>> meeting on april 28th, 2021, and the time is 5:01. this meeting is being held by webex pursuant to the governor's executive orders declaring the existence of a local emergency. during covid-19 emergency, the fire commission's regular meeting room at city hall is closed and meetings of the fire commission will convene remotely. you may watch live at www.sfgovtv.org and to participate during public comment, please call (415) 655-0001 and use access code 187 700 4408. members of the public will have opportunities to participate during public comment. the public is asked to wait for the particular agenda item before making public comment on that item. comments will be addressed in

the order they are received. when the moderator announces that the commission is taking public comment, members of the public can raise their hand by pressing star 3 and you will be queued. callers will hear silence when waiting for your turn to speak. operator will unmute you. when prompted, callers will have the standard 3 minutes to provide comment. please ensure you are in a quiet location, speak clearly, and turn off any tvs or radios around you. item one, roll call. [roll call] general public comment.

members of the public may address the commission for up to 3 minutes on any item within the commission's jurisdiction. that does not appear on the agenda. speaker shall address their remarks to the department as a whole and not to individual personnel. commissioners may not enter into debate or discussion with the speaker. the lack of response by the commission or the department personnel is not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during public comment. i will check the public comment line. and there is nobody on the public comment line. >> president: all right. thank you, madam secretary. public comment will be closed. >> secretary: item 3, approval of the minutes. discussion and possible action

to approve the meeting minutes of the regular meeting of april 14th, 2021. and there's nobody on the public comment line. >> president: all right. public comment is closed and i see commissioner covington. yes. >> commissioner: regarding the minutes, i would like to have included your statements regarding the possibility of setting up a committee. you were suggesting a committee to review slow streets. and that isn't reflected in the minutes. also, i would suggest that slow streets since it is a term of art be capitalized. capital "s" and capital "s."

>> president: any further comments on the minutes? >> commissioner: and i would like to move the minutes with those additions. >> president: let me just see if any other commissioners have any amendments, modifications, comments. i'm not seeing any hands. >> commissioner: i'll second the motion by. >> commissioner: covington. >> president: all right. thank you, commissioner cleveland. >> secretary: and i will take roll call vote. [roll call] it's unanimous. i will amended the minutes as suggested and post them later this week. item 4. chief of department's report. report from chief of department

jeanine nicholson including budget academies, special events, communications, and outreach to other government agencies of the public and reports on administration deputy chief jose vello on administrative divisions. fleet and facility status updates including updates from chief thomas o'connor on the auxiliary water supply system. finance support services and training within the department. >> good evening, president feinstein and other commissioners. greetings everyone. let's start with our vaccine update. we are at approximately 75% and slowly climbing and i think we're seeing this in many places where there are some who

are reluctant to still get it, but we are still putting the message out for our folks that it is still available to them and hoping that the people that have said "yes" will sign up for it. we are continuing to have conversations regarding the up coming budget and lots of fruitful conversations especially around the vision that we have for the department and community paramedicine for one and community paramedic division in this department because we have been so successful of what we do with ems6 and now with the street crisis response team that there are more and more requests and our conversation has been that

we need all the support in place for this division, administrative and otherwise to make it if they want it to keep going. it's really challenging to have one person at the top running it and, you know, and everybody else out on the street and not a ton of support because we need the bodies. so we are continuing to have those conversations being heard about the paramedic division and our street crisis response team was filmed again with chief simon pang by cbs this week and, as you know, it was filmed by nbc nightly news a week or so ago. so, again, we're having those conversations with the mayor's

budget office and really trying to figure out a path forward and i'll keep you updated with those conversations as they move forward. i recently had the opportunity to spend some time with district supervisor connie chan. she is the of the district. i took her to her district's stations. president finestein i know it maddens you that those are not in particular order on the map so let me just say it's out in the richmond district. >> president: that's all right, chief. we'll fix it. >> yeah. and she and i had the opportunity to discuss some of the needs of the department and then on saturday in golden gate

park. was so kind to attend our demonstration and some other folks organized and we provided a field demonstration of those hose tenders. so, you know, so the supervisor -- so it's hard to understand what a hose tender is if you don't see what happens. so she has a good understanding of that now and of our operations and how we would respond in a situation where we don't have all the water that we need. and then, you may have seen i was on nbc, i can't remember when either this week or

we have interdepartmental training on the 5th. we have been working with them to come up with training so we can better understand each other's operations basically. so they can understand about, you know, where we need to go

and what we need to do when we're on the scene of a fire in terms of, you know, not running over our hose lines and alike but also if you're going to pull over, you know, make sure you're not pulling over where one of our vehicles needs to be whether it's an arial truck or what have you. so we are going to have a -- it's a little bit of a modified version from what we did with police because we had awhile there where police would get to the fire first and park right in front or park at a hydrant or some other thing and it was challenging for us. so we've had really good conversations in classes with police. and so that program is being modified and taught to the mta and, you know, they asked if we could train the trainer for them so they could actually deliver this class and we said,

no, we would rather actually always have someone from the fingerprint in that room so we can have a subject matter there to talk them through some things. and, i believe that is all i have for this evening. so thank you, commissioners. >> president: thank you, chief. any questions for the chief of the department? commissioner rodriguez. you could be chief but i don't know that you'd like that job so we'll keep you as vice president. you're muted. >> commissioner: okay. sorry. just out of curiosity, we received a letter about i guess a hostile environment from the

party and i guess these issues have come up before about trying to privatize some of the medical services that the fire department is doing. so is there any response to this or is this just an ongoing process that we are really -- in other words, are we taking any action against this to show that this is going on and we want to not have our members working in this environment? or i would just like to be enlightened on it i guess. >> through the president, vice president rodriguez, is this a letter that was sent from our -- from local 798? i'm not sure what you're referring to. >> commissioner: it says this is set by the san francisco democratic party and i guess

it's to stop the hostile work environment of the paramedics of the san francisco fire department and these continued efforts to privatize public emergency medical services. >> president: this matter is actually not on the agenda. >> commissioner: okay. >> secretary: so i don't know how far we can go into it. the letter hasn't been posted. >> commissioner: okay. i understand. maybe at the end of the meeting i'll request we can put this on the agenda. >> i'm happy to brief you off line as well, vice president. i know exactly what you're speaking of and i'm happy to talk to you afterward. >> commissioner: okay. >> president: questions from any commissioners? comments? i'm not seeing any. i'm sorry. commissioner nakajo.

