we haven't had any issues. >> no. there is literally no residents around. the only residents that are there are there illegally. >> okay. >> also they party. [laughter] >> that is all i have. >> thank you for coming in. >> thank you. >> i had a chance to visit your venue during the olympics. a very impressive venue.

it's big and i did see the area and everything. thank you for coming in. it says you intend to gather support from neighboring businesses. can you give us an update on that? >> we didn't actually gather any support, but we definitely reached out to everyone. if you would like, we can stuff the files and follow-up tonight or tomorrow and give everybody a template. please support us and sign it and send it along. >> it's just businesses. >> it's kind of nice. >> i did notice it's dark on that on the side streets. >> we just installed the floodlights. >> commissioner lee will like that, too.

>> our locksmith will hate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we are good to go. >> good evening. what is your biggest challenge in operating this place? midway is a pretty unique model for what we see going on right now. >> that was the concept out of the gate. we wanted to be different. we have all of a sudden the nightclub thing for a long time. we wanted to really try to do a space that incorporated other stuff. it has been reinventing the wheel.

there has been a bunch of things that have been tricky, but we have been tackling them one at a time. the places running really, really well. we just brought in an old friend of mine who very recently retired from the forest to force to help with the security function. there is a guy who worked in the attack. he lives and breathes logistics. he will with our guys into shape it has been nice not having to think about those things. >> we are looking forward to be seeing this person brought online. one thing about this place that intrigued me is it really is four 25. wonders if you're transient -- if he challenges would be transient like -- nightlife.

>> anytime there is a camper on knock on the door and i introduced myself. i asked people to say, hey,, what is your agenda, what is your timing? when are you moving on? generally speaking, most of the time when you are nice to people they are nice back. sometimes they are not. i'm pretty consistent and i tend to explain, hey,, i don't know -- i don't have an issue with you being parked here, not a big deal, but in a couple days, there will be another and then three more than it will be an issue because we all know what happens with the encampments and all of that stuff. generally speaking when you call people out on their things right to their face, they kind of have no choice but to acknowledge it. we -- that was a huge challenge initially. >> it was pretty unattended area

>> i had a dude put a machete on me. no exaggeration, a machete. and then when they finally went, they left several mounds of who with needles stuck in them. >> wow. >> i didn't think to take a picture. i am kicking myself to this day. i was starting to regret my question. >> to wrap this up, i do want to applaud any time you actually engage the community, whatever that community may be as an owner. you really can make a difference versus some people tend to not want to be very direct and engaged and then they start reaching out to city services. it's just not what the city is good at. i think any time you have a personal vested interest and you attach your face to the problem, i think it is a lot more successful. >> we are very much self-sufficient. positively.

it is way easier for us to deal with it then for the p.d. because -- yeah. >> i look forward to hearing about this mystery employee of yours. >> contractor. >> that's right. >> i don't think we can afford folks like that just yet. >> i don't have any questions. you can have a seat. thank you very much. >> is there any public -- i'm sorry. >> i just have a question for staff. >> is there any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> it looks like sfpd and bayview station recommended a condition of monthly calendar events, but they are already doing that. is that correct? it would be redundant to add that. it's not necessary to add if it's already happening. >> i wanted to include the recommendation. it will be already -- it's

already existing. >> it is an existing condition and this is a whole new permits. i think it is valid to adopt that tonight as a condition of the extended hours permits. they are separate documents. i wanted to just note, since i went through the file about the outdoor question, it's a little bit unfortunate because they did note in their packet that they do outdoor and they are applying for that as part of this. it's something i would love for you all to consider tonight and just adopting the standard, but since this is on the agenda and an extended hours permits, we cannot do that tonight because this would have to be on the agenda as an amendment to the place of entertainment allowing for that 10:00 p.m. >> where do we go from here? >> they don't even need to reapply. they don't need to get approvals from p.d. and planning. they would need to post an amendment sign for 30 days and come back to hearing it.

it should be pretty quick because we could just offer the standard language for code into a sound test if they are open to it. >> would it make any sense to continue tonight and do it all at once? >> i would like to get them there extended hours permit. >> no worries. >> absolutely. >> i make a motion to approve with the good neighbor -- good neighbor policy and bayview station's recommended condition of monthly calendar of events to be sent to them. >> do we need to do note that this is indoor only? or is it understood? >> i will second the motion. [roll call] >> your permit has been granted. congratulations. follow-up with our deputy director at your earliest convenience. >> good luck.

>> good luck always sounds a little ominous. >> i think the police need to say something. >> i magnus they have a good day >> you could say good tidings. [laughter] >> i want to know about the mystery employee or contractor. >> the next item... >> the final permit as a place of entertainment, change in ownership permit for brick and mortar. they have held a permit since 2012 and recently underwent an ownership change, maintaining one of the previous owners on the new team. under the new ownership team, the venue will continue hosting life music. it is important to note the previous permit had restrictions on days and times of entertainment, but the new owners are seeking to have entertainment daily until 2:00 a.m. in your file is a copy of a letter the applicants posted around the area! blaming the venue is under new

ownership and extending a community gathering. there was no opposition for the permit and mission station approved the permit with no added conditions. here to tell you more, i'm not sure who is coming up is the owner, michael rosen. >> good evening, commissioners. i think our main goal is to provide music to the mission district and to keep doing that. it's worth saying that one of our top priorities is forging new relationships, both with the entertainment commission and with our neighbors and, you know , one of the ways we did that was opening our doors to invite people to come and voicing concerns. unfortunately, nobody came, but we are hoping that we can have more of a direct dialogue with

anybody who has any concerns. we kept one of the partners from the previous business because nobody knows san francisco entertainment better than michael and he will continue doing the booking. barry smith is day-to-day operations. he also runs the crafty fox which is a restaurant on the corner and really, for brick-and-mortar, we are looking to get a new sense of goodwill in the community. forged a new relationships, maybe some initiatives that can communicate a different approach to running the business then has been in the past. that is kind of where we are coming from. >> there hasn't really been any

physical change. just tightening things up. >> we did board up and seal the window in front of the venue. we use accordion -- it used to be an accordion. there's a lot of sound leaking out of the building. so we have that sealed. i think it helped a lot. we had jordan come and do the sound abatement test and it showed some results. then we just had the floor redone in the kitchen anticipating a health and building inspection. >> it has been a while, since way back when, but there was a neighbor that was on the other side of that wall. is that still reinforced? it hasn't been an issue for a long time. we haven't heard anything from brick-and-mortar. then again, you are not doing every day. now you are doing it every day, has that changed? >> as far as --

>> either the same soundproofing or better? >> we have reinforced as much as we can on the backside of the building because we are very cognizant of the fact that there's residences along the alley and any complaints we do get generally come from back there. we're pretty sure there is one particular resident that we would love to open a dialogue with, but until such time as they report with their name and not anonymously, it will be kind of hard. it's one of the reasons why we open the doors. >> okay. >> thank you. >> very briefly, i wanted to acknowledge because i thank you were a little dismissive that no one showed up at your meeting. i think extending the olive branch is a great tell on your part that you made an effort. i think that is the most important part because it is not uncommon to put the effort into the fliers and nobody shows up,

but you did it, and i want to applaud you for that. >> thank you. >> thank you for coming in. on your application it says that you are fixing one window. can you give us a status report? >> it's what i can refer to -- what i kind of referred to earlier. there is a window that previously was sort of cut into the front of the building and created an open air louisiana, mardi gras kind of thing. it wasn't great for san francisco city street entertainment. we just hired somebody to come seal that up a couple of weeks ago. that is done. we had that done prior to jordan coming out. >> his completed? >> yes. >> thank you. >> i don't have anything lengthy to say, but it's great you posted a community meeting. i can imagine that if people

have felt that they have not been heard in years that it may take a little more than that to connect with them. it is a great first step. i am not familiar with the history of your neighbor, so this is a conjecture on my part, but i have had experience many times when people purposely avoid meeting because they are angry and they are not ready to talk and unfortunately, as the venue owner, you kind of have to continue to reach out and be the better person or the person who doesn't engage in that. i would just encourage you, if you do think there is one neighbor, maybe a personal letter or some way to reach out to them, certainly if you hear from them in your future about music or noise, you may want to go above and beyond. when you're working with this office, i have witnessed that the more you have done to be proactive the better, and people

who just kind of check the boxes , i reached out, now it is not our fault, that doesn't jive with us. you do 99% of the work to get them on your side. i would just encourage that. if you do do that, it is good for you and good for us. everybody wins. >> i appreciate that. we really do good -- would you want good relationships. not just, you know, logistically checking the boxes, but to run a venue in a way that feels good for everybody that lives around it. >> no further questions. you can have a seat. is there any public comment? i don't see any. public comment is closed. >> i want to make a motion. >> no are we keeping the same times or are they changing?

>> this is weekdays at 12:30 p.m. and then fridays and saturdays at 1:00 p.m. >> the application submitted tonight is to have entertainment daily until 2:00 a.m. >> all right. >> you are starting from scratch , if you will. >> okay. i don't have a problem. do you? >> i make a motion to approve on the new times and the good neighborhood policies, and of course, continuing soundproofing and working with your neighbors. >> so what is the motion? >> we were doing great. >> the motion is to approve the permit with the new hours until 2:00 a.m. >> and the staff recommendation. >> i really never read the staff recommendation because it's always the same stuff. [laughter]. >> no, it isn't.

