>> president katherine feinstein: this is the fire commission meeting of september 28, 2022. at 5:00. the mayor's emergency proclamation. side understandable that some members may participate the meeting virtually and public

members may make public comment online and you may also watch at sfgovtv.org to participate in public comment, please dial to join the meeting, use the following link for attendees: https://ccsf.webex.com/ccsf/ onstage/g.php?mtid=e68285d5b365a 8db3ee7a236fc48963c9 watch live at www.sfgovtv.org participating during public comment: by phone public comment call in number is: 1-415-655-0001 access code: 2483 487 9705 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 a 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: 1. raise hand” by pressing * 3 and you will be queued. 2. callers will hear silence when waiting for your turn to speak. operator will unmute you. 3. when prompted, callers will

have the standard three minutes to provide comment unless the president of the commission decides to reduce the time depending on the number of callers: • ensure you are in a quiet location. • speak clearly. • turn off any tvs or radios around you. i would also like to announce that our next meeting october 12th, will be held in the headquarters on the first floor. >> item one. role call. >> >> president katherine feinstein: present. >>vice-president stephen nakajo: present. >> commissioner marcy fraser: present. commissioner morgan has been excused from the meeting. >> >> chief jeanine nicholson: present. >> item 2 item will be read by

president feinstein. >> thank you. >> 2. ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement the san francisco fire commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples.

>> thank you very much. >> >>clerk: item 3. >> 3. resolution 2022-13 [discussion and possible action] adoption of resolution setting forth findings to allow teleconferenced meetings under california government code section 54953(e). is there any public comment on this matter? >> there is no public comment on the line. >> is there any discussion by any of our commissioners? all right. may i have a motion, please? >> second. >> thank you. >> [roll call] >> the motion is unanimous. >> item 4. >> 4. resolution 2022-14 [discussion and possible action] resolution adopting that the h-9 community paramedic position of the san francisco fire department be created

>> all right. any public comment? >> there is no public comment on the line. >> all right. any questions or comments from my colleagues? >> yes, vice-president nakajo? >> >>vice-president stephen nakajo: there are introductions that the chief of the department wants to make on this resolution 2022-14 at this time. >> >> president katherine feinstein: chief, your call. >> >> chief jeanine nicholson: i will have the deputy speak on this as it falls under his purview. >> all right. good evening,

chief. >> it enables people to stay current in both positions, right? they can still be practiced and ready in emergency response and also practice in community medicine. we are very happy with the position and we hope you pass this resolution. >> all right. thank you.

>> i'm sorry, madam secretary, is there any public comment? >> there is no public comment. >> at this time the public comment is closed. at this time, i will ask that we pass the resolution. >> second. >> [roll call] >> the motion is unanimous. >> 5. approval of the minutes [discussion and possible action] discussion and possible action to approve meeting minutes. • minutes from regular meeting on august 24, 2022. >> president katherine feinstein: any public comment on the minutes? there is no public comment. >> any comment from my fellow commissioners. >> madam president, i would like to move this item to adopt. >> second. >> i vote to adopt.

>> the motion is unanimous. >> 6 general public comment members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction that 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. commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with a speaker. the lack of a response by the commissioners or department personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during public comment. there is nobody on the public comment line. >> all right. i see no one present that wishes to make public comment. public comment will be closed on this matter. >> >>clerk: 7. chief of department's report [discussion] report from chief of department, jeanine nicholson report on current issues, activities, and events within the department since the fire commission meeting on august 24, 2022, including budget, academies, special events, communications,

and outreach to other government agencies and the public. report from operations, deputy chief robert postel report on overall field operations, including greater alarm fires, bureau of fire prevention & investigation, training within the department., and airport division. report from administration, deputy chief tom o'connor report on the administrative divisions, fleet and facility status and updates, finance, support services, and homeland security. report from ems and community paramedicine, deputy chief sandra tong report on the ems and community paramedicine divisions >> >> chief, good evening. >> good evening and salutations.

i am chief jeanine nicholson. although it has gotten better, covid is still around and we have two team members positive that have been out less than 30 days and we have six out due to covid. it has dropped a bit but is still an issue. after being chosen by the review panel, i am happy to announce the position of the chief -- will fill chief tong shoes and

i'm sure he will do a great job. congratulations to you, young ladd. i have enjoyed my 25th candidate and each candidate goes through a panel of members and they recommend people to my office for interviews. the offer should go out for the 21st academy september 30th. >> there was a great fundraiser

that went to support the black firefighters association youth academy. on september 11th, we did not celebrate, we commemorated the 21st anniversary of 911, 2001. i would like to thank the staff for helping with that. we were at the public library and it was a somber but beautiful little ceremony. >> i have attended city hall and attended a meeting about the netherlands and she talked about

making it equal to everyone. you may remember the netherlands was the first country to make legal marriage in 2001. the city is opening up and i met in chinatown with some of my command staff with the san francisco police department. i also attended the autumn moon festival, sort of a thanksgiving of sorts in the chinese community. and it's really great to be out and about and seeing others out and about post covid, communities coming together. i met with los angeles fire chief recently to discuss many topics, but one of them being basically managerial risk

management. so sort of, her department had some of the same issues that this department has. so it's really helpful for me to engage with chiefs with other cities on how we can problem solve together. >> last week i met with the employees firefighter association and we talked about hiring and i look forward to working with them in the future on recruitment in the department. today meeting chief, including two resolutions allowing us to work with state and federal agencies to get equipment and apparatus for training purposes. and basically for our own use,

not necessarily even just training purposes. chief spoke in front of the budget and finance committee. supervisor ronen, supervisor chan, and supervisor safai, and he did a great job, and it passed out of committee to go to the full board, and i'm not sure when that will happen, but this will enable us to basically get surplus equipment for free. which is really great. finally i'm happy to report that it is also cd 4 presentation to this board and community. that will conclude my remarks. >> thank you, chief. >> do we have any public comment? >> there is nobody on the public

comment line. >> all right. nobody is present from the audience. public comment will be closed. >> chief postel, please join us. >> good evening, president feinstein, commissioners. this is my report for the month of august. we had 15 working fires. 21 water rescues, two cliff rescues. of those 15 working fires, three were greater alarms. first grade alarm was august 23, 1206 p.m. this is at mcallister and visidero. this was an old