>> commissioner: thank you, madam president. this is not a question, but just a comment and an expression. in terms of p.r., chief, i thought the department [inaudible] crisis team have gotten great press, good press, on the national news. i also think that's positive in terms of our endeavors as well as the show cases confidence of our team. the other thing i wanted to say is i'm very appreciative of you as the chief of the department. you appear on national news. i caught that segment when you were being interviewed and i think that equally is good in the sense of definitely having representation of our department, but the fact that we have a woman fire chief in san francisco, i thought spoke volumes in terms of the national exposure.

the other thing i wanted to say is i really appreciate chief o'connor for last saturday's drill. yes, and having me join so i wouldn't have any [inaudible] and was greeted by the members in terms of chief o'connor, but also, correct me if i'm wrong chief rubenstein but i think it was stations 12 and 22. and the last thing is that chief nicholson, these presentations by the various components of the department, for example, battalion chief parks, the [inaudible] of that as every package gives help in terms of wellness in terms of services.

i'm really looking forward to chief o'connor's presentation. but that's where everybody gets the substance of the material. thank you, madam president. >> president: thank you, commissioner nakajo. further comments for any commissioners? madam secretary, do we have any public comment? >> secretary: there is no public comment. >> president: all right. public comment is also closed. and i believe we go on to chief bellow. >> good afternoon, president feinstein. chief nicholson. this is my report on the month of march. let me share my presentation. can you all see it? >> president: yes. >> thank you. again, for what i do my report is highlight some of the items

that my report and also those item that is because my report is at the end of the month, i've seen the last time as reported. so going into training, a lot of projects going on right now and in combination with chief arecedos it's been hard to get some of these classes to our members. additionally, we've hosted a class in instant management training not only for our members, but other agencies and we've also had the team develop their skills for the class, it was well attended. continuing to do the training that was given to us by the state. i'll show you some pictures of that that was done. we also have 30 members that have been trained to drive those vehicles when we go to fires. as you said, this a busy month

training. in addition to that, we had and thanks to lieutenant fogul we had more training. in april, we did some night training as well too which is very important for us so we can operate day and night in different environments and we had good results in golden gate park. we have 23 out of the 25 recruits still in the class. week 12 out of the twentyth class. two more weeks of our san francisco skills testing. these are the skills, the ladders, the hoses, appliances that we do on a regular basis and we have ten weeks of testing for that. after that, there's some additional training the crews have to go to which includes hazmat, fire survival that

require to complete the firefighter 1 curriculum. once they're finished with that, there's the state testing where a certified firefighter academy to the firefighter 1 program to the state fire marshal office. so we need to do a state test too. so that's why it takes 20 weeks for someone to finish the academy. we're looking forward to graduation on june 25th and depending on the situation, hopefully we all can be there. some of the things we've learned these past few weeks. what you're seeing here is just a mock-up of a house that by introducing fire and ventilation topics and moving windows or roof openings, you see how the smoke travels and the fire travels. it's very important to understand that. it's a great conceptual idea and you need to understand when you ventilate at the wrong time the wrong sequence. from them then, they'll move on to actual training.

they will have live fire and spoke and everything. depending how you effect ventilation on a fire. the training staff held a training day with deputy sheriffs at the facility. there are many times the first one we develop the skills the reason being is the facilities they have, we arrive there. in order for them to be safe and operating the situation, we held the training for them. they were very thankful for that too. these are some of the pictures they did with them as well. this will be the first one on this apparatus i just want to

rephrase how important. not only vaccination sites. this is one we have been doing now for a few saturdays, supervisor haney was there too. they come in for training, special training they do. and, like the chief mentioned and the virtual tour that happened two saturdays ago and commissioner nakajo, you were there too and other staff and office department staff was there too. a couple of meetings ago continues to push classes for our members and mental health, first aid. it's very involved in the firefighter cancer cohort study. we're trying to track our new recruits coming in to the academy, female recruits and seeing in their careers what is the effect of fire fighting with this gear. should have a baseline for them and in the meantime, we also

study core members of the department too. to contain the information and wellness that we have. we continue to have meetings for the eap rfp. we're working on that to improve it to have a really good culture [inaudible] of counselors that we can help our members whether it's ptsd and all the issues they have too. so we're fine tuning that. and we continue to have safety meetings with different parties to make sure we're addressing all the issues we have. this is a picture that we have this past week at stanford. there's been a cancer study. we're doing research on the pfas exposure which is something we've found in the fire fighting gear. we are seeing what that effect is and also has been for awhile to see what kind of levels they

have. what we're doing is demanding that the next generation of turn-out codes we have, we're asking the manufacturers and we're in the process right now of producing and giving us gear that doesn't have pfos on it. it is a repellant. it was used if more years in the industry, but we also found it's cancer producing too. so we're trying to eliminate that and the industry is coming to that now where we have offers and materials that can do that, so we're really excited to see that and our contract we're doing now trials with exactly that pfas materials. so we're happy with that. so we continue to be busy with the help of vaccination sites. we have a continue to staff this covid response units and we work with the chief of

operations in field. like the chief mentioned, we're up to they never reported it and i'll continue to try to work the members who said no. so we expect these numbers continue to climb. but we continue to climb too. i hope you are receiving good information. showing different topics of health and safety for the members. so it's good to get members engaged in that. stephanie has been collected some of the recipes to our daily routine in the fire house. we are already planning for the fall for the flu vaccine. we understand this year, the

flu season has been very small due to everyone wearing masks, but we're planning for the next season and they're working on that too and we're able to vaccinate those members that are not reachable through different events. we're going to try to get even a higher number than last year. last year, before covid-19 was up to 70%. so we want to get high on that. we tested 71 members, randomly tested through a random program. o-negative. we conducted four tests and they were o-negative and continues to work on alcohol and drug tests for promotional and all the results all were negative. so that's good news. super services. moving along. the finishing touches are being done at the station, we'll continue to have the point of contact issue that we're now actually digging on the ground so the project is moving forward with that. it's caused a little bit of a

delay. internally, things are moving along. the walls are giving up and finishing up. you see that on the bay are really almost done and we are really finishing up pretty soon with that second floor. commissioner finestein as you said is a beautiful area. i think members are going to be extremely happy at that station once they move in. 49 is moving along as well. the staff of ems is working, already has a plan to move in next month. slowly moving with a final date and hopefully a nicer morning in june. so we are only a few months away from seeing the final station 49, but everything's almost complete right now. it's just -- we can't shut down operations so we have to do it progressive moving and the staff 49 under the directive of the chief is working out really well. some of the entire your