>> i always agree with you. >> the staff recommendation is totally worth reading. [laughter] >> when is the staff recommendation? >> i'm glad you tested me. [simultaneous talking] >> motion to approve the permit with staff conditions and the good neighborhood policies, new hours. >> the motion is approval was staff conditions. >> yes. >> i said that. >> i will second that if that is your motion. >> yes. that is my motion.

[roll call] >> congratulations. you haven't been approved. >> i'm afraid to say good luck but i forgot to say it. >> that is old-school. >> all right. the final agenda item is commissioner comments and questions. i would like to acknowledge that i believe it's this thursday -- is that this thursday? >> the executive director's birthday and that means -- >> it is a weeklong celebration.

that means her birthday is this -- her we can't -- this weekend is her birthday weekend. >> now it is a birthday month? [laughter]. >> happy birthday from oliver i'm hoping you acknowledge me at the february hearings. >> we will continue acknowledging you. also, we lost a great san franciscan this week. the executive director had a close relationship with her and her family and she wanted to say some words. we would love to hear your thoughts. >> it is a little bit funny to go from laughing so hard to something that is pretty sad, but terrence was a very funny human and so that makes it okay. i just wanted to close this evening's hearing in his honor. he was a former member of the

board of supervisors and district attorney for san francisco and he passed away this past friday, january 17th he was a dedicated and progressive public servant who loved the city with his whole heart, given grit and passion to every fight he championed whether in the proverbial ring as a young adults in the civil rights movement will coming of age or in the pursuit of justice and in defence of those in need later on in his career as district attorney for san francisco. he was a whole lot of amazing things in his career and public life, what he was also a huge part of my family. when i was a kid, my mom who's also a public servant, as many of you know in san francisco, she introduced him to my dad and this was probably in the late 80s and from there on out it was about friendship, like none i will probably ever witness again at 46, my dad completely changed

careers from being a realtor to becoming one of the oldest people to ever graduate from the police academy and i'm sure the commissioner could share with you, but the police academy is not easy for just about anyone, but imagine and out of shape and older gentleman running up san francisco hills alongside sprightly 20 something people. he did it all because he wanted to work as an investigator for terrence. after graduating, he had the time of his life being a member of terrence's protective detail during his campaign for d.a. and i had the honor of spending many family dinners, vacations, celebrations with terrence and his family. he was one of my favourite humans on this planet. he was a two -- true san franciscan, a legend, in one of the funniest people i have ever met. he made my child hood very magical with his storytelling and infectious smile.

i will miss you, terrence, and i am just happy that my dad has a friend like him just cause trouble with in heaven. they were no good bad boys together. my thoughts and sympathies are with his family and loved ones during this time of grieving. thank you for letting me share. >> thank you. >> very nice. >> is there any public comment on this item? >> that was beautiful, maggie. i just want to tell you one of my experiences with him we had the opportunity to bring a major fight with floyd mayweather and jesús chavez to san francisco. i got to sit in the front row with terrence, joe betts, a couple of other people and it was the thrill of a lifetime just to share that evening. it kind of brought back the old

boxing days of san francisco. it's a different city now, but we were a blue-collar town at one time. he was a great man. thank you. i'm glad he meant a lot to you. he meant a lot to a lot of people. >> thank you. seeing no more public comment, public comment is closed and we will adjourn this meeting and the honor of terrence howell on -- turns hallahan at 6:30 p.m.

[inaudible] pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> thinks the reminder to silence all electronic devices. san francisco regular fire commission meeting, wednesday, january 22, 2020, 502. roll call. president present. covington present. cleaveland present. feinstein present.

rodriguez present. and chief of department, jeanine nicholson present. item 2, 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 and not to individual commissioners or department personnel. 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. >> thank you very much, madame secretary. welcome. please identify yourself, thank you. >> i'm nancy. a community activist, a 55-year resident of the city and part of the open space. i'm happy to welcome new

commissioners feinstein and rodriguez to the fire commission to augment those to protecting our lives and property. i wish to remind all the commissioners that the city charter empowers you with specific powers and duties you shall perform. for me, your most important duties and powers are that you formulate, evaluate and approve goals, objectives and programs and set policies consistent with the overall objectives of the city and county as established by the mayor and the board of supervisors through the adoption of city legislation, unquote. and that you, quote, conduct investigations into any aspect of government operations within your jurisdiction through the power of inquiry. and can make recommendations to the mayor or board of supervisors, unquote. you're also authorized to hold hearings and to take testimony. the charter is clear that,

quote, each shall deal with the administrative matters solely through the department head or her dezzing that it deems neceo provide for the efficiency of the department, unquote. you may be already familiar with the charter's requirements of the fire commission, but they are so important that they bear repeating. we, the members of the public, come to you with our concerns and requests because we believe that you will be informed by our comments and that you can take action on issues that concern you, too. this commission shall set policies, goals and plans. you do not have to wait for departmental requests or presentations to set policy. you can act as you see fit in response to the current needs

you see. you can conduct investigations and hearings to give you objective information on public concerns. i look forward to participating in your commission meetings to bring another point of view, the public's point of view. to your work, welcome. >> thank you very much, appreciate it. mr. dudier, welcome, happy new year. >> thank you, president nakajo. good afternoon, i'm retired assistant deputy chief with 32 years of service and 40 years of service to the city of san francisco. as a private citizen i want to welcome commissioners feinstein and rodriguez to the fire-fighting community. those of us who are advocates are heartened to have you here to become an important part of the solution to the ever present challenges of the sffd in

carrying out its mission, the preservation of life and property. the particular problem of combating post earthquake fires when faced with the city's inadequate water supplies was addressed in depth by the civil grand jury in a 2013 report, act now, before it is too late. the need for the city wide expansion of the auxiliary water supply known as the awss has been recognized for many decades but has remained unresolved and continued postponement of this expansion will result in the destruction of half the city following the next bay area earthquake. appropriately, the two most essential conclusions of the civil grand jury report are one the hydrant system must be expandle ed to all neighborhoods and time is of the essence.

it will be understood that in the absence of the water supply, will suffer catastrophic loss, including the loss of human life. our most vulnerable san francisco residents, children, the elderly and the physically disadvantaged are most likely to die before rescues can be made. unfortunately, although the tax rates are equal throughout the city, at the present time, fire protection is not. this afternoon i'm providing to each of you a packet of information from the material i have previously shared with the fire commission to reflect the recent developments with the post earthquake issue. and as background information for the two new commissioners. on topic of the vital survival of the city of san francisco

which is the obligation of all safety employees. i wish to welcome commissioners feinstein and rodriguez and thank you for taking on the task of overseeing sffd and the lives and property of the residents of san francisco. >> thank you very much. any other member of the public wishes to give public comment at this time? please approach the podium. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> secretary: item 3. approval of the minutes. discussion and possible action to approve the meeting minutes of january 8, 2020. >> president nakajo: at this time we'll take public comment on the approval of the minutes. any member of the public wishes to give public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? thank you very much, commissioner cleaveland. we have approval of the motion

from commission cleaveland. >> second. >> thank you vice president, we have a second. call for the question, all in favor say aye. any opposed? thank you very much, commissioners. >> item 4, fire department operating budget fiscal years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. presentation from mark corso, deputy director of finance and planning on the fire department's operating budget for commission review and discussion. >> president nakajo: thank you very much. director corso, welcome. >> good evening, welcome to the two new commissioners. good evening, chief. mark corso, finance and planning to give overview of the budget documentation included in the packets as well as start the discussion a little bit and push the discussion a little further for the department's upcoming budget process. if i could go to the slides.

in your packets was a high-level summary of the department budget, a lot of figures, not a lot of narrative. i wanted to give an overview of what that is and where we are as far as the budget process. a review -- i would like to go over briefly last meeting we discussed the budget instructions from the mayor's office, so review of the instructions and the current year budget that were funded, overview of the base budget, the challenges we're facing as a department related to the budget, some updates and the priorities and then open it up for discussion and questions. so as part of the instructions from the mayor's office, he's a brief overview. the city is projecting $420 million deficit over the next two years. this is larger than the same time in previous years so there is additional instructions relayed to departments.

the request from the mayors office the reduction in the amount of 3.5% in both budget years of the department's general fund support and for the department that is equivalent to $2.7 million in the first year and 5.4 million cumulative in the second. the mayor's office has requested they do not make enhancements, non-salary items or ftes and any additional enhancements would align with the mayor's priorities, housing, homelessness, equity, clean and safe streets and the employees that help support the initiatives. at the end of the day given the large deficits, the budget must be balanced and submitted to the board by june 1st. >> here is an overview of the timeline as far as the budget, the department, with the commission as well as the city. so have a discussion and update here at the meeting today. budget discussion potential approval on the 12th of

february, budgets are due to the mayor's office on february 21. the mayor then needs to submit balanced budget to the board by june 1 and then in june, july, departmental budget hearings at the board of supervisors financial committee and in july, the budget is considered at the full board for approval. i mentioned that the last meeting there is new budget legislation passed by the board and signed off by the mayor related to budget transparency, so just as brief update, the current structure we have in place with the commission and the public discourse and discussion at the commission meetings is enough to meet the requirements of that legislation, so no further issues from the department side. wanted to highlight some of the initiatives funded in the current year budget from the player's office. there was a continuation of the hiring plan. we have one academy which is currently in process and graduating in february for h2 firefighters as part of the continuation of the hiring plan.