church converted into living spaces and apartments. the fire was pretty well advanced upon arrival of the first crews. they had difficulty accessing where the fire was and the doors were boarded up. they had to breach some walls to get water on the fire. because of the advanced fire department arrival, that fire traveled through some pipe chases and eventually got into the attic spaces. because this was going on, the fire truck arrived at the scene and went to the roof and had to go back down because there was a rescue. that delayed them being able to conduct any roof operations which was also affected some of the complexity

of the incident. there was a lot of hidden spaces, boarded up doors. small rooms on the top floor with a five 1/2 foot ceiling with a laundry room in it and giant 8 x 8 foot void space. typical layout of the building didn't exist so we were forced to open the walls in the ceiling and a lot of manual labor to expose the fires. very laboring work for the crews. the chief was on the roof. the work done by the crews on the roof played a huge role and us being able to take this fire and contain it to that one corner of the building. it traveled vertically and did get to the attic space, but the fact that

it didn't run the hallway and didn't take the top of the building off, it was remarkable and they did an outstanding job, and i'm very proud of the work that day. >> august 31st, a second alarm fire, 1216 fitzgerald avenue in hunter's point area. it was a horder situation, there was fire and plus an rv burning. they had to battle their way into the building. we had to get crews in there. again, crews did an outstanding job. particularly station 17 who was aware of this building in

this situation, and they had preplanned to the extent possible how they were going to deal with this fire once they knew it was coming and they were prepared for it. i'm super proud of the work done there. it required a tremendous amount of coordination from the commander to manage lines and different approaches to gain access to the different areas of the fire. you couldn't just lead a hose lineup the stairs and down the hallway to the fire. you had to climb ladders to the back and the excess of storage. great job on that fire as well. then, later that day, august 31st, also, it was a third alarm at visidero. the chief thompson was at this fire. this fire also had challenges. it was wrapped with scaffolding

and which had netting and unable to access the building from the exterior. we had that challenge to begin with. the fire was well advanced upon our arrival on the top floor. this building had multiple stair wells. it had seven or nine separate stair wells of the building. -- you had to do a lot of recon to figure out how to deal with this fire. by the time they get to it, there were narrow stairs, and they got to the top of these stair wells and pushed to that top floor. directly adjacent to that building to the right of divisadero, we had fire get into the walls and the attic of the

shared wall between the two buildings. chief thomson was smart enough to get in there right away and minimize that threat. again, similar to the other third alarm, this fire had tremendous potential to really burn up the vast majority of the building. these crews, under the coordination under chief thomson's leadership were able to really limit the extent of the fire damage to the front half of the top floor only and just very minimal damage in that exposure building. again, the crews are doing an outstanding job with these incidents. i cannot say enough good things about them. that was our operational events for the month of august. the bureau of fire prevention investigation which you will hear more from chief tonight about the code later on. they conducted a total of 1780

inspections for august, issued 180 ordinance and the fire and safety coordination which is also under his coordination investigated 7 alarm fires and vehicle fires and 775 permits submitted and 684 permits were approved. they continued to work with the mta on the traffic calming and street design changes that are going on and trying to advocate for the fire safety of the public through that process. at the airport, assistant deputy chief d'arcy, as it happens, today was their annual full scale operational drill. i had a chance to go down and serve that drill. it's the first time i have been to one of these. it

was incredibly impressive to see all the different jurisdictions come together at the airport. you had city of san francisco, fire department people. you had the airport fire suppression people and san bruno and san mateo county and sfpd response. and the airport. you had almost 140 people that came from this plane and they had buses to transport all these patients and transported them to area hospitals to san mateo, east bay and transported them to the hospital as if it were really an

actual event. that was really impressive. nice to see them that well prepared. in addition to that, they responded to 509 calls for service for the month of august at the airport. they provided fire training to new members and existing members down at the airport. division of training under the assistant chief, the recruit class continues the training. at the end of august, they completed week six through 10 of the academy and have completed week 13 and final week of testing in the fire curriculum firefighter 1 type of stuff. that class is progressing well. the hybrid west academy will be completed and this is a class of 25 people that will graduate friday. training is now fully staff with

h 28 instructors and doing a lot of work to preparing for a lot of upcoming drills and a lot of things we are working on for next spring which will be well received by the people in the field. >> we'll be conducting our semi annual drill october 15th, and have tables set up october 9th and public education for recruitment. >> this concludes my presentation. >> is there anyone in the public wishing to make public comment? there is nobody in the audience

wishing to make public comment. public comment is now closed. >> thank you very much. >> >> i greatly appreciate when you gave your report how descriptive your report is. these greater alarm fires out of the two were near my neighborhood and again, i can hear what i call the longevity of the sirens and in terms of heavy work and i can see the smoke on the other. i want to acknowledge all the members who fought that fire as well as the command in leadership. chief thomson as well. i want to acknowledge that

descripter report and i know i am with the fire department but when it comes to mutual cooperation or mutual jurisdiction, it's pretty amazing as you describe how many entities are involved with the corporation. when you said they took the patients out of the airport to the hospital, you mean they took that drill all the way to the hospital? >> normally they simulate that but the reaction, they transported them to the hospital as if they were actual patients.

>> off that fire that occurred in the western edition, we have scheduled october 26th, wednesday, that there is a recognition for rosa parks and the family members and the community will be here as well. i want to thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> any comments? >> thank you, president feinstein. i have a couple comments. >> as a new fire commissioner, i want to say that i was at those three alarm fires.