pictures. some of the kitchen area, the locker room and the storage racks in the main bay of the station. it looks very well almost completed. we're finishing our vehicle. this vehicle will take some of our mini pumpers or engines. so we're happy to get a new one there. we received a grant for four mini pumpers. and we have several already looking at different models that will work for us. we have twelve engines and contracts. five of them will be delivered this week. they come to us, we put in our performance center shops. so it takes a long time to get these engines and trucks built. we have to make sure they work forrous in our hills and our areas. so we go through vigorous testing process and so we expect those five to be delivered this week. they have some additional

equipment to be installed in them and the rest of them should be here by mid may. we still have seven trucks one of them is back to louisiana like i mentioned before, every apparatus that we purchase goes to test the first one. once we have those kinks worked out, then we plan it just like this one. we're on the first one now, we have some issues with it and now they're working and the manufacturer is coming down from louisiana to make the chassie into that. there was a protest, i believe we're working on that and it should be closed pretty soon too. just a difference depending on the one that lost the bed argued about the other one. we should be moving with that pretty soon too. another boat that we're getting and the latest picture we go from that is close to completion as well and we do

expect to see some tests up in seattle up in may and we're going up there to do that. so happy to get a new vessel in the fleet of the fire department. we have electric fans that are ordered. a little history on the fans that we have is we used to have gas powered fans to evacuate smoke and whatnot. so we've been slowly facing in electric fans. they do have very powerful fans that we can use. so now we have an order to outfit all of the trucks with electric fans. after a fire, we can evacuate some of the smoke for any of the structures visa these fans and we can wait to start the clean up of that so we don't expose our firefighters to smoke when it's not needed. we're also purchasing new gear, safety gear that we have to get. so that's going there.

we have received some rescue boats. surf has been a popular sport. but any manufacturer we tapped in to, they were back ordered and we have new chain saws, ventilation saws, currently expect to have those out very soon and get those out to our truck company. i'm going to talk about what chief o'connor's going to talk about. he'll speak about some of the projects especially the ones that were due in june to the board supervisors and studies. welcome that. all events continue to support the vaccination site at treasure island for other awhile, until the end of the month. our members keep going there. we have a nice event where we did the event and also the chief painted that were just due and painted the golden

hydrant. so that was a nice event and it was mentioned already, but thank you again, commissioner nakajo, it was important for us to expect how our systems work. it helps us immensely through this. that concludes my report. >> president: thank you. shall we first see any questions from the commissioners for chief velo before we move on to chief o'connor's report? >> secretary: and there's nobody on the public comment line. >> president: thank you. public comment will be closed and i see commissioner

>> our infrastructure is aging and i think we're starting to see some early signs of aging infrastructure and the need to start changing out some of these pipes. i just approved having station 28 lateral redone. so we're trying to move on those and then, in those

stations where we're seeing repeated backups where we've gone to monthly or quarterly snaking of these pipes, we'll send a camera down there and there was more than just grease, there was plaque build-up over time. again, it's just age. and during the pandemic, we had more wipes being used. there were wipes being flushed down. winter is probably our worst month. >> commissioner: okay. and you can probably answers the next one chief de witt and that's dealing with the hose tower at station 15 on ocean avenue. why did we select that one to be replaced as opposed to the rest of them being torn down? why'd we decide to keep that one? >> my understanding is that that fire station in particular, there's a mural on it and they wanted to leave one hose tower that represented the history of the city. so basically the rest of the

tear downs were contingent and to put up a new tower that's sizably safe. that's why that one goes down and up again. >> commissioner: so the hose tower at station 15 is supposed to be historic. >> i know there's a beautiful mural on it and perhaps that's why it's chosen. it's also on bedrock. it's also one of the smaller towers. the whole project and that was the one that was chosen. i don't have the why. >> commissioner: yeah. that was my question, chief dewitt is it historic? because it doesn't look historic to me, it was rather new. so we're saving the new one and tearing down the historic one. that's just my comment. that's all my comments, madam

president, at this moment. >> president: thank you, commissioner cleaveland. chief velo. >> it's historic from the 50s. >> president: like the rest of us. not you, but us. okay. >> [ laughter ]. >> president: all right. i'm sorry. commissioner nakajo. thank you for your patience. >> commissioner: thank you very much, madam president. thank you, chief velo. that was very comprehensive. it's amazing in terms of how much you can present in terms of information with all of the categoricals. i just wanted to ask two questions for you, chief velo. i wanted to get a comment in terms of the airport with chief johnson in the sense of we know things are getting a little bit

better. vaccines, etc.. i just want to be able to get briefed on what does the traffic look like at the airport and any kind of perception in terms of update, in terms of the commission and then i would like to add least hear from chief cahaja in terms of the transition going from the field to being the chief of the department. i just want to engage a little bit if you can indulge me. >> absolutely. chief johnson, go ahead. >> sure. good evening, commissioners, president finestein. command staff chief nicholson. commissioner, we are starting to see an uptick in passenger travel. as a matter of fact, they established a group of a stakeholders and every two weeks we do have passenger recovery team that gets together. we're up -- prior to the pandemic, we were having about

80,000 to 90,000 passengers flying out per day. now we fell all the way to about 3,000 or 4,000 and now we're averaging about 20,000 and they expect a bump the middle of july. they're starting to bring back a lot of employees. trying to build back up. and it's expanding as it's starting to grow also construction's started back up. but the airport has been impacted. we're supposed to get two new fire houses the next couple of years. a lot of equipment a lot of things being deferred. they're going a lot of work on the runways and things like that. we are starting to see a lot of the vendors come back. restaurants and stores are opening back up also. >> commissioner: chief.