previous this year, we had one backfill academy for paramedics. that was completed. so we've upgraded the e.m.s. 6 management position. we have assigned additional and we have a large community paramedicine training scheduled to start later this month. i believe it's six weeks. for health and wellness, we have filled the newly created chief position of the department, that is filled by chief parks. she is in charge of a number of new health and safety initiatives under way for the department. on the fire prevention side, we've hired additional fire inspectors to account for the increase in demand for services, related to plan check and plan review. we filled the assistant fire marshal position as part of the reorganization of the fire prevention headed by the fire marshal and we've created a

special housing unit for the bureau that has been success nfl the work they've done. they've been tasked with streamlining the process for adu, for affordable housing, for large community developments and we've received great reviews from the city partners and city. we we allocated a number of items, engines and trucks to replace the current stock that is old. we have some on order and are in process of ordering additional units. those are currently out to bid by oca and the bidding for that should close in the next few weeks. what is our base budget? the base budget is what is presented to the department to work off of from the mayor's office. since the city budget process is a two-year rolling process, what was approved last year as the second year becomes first year of this process.

it was what was approved, salary, rates, that are known or changed since the passing of the last budget. no additional enhancements are added during this phase. and i just wanted to highlight over the past few years, the change in the department's base budget. as you see, we've had gradual increases over the years, that's not necessarily to say the scope of services has changed or expanded to correspond to those increases, but that also takes into account increases due to labor, costs, benefit costs, et cetera that are borne by the department. so this table kind of breaks that down into further detail comparing the current year to the two base budgets we're looking at for fiscal year 21 and 22. we're funded with the $150 million that is funded through the support of revenues, e.m.s. revenue, state funds, the public

safety tax, the funding of the airport to support functions for those departments and a variety of miscellaneous projects, revenues, et cetera. for the current fiscal year, we're looking at $427 million actual budget. that's in the operational budget this year. that increases slightly to 433 at the initial stage of the mayor's phase and 433 in both years. so looking overall at the budget and challenges, one of the department's goals in the budget is to maintain currently funded initiatives while addressing funding needs and priorities and this -- to do this in light of requested reductions in the mayor's office. those two things are at odds with each other and there are a number of needs that the department has that have not been funded that the department would like to address. part of the limited budget flexibility we have, the large

dominant majority of the budget is made up of salary and benefits that we don't have much flexibility on, so that limits the flexibility we have to work with the remaining funds. in addition to that, the overall request for service, both in the scope of services, the type of services we provided, as well as a number of calls and incidents we have, have both increased over the past few years and continue to do so. that's a major challenge in light of budget reductions. so highlight that point, here's a look at call volume over the last five calendar years. we're experiencing -- we were experiencing continued growth and that kind of plateaued in 2018, but last year, 2019, again we saw a material increase, over 3%, and over the past five years that's increase of 24% that is very material for the department and when we're asked to maintain the resources wildfire and the amount of services we have provide, that is a challenge day

to day. so as you know, chief nicholson was sworn in may of last year and from the budget perspective, that was late in the mayor's budget process, so this is her first full process to communicate her priorities throughout the course of the budget process to the mayor's office. so given the increases and call volume, as well as the increases in the scope of services we're providing, the department does not anticipate being able to meet the target reductions in line with those requested by the mayor's office, so the department is requesting the support of the commission to address these additional areas as far as budget priorities beyond the scope of services that we're providing now. i just wanted to highlight some of the priority areas that the department has identified. the first is operational staffing for both e.m.s. and fire suppression. so a main priority of the chief is increased frontline e.m.s.

ambulance personnel to account for increased call volume i mentioned, additional training and other issues. additional personnel for e.m.s. 6, the paramedicine efforts of the city to expand the reach of the program and establish contacts with additional people we're not able to reach given the resources we have. in addition, the restoration of sports specialists. i know labor feels strongly, as the department does, this is a priority. and we're also looking at enhanced additional staffing for the bureau and fire investigation. on the health and wellness need, the department would like this add personnel to support department members. we have two members that support the entire department in the peer support and they're overwhelmed and deal with a lot and do a lot for the department. it's much appreciated, but they need additional resources. the department would like to add

personnel. part of the initiative would be to offer additional trainings to members as well as other people interested in assisting the peer support unit, being able to be additional resources for department members in need. and the department is looking to expand its other health programs, expanding that and improving those programs. on the equipment side, the goal of the department is to expand the fleet equipment plan. so fiscal year 20-21 represents the last year of the five-year equipment plan agreed during mayor lee's term. we made great improvements in improving the quality of the fleet and this would be extension of that for additional years. that will assist with planning. assist with actual ordering. when we know we have a dedicated

source of fund for purchasing additional equipment. this would allow us to update frontline apparatus as well as outdated support fleet. but there is lot of other support units, and special units that are in need of replacement as well. this is not just for frontline operations, but also helps support the department's capability for a response to a disaster, where if we have additional members coming in, or resources available, they have functioning equipment and apparatus they can use in their response. and then the last category is training. so the department's requesting supplemental training for both fire suppression and e.m.s. staff, including emphasis on ambulance staff training, both for existing training and additional necessary training initiatives that are required. right now, we don't have the

flexibility given the staffing levels we have for ambulances to pull people off ambulances and give them the proper training needed. so allowing flexibility so we can offer training for the department. in addition, we wanted to incorporate initiatives into the regular annual training program and curriculum and that would include incident management training, leadership academies for members on promote lists to prepare them for new responsibilities and overall officer development. so kind of where we are as far as the overall budget, we're continuing to meet with division heads. we're finalizing details of the priorities as far as the individual requests to the mayor's office in preparation for discussions with them over the next few months. and are in the process of updating staffing models and revenue and feed projections, including taking a look, as we

do every year, hiring plan and projected retirements. and then working with the mayor area office that m.o.u. impacts are incorporated into the budget. so with that, i'd like to open to it any questions. >> president nakajo: thank you very much, director corso. at this time, we will ask for public comment on your report, item 4, fire department operation budget. is there any member of the public that wishes to give public comment, please approach the podium. >> nancy. i'm a longtime government fiscal analyst. that means i follow the money and understand the details of the city's budget. i wish to have my comments on the budget that relate to both

the operating budget that you're looking at today and the capital budget approved at the previous meeting. i am asking president nakajo to please request mr. corso to respond to my concerns and questions at the end of my comments. the issue i have concerns the source and timing of money to funding the 20 hose tenders that were recommended in the 2019 civil grand jury report. hose tenders are the specialized apparatus designed for pumping and transporting large volumes of water from any sort and are recognized worldwide for their ability to successfully move large amounts of water to a fire at high pressures and volumes of fire-fighting. the board of supervisors official response to the civil grand jury report that was sent to presiding judge wong state

thad funding for the first five hose tenders are in the current budget and that the remaining 15 hose tenders will be dependent on appropriation actions in the future. it seems to me that we have to be ever mindful of how this bifurcation of funding is going to be implemented. my first question, did you get the full $5 million for the five hose tenders at $1 million apiece that is supposed to be in the current year budget? i don't see it on page 9. is the unspent money going to be carried forward? how? i would like to see it in the budget if there is leftover money this year, because we're not buying all five hose tenders this year. i would like to suggest that the budget next year is reduced for capital outlay by $2.7 million, but there is no explanation, so i would hope we could hear more

about why that reduction is happening. and my other question is, where is the $15 million to complete the funding for all 20 hose tenders? the capital plan budget approved on january 8 does not list any hose tenders to be put into the capital plan. as we all know, if it's not in the capital plan, it can't be done. so we have to plan for it, put it in and start looking for the money, but we're supposed to have 20 hose tenders according to what we sent judge wong. thank you very much for your attention. and i look forward to clarifications. thank you. >> president nakajo: thank you. any other member of the public wishes to give public comment at this time? seeing none, public comment is closed. i'm going to open it up for questions or comments from the commissioners. and at some point, i will ask the chief of the department in terms some information that might be related to what the speaker was referring to.