i want to thank chief for coming to speak with me after it was mostly knocked down. i didn't realize that was you chief on the roof. they were incredible fires and it was something to see. i was really impressed. just humbled by your work, all of you. thank you. i loved your report, just like my colleague said. it was perfectly delivered and really full of great detail. i thank you for that. that's enough from me, thank you. >> thank you. >> chief postel? >> all right. chief o'connor, it's your turn. >> good evening president feinstein, commissioners, i'm chief o'connor. i'm here to

report from the administration. >> we had our kickoff for fleet week and for the marine and coast guard and to work with first responders from san francisco. at maclaren park. and there was going to be a helicopter, but unfortunately it was canceled but still a great turn the for those involved. we had active shooter training. and we will have fleet week. under our nert team response, we had

training at maclaren park. in person nert classes are finally back. i see patty giving a class in the streets in soma. we had another health and safety wellness coffee with bhu on the 28th on 7th street. we are looking to branch out our chaplain program and we are trying to get other spiritual leaders involved during times of crisis. we are also looking to form a partnership with the credit union, the local 798 union and the cancer foundation to purchase gear bags for our members. we want to get big duffle bags so they are not

transporting dirty equipment in vehicles. we are trying to minimize everyone's exposure. we also purchased 1700 covid test, getting ready for the winter and we are looking for greater coordination with our physicians office. so we are having weekly meetings and stephanie and our counselors and trying to get more data on the number of data we are seeing. we are having a greater presentation for the board of supervisors and the mayor's office going forward with our next budget cycle to justify the expansion of that unit. we also have chief alba working on that post training protocol. we are trying to get a more accurate assessment of their health and nutritional needs and hydration labels when they are out fighting fires for weeks at a time. from the office of employee health, labeled as the

physicians office. we had eight promotional exams, we had 23 probation exams, we had a small surge of covid that abated in august and now we have one per day. we had a vaccine clinic idea at headquarters and we had an occupational training with medicine. and trying to present to the researchers the different elements that they are facing in a toxic environment and decontaminating members and focus on the overall health after the fire. we had 27 members that randomly testing and all were negative. we had alcohol test and they

were all negative and we had training. his associates lieutenant to cover when he is off duty to do the investigative services and testing and training. under support services with chief ramon serano. we are at 95% completion and things are really moving forward with our training facility. we picked the project manager september 7th and we should have notice receipt going forward in october. we are still doing background check on the program manager. i can't announce his or her name yet. very client oriented, every stage of the process, bringing all the stakeholders together to be sure

what we were doing going forward. we were really excited about it. >> we are going to be laying out the property and working with process. >> and inspector was there and bruce jenkins and as well as joaquin torres, our command staff and filled hundreds of school bags for the academy. these are provided by the sparkle foundation. they issued 4,000 bags for the bay area and we distributed them in august. we had the education and

community outreach group. harvest moon festival. we see them reaching out to the community. and we had the police, fire sheriff memorial mass at the cathedral. you can see the command staff and the mayor and the archbishop. i had a video but it won't play. i apologize for that. that was my report for the month of august. >> thank you, chief o'connor. do we have any public comment? >> there is nobody in our public comment line. >> i don't see any hands in the audience. public comment will be closed. does anyone have questions for chief o'connor? >> thank you, chief. great to hear your report. i have two

questions, one is for the chaplain program. are you looking for someone in committee or looking for an actual chaplain to provide service to members? >> both. we are looking across broader nominations. >> you said you were looking for bags, how many? or just on going? >> we are trying to expand to all of our firefighters to get their gear but everyone involved and trying to get from the different agencies for the supplies going forward. >> okay, so a hundred? >> 1700. >> okay, thank you very much. >> >> thank you very much. one more question. to follow up of commissioner fraser. these bags are a great

idea. i'm assuming they are not budgeted and you are looking for funding outside of the department. to determine that, do you have any idea on how you would raise that individual fund on these 1700 bags. is there a campaign or sponsor out there? >> again, it should be a process between the cancer foundation, credit union and the fire local 98. this has been a focus of the cancer foundation of the decontamination of our process. >> the chaplain of the question or the concept, you are talking about that both in terms of spiritually serving one our department or part of the wellness concept of another entity of expanded resources.

>> we consider it as part of our overall wellness program, spiritual and wellness to have spiritual leadership to help our members. >> like the buddhist members of our community as well? >> correct. >> thank you very much for that. >> thank you, vice-president, and thank you chief o'connor. at this time, making debut in he new role, we would like to welcome deputy chief tong who has been phenomenal and strong in terms of leading ems through

a movement of building through skirt and hsoc and everything else. i would like to congratulate you on becoming cd 4 and welcome to your first presentation. >> thank you very much. president feinstein, vice-president nakajo, commissioners, and staff, thank you very much. thank you chief nicholson for this opportunity. this division i think really acknowledges the importance of ems in community para medicine in this department. i'm very honored to be able to have this position and hopefully moving forward going forward. thank you, chief postel for helping these months.

i know when he first started, he wasn't in this but now i'm here to do the reports. chief has been by my side for the last three years really doing all the things that president feinstein you have been talking about in terms of growing this division and being a huge support. he's there is original originator of ms 6 and i'm happy to have him in this position. >> welcome. >> >> i just wanted to, i will also preface in terms of this position and some of my basic goals, really simply is to

continue the work of ems and just really helping us to move forward to provide services to the community as well as really supporting our members who are doing this work. as you know the work of ems on ambulances is just crazy. it's been so difficult. they have been so busy and we really want to start looking out for their health and well-being more so. that's definitely one of the things i want to focus on. and also increasing the understand of community medicine in the department as well as outside the department. it's a new endeavor and something that there is a lot of eyes on it and we really want to make sure we represent the work that we are going to be doing and are doing to the best of our ability and continuing to tweak it and provide the best services to the community.

we want to integrate ems and medicine. i did want to start the presentation. >> so, in the front of your packet is a photo of one of our emt's. i'm hoping with every report i do i will highlight one of the photos that our members take. i want us to be able to for those to spread the word and help you see a little bit more that we see. >> for the ems division, we had and are in the third hybrid

academy. they will be graduating at the end of this week. we started with a class of 29, but a few of them dropped out or weren't able to complete the course. so we look like 25 people that will be graduating. we also during this time had two classes bump up emt's to paramedics. we graduated 14 of them and now they are added onto our group. we are working with another academy. probably a paramedic and an emt academy, level one and level two academies in february and march. we are thinking about the hybrid model and it doesn't really seem to serve our purposes in getting the training that they need. we are looking at changing that and maybe going back to separate

academies for emt's and paramedics. i'm happy to show you this picture. three new ambulances that we had delivered in august. these are a different model than the ones that we previously have purchased in the past even in dphd days. these are ambulances built on a truck chassis and hopefully more durable and more space in the front to be more comfortable. these three are the first of 14 that we'll be getting in the next 12-18 months. these are considered more or less stock ambulances. we have in the process right now an rfp that have gone out to bid for new vendors for a new ambulance contract. so going

forward we will have ambulances built to our specifications, but given our aging fleet, we needed to buy as many ambulances as we could off the shelf. we are very excited about that. >> we average about 340 calls per day. we are going to look at our data better to plan for new changes whether it's scheduling, the way we deploy our ambulances and how we do the work. we'll be looking at that with more data. i wanted to also let you know that we had an increase in our market share over the past year. we have three providers in san francisco that do ems ambulance work, the fire department, the