>> yes, sir. commissioner, you wanted to know the transition from the field to this position. i know you've been quite busy. >> yeah. it's quite an adjustment. in total, this is my 24th year in the fire service and all of that time has been in the fire house and on the apparatus and i love that, but i'm excited to be in this position. it is a it is busy so time flies. >> commissioner: thank you very much, chief, for indulging me. i have to admit this is the first time we're able to see you in your gold and settled. the first time i think was in the field and the second time was transitional and i just wanted to be able to hear your voice. i'm just at a point of clarity because i'm conscious of it am

i saying your last name correctly? can you tell me how you say it? >> yes, sir. it's kailoa. >> commissioner: kaialoa. >> that's it. >> president: thank you commissioner nakajo. i think you're muted vice president rodriguez. >> commissioner: a couple of questions. a few for i think it would be for dewitt one question to begin with. all these sewer backups and i'm not too clear on this. but the city has passed a bond years ago the p.u.c. i think, it was money for sewer lines can we take advantage of that

if our sewer lines. >> i honestly don't know the answer to that. i imagine it will be in the streets but i will certainly look into it and we'll take advantage of anything we're entitled too. but right now we're using dpw to replace those. i know it was a bond. >> commissioner: like millions of dollars for underground sewer lines. i would think that, you know, we should take advantage of it if we're entitled to some of that. >> i'll look into it now that you've mentioned it. >> commissioner: okay. and the other two parts i have i don't know if this is for chief velo, i see two positions

here. one was it was division of training and it's where the item is an ala quarterly meeting with the state fire training regarding sfi certification and and i've got one more question. >> correct. so what it says is the i credit accredited by the state. and firefighter 1 and firefighter 2 are the crick we are teaching are to be in line and when i explain the weeks that require, the training they're required to do, that's in line with the requirements of the state fire marshal. so we have meetings and stakeholders for the state and especially academies that are accredited by the state.

we go there. and in sacramento and now virtual to make sure any updates, changes that happens to those academies whether they move or add curriculum. so every academy we have, we have the most current training available for the state because they always keep changing things and trying to add more things. so our firefighters when they finish the academy are fully accredited by the state. >> commissioner: okay. thank you. and the last question i have is i also read where it said there was a captain position opening. it sounds like it would be division of support services for the ser bond and i understood that it would be like a temporary position that's funded by a grant for two years and then the captain, whoever it was would be reassigned back into the field maybe or if there was additional funding they would maybe say. but my question is for other

bond measures, is this the way it normally goes? are we just trying to take advantage of the funding that's there? >> i wouldn't say we're taking advantage of it, commissioner. i think the oversight that we want to have our members look into some of these major projects, we have an officer assigned to that. it's paid by partially the bond and the salary. it's just to have somebody that's going to be meetings oversight. checking on things that are going on. so having that officer that's dedicated to those projects, for us, we feel it's very important to have that. in this case, the captain that's there is going to retire in june and we're looking for a new captain or officer to apply for that position. and now that we have the training facility and other stations that are coming up in the pipeline. we want to have continued oversight use with that. >> commissioner: good enough. thank you very much. >> president: question.

yes, commissioner covington. >> commissioner: thank you, madam president. thank you for your report, chief velo. and i just wanted you to, if you can, refresh our memories on how much the grant for the hose tenders was. and the source of grant. >> so, for the hose tenders, there was one that was given to us by the state and two that were in the budget. we got a grant for mini pumpers. the mini pumper grant was for $700,000. so the grant for the hose tender was actually one of them came from the state and two came from the budget. originally, we had five, if you recall, we had five in the budget and due to covid, all

the departments in the city had to make some cuts and unfortunately, two were taken from us. our goal is to put them back in the budget. i think by doing this outreach to some of the local officials, they understand why we need that and we're hoping to see that in the budget up coming. >> commissioner: okay. so it was the mini pumpers. >> yeah. >> commissioner: okay. and, do you recall the amount? >> $700 thousand. >> commissioner: okay. i want to give a shout out to folks at the airport for getting a perfect test of results, 100% and that's fantastic. could we find out a little bit more about that from the chief

about the airport. >> yes, ma'am. it's our yearly annual inspections for the park 139 and it encompasses the entire airport. everything from the remaining records to the amount of paint on the runways. it's a week long inspection and the fire department has a large role in that in that the airport cannot maintain a certificate without an active fire department. we actually struggled from that early on. los angeles had theirs earlier this year, they had 20 efficiencies on theirs. so the airport is really happy about it, really psyched about it and, you know, waiting to do the same thing next year. >> commissioner: before you go, can you talk a little bit

about the proposed additional two stations at the airport. >> they're redoing, they're rebuilding two of the stations. >> commissioner: i see. >> they're going to both be torn down. station one's going to be moving because of an expansion at least they were planning to put in a new terminal where they want to have that and they don't want folks driving on to the airfield private car. but i was in a meeting just the other day where that might be pushed back probably another five to ten years now just because of the huge financial hit we took during covid even though the airport is getting a lot of funds under the recovery

act that the president signed a few weeks ago, but still, a lot of it's being pushed back right now. >> commissioner: okay. >> they are doing some minor modifications to fire houses because of issues like mold and leaky roofs and stuff like that. >> commissioner: thank you for the update. i really encourage our new commissioners to visit the airport and since the airport pays for the majority of what it cost to have three fire stations at the airport, that is a tremendous help to us and the visitors to san francisco and, of course, those of us who are happy citizens of san francisco. so go out to the airport if you get a chance. call first. [ laughter ] all right. thank you. that's all of my questions. >> president: thank you, commissioner covington.

any of the commissioners have any further questions? i'm not seeing any hands. i have one topic i'd like to bring up and i think i should direct it to you, chief velo, and it is with regard to station 35 which is the fire boat station. i guess assigned to peer 22.five. just one of the fire houses that sort of bobbles my mind. i have some concerns because it seems like we have been sort of hit a plaid meyer here or a stopping point here. i was fortunate enough to just so where i'm looking at little squares here. commissioner nakajo doesn't think he's the only one.

