>> may is asian american & pacific islander heritage good morning. this is the fire commission regular meeting may 10th 2023 the time is 901. this meeting is being held in person . members of the public may attend the meeting to observe and provide public comment. at the physical meeting location or by calling into the meeting by dialing 1415. 6550001. and using meeting i d 2590. 8607016. the webinar password is 1234. please

ensure you are in a quiet location, speak clearly and turn off background sounds. wait for the item you would like to address to be called when prompted press start three to be added to the queue. the system will notify you when you are in line colors will hear silence when waiting for your turn to speak. operator will mute you. when prompted callers will have the standard three minutes to provide public comment. you may also watch live at www dot sf gov t v .org item one roll call. president stephen kodjoe, president. vice president. army morgen president commissioner catherine feinstein. commissioner marcy frazier. commissioner paula collins has been excused and chief of department jenny nicholson. president nicolas joe will now read the land acknowledgment. thank you, madam secretary. the

santiago fire commissioner acknowledges that we are on the r on the unseated and starts three homeland of the ram attar's or lonely. who are the original inhabitants of the soundscape peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their tradition. barometers alone. we have never ceased lost nor forgotten the responsibilities of the caretakers of this place. as well as for all people who reside in this territorial and just traditional territory. as guests. we recognize that we benefit from living and working under traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestor elders and relatives of the ram attritional only community. and by affirming their sovereign rights is first people. madam secretary. item two. general public comment. members of the public make address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. speaker 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 anybody. there's nobody approaching the podium and there is nobody on our public comment. call in line very much madam secretary. public comment is closed. item three approval of the minutes discussion and possible action to approve meeting minutes. of the regular meeting on april 26 2023. first of all, is there any public comment on this item? i see nobody approaching the podium and there is nobody on the public comment line. probably comment is closed. commissioners is there any comment? correction. on the april 26

minutes. madam secretary on the minutes. i note that i'm written as the commission president as excused and i believe i was present for that meeting. noted i will change that. thank you very much. commissioners yeah, i'd like to. yeah, i noticed that too. i was like, hey, he was their president was there. thank you. i like to make a motion to approve the minutes. thank you very much. vice president. organ thank you very much. commissioner feinstein. president nicasio. how do you vote? and commissioner fraser. how do you vote? um if you read the minutes, okay, you can vote. the motion is unanimous. item four. chief of department's report report from chief of

department janine nicholson on current issues, activities and events within the department since the fire commission meeting on april 26th 2023, including budget academy, special events, communications and outreach to other government agencies and the public. and report from operations deputy chief robert postal on overall field operations, including greater alarms, bureau of fire prevention and investigation, training within the department and the airport division. report from ems and community para medicine deputy chief sandra tong. on the m s and community para medicine divisions. thank you, madam. very good morning. listen good morning, president kehoe, vice president morrigan commissioner feinstein commissioner fraser worrying. command staff and dr brokaw and nurse practitioners. stephanie phelps. hello, everyone. this is my report since our previous

meeting i went to several events over the last couple of weeks, one with the hotel council to celebrate their workforce. um it was really good event. you know, these are some of the people that keep sf, uh, moving and bring in much needed tax revenue , and they don't get much recognition. so it was a nice event also went to the herbs theater for the a p i heritage awards. and reception with the mayor and supervisors, recognizing uh, um community organizations that do good work for the community, and i just want to say that our president of the asian firefighters solutions stanley, he shows up at all these events and always, um, you know is always in touch with me about these events, and he's just he's doing a really great job as the president. the a f a. so i just want to acknowledge him. stanley lee. we have another m's graduation

coming up. um and, uh, you know our training, folks, um e. m s and suppression. um, just keep grinding away out there, but, i mean, we just had an m s graduation a couple weeks ago, and now we have another one of a different class coming up the end of next week. and we will have six young people from the city e m t program in that class will be graduating. so, um, that's pretty pretty wonderful thing. if your call what the city mt program is bringing at at risk youth into, um, wraparound services with an emt license and a pathway into the fire department, so it is it is. it's great news. we also have an h two, um, firefighter graduation in june. um we have more city e m t youth in that class as well. and i know i mentioned last time that i was really concerned about