but i will first open it up to the commissioners in terms of questions or comments. commissioner cleaveland? >> commissioner cleaveland: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate the comments from the public on that issue of the hose tenders. obviously, making sure that the entire city is covered for fire protection in an earthquake, in a complication, is a matter of utmost importance to all of us, including every one of us here on the commission. so i know that we are budgeting it as prudently as we can, given the other concerns and issues and costs within the department. but i will defer, really, to our c.f.o. to go into greater detail as to where those funds are and where they will be in the future. my personal questions are, start with, you talked about the e.m.s. 6, you talked about a community paramedicine training

program. that was a six-week program. can you give us detail on what the paramedicine training program is. >> sure, i'll give you the cliff's note and then refer to chief tong. when we launched e.m.s. 6 a few years ago, all members involved with the program went through something similar, a multi-week community paramedicine training and that allowed them to participate in the e.m.s. 6 program. over time, as we've expanded the pool, we found we need to do another round of the training so that's what we're going to be offering to those members and they can participate in the pilot program as e.m.s. 6. >> commissioner cleaveland: any feedback yet as to how well it was presented? how valuable it was? what was missing, et cetera, et cetera? >> i think the first round -- the second iteration will begin, i believe, next week? >> on the 10th. >> february 10th, pardon me. and is i think it's been very well received and educational

and helpful in the duties of that role, for sure. >> commissioner cleaveland: good. obviously, on terms of operational staffing, our e.m.s. 6 program is one of the most important programs i think we have out there in the day-to-day service to our community. and do you anticipate additional funding for the e.m.s. program this coming year and what will that mean? >> let me turn on my microphone. good evening, commissioners. good evening, everyone. in terms of e.m.s. 6, yes, we're definitely looking at that right now. we do want to expand the program because it is one that works so well and it is in line with the mayor's priorities. >> you bet. >> so yes, we're just working out the details of it, but we've

had plenty of conversations with the department of homelessness and other departments. >> commissioner cleaveland: as of yet, we don't have a firm dollar figure? >> no, we will have that for you, though, before you approve the budget. but we are in process on that. >> commissioner cleaveland: that was my question for the next one on equipment, in terms of fleet and equipment plan, what was our per year cost allocation they're requesting? >> that we are requesting? so we're requesting a significant amount based on the backlog that we had. so we've done great job and thank the board and the commission and the mayor for their support as we implemented this multiyear equipment plan. it's done a great job to raise the health of the fleet, but we have so many years to go because there were so many years we

weren't funded for anything. we'll be bringing a request to make up for a lot of the backlog that we have. and it's in line with the still current, i guess, commission resolution as far as the vehicle replacement plan, so it dictates a number of apparatus to be asked for and requested per year, as well as additional units that haven't been allocated, so it is material -- i believe last year's request was $55 million in fleet to catch us up. we weren't funded for that whole thing, but we're advocating to take care of the relief fleet we have. >> commissioner cleaveland: our commission priorities for the past several years has been staffing and equipment. staffing and equipment. because we went through many years of decline, basically, not adding new personnel and not adding new equipment to the department. so we have a lot of catchup to do. >> absolutely. >> commissioner cleaveland: in terms of the training, i wanted

to know what the additional costs are. do you have an estimate in your mind what the additional costs for the training will be for the supplemental training, as you called it for fire suppression and e.m.s.? >> i don't have it off the top of my head. there are factors to it. the training is additional personnel so we have the ability to take people out of the ambulance service to give them training and then there is classes and depending on the number of people, some of the leadership academy courses, it depends on the number of people we're looking at. so we'll have that part of the request, but we're still working on those numbers. >> it's important for personnel to have the cross training as well as firefighters, so i appreciate that. and to be clear on that -- >> that is currently done, but this will be enhancement of that. >> commissioner cleaveland: right. that's all my questions. thank you. >> president nakajo: thank you

commissioner cleaveland. vice president covington. >> vice president covington: thank you, mr. president. mr. corso, thank you for your update and laying out our budget and our budget challenges and i want to thank members of the public for speaking on these budgetary matters. i have somewhat of a thorny question to ask you. on page 3, in -- in view of the fact that the city is projecting approximately $420 million deficit over the next two fiscal years, along with the fact that the mayor's office, budget office, has requested that we reduce our budget, but yet, and still, we're asking for many more positions.

so do you have a narrative that corresponds to us being able to justify these new positions? i know that they are all necessary. but we do need a narrative that goes with this. so that we can convince the legislative branch of government of our needs. >> yes, absolutely. so i think that a lot of it is focused around both increased call volume and increased scope of services we're providing. we have -- we're putting together business cases for each of the justifications, but we'll have and will be working with the mayor's office over the next few months. we made them aware of the issues, but they've requested a lot of data, so we're putting that together and putting together the justifications to work with them on that. >> vice president covington: i know we can justify these things, but it's daunting year

after year to be asked to cut when -- [laughter] -- when we don't what we need already. so all right. i look forward to seeing more background information so that not just me, but all of the commissioners can be very helpful in the lobbying effort and the, you know, get the money effort. >> absolutely. commission has been very helpful and hands-on and it's much appreciated by the department. >> vice president covington: thank you. on page 5, can you give us more detail under e.m.s. 6, it says filled upgrade of e.m.s. 6 management physician, which position was that? >> there was an h33 rescue captain assigned to e.m.s. 6, that was the program manager, however, that scope has increased dramatically as it's

worked with not only city partner departments but at the state level and other agencies and it's expanded into a much larger program manager position. so in the budget process we had requested and approved for an upgrade to h43 section chief and that has been filled. >> vice president covington: h43 section chief? >> correct. >> vice president covington: was it the same person who had the person as rescue captain? >> yes. >> vice president covington: and who is that person? >> simon pang. >> vice president covington: thank you. we have our new safety chief which is always wonderful. just as an additional question, i think at this point it would be helpful for you and for the chief of the department to give

us an updated orring chart. that has the title and that would be helpful for the new commissioners. we keep talking about the positions, but it's hard to know who they're reporting to and i think that would help quite a bit. in terms of the flow of information. >> absolutely. >> vice president covington: under equipment on page 6, how much was allocated to for engine and truck? >> i believe we were allocated $6.7 million for engines and trucks, so we're in the process of ordering one additional truck and five additional engines. >> vice president covington: so we will have spent down that money? >> so we will have earmarked it, because it takes so long for the -- we won't actually spend

it for another year or so by the time everything is delivered, but it will be set aside for those purchases. >> all of these are traditional? >> the most recent purchases we've had, there are a number of changes to make it efficient, for size, but for members as well and it's part of the current multiyear contract we have in place for both engines and trucks. >> vice president covington: thank you. i've gotten a lot of good feedback from members of the department regarding the new trucks. and engines. i had another question. regarding the hose tenders, we currently have five on order? >> so they're into the on order yet. we were allocated funding, $4 million in the mayor's budget and another $1 million from the state which is at the board next week for approval. so that's a total of 5 we were

allocated. currently the specifications for them are out to bid, so anybody interested in looking at those, they're on the city website. that process closes in the next few weeks, at which time we'll evaluate the proposals leading into negotiating a contract, at which time we would be able to purchase them. >> vice president covington: how long will it take for actual delivery? >> i think that's still is to be determined, so i think for our engines, it's about a year. i think these are a little different vehicles than that, but i would imagine a little less than that, but we're still working with the vendors. we would be working closely with the vendors in stream lining that and getting them in use. >> vice president covington: we have a physical place for the hose tenders, because some members of the department when it came to number 20, if we did get 20, we wouldn't have space for them, but for this initial five there is a place to house

them? >> yes. i'll defer to the chief. >> i can speak that, yes. there will be a place to house all five of them. and part of that has to do with, we will be opening our facility and the old ambulance deployment facility will house some of the relief trucks we have in stations and we can place hose tenders in specific stations where they're most needed. >> vice president covington: thank you, chief. i'll have a couple of questions regarding this when you give your report then. i'll hold off until then. thank you again, mr. corso. >> president nakajo: thank you vice president covington. commissioner rodriguez? >> commissioner rodriguez: thank you for your report. i was actually able to follow it pretty good. but the one thing i didn't understand, you mentioned 80 years. out of curiosity what was that

in reference to? >> that was in reference to we set up a dedicated staff of fire prevention employees that are allocated to dealing with a lot of the housing projects and the fire marshal can speak to it, but adu, affordable housing, some of the community projects and that's their focus, reviewing those types of projects. >> commissioner rodriguez: i know what they are, i didn't know if there was an action being taken. i know there is ordinances that are in the works that would exclude certain things. and i was just wondering if the fire department was dealing with that. >> i'll defer to the chief on it. >> good evening. fire marshal chief. yes, we have -- we created a separate section to deal with priorities of the city, dealing with the affordable housing, adu, large development projects, et cetera. so we had to make a decision at

the time to fast-track the projects, streamline them let's say, and we had two options. we could put them in the queue and move them ahead of the line, or send them off on a separate path, track, and that's the choice we made and it's been successful at this point. yeah, the whole intent there is for consistency and to streamline the pro-certification that's why we have the same selective group reviewing the same type of applications over and over, and it's been very successful. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, commission rodriguez. at this point, director corso, thank you very much for this comprehensive report. i thought that it was timely in the sense that it's a discussion of every item, but also with the fact that we have two new commissioners, this budget overview by the department gives

the parameters of the department based on, again, budgetary definitions of that as well. in terms of page 11, fiscal year 20-21, 21-22, just looking for clarification. in terms of total incidents by the calendar year, you quoted 24%. is that 24% increase overall with all incidents that this department deals with? >> correct. yes. >> president nakajo: okay. >> total. >> president nakajo: which is a total increase in terms of what we formed last year for myself in my mind, it's another justification in terms of increased volume, increased work, increased demand by the public of san francisco, and then we as a department, what we need to respond to that on the back side, on page 12, you put