i was picked up by chief rubenstein on saturday and was taken on a tour. part of it included station 35 and i can't quite remember when that was, chief rubenstein, but it was a few weeks ago and it was, i mean, it's beautiful. it's in great shape. i first would like to ask you really in terms that i can understand, what is the problem with getting it done? i know it's a hook-up. i know it's a hook-up to electricity and am i correct in thinking that it's basically done except that it can't get bluged in basically, that there isn't a power source for it or am i incorrect about that? >> you're pretty close. they're not quite done, but the

finishing touches are being done right now. and you are correct, the main delay and let me just give you a little backup on the times that we had originally. the substantial completion date originally given to us was february 5th, 2021. the final completion was supposed to be march 18th, 2021. what we have right now is completion of august 19th and a final completion of september twenty-nineth. so we have six months or so delayed so far. now, every project has some delays because different things happen. this one in particular, the point of connection. the point where the grid connects to the fire station gives sufficient load to power the station and this station has not just, you know, we're charging the boats too and a lot of electrical issues that we have there. we get notified by d.p.w. last year in july that there was an issue with this. this project started in 2017 and there was a building --

sorry, electrical engineer assigned to this project. basically, we gave this project to a company. came through and then the actual building on top and then moved here to the station. so this part of the process was done through that. at one point, the point of connection never connected and it was never addressed that it was not going to be enough at the point that was identified in the beginning of the process to begin at the station. what we have now is a different location that we identified. they're digging in the ground now to get that connection going and get enough power to the station. so it's frustrating to us because we should have been there already and we understand that. basically because d.p.w. pu.c. and this contractor. we're trying to figure out where the ball was dropped but

it was dropped and six months now it's going to be delayed on this project. and it's unfortunate. >> president: let me ask you this. it is unfortunate, is it costing the department any money because we've got a six-month delay that i don't think it appears was caused by anything the department did do or didn't do? >> it is costing us money. what i would say is if it had been addressed in the beginning of the project, there would still be some cost to it. >> president: of course. >> so we have to figure out how much the cost would have been how to address it in the beginning and to properly compared to what it's costing us to do an extension. it could have been that same connection that we have fund now and we're doing now. but there is additional studies, management from d.p.w. that's going to cost us. every time the project is delayed there's management costs. what it does for us.

some of the projects that we are in desperate needs for now is not addressed here. that's our concern as well too. >> president: so is what you're saying is that the fire department is bearing the cost of i will not use it in a legal sense, but a negligent design or a design that did not foresee that this station was going to need the power it was going to need where it was going to need it and that therefore it can't be hooked up as was initially designed. is that a correct statement? >> there was definitely a miss. i would say one thing is that the contractor is not getting paid as this project is not in the completion. because they have a penalty for no payment once the date has passed. they're fighting amongst themselves whose fault and

somebody missed the point of connection, the sign from the electrical engineer point of view. >> president: all right. and, just so i'm, you know, still learning this stuff, is the department of public works the project manager? >> that is correct. we have assigned a team that assists us with the project management of any project we do. >> president: and, are you obligated to use a project manager from the department of public works? >> according to the charter we are. there might be exceptions to legal means that can be excluded, but most of the cases, we are.

>> yes. they have rates. >> president: and then does d.p.w. pay the liquidated damages for the towardiness and failing to miss the completion date by six months? [p

and management fees and all these -- these fees. and they're -- they're messing

up. i mean, if i were to point a finger, i mean, if somebody didn't catch this. and that's what i'm trying to say. they can all point fingers at each other, but this is just eating into the bond money that should be dedicated to station 16. or replumbing the station commission cleaveland brought up, or whatever we need to do. you know, the bond money isn't going to be there forever. and to the extent we're eating through it because of negligent delay, this is not a service to the taxpayers. and it just obviously rattles me a bit. if i'm wrong, please correct me. and i speak -- sorry, commissioner rodriguez, i do see your hand. let me get that out, though. >> so real quick, what you said is true.

you know, it goes wages in the bay area, they're getting paid in the bay area. so it's going to be a lot higher than say bakersfield or whatever. the other part about it and we talked some about this. of how, you know, the fire department really should be able to have their own staff that works on their building, because 50 buildings is a lot of buildings. but i was talking to the head of another union in san francisco today and i mentioned to him what the cost that d.p.w. is charging per member. so, let's say i make 160 -- or $190,000 a year, right? that's going to include my wages and my health and welfare and my, you know, benefits. so, when the cost -- say, $190

thousand, you would think, at least i did, the work is not being done privately. it's public work. it's for the city. then why are they making so much money? i think they quoted maybe close to $400,000 a year per worker. and to me, that's really bad. i think when you work with people, you have to kind of -- not expose them for what they are in public, because you're going to ruin a working relationship forever, but i really think even the labor business managers of some of the unions here in the city i talked to regarding this, said, yeah, this problem has been going on

forever and the unions have complained, because sheet metal, plumbing, carpenters, their union members work for the city under city contracts. so the unions know what their members make. and they know what d.p.w. would have to pay those members. it's atrocious that they would almost double the -- the wages of the works for a department that is in the city. >> well, i mean, i really agree with you, commissioner rodriguez. and i just happened to look up because we have had plumbing problems. we all know we've had plumbing problems. some of it is age. some of it is maybe things that just occur in life at the station. but the prevailing wage for a union plumber in san francisco

is $121.05 an hour. if you multiply that -- which mr. corso would do much quicker than i can -- but if i do it, say they work 40 hours a week, not counting overtime or double time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. they never go on vacation. you're looking at $258,000 per year. not $400,000 a year. i want to be clear here we're sucking up bond money, which is a detriment to the citizenry, or sucking up department money which is a detriment to the

i believe it was close to $400,000 for station 16. and we were told that, no, d.p.w. would -- that money, because they spent it on management fees. >> yes. i remember that conversation well. and, so, i do share the frustration on the part of the chief and her command staff, as well as my fellow commissioners. we just need to figure out how to correct this, because this is unfair and unjust. that's all i have to say.

>> thank you. >> commissioner cleaveland: president, i am -- i think it's very ironic, quite frankly, that the department of public works was put in charge of managing all the construction projects and the maintenance projects in the city so there wouldn't be any corruption. getting their buddies to do the plumbing jobs at the fire stations that need it. and here we are with the public works department. so it's ironic their management of our processes is costing us such a huge markup, quite frankly. and if those same dollars were given directly to the fire department to manage our own maintenance, i bet you we could get a lot more value out of every dollar from those bonds,

as well as from our general fund every year. so that's my only comment. it's very ironic. and i would like to see us as a commission look into what it would take to make those changes. i would like to see the language that says we have to use public works to manage all of the construction projects. i'd like to see the language. and perhaps pass a resolution urging changes in that. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner cleaveland. i agree with you 100%. that i think that as leaders, that's what our job is. and this is just appalling to me. just appalling. so, further comments?