major player and king american and emr and we share that load with emr. in the past it has been a little bit of a struggle to get the numbers with the percentage of calls, but with the influx, 60 new feat -- f te's and doing a great job of managing the work load. we had a safe event of a surrender. a mother was able to deliver her child to the fire station and confidently able to hand over the baby and we took the baby to the hospital and the crews performed that service did a fantastic job. now onto community para

medicine. august was the first time that we were able to place a 5150 hold. last time the board of supervisors passed a resolution that allows paramedics to place 5150s. it took a while, this past month, we finally got that program operational. the first one happened in august and we expect more to happen this month. as we get the word out and to crews and ambulances, i suspect that number will rise. the other thing that happened this month is we are switching over to emd, emergency medical dispatching where the calls are now going specifically to our members with sort, street overdosing and street wellness

teams. before they were assigning them to incidents and now we are dispatching calls. this has just started. >> i just wanted to show you, we had a summer intern, a recommendation by dr. brook hall, a woman who volunteered with us and worked with the community medicine and paramedic program and through that she was able to identify the barriers and transition where individuals might leave care. you can see this whole chart. i tried to print it out and still couldn't read the words. >> if you wanted to see this, you will see how this interacted throughout their journey.

>> >> then just some highlights of the community paramedic division. moving to the emd i have spoken about, we have reduced a number of unable to locate people of incidents from 36% to 15% which is significant. the street teams also engaged over 11 hundred individuals which is definitely a lot higher, much higher than the 754 one thing i also wanted to point out to people is the means of having an engaged individual. when we come across somebody who has been identified as needing help or we come upon them or inquire as to whether they need help, the assessment and the discussions that happened with them are pretty detailed and that's a lot of the training that the paramedics do. we can't

always convince somebody even in our opinion they would be better served in other resources and other places. if they have a choice, if they are not disabled, if they don't meet that 5150 criteria, they can choose to stay. i think that is something that is important for everyone to understand. it's not quite as easy as identifying somebody who you believe needs some assistance. if they don't want it and they present in the way that they can maintain and operate in the community, then we do leave them there. and then though we have had 29% that have been transported from the scene to appropriate care. that's one out of four encounters which is also significant. so that is basically my report.

if there is any additional information you would like to see, please let me know and we'll try to incorporate some of that too. thank you. >> thank you, chief tong. questions, comments? >> public comment, sorry. >> there is nobody on the public comment line. >> all right. there is no public comment in the audience. so public comment will be closed. >> vice-president ? >> thank you very much, omaha # -- madam president. >> i have been taking notes and i tried to get the detail of this report.

i will get to it. my main issue, the words that come to my mind is how wonderful it is to be able to have this detailed report by the chief and your appointment and congratulations to your appointment in cd 4. because this detailed nature of it and again, i'm going to refer in this report, that generally this division paramedic as well as

>> if i didn't get this report, i wouldn't hear about the ability to have level one and two with courses and with the emt's and paramedics and how great it is for the department to have these kind of trainings sessions so that our members can have the opportunity in-house. that's a big deal. again, having been with some longevity within the department in terms of how it is. also it's great that with your emt's were out to bid and customize ambulances. i have been around for a while and it's been a long time that i have heard that and it's been achievable and something we wanted to get and it is a big deal to customize ambulances to

our uses, to our knowledge base. it's also impressive and we used to hear this a lot of the market share percentage. it took me a long time to try to understand that between the other ambulance services in our department. we used to look at that number. and to have that come back at 85% share of our market, is significant as well as the hiring of the members to be able to increase and be comprehensive. to me these are all big deals. first time i have heard about a baby being delivered in safe shelter. significant. does it hit the headlines, the chronicle, but it's significant. i like your format. realizing that it's your first time in your format. i like your format because it presents in

clarity to necessity with -- especially with ems and para medicine. there were reports, last one by ems captain mill wood and reminds me of what they are. it takes a while, but these teams, sort overdose team, wellness response team, tenderloin command center. i'm talking always about our department. but when the reports are dpw participates mta police department, san francisco, i don't know -- maybe i have heard it. so what is --

>> homeless outreach team. >> what is fest? >> >> it's an outreach team contracted by the department of health by the felton institute. similar to the hot team. >> okay, because for myself in terms of an i make remarks is to how responsive we are to the department and to have the intern present. this is an intern and i have worked with interns all my life. this is a prison. wow, what an intern with the data that we can use. everything this this report reinforces to my staff and colleagues in this

commission how much great work is going on out there. i can see now how it makes sense to talk about this area as well. so i can take a breath between reports. on the field i always think about reports and the first thing he does is he stays in the cabin and he gives you his report. it's a wonderful thing to be able to see something in implementational format and see it be operational. i wanted to thank you for this report and tell you how well it stood out

in terms of process and procedure. >> thank you. >> congratulations, chief tong. it's a wonderful thing and a great report. all around everything that my fellow commissioner has said, i agree with. it's a really good report. and oddly enough. i just came off ems 5, which was great and we had several encounters with two of the skirt teams, and i just want to mention that there were two people on the street that we were thinking of. we were able to help and deliver one of the resources in the community. the second person was one of those people who was extremely young and right on the edge of greatly disabled and his

sister was on the sidewalk pleading, pleasing with the pra medicine asking for help and then it was okay and it was a no go and we are not arresting people and we can't detain people and i want to acknowledge the difficulty for the staff on the street when they are in that moment and they just have to walk away. it's really hard, really really hard. the sister who was so upset with the paramedic who handled it beautifully i thought. because she's just at the edge of her rope too. so it's a very tough job. and i'm happy that you are going to be giving us these report every month. i will look forward to learning more about it. also congratulations on all the new class of 25 that you've added. i know it's needed. so thank you. >> thanks.