departmental budget priorities, operation staffing, e.m.s., suppression, health and welfare, equipment, training. again, i think it's a good list and it's just, again, a reinforcement that these are the department budgetary priorities in terms of going into this fiscal budget. >> yes. >> president nakajo: okay. and again i know that a lot of the narrative will come out again. at this point i thank you for your xren hence report. -- comprehensive report. thank you on the hose tenders questions and sounds like you'll be asking questions. public comment is exactly that, public comment. it's not so much of a forum in terms of questions and answer, but out of respect to the speaker, from the public, we gave some information in terms of some of the questions that were posed. and there were many questions posed in terms of the hose

tenders. chief, i'm going to ask at this particular point, now or when you do your chief's report, perhaps now since director corso is there, is there anything you want to add as far as information on the hose tenders beyond what we understand? i want to be clear, that we have five that is ordered. but the original request and the earnest effort of this department in terms of the recognition of the whole tender, chief, would you like to comment? >> so we did request 20 in last year's budget, we were given five. even if we had gotten the 20, it's a tall order for a company to come through with all of those in timely manner and for us to find a place for them. so we do, as mark corso said, it is out to bid right now. so, unfortunately, you know, the

process takes a long time in the city. we had to get the specs just right, the specifications just right because of the layout of our city and the challenges in our city. so that took back and forth with central shops who we work with on our vehicles. but -- and then we're not sure, in terms of how long it will take for us to get them, but we want to get the first one and see how efficient and effective it is and if we need to make any tweaks, we will, but, yeah, we're very excited about getting them. it's been a long time coming. and it has been something that we've -- that i certainly have seen as a need. so i'm really glad that we were able to secure that funding and move forward with this process. >> president nakajo: thank you very much for that update, again, commissioners, we all know, members of the public, the process in terms of the budgetary process, it's a matter

of advocacy from the mayor's office all the way to the board of supervisors and it comes to the bottom line of votes and approval. . i know it's been a huge challenge for us within the department. i want to reinforce the importance of this commission and department in the realization that it's supposed to have in the city and county. i wanted to remark on that auto out of respect to the speaker from the public as well. secretary -- excuse me, i did call for the public comment from the commissioners. thank you very much, director corso. >> item 5, chief of department report. report from chief of department jeani jeanine nicholson since the meeting on january 8, 2020, including budget, academies, special events, communications

and outreach to other government agencies in the public and report from administration, deputy chief velo on administration divisions, fleet and facility status and updates, finance, support services and training within the department. >> >> president nakajo: thank you. our tradition, commissioners, we have the chief's report, but the chief of the department goes first. and then depending on the presentation tonight, the report will come from administration chief velo who turned in two months of report. chief nicholson. >> greetings commissioners, command staff and everyone else in attendance. this is my report since our last commission meeting. but first of all, i would like to welcome our new commissioners. we are really excited and happy to have you here.

and look forward to doing some great work with you. so thank you for that. we're super happy. thanks for being here and being willing to take on this task. in terms of an org chart, we're in the final stages of updating it, so we'll have that in the coming week for you. and i agree. i like to see that visual of it. it makes things make more sense. so a lot of things right now are budget, budget, budget, as we've heard. we've hit the ground running in terms of contacting the powers that be at city hall. we've spoken with the mayor's budget office and gave them a heads-up what our needs are and what we're looking at in terms of efficiencies from within and sort of the steps that we've already taken on those efficiencies. we haven't gone in great detail, but generally speaking, i can

tell you about in the paramedicine, it is a highly successful program. and we met with the director of the homeless department to speak with him about getting some resources from him for e.m.s. 6. because as many of you know, 80% of our call volume is medical and of that, 35% of that 80% is unnamed address. so we're really doing -- we're doing the work out there, we're on the front line and we need more resources. and because it's been so successful, we've gotten a lot of support from other departments in terms of pushing this forward. so we had the narrative for that. for sure. we also we've had increase in call volume as you saw in

director corso's presentation. 3% over the last year. and quite a bit over the last five years. and it's been five years since we added any e.m.s. resources other than a few more members of our e.m.s. 6 crew. so we've had no new personnel for the ambulances. and we've seen sort of the issues with that and we're unable to fill quite a few shifts each day, five shifts a day pretty much. so we have the story, we have the narrative, we have the data. and we -- we're already speaking with lots of folks at city hall, aides to the supervisors as well as the mayor's budget office. we had a meeting with -- i had a meeting with our training staff and e.m.s. staff again to talk about efficiencies from within. sort of how we can tighten up

some things and really look to new policies in place. we're putting together a committee, new policies within e.m.s. which will help us do that. and we're also looking at a more comprehensive training. we know the police department takes their officers out of the field for two weeks to give them training. and so, we would like to be able to train our members, especially our e.m.s., the folks on the ambulances. because so many of the calls that they are doing are related to homelessness. it can -- they don't get a chance to practice their high-level skills all the time we want to get them that training. it's imperative we get them that training. wi -- they do a great job out there. that's one of the programs we're

going to be talking about. let's see. e.m.s. 6 resources budget. the community paramedicine as well. talking about expanding. not just expanding e.m.s., but also looking at chief pang is looking at community paramedicine models, street intervention teams and the like with advanced practitioners from d.p.h. and possibly a hot team worker. so they've been doing a little bit of trying things out there and seeing how impactful it is. so that is happening as well. we're also looking as director corso said, as all sorts of

other asks in our budget, training not just for e.m.s., but for our suppression side. and it's really important to me that we have a comprehensive succession plan in place from the bottom to the top. and that will include leadership and management training, officer training and we also, you know, this is the long-term plan. it's going to take more than a year to put together. so you know, i don't know that i'll be around for the total fruition of this plan, but we're working diligently to put some things in place. so this department can carry on and with all the knowledge that everyone in the department currently possesses, passing that on and it's also part of our strategic plan, if you read that, i don't know. so those are some of the asks. as well as we're looking at

other asks for suppression in terms of our incident support specialist that moved from the department, i don't know how long that was, 10, 15 years ago, so we're looking at that as well. and in terms of the -- we had a mayor's department head meeting. and she -- the instruction she gave us to were the cuts, obviously, which we will be certainly bringing our narrative and data to the table about. and her priorities were housing, homelessness, clean and safe streets, the health and well-being of the workers, and equity. and so those, we are in line with all of those things in terms of our asks, so... let's see. okay, so we have also been speaking with cheryl davis of

the human rights commission on opportunities for all program that the mayor put in place last year. and how we can -- we had four members -- four people from that. four students from that last year. and we're working on to the summer in terms of how we can expand or grow that to give some youngsters some opportunities and some exposure to the fire service. and we are also looking at -- i'm not sure if i've spoken to all of you, but we want e.m.s. corps to the city. you can google it is. it is a program they've had in the east bay. and in l.a. it's been put in am place. it takes at-risk inner city young men and puts them in a

total wraparound program, of not just getting their emt license, but trauma counseling, life skills, stipend, so we're working with human rights commission and to put that -- and a nonprofit to put that in place. so we're hoping to get it off the ground this year to start with 10 or 15 young men in the first class. and then perhaps after that, if that is successful, we'd like do it for young women. they don't like to mix the two because of some of the trauma counseling and that kind of stuff, it's just not a good -- it was not a good fit. they tried that once and decided the way to go was separate. so -- but you can look that up. it's a successful program. they would be putting all the infrastructure in place here in the city for us and we'd

probably be doing it in district 10, in bayview hunters point. let's see. we met with our labor friends, local 798 and we discussed -- we talked about budget and we have a lot of the same priorities, so i think we can really sing the same song, which is really great. let's see, the 127th class. we are looking at our numbers for our next class. we still have the 126th class in and they'll be graduating in february, but we're looking to the next fiscal year for the next h2 suppression class, so firefighter class. instead of having the large classes of 54 people, we're looking to having smaller classes to get some more

hands-on and i think it would be good for everyone if smaller class sizes, you know how that goes. so we're looking at that. and we also will need to look at, sort of our attrition numbers, how many people are retiring? do we need 54 people? if we do, i prefer to do it in two classes. we're looking at that as well. [please stand by]

>> we are continuing our visits to the fire stations. there are six stations i am going to.

for the new commissioners, when we started, we instituted myself and other chiefs who went around to every single station. one of us needed to be at all the stations to start a conversation with members from the field because i think it's really important to not get out of touch with the folks from the field and we have continued that by having the entire command staff. one month i go to stations one through six, support services, then i go through seven through 11 and the like and we rotate in another three or four months. it has been really helpful getting ideas from folks and also just communicating. folks want to know what is going on in what we are doing. so i think it has been a really good thing. command staff, thank you for doing that. that concludes my report.