maureen, i can't -- i'm so busy being appalled, i can't remember if we did public comment or not. >> we did call for public comment. >> president feinstein: all right, thank you very much. i'm going to then move along. and thank you, chief o'con, er, for your patience. i'm sorry, forgive me. >> we are all set to begin? >> we are all set and you have the ball. >> all right, let's see if we can do this. all right, good evening, president, vice president, commissioners, chief, i'm assistant deputy chief tom o'connor and i'm honored to give this presentation. i'm going to start in 1906, but

don't panic, i'll get to 2021 very quickly. so the 1906 earthquake put to rest the debate over the construction of the emergency fire-fighting water system. originally pleaded for by the chief sullivan, who ironically enough was to die during the earthquake and never see his system be built. but he advocated for a dedicated emergency firefighter water system for years and years and years. and that's a loss of over 28 builds, 300 san franciscans, the chief saw it finally become realized. in 1908, san francisco approved a bond for -- very briefly, you

have the core facilities. you have the reservoir holding 10.5 million gallons. the jones street tank. station 1, here at headquarters, down in the basement, pump station 2, we foot of the van ness, which can pump 10,000 gallons per minute. we have 135 miles of pipe. 1600 high pressure hydrants. 229 cisterns. and five manifolds for our fire boat. so, the original a.w.s.s. or auxiliary water supply system, you'll hear interchangeable terms. a.w.s.s. and there is also e.f.w.s., the emergency

fire-fighting water system. which is a all of them together. it was transferred to the puc and they conducted an initial assessment and found that only 40% of san francisco had the reliable enough water supply to fight fire generated after a 7.8 earthquake. if you could see on the map, i'm not sure if it's big enough. but the light blue areas in the western and southern neighborhoods, they had the lowest scores, meaning they're not served by the a.w.s.s. system out there and they serve coverage in these neighborhoods. this is when bonds used to be issued to improve and strengthen our system. there is also research demonstrating the vulnerabilities of urban areas to fire following earthquake.

the greatest issue is a failure of water supply systems in post earthquake suppression activities. with every earthquake, you have x number of ignitions, whether it's chemical, gas, or electrical. and you're going to y number of water main breaks. it's this intersection of x and y where you have the greatest problems post earthquake. and certain researchers, dr. hawthorne, have noted that planning emergencies together have been incomplete. in 2011 study, he called for a greater liaison between fire departments and water departments. so we kind of looked back at this paper in 2011, the birth of the puc and the liaison position

where water departments and fire departments are viewed as coequal in the fire-fighting activity, because the best fire-fighting is going to worthless without water at hand. the duties and responsibilities of the liaison is to oversee and facilitate all efforts related to the puc management. the water supply system. to coordinate all puc in expansion of the a.w.s.s. system. to manage the portable water supply. lead strategic planning efforts. and representing the department at meetings and community events. now the shared goal of the puc and the fire department obviously is to improve and expand our water supply system. so in 2010, added additional $54

million to the efforts ecertificate. we have 6 pipeline an tunnel projects completed. seismic upgrades that are almost completed at pump station 2. it's capable to feed lake into a future a.w.s.s. system. and we have university mound reservoir connection to the a.w.s.s. system. now, in 2018 and 2019, there was a grand jury report entitled act now before it's too late, expand our high pressure emergency fire-fighting water system. they found despite the improvements of 2010 and 2014,

there were still very large swaths of san francisco that were without adequate water supply in the event of a disaster or earthquake. in the civil grand jury made the following recommendations. they want to address water systems throughout san francisco. as interim measure, they called for purchasing 20 water supply vehicles. they wanted the city to conduct research on the west side of san francisco. they want us to present a more detailed analysis of the emergency fire-fighting water system needs, so a water demand analysis done on a block by block basis. originally, there were reports done in 2014 and 2018 that looked at the city through fire response areas. or they followed the first alarm areas of firehouses. and they did analysis of water demand after an earthquake for every first alarm area, but the grand jury wanted that broken

down for a more granular look at how much water we do need in event of a disaster. they called for a full plan to be presented to the board of supervisors for the emergency fire-fighting water system by december 31st of this year. and they refugee -- requested that the budget and legislative analyst review. eser 2020 was a response to the civil grand jury. the board of supervisors put the bond on the ballot. and the bond passed overwhelmingly with $623.5 million in funding. and the specific projects for this bond were west side, potable emergency fire-fighting system, a manifold and as i stated early, a salt water pump

station analysis with the feasibility of building a pump station on the west side of san francisco. the biggest component of the bond obviously is the west side -- madame president -- the potable emergency fire-fighting water system. this is a hybrid solution to the original solution. it was designed to meet the robust standards that the fire department had. but it's going to utilize the same or better earthquake resistant pipes. on the right, it's earthquake resistant pipe. it's a flexible iron pipe used in japan for many years and its withstood earthquakes of 8.0 on the richter scale. we're going to build a better, faster stronger in the richmond

and sunset districts. and the potable emergency fire-fighting water system has two main benefits. number one, it's going to give us that high pressure water supply we need. but it's also going to supply an additional source of drinking water after a disaster. so, the water main breakage that i was talking about earlier post earthquake, they're going to leave large portions of san francisco without water, but with this new pipeline in the neighborhoods, this will be a secondary source of water to help during the recovery and rebuilding phase after an earthquake. as you can see in the diagram, this is from the budget and legislative analyst report. the alignment for the west side is going to run from lake merced pump station up to the yellow piping into the red zone, into the sunset district, up through the park and then into the

richmond. and it will actually stop up around this region of the richmond as phase one. and that's phase 2 will bring it back in the loop past sunset and back to lake merced. so there are two phases for this new rollout. but the first phase is funded by the eser 2020 bond. this also has four connections to water sources at two locations. we have lake merced pump station which generates 30 million gallons per minute. and then the hetch hetchy. and lake merced, we can pull water out of the lake that holds 1.2 to 2 billion gallons. and we have a feed from sunset reservoir with a feed from north basin and the hetch hetchy regional water supply. during the up coming projects with the eser 2020 bond, we have

the completion of the study that has to be presented to the board of supervisors by june 30th of this year. we have the completion of the neighborhood detailed analysis, again by june 30th of this year. we have to develop a comprehensive city-wide plan by december 31 of this year. and that will analyze whether the board of supervisors want to present another separate eser bond just solely for the a.w.s.s. system as well as securing additional post tenders to bridge the gap until we get the full up and running. i included a map from one of the draft. this broke san francisco down into five regions for the salt water pump station study. we have the southern dunes. you have the rocky area south to china beach. then you have the rocky north.