>> i actually have a few questions for you chief tong. they just were coming to me as i was listening to your colleagues make their presentations, and to me, community para medicine was a whole new concept. i had never heard anything about it. i had read an article a couple years ago about seattle, and some other places, but not in any great detail. and your reports, i will echo your comments, your reports has given us great detail on what is going on with para medicine and which unit is doing what and how.

they are sort of random questions i have and probably asking too much of one department, and i refer to the whole department when i bring this up, but when we heard the report from chief postel on the horder on fitzgerald. we know hoarding is a pretty severely case of mental illness. is there any cross over or anything that we can offer and i'm not suggesting the fire department can solve all the world's problems, but whoever this person was and i don't know if they were in the premises, not in the premises, i don't know anything about them, but is there any way there is overlap

for them to get services. i'm sure they lost their home which i believe i'm correct that they did. the red cross comes, but i'm just wondering whether there is a nexus that we should aim for. it may be too much. i'm just curious as to your thoughts and opinions on that? >> >> i probably have some initial thoughts that i'm not ready to speak about because i'm still trying to form it. we do often go into locations in people's residences where there is hoarding going on and sometimes it comes to the attention of the fire marshall and fire prevention as they try to address some of those situations especially when there is access issues, things like that. if it's just in somebody's personal home, whether or not there is a

caregiver or another person who is responsible for that and not just the individual but maybe a caregiver is not taking care of a family member and we can call adult protective services for some of those situations. i would refer to chief to speak about that. we do get calls to some of those locations if there is something that we can do from the community paramedic's point of view. would you like him to address that? >> would you like to do that chief? >> if the question is how could community para medicine help alleviate hoarding and maybe prevent fires from occurring, we have to be invited to the house first. if the person is a 911 utilizer, you are right, the person is hoarding and we can

try to connect them to mental health providers. we have done that quite a lot because especially if someone is renting, they often are evicted because of the hoarding. that is something that is we engage in and is very challenging and difficult. >> i understand. and it's just, it seems like we have a number of different divisions that are dealing with the same problem and kind of coming at it at different angles. to the extent that you are working on it, and hopefully

prevent like what happened as the fire on fitzgerald. thank you for that. >> my next question is a technical one and it may seem somewhat dumb, but the pictures of the new ambulances, they look much bigger than our current ambulances. is that just the picture? >> they are just a little bit bigger. the cab has more room and a little bit longer, but in terms of the box and the width is the basic same size that we use. it's the size of the chassis that sticks out a little bit more. >> what about the

maneuverablity? >> i have not driven one. >> i saw one on a slow street where a more permanent barrier had been erected, and i will tell you whoever was driving this truck and whoever was the tiller person did yoman's work getting the truck around this structure. i mean they were backing up and going forward and that truck was bending in directions i didn't know a truck could bend. it was really concerning to me. people were actually, i was in a regular car, and other people on regular cars, we were all trying to get out of the way. but you had to really get, it wasn't just a matter of the pulling to

the right. you had to give them free lanes to get past this barriers. i just want to make sure our ambulances are going to have the access, not be so big that they can't have the access. >> i'm going to continue to bring up these barriers until they are in compliance with what mta says they are supposed to be because there doesn't seem to be any enforcement going on in regard to illegal barriers. so that's why i was asking about the ambulance and went off on the truck. i have got to commend. i wish i had gotten a number of the truck because the folks in that truck, they got it through. i don't know if it got smashed at all. i don't think so. i

probably would have noticed that. it was a fire. and they just did an incredible job. as a know the ambulance drivers have to navigate the streets. >> we were making sure they would be comparable to what we have and provide more comfort and more maneuver ability and longevity. >> i'm sure the folks in your new promotion and the existing positions are going to appreciate that. thank you and welcome cd 4. >> thank you very much. >>

>> item 8. 8. amendments to the fire code [discussion and possible action] discussion and possible action to recommend that the board of supervisors approve a proposed ordinance enacting 2019 amendments to the san francisco fire code. consistent with prior fire code amendments, occurring on a 3-year cycle, as required by state law, the proposed ordinance would repeal the existing 2019 san francisco fire code and adopt the 2022 california fire code and 2021 international fire code, together with san francisco-specific amendments. - accompanying materials: o proposed ordinance o draft legislative digest o chart of findings supporting san francisco-specific amendments to california fire >> there is no public comment. >> >> public comment is closed.

>> >> great. >> we are going to start with a new san francisco fire code. we are going to start with how is a fire code developed and do we have to do it every three years. >> you can see in the picture there, we learn by mistake. that's how the fire code develops when an incident happens or something bad happens and how to not let it happen again. you have been providing documents to the board of supervisors which is a proposed ordinance, legislative digest which is a quick summary of it and then exhibit a, a standard findings of the amendment which we have to report to the california standards commission why we are changing the code. we start with first the 2019

codes that is developed from the 2018 code the california fire code and the san francisco fire code and we throw it out the door and start from scratch all over again. so, this is where it all starts. this is the international fire code. so the international code is developed by icc which is a private entity made by memberships by the fire department throughout the country with legislative stakeholders altogether and try to improve it based on what happened. they book the international fire code in 2021 and puts entirely into the california fire code. so that is pretty much a reprint of what's in here. the difference is the state doesn't actually have to adopt everything.

so they take the inc, cfc, the california fire code. california adopts some sessions and modify some sections and they leave other sections to other jurisdictions. some may work here and other places. they leave that to us and that's where we come in. we could either adopt, we have to adopt what the state adopts or make it more restrictive, or we can adopt parts of the international fire code. so this was what it says. we incorporate, we take the california fire code, the international fire code, we take what we want out of it and it

has been adopted by the case and come up with more requirements and then with that comes the san francisco fire code. so now we get highlights. i'm only going to present to you what has been added since the last code. this is my only third code that i have helped to write and develop and during my fire prevention. these are the highlights. adding operational permits, adding safety requirements for vendor carts. requirements for roofs and locked doors, certification, emergency radio systems, sprinkler systems. requirements for temporary construction, wood frame buildings. so the first one, we added three permits, one for mobile food

vendor carts and we have had some problems with the hotdog carts and the board of supervisors created some legislation, even after s. b. 946, it says the fire department must approve those and we had to create some parameters for what we are looking for. and we have mobile fueling location. to fuel your vehicle. we allow for fleets for a certain location. we created permits that you can fuel here in this parking lot if you meet these requirements and the last one being emergency responder communication. since we are required to do annual high rise checks yearly,

but we need to get back to check they are getting checked annually and now that they have a permit, we are able to go back to make sure they are being maintained. they are being used by the fire department, sheriff, ems, every organization is using this system. other things we are looking for when we are adding the permits and maximum amount of fuel one tanning as you have at home. use of appliance in the proper manner. you can see from the right, a video taken from channeling 7 where the butane container blew up with the tourist buying a