>> thank you very much, chief nicholson. at this point, we will call for public comment. does any member of the public wish to give public comment? please approach the podium. seen none, public comment is closed. commissioners, comments or questions? commissioner cleveland? >> thank you. i have to turn my microphone on here. thank you for your report, comprehensive as always. i certainly want to commend you and your deputies were visiting all of the fire stations throughout the city and getting the input from the rank and file it's super important. it is a communication link that is vital and sometimes it's not there. i really applaud the fact that you are doing that continuously and will maintain that throughout your tenure as chief. i had a question. i really am excited about the

e.m.s. core program you mentioned and i would like to know if the funding will be in the budget or are we getting grants from this -- for this from somewhere? >> we are currently working with the human rights commission on getting the funding for it and, yeah, that is where it will start. i have no doubt we will be able to get the funding for it. we have a lot of support from supervisor walton. a lot of business members in district 10, as well as the human rights commission and the office of economic and workforce development. this is right up in terms of i know what our mayor would love to see his kids from the city being able to be exposed to what it's like and be given an opportunity basically. >> i think it is very exciting. we want to recruit more people

who live in the city to become future firefighters and future paramedics and future e.m.t.s. kudos on that program. on the 1,207th class that you are anticipating being smaller, how small were you anticipating it being and will have any budget impact or somewhere we can cut a few dollars out of the budget? >> it depends. if we have two classes, it will be more expensive -- >> you will try out to classes but smaller? >> yes. >> if we do have two classes, i don't know if we will need two classes is what i am saying. because of the attrition right -- rate. we had plenty of people retire last year. it has really died down this year. thirty at the most i would imagine. when i came in it was a class of 24 and we were always scrambling to get enough hands on.

i think 30 would be the max. again we have to look at the numbers, and do we need two classes or not? i don't know. we might not. we have done so much hiring in the past few years. >> you mentioned in your report that we sometimes don't have enough ambulance people to man our ambulances. will we have a special class or an additional class for e.m.t.s or paramedics? >> that is part of our budgetary proposal. >> that concerns me, obviously that we don't have the people to make sure -- >> we have used a lot of money on overtime this year for e.m.s. as well. so we have a good argument, a

good narrative, good data to show the need. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> thank you very much. vice president covington? >> thank you, mr. president. thank you, chief, for your report. think -- things are looking very good. i think it's wonderful that you are continuing to go to the houses. it is important for people to be able to talk to the person in charge in a conversational setting. i know they feed you very well when you go, too. [laughter] >> what are you saying here? >> it doesn't show. [laughter] you know, to have a candid conversation with folks in the department i think is much appreciated by not just the members of the department, but by the commissioners as well. thank you for that.

regarding the smaller class size for incoming classes, i was the one who really pushed for there to be more members of the incoming classes and that's how we got to the 54 because so many people were leaving the department. in addition to a lot of people who are washing out. so when we actually graduated a class, there were not as many people there as we really needed , and i think having smaller class sizes is always a wonderful thing so that you can get that one-on-one time with the instructors and you are not stressing out about being able to have access to equipment and all of those things. i am glad to know that we are on that road.

i also wanted to ask you about the new facility, you know, we have been calling it the deployment this and that, moving up a thing, and when are we going to settle on a name like station 49 would be a good name. >> station 49 i agree is a great nine -- name. it's listed by the abs by d.p.w. the new station 49. >> when will we finalize that so that people who graduated from the old station 49 will know that the new facility will still have that name grandfathered? >> chief tom will get the message going in regards to station 49 for us. >> okay. thank you. do we have a tentative date as

to the opening of the facility? please come to the microphone. introduce yourself to our new commissioners. [laughter]. >> hi, commissioners. i am don dewitt, support services. it is slated to be late fall of 2020 completion. >> wonderful. it is pretty much on track. >> it is. it is a great project. it is moving right along. >> all right. we will be parking some hose tenders there, is that is what is going to happen? >> no, i think with the hose tenders, we would like to strategically place them throughout the city in neighbourhoods where they would be most needed, and take some of our relief pieces that are currently in our fire stations and put them at the old station 49, so just swap them.

>> i thought i heard you say new facilities for some reason. if there is an emergency somewhere. [laughter]. >> pardon me for that. i thought my phone was off and i did turn it off. i will just speak loudly. i am wondering about the nucor. i think it's wonderful what you were saying that it is going to be young men. i thought -- [laughter] -- i will be all over this and then you said you will try it out. so how long do you think it will be before young women? if everything goes perfectly well, which, you know, of course, we hope it will, how long will it be before young

women will also have a parallel program? >> i mean i would like to do it as soon as possible, you know, i'm all about getting women into e.m.s. and our department for starters. it will just depends on funding, but we do have, you know, we are working with the gentleman who founded e.m.s. core, and so he has been given -- he has been great and they will come here and set it up. everything should be in place. we, of course, will have lessons learned with the young men, and i am not sure what we will have to work out in terms of what will be different for the young women, but i would like to do it as soon as possible. i can't give you a date, but i am an advocate of sooner rather than later. >> and it is my feeling also

sooner rather than later because if you are a young woman of color in the city, you also need to know that there are jobs that are interesting and can lead to your independence. that is very, very important. as we know with the dissolution of marriages in the united states of america being at least 50%, that young women need to have a way to support themselves and their progeny. it's it is very, very important. >> i couldn't agree more. >> thank you very much, chief. >> thank you very much. at this particular point, i don't have any other questions. i will ask for public comment on chief nicholson's report. is a new member of the public wish to give public comment? please approach the podium.

seeing then, public comment is closed. we will proceed with the report from the administration and the deputy chief. as appointive information to the new commissioners, next commission meeting we will have a report from the deputy chief on operations. you are aware that we get the best of command as they give their reports and chief, you have two lengthy presentations. please proceed. >> good afternoon, commissioners yes, i have two reports as you will recall from our schedule. we had two alternate meetings. my reports include the november report and the december report. they are labelled to some beer and january because that is when i gave my report after the fact.

you have those reports that i provided to you. and what has been done is i will to highlight of those reports and send them to you in a presentation format. continuing to work with the workers and committees. we have been getting really good products from them. whether it is a revision of bulletins for high-rise, whether it's suggestions for track processes, all those things are working well. our members are very engaged in this process and taking ownership and what the future of the department looks like. that has been working really well. we have been working with the chief parks and finalizing the m.o.u. we discussed the fact that we wanted to have an agreement with spca to bring emotional companions to stations and after major tragic events. we got the details and we did have a visit from one of the dogs at station 49. we finally got details from that

and should be assigned within the next week or so. we also put together an equity e-mail for recruiting members to form a group to recruit chapters for the next phase of our department. it will be a great loss for our department. chief nicholson has expressed desire to expand to be not just catholic but other denominations and have not just one individual and the whole department to have more similar to what the police department is doing so they can work with members. this will increase the number and be able to support all denominations that our members have. we are working on that. we had volunteers already working on this project. talking to what the chiefest talked about the recruitment, we also are looking at revising the way we higher our next candidates for academies and how is that done? we are looking at different processes.

i met with a chief in alameda county in -- and they have members who select panels. we are looking at that more to see if it will work for us and we are in the process of coming up with a product that will guide us to involve our members and hiring the next members of the department which is important. we're looking at the logistics for that. tomorrow i will meet with the chief from another county to talk about the priorities for health check and health wellness for the department. they implemented a new program to assess an overall health wellness check over -- every year. i want to see how that model is working and what issues they have and make sure it they have them all worked out. as you recall, that was the issue that stops the health check a few years ago. we have a meeting set up for next monday with labor and worker's comp. and meeting together for all these issues so

we can move forward with what we believe is good for the members we are bringing in and make sure members are tested every year. as you recall, we had the completion of the i.s.o. it came back. there was a submittal of reports we are a class one department. i inspected the chains and we reported spending. what this does is classifies us as a class one, the highest meeting for the department. that is what insurance companies used to lower the rates for our homeowners, and therefore,, the higher the ranking, the lower the insurance. the lower number is 10, which is very rare, and we are a class one. tuesday was the first day for our special projects officer, and already we have given him enough work for a year and a half in one day. division that the chief had, as

many members of the field want to start working with management projects and learn about project management, working with personnel and other agencies and succession planning and bringing back after a while they will come back to the field to get some skills earned. there's a lot of projects that we are working on and having an extra hand to help us out is going to be very useful. that is the vision that the chief has for this position to be able to help with that. i am meeting with the chief and the c.f.o. corso. and i'm visiting stations. i visited station 41 and got good feedback and got information back to them on the same day about questions they had. it is very important to keep that communication open. in regards to our class that is currently in the academy, we have 48 recruits remaining out of the 56. not all of them finished. so we have a situation -- and attrition of eight this time. we have completed testing in this week they are doing

finalizing training. they will finish the state test next week. we hope all of them pass and we finish with 48. i hope to see you all february 28th. that is incorrect, it's 9:00 a.m., not 10:00 a.m. correct that. the previous class completed a six-month test and they moved to their second assignment. for those who are new in the commission, firefighters to six months on engine and six-month on track. so they get the skills before they are finished probation. so this last class move to the next rotation, whether it was engine or truck depends on where they were. our in-service training staff completed a training module. they did live burn which consisted of metal boxes that we burned. commissioner covington went through that not so long ago in full gear. we hone our skills are

firefighters in a real-life environments. nineteen members got the hours of training they needed for that we also held a class which is higher level incident command systems for members of the the inc. the airport is not far behind doing drills. this month they held a drill which is a high-level drill they do every year that would involve operations. they train all the time, but this is one that they are required to do. they do it more often than f.a.a. requires. we continue to train our community. we're doing this in the stations , but also for the classes. at the airport they also help. i want to mention this individual, peter mcelroy who passed away recently. he was a volunteer since 2007.