then the north bay front from port point to pier 23. and then the east bay front. and each of these areas present, you know, geological and engineering challenges to set up another salt water pump station. but the most challenging aspect of that study is the intersection of all these areas run into so many different regulatory bodies, that it could take years and years to get the permitting necessary to build them. and i can give you a brief run down on some of them. there is the california coastal condition, bay conservation development commission, california land commission, regional water control board, fisheries and i could go on down the list. it's a confluence of so many regulatory bodies, i think that will be our greatest challenge with the salt water pump

station. nothing insurmountable, but it's down the road quite a bit because of the challenges. we have all the reports due in june and december this year. we took it on ourselves to begin the drills. we've had an exercise at pump station 1 here, with the puc and the sfd performed together. we did a demonstration of district 11 for supervisor safai. we did another host demonstration this saturday which was attended by wheelchair nicholson, and chief finkelstein. tomorrow morning at 9:00, we have a tabletop exercise with the puc simulating an earthquake and working on our disaster protocols. and we're working on setting up security demonstration city-wide for awful the supervisors to show our strengths and

weaknesses we have in different districts. we can show them the strengths in district 1 and 3. and the lack of resources in 11, 10, 4, 7. we really want to have the decision-makers be comfortable with what we're presenting and what we need moving forward. i've been lucky in this position that i'm working with a lot of agencies that are planning so far ahead. we're looking at eser -- a.w.s.s. in 2040, 2050. and trying to map out the growth of san francisco and where we need to build this system so we don't get into another situation like pre-1906 where we're saying we need to build it out. we're building it out prior to the disaster that will be coming our way. so that in a nutshell is the roles and responsibilities and duties of the puc liaison. and i can answer any and all questions you may have.

maureen, do i take it away? >> there is nobody on the public comment link? >> president feinstein: thank you, madame secretary. public comment is therefore closed. and as soon as -- i can see everybody again. questions or comments from the commissioners? commissioner cleaveland? >> commissioner cleaveland: madame president, and thank you chief o'connor. great report. great update. we have needed this for some time. and i had a quick question. and that is do you think we'll be able to have that comprehensive city-wide plan done by december 31st of this year? >> absolutely. we're already working on estimates for the distance between hydrants right now and pipe overlays in the richmond and the hunter point area. and trying to give a robust presentation to supervisors to show what we need and need to do. i'm confident it will be done.

it's in the early initial draft stages, but i think by december 31st it shouldn't be a problem at all. >> commissioner cleaveland: once we have the report, we can go to city hall and say we need a special eser bond just for the auxiliary water system upgrade, correct? >> exactly. exactly, commissioner. >> commissioner cleaveland: thank you. thank you, madame president. >> president feinstein: thank you. any further comments from any commissioners? commissioner nakajo. >> commissioner nakajo: thank you very much, madame president. thank you. that was a comprehensive report totally. i wanted to ask basic questions and before i ask my two questions, one of them i think you delivered it in the sense of how this would be financed. and i heard commissioner

cleaveland talk about the eser bond. one of my questions was a projection of what it's going to cost in terms of expense to produce this overall. i think you answered my question as to when you think this would be completed. i'm talking about the complete system. and i'm not sure my notes look like 2050. can you address both of them? but first, can you address, if you think you need to, i didn't hear -- unless i missed it -- the description of clean water versus salt water. and how that plays between the truck systems and pumping systems. i asked that because i think part of the report was the information on how much it would cost to do a pump station that used salt water. so i just wanted to be able to

get clarity, is the system set up to use two levels of water resource? clean as well as salt? and i'll stop there, chief. >> sure, commissioner. so our current system, the a.w.s.s. is cleared to use both fresh and salt. the salt is used to as a last ditch attempt if the tanks are drained. we can pump into the system through 1 or 2. and introduce salt water to the system. that's the backup to the backup. when we look at the new potable in the richmond and sunset district. it's a dual use system, it's for fire-fighting needs and a secondary source of drinking water. you would only introduce water from lake merced under an emergency order if this was the

conservation of unimaginable proportions. but to have the ability to introduce it in the system, you have to flush it out again, issue a boil water order. then work on the salt water pump station, but in the interim, there is the capability to introduce lake merced into the system for the richmond and sunset districts. i can't a fire big enough we couldn't put it out with lake merced, but we do have that capability. >> commissioner nakajo: i think that answers my question, because part of this was clearing up for me that there was information presented to me that said that clean water through the system is a good system compared to if we needed

to use salt water, there is a system. but there was some discussion that our pipes -- our hoses would be compromised once we used salt water. and i didn't know if that was compatible with our system. and if we did use it, i heard you say, we have to flush our equipment. and to me, that takes time. unless there is a system that takes in salt, flushing it out and gets it into clean. chief, is that anything you else you want to share with me on that -- or us? >> i hear you, commissioner. it would take time, but this is backup to the backup. we really had a bigger ahead of us. it's to be prepared for the worst of the worst.

in 1989, it was the backup to the backup, to the backup. the fire boat with the hose tender. so we want plays in our playbook available. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. one more question, chief. you talked about the eser bond financing this. is that correct? and then what kind of dollar figure are we talking about with this eser bond? i'm just curious in terms of that. and did you confirm that this might be complete by 2050? that sounds way out there. >> we're putting together a variety of options for the board of supervisors, what we hope to look like in 2030 and 2040, between the bond measures being put out now. once the final design is conceptualized, then it's costed out. then we say, here's the cadillac, the buick and the

mitsubishi model. which one will the voters go for? part of the demonstration is to have the supervisors be familiar with our disaster preparedness and what the costs will be. generally speaking, the reception has been fantastic so far because it's nice to talk to the decision-makers in a casual atmosphere and let them see the equipment we have. let them meet the members, the chief and the command staff. and yourself, commissioner, it was great you came out. it shows the importance of disaster preparedness and to impress upon them what we need to do going forward. >> commissioner nakajo: one last piece. at one point i served in the commission and that grand jury finding in terms of the reference that you made, it was there that i served. this has been a long subject matter as your presentation indicated. that grand jury, i'll use the