hotdog and required to have gas shutoffs. that's it. that's so we have a way to inspect these carts. next is access to roofs. they have a door that goes through the roof. they have a penthouse on it. many buildings have locked those doors. and we have to make sure the roofs you can go up and down and they need to have these if they are locked, they need to be

sure someone from the station can unlock it. if the power goes out, the door unlocks. worse case scenario, if that doesn't work, there is a call wait button and you can call someone to unlock the door and the final one is a palm button you hit that will unlock the door but will also sound and alarm. we found that if you want to lock it, but you need to do these things to unlock the door. you can't keep it locked at the top of the stairs. >> for communication systems, we found they went from analog to digital in the city. there were over 200 systems that had to be upgraded which brought in some companies that haven't really done much and they were not

really proficient at it, we found out. so we discussed with radio shop and dt that it would be best if we can offer a program that have qualified businesses working on these systems. you created a program where you actually certified the companies to maintain the documents, meet minimum standards, so therefore we have systems we can count on. so we've added that to our code. for existing new businesses, we have to get that from the start to get the job signed off. or the existing systems have a time frame of 6-9 months over the next year. we'll start first with the high rises which shouldn't be a problem because many of them use a reputable company and the smaller ones with low rise buildings that were required to put one in will have one in the september 1st to

become certified. we've also adopted, in the california fire code and international fire code, it's lives in here for existing buildings they can do an upgrade to sprinkler buildings. high rises built before 1975 were not required to have sprinkler systems and many did not. the city had legislation over the last 20 years where commercial buildings had to upgrade and add spring clears to their -- buildings and as the board heard here, that was asking for the same thing. since it's already in the code cycle, we decided to adopt it here. this requires every building

over 120 feet to put sprinklers in, approximately 10 stories unless they meet this particular height. 8-10 stories, the owner has the whole floor, if you go down to the street and they have a fire alarm system with smoke detection, mechanical rooms, telephone rooms, lobbies, corridors. if you have that, then you are not required to. there are approximately 135 that we've kind of tagged as going to have to upgrade. there may be up to a maximum of 20 buildings that may not have the sprinkler because they have maintained these requirements. we've also placed in the code and this is to local because we

also have a lot of restrictions when it comes to how much space we have in these buildings. one thing normally in a new high rise it requires to have two fire pumps, to water sources coming into the building depending on the height of the building and supposed to have a double connection where the system is looped. that has been waived for these because it's going to be difficult for many buildings to comply with it. this is what you do with a new building. it's hard to get a fire pump in there and get a secondary water source and very cost prohibitive. while they are nice to have in many buildings, asking someone to do this in a building, this is where the fire department can add suppression

and adding water. a secondary pump will be redundant and that will be that second pump for them. this is proposed in the land use committee. we are asking the first step is within the first three years, they come up with sprinklers, they find a company, get a quote, with the hoa, whatever else. capital cost or upgrades, they submit a plan and put sprinklers in their building. they have three years to do that. this is 120 buildings. they have 3 years to get this done. over the next three years, they have a chance to work with the water department, puc, to get water supply from the street into their building. that will be taking some time. currently right now when you apply for a new water meter for

spri sprinklers, it can take between 4-6 months and then they can get with the tenant to run the pipes for the sprinkler. this will be a long program, ten years to allow them to comply. >> one of the last things, a lot of this came out when construction fires, where wood frame buildings were going on fire and we needed to figure out a way to pretty much early warning. currently right now, they have to have access to the road. fire extinguishers located

throughout. if an sf system is nearby, it needs to be approved to service this building, they need to have signage in place to show the fire department. if you go down a construction site, they have this sign and they will know exactly where it is. that's the minimum requirement. we've added to it where the state is going is to have a temporary fire alarm system. you see those yellow boxes where they can stick them throughout the occupancy and when the smoke detecter goes off to go to the cellular and let them know that something is happening in the building because the fire alarm is not complete. they can complete this early on to let them know there is some smoke, something happening and there is some pool stations and if the

workers see something early on, they can pull it and activate the alarm system and move on. that's all that's being added to the in you -- new code. the highlights. some fee increases in the budget cycle. the final piece of the puzzle will be administrative bulletins. sometimes we take different sections of the code and help the applicant apply different things that apply. if you put in a fire large in and required to have communication and radio communications and required to have elevator recalls. we put it in the bulletin so they can read this and know what to put in. so

to submit bulletins to you after going to a public hearing, after 30 days of being posted from public comment, at that point, this body here puts them in the fire code. that will be coming a little bit later. those are still being developed based on some of the things we put on the code now. >> that's the end of my presentation. >> thank you very much. that was a hefty presentation. >> any questions or comments? >>vice-president stephen nakajo: thank you very much madam president. thank you very much.

i very much appreciate this and your presentation is very comprehensive. i am very pleased and ready to support this madam president but i will wait for yourself and commissioner fraser to ask any questions. >> commissioner marcy fraser: thank you very much for your presentation. here is my question. i entads everything is a -- i understand everything is a negotiation. how did you come to ten years? ten years is a generous amount of time for me. that's one question. the second one, i understand the issue about the hotdog cart. what about i call them barns,

the temporary structures outside of the restaurants. >> shared spaces. >> okay, shared barns, are they covered and how they might be, your thought. >> to answer your first question regarding the ten years. well, it does seem like a long time. the original legislation had it down to six years, two, two, two. having worked on the previous commercial sprinkler, that program was initially 12 years, and even then some buildings didn't comply. i don't know if that was by choice or they just had a problem with it. there were many more buildings involved than currently. knowing how long it takes to get a water supply in these current days and how long it takes to hire a contractor to actually go by

your building to give you a quote to come to an agreement to draw up the plans because they have to get into all the units and spaces and to finally get to that point and submit them, i think ten years is appropriate. the model code, international code talks about 12 years. i agree, i thought 12 years is a little extreme. the fewer numbers that we have for this cycle last time, i think ten years was about appropriate. it comes down to the first three years to get the contractor with the plans to get them submitted and for the water supply. some of them have to move tenants around into another unit and do this shuffle by floor could take some time. the idea was not to overburden a building on this.