he was nominated for an award, the power networks award. before we were able to notify him, he passed away from a stroke. his wife will receive the award on january 29th at 5:00 p.m. at city hall. i wanted to mention that because he was an extremely powerful member of the communities. he won the award for leadership. it was a loss for our community and the department and the city. our planning bureau completed the vacancy awards moving personnel from one spot to another. vacation bid station 49, and other members from the 1,205th academy. our health and wellness chief -- we are working on a project that the mayor put emphasis on which is de-escalation training. we are doing this -- we are learning and going to the sfpd

academy. our instructors are going there and learning de-escalation from the p.d. side. we are bringing back what we can implement on the e.m.s. side first because they're the ones who happen to have the most contact with members and happen to happened to be also in situations where de-escalation may be needed. our goal is for the second half of 2020, bring it to e.m.s. and first half of 2021, bring it forward again. they're class is a 40 hour class we need to bring it down a little bit. our class will be reduced in time and size. right now they are scheduled to go there and train for us. we rot resiliency training to station 49. due to the lack of staffing on members of 49, they do suffer from higher stress levels and other members of the department and we want to give them the tools to deal with that and cope with that. we are bringing in that and

bringing it to the future of the department, too. chief parks also rolled in the department and they are on a study from university about safety culture for the departments. we are one and the few -- one of the few in country that is doing it. they gave us a study on how the department safety culture is and what kind of information we can get from that to improve our programs. there is training at the national fire academy in maryland. there is a cancer study that is happening this week. it is a specific focus group of female firefighters, instructors and arson investigators who are the focus group that the study wanted to follow to see what the effects of our profession has. as we know, cancer has a high rate for us, what they want to focus on the groups that you will see enrolled in our department. here is our visit from toby which is the animal companion who came to visit.

there was more tobe time than most people. support services, an update on station 35. this is the floating part of the station that was loaded into a ship and is on its way here. the wood has come -- it will arrive on january 28th. that is the plan for that. that is moving along well. station 49, i visited station 49 and it's one of the sides of the building where the panels are going in. this is the interior, which is completed. everything is completed in november of 19. i visited a few weeks ago and it is looking really good. progress has been made to the point where you had to work on the case for the station. that is moving along well. like was mentioned before, they went out to bid and we had a minimum where the vendors come

and ask questions about the process on the bid. that is moving along well. there were too many questions about it. in the preconstruction phase we have six engines and they are moving along very well too. we have received six chief vehicles being outfitted with all the lights and equipment and radios that they need to go in the back of the box. we are working on that. we placed an order for a new generous risk tools which are battery operated, much later, and work very well for us. and just to finish like i always do with my report, some of the community events we have been participating in. we continue to have spanish first responders which was very successful last year. we expanded it to other bay area departments as well. we've made that offer to other regional departments to come in and take this class. individuals volunteer their time to come in and help us out. it is very helpful. it is tremendous. very good focus on the mission

high school mentoring program and fire science program that we have done there. it will be a good model for us. sorry, it is a little slow today mentoring day. members of the department sat down with kids in the program, telling them what they need to do to become members of the fire service. that was really connecting all the dots after this. we have some members from the department teaching and talking to those high school kids. we do have safety fares which are very well received. this is november, and then we had station 49 where they are reaching out to careers in and youth groups. that is also another. the chief was at this event. they did a great event for a girls camp this year. there was a lot of attendance. and a lot of kids and members

and women were there too. and just to finish my report, we have a great day on monday with martin luther king day and the parade and the events that were there. again, comprehensive reports. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you very much. i will call for public comment on your report. if any member of the public wishes to give public comment at this time, please approach the podium. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> thank you, mr. president. and thank you for your excellent report. i had a number of questions beginning with the recruitment and hiring process in alameda county that we are looking at as a model for us to adopt. can you give us any detail? >> one of the money that we are looking at, that is the one that i mentioned, they have panels and members of the department.

each member will have a member of the panel. the interview candidates. they will make recommendations to the chief of the department for the final interview. it's a filtering process where members are included in that. they have several questions being given by the administration. then they will ask those questions and make recommendations for the final chief's interview for that. >> they still have to go through a written test? >> they have to be part of the test. >> they have to be on the list and score relatively high to be selected. >> absolutely. >> they still go through d.h.r. >> correct. >> okay. dealing with contra costa's health check process, what do they do in contra costa county? >> it comes in and sets up shop in their department. they do a one day -- for example, the engine company will go up to six hours and do cancer

screening, cardio screening, they do all kinds of tests in one location, and they come out. what they have done with them is the results are given to the members to share with private physicians and then the department gets raw data back to us to tell us the general health status of the department. they make sure it's done. they set up shop in one of the facilities. i will see it tomorrow. they go through all these steps and they do this. >> i know confidentiality is a big deal there and it's very important. is a much of a budget impact in contra costa on having that type of health check process done? >> i don't know how their budget is. i will have to talk to them about that. we have money in the budget and we are asking in the new budget to have the capability of doing this. our goal is to do it every other year for now and when the budget is able to increase, to do it every year.

we are going to that goal. we haven't done it in a long time. i think it's really important. it is part of prevention and keeping our firefighters and paramedics healthy which is as much important as it is to heal them once they are hurt. >> absolutely. >> hopefully able to be much of a budget impact. >> i also believe we will have cost savings when the work comes down the other side. >> exactly. that special projects officer position that was created, is that a direct report to you? >> yes. >> so what have you given that person to do that he will take another year to do? >> first project was -- [indiscernible] -- and get a comprehensive five-year plan for replacement. as the c.f.o. says they aspire for 2021. we need to get updated. we are working -- he will be working with the committee chairs on revising all of our

sop his and manuals. as the committees are working on this progress, you will work on the project that the chief mentioned about opportunities for all. he will be part of the liaison for that and channel that. it has only been two days and we already have three projects that can last for a year. there is a lot of things i will give to him. >> you talked about de-escalation training and i think that is obviously very important with the police. are we using psychology? what are we using -- what is this de-escalation training for firefighters, particularly paramedics and e.m.t.s that are on the street every day? what does that really mean? >> we will look at and have my e.m.s. training staff attend the training that p.d. does and what they are tasked to do is bring back aspects of that training that one applied to our folks on

-- in the field. i can tell you what it entails. i'm sure psychology, proper techniques and body language and so forth, but i couldn't tell you. i don't think all of the things that p.d. applies will apply to us, but i know some of them will and that was the mayor's directive that we had to engage our folks with. >> i think the commission, i would like to know what it means or entails. i had a question on the future of the chief's residents. do you have any adapter for use plans or what is the plan for utilizing our chief resident -- residence. >> we are using it and we have repurposed it for right now.

we have our pier support unit working out of there. what we need is a wealthy donor to do all the repairs for us. and needs seismic upgrades. >> i think that is on the very low and. it is hard for me to put $2 million into a building when we have so many other needs. on the other hand, it is of such historic significance to us. it is why we have to look outside the box and find another way. >> are you saying you don't want to move into it? >> i do want to when -- move into it.

it needs a little bit of help right now, but i would absolutely love to live there. >> good to know. >> it has historic significance. we can't even know. the chief is here and he and his father has experience in that home. his father was chief chief of department a few years ago. i know he has a special place in his heart for that place as well >> speaking for myself, i would love to see you in the chief's residents. >> i would love to as well. it will take some outside the box solutions in terms of finding it. >> it sounds like a good fundraising program and opportunity there. i agree. chief, you mentioned the spanish training program for firefighters. i think that is great and i would like to see this expanded

to chinese as well so we can train our firefighters in chinese and spanish so we can meet the needs of a growing segment of our residents. i think that is a really good idea and i hope you can expand those programs. >> we will try. >> and then my final question is dealing with grant writers. is that person on board? are they doing good stuff? are we getting some potential grants? are we applying for grants? do you have any intel? >> i met with her this week. it is understanding where the grants have been in the past. i sent her e-mails every day about things that i see and the opportunities. it's definitely getting an idea of what has gone on. what can we apply again, how can we apply it, what kind of things

she has her plate full, for sure >> perhaps we can get a grant for the chief's residents. thank you so much. >> thank you very much is there any other comments or questions? >> thank you. i think the de-escalation training is an excellent idea. whose idea was this? chief nicholson's? great. i think it's a good way to keep the members of the department in this. a lot of people feel so disrespected all the time, so they have these hairtrigger

tempers and you really want to know how not to set them off because you are there to help them and we are faced with so many different situations of that as many tools as we can possibly have in the toolbox to keep everybody safe. so how long is the training for that? >> it is yet to be determined. >> we at least have a full week. we don't have the same equipment that they use. it will be much more condensed than that. what i can also say is the de-escalation training came out of when the mayor came to station 49 to meet with the members and we asked those who had been assaulted in the line of duty to stand up. she was astonished at how many folks stood up.