term kind of kicked me in the behind to kind of accelerate. and being a person in san francisco that experienced -- one of the questions was where were you? because it was a lifetime experience with that. for myself speaking. but i couldn't imagine if -- went up and there wasn't a system that we could deal with in terms of basically putting it out. thank you very much, chief, i appreciate your information. madame president, thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner nakajo. chief nicholson? >> chief o'connor, do you know how many days of fire-fighting for these water sources would run out? do we have any sort of estimates on that? i feel like there was some talk of it, but it has escaped my

brain. >> there is a variety of modelling going on with the water demand study. so, what it's contingent upon, and thinks the work of dr. hawthorne, he estimates it will be 90-100 ignitions. you the of those 90-100, 20 can be put out by citizens. this is where i feel mucky. you have the ignition and then the discovery by the citizen and then there is the reporting phase. which is the third part of the equation. the reporting phase is the most difficult, because communications will be down. phone lines will be jammed. so getting the fire reported and as we all know fire grows exponentially, that's the biggest sort of unknown variable as to how big the fires will grow. then there is response. and then there is suppression. so some of the fires will be

held to content. some will be a fifth alarm. so it's all -- it's all -- there are estimates from 24 to 72 hours and the other unknown variable of how many water main breaks there may be and how many failures of the a.w.s.s., the old system. so there will be a range of answers on the water demand needs before that comes out and we're still kind of working the variables on that. we're can looking at a host of issues for the report and the draft, and we don't know as to how many gallons of water yet. we have rough estimate. and we don't know how many hours to put the fire out. i guess long winded way of saying i'm not sure, but it will take a lot of time and a lot of water. >> thank you, perfectly clear. [laughter]

>> other questions? from any other commissioners? commissioner covington? >> i don't have a question so much as a comment. and that is when we found out that the civil grand jury was going to be looking into what they considered deficiencies, we really did not know what that meant. and when the report came out, it was tremendously informative. and it really help bolster the department's assertions that there are certain things that need to be done and money has to be put behind those things. so, the grand jury report, the civil grand jury report, was extremely helpful to us. in terms of getting the focus

where it should be, which is what do we do next to prepare? so, i thank the grand jury because they're like us, they're citizen volunteers. they're not paid for doing this research. and talking to people. and formulating some ideas. so, it really is good. and our headquarters of the pump station as well. which is also very nice to know that headquarters has a very, very good chance of surviving. whatever comes. all right, thank you. >> thank you. further questions? i see none. thank you. chief o'connor, very, very

informative and you're right, i'm still learning the acronyms. and i'm getting better. but i really appreciate it. thank you very much. and i know the other commissioners do as well. anybody else? okay. madame secretary? >> no public comment. >> president feinstein: all right. public comment is closed. thank you. >> item 5, commission report. report on commission activities since last meeting of april 14, 2021. >> we know commissioner nakajo has been very, very busy. he's been all over the place. anything you'd like to add, commissioner nakajo?

>> commissioner nakajo: ask questions about how things are as they roll out. i'm cautious to -- [indiscernible] -- my -- [indiscernible] [indiscernible] -- be there in an official capacity was great. >> president feinstein: i think there is something the matter with your audio. we're only getting every other word. is anybody else having trouble hearing? >> yes. i thought it was just me. >> i'll conclude. that's all i need to say. >> oh. commissioner cleaveland. >> commissioner cleaveland: i have the pleasure of having a meeting with the leaders of the guardians of the city this past month.

a couple of weeks ago actually. with james lee, paul berry and dave eberle. and they -- i think we need to invite them to come and be -- make a presentation to our commission at some future date. they've been working on a strategic plan and they should have that finished shortly. i did discuss the meeting i had with them, with the chief following that. and passed on the suggestions that they would to see a representative. it's been one of those things, they haven't had a representative from the fire department on the gotc board, which is the non-profit organization that represents the fire department, the police department and the sheriff's department in terms of their historical vehicles and apparatuses and maintains really the history of our department and the other two departments as well. both of those departments, other

departments, have representatives who regularly attend and participate and speak on behalf of their departments as these g.o.t.c. meetings. and we desperately need to have representation from the fire department on the g.o.t.c. board. so i would like to see that happen. and hopefully that can happen as soon as possible through the appropriate channels. there is also a need for outreach to the members. the 1800 or so members of the fire department, how many of our members of the fire department even know what g.o.t.c. stands for. or do they know much about the history of the fire department? do they know much about the effort to preserve and restore the historic vehicles and apparatuses that we have -- that we still have? and then lastly, they requested that the monies from the willman

fund, that is under our direction as the commission, that they requested that the balance of the willman fund be transferred to the g.o.t.c. so that's something further for us as a commission to consider at some future date. that's all i have to report. thank you, madame president. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner cleaveland. any further comments? reports? all right. madame secretary. >> there is nobody on the public comment line. >> president feinstein: public comment shall be closed. >> item 6. agenda for next and future fire commission meetings. discussion regarding agenda for next and future fire commission meetings.

>> president feinstein: requests? commissioners? yes, commissioner cleaveland? >> commissioner cleaveland: i would like this reiterate my interest in having the g.o.t.c. put on a future agenda. not necessarily next week or even next month. but when they are ready, i'd like to have them on the agenda to present more than just where they are today, but where they've come are from and a -- from and a little history of the organization so that the general membership and the fire department can learn the importance of g.o.t.c. and learn a little bit about the history and the general public would have an opportunity to learn a little bit about how they can become involved in helping to preserve our fire department's history. so, that's it. >> president feinstein: anybody else?

>> vice president rodriguez: this is for chief o'connor. thank you for your report. i've been wondering where this was going to go eventually. obviously, there is such a big need for this. when you talked about a salt water, would that be like a duplicate of what you have at the end of van ness street? >> no, that was built in a different time and era where permitting wasn't as important. so open water intake like that is subject to a lot more scrutiny now. so i don't think it would be along the same vein, but something similar to that. it all depends on where you put it. the open water one can be cheaper because you can get closer to the pipeline, but there are more regulatory agencies and permitting fees are

higher. it's a slant well, where you dig down under the coast and into the sandy layer of the ocean so there is less wildlife restrictions. but you have a longer pipe are-run to get out there. they all present challenges, but no, we don't build one similar to the two-pump stations we have now, because they're grandfathered in from the early 1900s where there were less agencies looking over it. >> thank you. >> president feinstein: yes, commission covington? >> i wonder, madame secretary, do you have a list of topics that have been presented previously? >> well, i have suggestions. i have nothing set in stone for the next meeting or the future. but we have cost recovery for surf, cliff and