it's been many years. some of these buildings have gone 80 years without them. we want compliance and i wish i can make them happen faster but i think ten years is enough time. when it comes to shared spaces, that's new territory in front of the barn. talking about having a building in front of it and when buildings are constructed they take into consideration access and distance to the center of the street and property lines. we do what we can to adapt what's in the code, how our operations divisions and suppressions divisions operate to come up with regulations for it. we've been part of the discussion when it comes to sf mta and dpw and the shared

guidelines. what you see now are different than april 1st. you will be able to see spacing and through them and setbacks. all of those things that we need to operate will be much better but is still seven months out. >> thank you for that. as just as a regular pedestrian, i noticed that a lot of the shared spaces are very close. it's not a lot of room between the sheriff space and the actual structure building. i can imagine that for the members of the fire department, this is a challenge or could be a pretty serious challenge in some instances. i'm wondering if they are required to have any kind of attachment to sprinkler or permanent section. >> we are going to be working with the program along

applications by november 1st. two separate shared spaces will be separated by six feet to come through, ladders, post, lots of people. if they do take up two parking places which are supposed to be their maximum, then they require a three foot opening at the top. at a minimum, think of cars being parked. every three feet you have three feet or six feet. if a sidewalk is 10 feet or less, they don't have a roof because we can't get the angle of the ladder access and can't get over the sidewalk. we have taken that into consideration which will be great that everyone complies by april 1st. >> i understand that they are doing everything they can. i'm not trying to be harsh.

we are not waiting until april for these. if they are too close and preventing our operations, we are actually addressing those issues right now with them along with dpw. >> just a couple comments and a question. i'm really glad that you are the one that has to read the international code and the state fire code. and i appreciate the synopsis that you put together for us, because you condensed it very well and focused on that which we really needed to know. i hope never to open that icu book, never. >> that's what you will get for christmas. [ laughter ] >> i also have a question, just following up on commissioner fraser's comments.

i have noticed a lot of abandoned shared spaces, and they are abandoned. the restaurants closed and they are just sitting there. who has jurisdiction to have them removed? >> dpw. department of public works as their space. there is not a program in place. they don't have a fork-lift or truck to move them. they are working to move them. they are just not there anymore and trying to find a way to remove them. >> can someone cite them to remove them because they are a hazard. >> dpw has their own rules, yes, they have a way to cite them and

way to escalate that. but to get money out of a business is very difficult. that's what's happening and those people have disappeared. we have a problem is we can't penalize the building owner because it's not their space, it's the department of public works's space. if i started a business in that building and i don't own that and i put the the shared space in front and i leave, the building owner is not responsible for the street space. you feel it's only dpw. it's their space. >> thank you. very interesting.y dpw. it's their space. >> thank you. very interesting. >> any further questions? >> madam president, if you are ready for adoption.

is this an action item, adoption. >> madam president, i would like to move this to adoption, please. >> >> president katherine feinstein: all right. thank you very much. has it been seconded? >> i second it. >> all right. i support the adoption. >> the motion is unanimous. >> thank you very much. >> it was very interesting to learn about how complicated it is. item 9. adjournment. >> so moved.. >> all right. >> seconded. >> all right. i vote to adjourn. >> the meeting is adjourned at 6:39. >> >> >>

>> he is a real leader that listens and knows how to bring people together. brought this department together like never before. i am so excited to be swearing in the next chief of the san francisco fire department, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome, jeanine nicholson.

(applause). >> i grew up total tomboy, athlete. i loved a good crisis, a good challenge. i grew up across the street from the fire station. my dad used to take me there to vote. i never saw any female firefighters because there weren't any in the 1970s. i didn't know i could be a fire fighter. when i moved to san francisco in 1990, some things opened up. i saw women doing things they hadn't been doing when i was growing up. one thing was firefighting. a woman recruited me at the

gay-pride parade in 1991. it was a perfect fit. i liked using my brain, body, working as a team, figuring things out, troubleshooting and coming up with different ways to solve a problem. in terms of coming in after another female chief, i don't think anybody says that about men. you are coming in after another man, chief, what is that like. i understand why it is asked. it is unusual to have a woman in this position. i think san francisco is a trailblazer in that way in terms of showing the world what can happen and what other people who may not look like what you think the fire chief should look like how they can be successful. be asked me about being the first lbgq i have an understands because there are little queer

kids that see me. i worked my way up. i came in january of 1994. i built relationships over the years, and i spent 24 years in the field, as we call it. working out of firehouses. the fire department is a family. we live together, eat together, sleep in the same dorm together, go to crazy calls together, dangerous calls and we have to look out for one another. when i was burned in a fire years ago and i felt responsible, i felt awful. i didn't want to talk to any of my civilian friends. they couldn't understand what i was going through. the firefighters knew, they understood. they had been there. it is a different relationship. we have to rely on one another. in terms of me being the chief of the department, i am really trying to maintain an open

relationship with all of our members in the field so myself and my deputy chiefs, one of the priorities i had was for each of us to go around to different fire stations to make sure we hit all within the first three or four months to start a conversation. that hasn't been there for a while. part of the reason that i am getting along well with the field now is because i was there. i worked there. people know me and because i know what we need. i know what they need to be successful. >> i have known jeanine nicholson since we worked together at station 15. i have always held her in the highest regard. since she is the chief she has infused the department with optimism. she is easy to approach and is

concerned with the firefighters and paramedics. i appreciate that she is concerned with the issues relevant to the fire department today. >> there is a retired captain who started the cancer prevention foundation 10 years ago because he had cancer and he noticed fellow firefighters were getting cancer. he started looking into it. in 2012 i was diagnosed with breast canner, and some of my fellow firefighters noticed there are a lot of women in the san francisco fire department, premenopausal in their 40s getting breast cancer. it was a higher rate than the general population. we were working with workers comp to make it flow more easily for our members so they didn't have to worry about the paper

work when they go through chemo. the turnout gear was covered with suit. it was a badge to have that all over your coat and face and helmet. the dirtier you were the harder you worked. that is a cancer causeser. it -- casser. it is not -- cancer causer. there islassic everywhere. we had to reduce our exposure. we washed our gear more often, we didn't take gear where we were eating or sleeping. we started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. i have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. it is not if or when. it is who is the next person.

it is like a cancer sniper out there. who is going to get it next. one of the things i love about the fire department. it is always a team effort. you are my family. i love the city and department and i love being of service. i vow to work hard -- to work hard to carry out the vision of the san francisco fire department and to move us forward in a positive way. if i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. you never know what door is going to open next. you really don't.