>> it's a very dangerous job. >> we talked about it there and she mentioned it to me several times when i met with her. >> wonderful. as a former fire commissioner, it is much more up on the learning curve then a lot of our legislators would be. i'm glad she supports this and endeavour wholeheartedly. i wondered about -- i wondered about their spanish language seminars. are they going to be doing those

soon again? >> they already started. >> they started a new cycle. >> and you met the instructor here. we are sponsoring him to be able to get a free class to anyone and now we expanded it to the bay area departments. >> wonderful. she he was a very nice young man was good to see him. and the representative from other towns and schools. they used to be out of fort mason but it is okay. it is wonderful work. i'm hoping that the asian firefighters will help us with expanding the program. it's very important. thank you. >> thank you very much, vice president covington.

at this particular point, thank you very much, chief, for your comprehensive report covering three months. i appreciate it. i just want to make some reference to our new commissioners and the learning orientation that the commission and that we are here always learn about. colleagues, the division and the administration reports. and when the chief comes up here with the division of operation, it really gives a comprehensive exposure into working with that department. today we had the privilege of the finance director with the budgetary issues. for myself, in terms of this report with the chief's report, i generally page myself to the report december 2019 because every component of the report

has the various divisions within the department and there is always a name associated with it as well. it really helps for me to be able to get a comprehensive look at the department and when you do something like this, you never want to miss anybody, but division of training in terms of the assistant assistant deputy chief who is here. there is a section in their of the division of training for the m.s. academy with nicholas pain and what is great as we have a page in here that talks about the fire department fire auxiliary reserve. we have a report that is comprehensive from the chief from the airport division. what is great about that is the reports are here, but also pectorals are here as well. she is not here tonight, but the captain is here. there is a section in terms of recruitment with the battalion

chief at the parks. it just gives a comprehensive exposure. we even had the investigation service bureau report. we have e.m.s. again with the deputy chief sandy tong. we have an assignment report by the captain. i appreciate the report in terms of the division of the administration because there is the identification of human resources with marianne. and these are all members of the department. i didn't want to leave anybody out so i went into the second report in january. i want -- i wanted to make sure didn't miss them and also our department applicant in terms of

funding and how they got scanned in this year. and of course,, chief cocker this year as well. just again in terms of the exposure. we have our deputy chiefs here and also in terms of the remarks of your dad who was chief as well. it is really important that we were able to see all of it and for myself, to see fleet management with captain serrano. i just really appreciate all of the work with all of the identification and the members of the department. i just wanted to acknowledge that to the rest of the commission as well. thank you very much for your comprehensive report. >> thank you. >> item six, commission report. commission on activities since the last meeting on january 8th , 2020. >> all right. there is some reporting that should be had at this point.

i don't know. excuse me, vice president covington? >> thank you, mr. president. i attended the swearing in of our two new commissioners and it was just a lovely time because, you know, family members were there. so many people from jay town showed up for commissioners who have reupped for another four years. that was wonderful and wonderful to meet the new commissioners and to mix and mingle with them. the commissioner had a large family contingent. i had to tease him that the only person that was missing is the four luggage member of the family because she has red hair. congratulations to all three of

you. we look forward to working with you. >> thank you very much. thank you very much for your attendance and your support. great pleasure to welcome you, commissioner feinstein. thank you for this endeavour. it's just a real to have this team and line it up within the commission. i also wanted to thank the mayor of san francisco for the reappointment of myself to continue the work that we are doing within the department as well. i just really am grateful for that opportunity. as a point of report, i attended the census with chief nicholson. and as appointive information, i attended the general meeting of the asian firefighters that are preparing for the chinatown parade that i believe is on february the 8th. that is a ground event here in

san francisco that all the commissioners are welcome to attend as well. at this point, commissioners, i would also like to take this opportunity to express wholeheartedly our appreciation for all of the hard work and dedication to commissioner michael hardeman who served as commissioner of the city for so long in terms of earnest endeavours and really being a true fan in lower oakland. i also want to remark my appreciation to the commissioner for joseph for his contribution within the department as well. at some point, perhaps in february with the officers, whoever the president is within this commission, perhaps we can entertain a certificate of appreciation to commissioner hardeman if they are able to

join us in the february meeting. that would be something that i think would really be a wonderful gesture in terms of our appreciation for their service. at this point, did i call for public comment? >> not yet. >> i'm calling for public comments. please approach the podium. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item seven, fire commission election of officers. discussion of possible action, nomination and election of commission president. >> thank you very much. at this particular point, it is the time for a motion in terms of the next president of the fire commission and commissioners, i would like to make that nomination and i would sincerely make it an honor for myself and for the rest of the commission that are here to nominate the vice president of the commission, francine

covington, to the president of this next year. it goes without saying that your dedication, your hard work and your devotion to this department i think it's an honor in terms of this department and in terms of how much responsibility you take within that. within that, i would like to nominate vice president francine covington to president of the fire commission. >> i second that motion. >> thank you very much. there is a second on the motion as i have presented the first motion. is there any other nomination at this point? >> move the nomination. >> thank you very much. we have a motion seconded and we have no more nominations at this point. i will call for the question. all in favor of francine covington being the president of the san francisco fire commission say aye? >> aye. >> anyone opposed?

none. thank you very much for your support. congratulations. [applause] thank you. >> i will take public comment. >> don't say such a thing. i am very grateful for your show of support for me for this position. my love of the fire department grows daily for its members and the work that is done is very important that we impact everybody who is in san francisco and whether they live here or they are visiting and we have an energetic new team going to bat for the department. so that is always very good both on the farm side, the civilian

side and citizen volunteers that are known as commissioners. so thank you all very much. >> thank you very much. thank you for reminding me of asking the question of acceptance and thank you for that gesture. is there a comment from the commissioners on this nomination at this time? if there is not, i will move on to commissioner cleveland. >> i just wanted to amplify my admiration for commissioner covington who is now my president. having worked with her for a little over six years since i was appointed. her thoroughness and knowledge about the department, her heart is always in everything she speaks and so it will be a pleasure to work with her as her president because i know when she is involved with an issue, it really does come from her heart.

congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. i will ask for public comment on this item. seeing none, public comment is closed. madam secretary, would you like to narrate the b. section? >> nomination and election of commission vice president. >> at this particular point, i am recognizing him. >> it is my pleasure and honor to nominate catherine feinstein to be the commission vice president this year. i have known her for a number of years and have respected and watched her career over the years. she is a judge, so she brings a lot of good level temperament to the position. it will be a pleasure to work with her. i would like to nominate her to serve as the commission vice president.

>> thank you very much. is there a second? >> second. >> thank you very much. thank you for that. is there any other nomination at this point? >> i move the nominations be closed. >> thank you very much for that. at this particular point, we need to call for the question in terms of election of commissioner feinstein to the commission president. all in favor say aye. >> aye. thank you very much. thank you very much, commissioner. would you like to say something? >> i would. thank you, fellow commissioners for your confidence in me. i realize i have not said a word during this meeting but i have yet to be -- i will hit a week as a commissioner tomorrow, actually.

i do hope that i can bring my background, which is a little different perhaps than others as a judge. i am a former police commissioner for first responders, those who go towards that which normal people might go away from, have just tremendous respect in my heart and they have my gratitude and it is a real honor to be able to serve in this capacity. i home hoping that i will be able to bring my past experience and work with my fellow commissioners which i will delight in and achieve and everybody else to help bring the department along at a time when

the demand is up and resources seem to be down and i want to help be an advocate for the working men and women, regardless of which division battalion, i am still learning that. people are serving. that is what i hope to do. i am truly honored by your confidence in me. thank you. >> thank you very much, commissioner. vice president covington? >> thank you. i really welcome you and thank you so much for taking on this responsibility for being vice president. i know that you will do a superduper job. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. does that affirm that the vice president elect is accepting the position? thank you very much.

i will take public comment at this point. would any member of the public wish to give public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item h., agenda for next future and fire commission meetings. >> what do we do have on our document knowing that the vice president elect will be president? his anything in terms of this for the next february meeting? >> we do have another budget presentation and i'm waiting for someone to get back to us and if we are going to do the certificate to commissioner hardeman and others, and then p.i.o. baxter, i don't think he is scheduled for the next meeting, but he is scheduled for the meeting in march. >> thank you for that

information and is always the prerogative of the president. in terms of the certificate of appreciation, i know we need to still confirm the appearance of the commissioners if they can make it. is there anything that you would remark in terms of agenda items? >> the drone program. just an update would be great. >> okay. is that a question posed to the chief of the department? >> no, i don't know if she's a single mom or whatever but we will see what her schedule is. we will see. >> thank you for that commission

-- that question. >> if i may request if we can adjourn the meeting and honor of peter. that would be a nice gesture. >> okay. commissioners, at this point, madam secretary? >> we need public comment on agenda eight. >> i am asking for public comment on item number eight. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item nine, adjournment. >> before we adjourn again, in terms of the request of adjourning in honor of chief nicholson, can you verbalize that honor in terms of adjournment? we just recognize his service to the city with the program and all the volunteer hours that he put in and dedication that he showed.

>> thank you very much. ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned.

we will come to order. mr. clerk, do y