[cheers and >> you know, i remember when i was a teenager, they did i think it was on the grammys, boss scags narrated the san francisco scene and they did a spot on it and how it's evolved and convergence of multi culture and the emergence of gay community, lgbtq, it was not even called that then. >> so like any good listening back then, i played softball and a friend on the team said, the fire department is recruiting women. i took the test in 88 and 89 i

got hired. and i always say this, it was like a perfect career, it was like social work, i love that connecting and helping people aspect and physical. so i was like a social worker with an ax basically. and i just thought, this is like, this is it, i hit the jackpot. part of my story is, i grew up across the street from a fire station and as a young girl, i use today love going in there and would go in there whenever my parents voted, they the old fashion voting machines. sxifs in awe of the place but i never saw anybody that looked anything like me. it was all men, it was all white men and so, i never knew that i could do that. this was in the 70s. and i worked in several different things and i was at the pride parade in 1991.

>> and the chief of the department, she i did give her courtesy card to come in, i remember it to this day, june 30th. the hand and hand together and i was with a friend of mine and fire fighter named anita prattly came up to me and we had a mutual friend and we didn't meet. and she came by the table and as soon as i looked at her, i said hi o to my friend, i could see she was super athletic. >> and she knew my friend and she said hey, do you want to be a fire fighter, here's an interest card, join us. >> there was something about her that could roll with the punches and also give a few punches. she would be great and i just knew it. i did give her the courtesy

card. it was my greatest achievement. >> and it was something i saw myself, yeah, i love a good crisis. and i'm good in crisis and i'm good on thinking on my feet. and i'm you know, super fit and physical, maybe i can do this awesome. >> but just in terms of pride in general, being able to go to pride and be who we are and be who i am, it's like the sense of digity and equality and inclusion. i was always incredibly proud to represent the community and to be doing service for the community, because that's what i love doing. >> coming to san francisco for me, was really key because i love the city. the city is so vibrant and

diversity is really, it's one of its treasures. so being part of a department that represents diversity is huge and so important to me that we welcome everyone. and not just face value, truly to integrate to have diversity, have representation not just on the fire fighter level but all levels in this department, all ranks up and down the chain of command. it's huge and it's, stepping in as a woman of color as part of the lgbtq community, means more than just myself, right. i represent more than just myself. but as a leader, other people in this department, other people in the community that are looking at me and seeing that there is space for them. and so that is really creating

space for everyone. >> when i first joined the military, it was still under don't ask don't tell. i had to be super cautious about what i was doing. i was still figuring out what i was doing. i joined when i was 19, i knew i was part of the community i was not accepting yet. my first duty station was officer guam and that's where i got to explore who i was. and being under the umbrella of don't ask don't tell, and having a friend being separated because he was gay. it was very rule. had you to make sure that you were following the rules you needed to do everything you need today do. i was fortunate to be there when don't ask don't tell was repealed. you find people who are making a big deal about it, the next day everybody went to work like

nothing happened. we were accepted and nobody made a big deal about it. work performance was even better because you didn't have to hide something and worry about hiding. the transition from that world into this one is basically the exact same. i was able to just jump in and just you know, not even test the waters. >> i grew up with firefighters, my uncle and cuss infor a volunteer department in canada. here it's quite different, bigger department, a lot of different people. you know, just working with san francisco i really enjoy having all the different personalities, background, experiences, i'm a pro lead rhyme now. i'm a year into my probation and i'm already finished. and i felt like everybody has brought me in and show me what

they know. and regardless of my sexuality, my gender, my race, i was 28 when i decided to change my career and go any different direction. i'm 35 now just starting out in a whole different field. >> san francisco has a large population of lgbtq community in general and our department is reflective on that. the one thing i love about the san francisco fire department, is we do look like the community we serve and we're making every strife to reflect that. so even in our out reach, recruitment efforts, we're trying to make sure that every single person including the lgbtq community has an opportunity to become a member of our department. soz a subpoena officer, it's important to make sure that i welcome my crew. that includes every single member that is on my

apparatus, i feel we can do a better job. >> my dad was a football coach and he taught me to persevere and be committed and i'm showing that i'm doing that. i'm very proud to say that i get to start my career off as a fire fighter for the san francisco fire department. and i'm proud to be who i am, proud to be all the colors that i represent, proud to be, you know, i love being a woman in the department and to feel comfortable with who i am and very secure and excited to come to work. >> you know, one thing my mom also en grained anything we set our heart to and anything we wanted to do, the only thing stopping us was us. it's my dream to be a fire department member and i'm here, being changed because of who i was and now being able to out

and proud of who i am, it's, i feel it should mean something. >> it's important as a san francisco fire fighter, that we understand the community that we serve. it's important that our department is made up of different genders, different ethnicities, different sexual orientations, because the community that we serve need to reflect the apparatus. >> i've seen, i've seen the evolution of this department, i've seen it change through the years. we're in a better place than we were many years ago. i think we continue to evolve. i'm really hopeful for this next generation of leaders who do smart, determined, lead with heart and i'm hopeful for our future for this department going forward. >> we're your department.

we're here for you. we're you and that, and i really believe that san francisco really embodies that. i tell you, it was the greatest decision i ever made. i kept thinking, my gosh if i didn't play softball i wonder if i would have heard about it. it's funny you plan in life and gu to college and you plan your next steps, but the most profound decision nz life, is how you meet people are random. i was meant to be i think and it was such a great fit being that social worker with the ax, that's it. >> so i see san francisco and san francisco leadership and government as a beacon for the entire country. because we are so up front about what we believe in, we're really up front about

inclusivity and i know that, others look at us, many look to us. we've had other departments, contact us in terms of how do you, how do you do this? how do you create a diverse equitable and inclusive workforce? and so, but i would be lying if i said that we don't have any problems in california or in san francisco or in the department. we are out liars, sure? are we doing our best again to address those things with implicit bias training? with changing the culture, our department has made huge huge leaps as has the city and i really feel like san francisco is part of the solution to moving forward in a better way. people are individuals, there are a lot of different types of people in this world and celebrating our differences is

what pride is all about.

>> good morning and welcome to the rules committee meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. i am the chair of committee aaron peskin joined by member mandelman and chan. before i start, i would like to wish supervisor chan a very happy birthday. with that, mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> yes, the board of supervisors