retirements coming up, and, um. i am less concerned than i was before. we're just not seeing the number of people. um sign up for retirement. granted they could all be last minute people, but, um i am. i am cautiously, um, hopeful that we're going to not going to lose as many people as we originally thought. um we are having challenges with, um. with space for our fleet. um every year, we are asked to do more and more for the city and we happily step up because we that's what we do we serve the city. um but with those duties come more and more vehicles more and more apparatus and, um. the same amount of space. and so, um , we really, um, we've had, um,

uh assistant deputy chief ramon serrano. looking for more space for us, and it's just prohibitively. um expensive and you know, many of our vehicles are outside right now. and, um you know, we also have most of our supplies in one place, and that will not go well. if there is an earthquake in that place collapses, then what do we do? so we really are. i know. um chief serrano is doing everything he can to find something for us, and then we will have to find the money to pay for it. um, but he found a really beautiful space for us, but it was $275,000 a month. which not sustainable so any anyways. um uh thank you. chiefs toronto for all your work on that, and i'm crossing my fingers over here, brother. um.

mark corso was excused today. um but our budget should be finalized by the end of this week. with the mayor's budget office. it has to be sent to the board of supervisors. june 1st. so the mayor will have to approve it next week. um and, uh we are. mark has been doing a great job working with with the mayor's budget office. despite all the cuts they've been asking for, they've been really fair with us. um they also made another sort of structural fix to the budget. um last year, if you remember we talked about how every year at the end of the year we had to go back and ask for millions of dollars more for the raises that people were given for overtime for all sorts of things, and so um, in this past year's budget that we're

still in. we got much of that loaded into the budget. and um, again for this upcoming budget, they have again loaded in the premiums and the raises and all of that, so we won't have to ask for it at the end of the year, and this is really good for us, because if we are asking for money in may or june, and you know the board of soups or whomever needs to approve it, and then we're going back in in june to meet with them for our new budget. you know, we just gave you $20 million, and now you want more so a structural fix was exactly what we needed. and i want to thank mark corso for getting that done. um we also as you know, have equipment and capital needs. um they are not, um. apparently not being cut at this time, but our needs are greater than than what our budget is. we've seen cost escalation, especially with our

apparatus over the last several years, a truck that used to cost you know, maybe 900,000 now costs well over $2 million um and you know an engine. uh that used to cost you know. half a million now cost close to a million. so um, and, uh so we're really we're really challenged with that as well as repairs cost more. um now, too, so we are continually advocating and, um. and, uh, trying to get more out of out of people, but it is really challenging and as you know, in terms of our capital needs, there's so much in terms of our capital needs in terms of our buildings that, uh, you know, i don't even know how much would be enough at this point or how much they could get done in a year. um i also want to talk about autonomous vehicles. we

have been having real challenges with autonomous vehicles. um. you know, we certainly recognize that the city is changing, and that technology is playing a larger and larger role in things. um and these vehicles are not ready for prime time. as far as the same francisco far department is concerned. um i get from chief post el, uh, from the field. um you know, we used to get maybe one a week about challenges. i've asked for unusual occurrences to be to be written up when we encounter an autonomous vehicle that won't get out of our way or um, or tries to enter a fire scene. um and now because the dmv has okay , did more and more of them. we're seeing more and more, um, challenges with them. and so i'll just tell you about a

couple of them in the last in the last day that i received an autonomous vehicle ran over and damaged hose outside of, um, station to they ran over the hose. it got entangled in their real well. the vehicle stopped. um the hose was damaged. none of our personnel were injured, but , um, you know, again, we're seeing new things come up all the time that that are challenging. we had another autonomous vehicle stop across the street from station seven in the red zone. to pick up. um passengers, you know as a as a taxi right when our truck was coming in and trying to back into the station, um and they were unable to do so. so they had to wait in the intersection of 19th and false. um until this vehicle picked up people and got

out of the way, so we're blocking traffic and, uh, you know, and we can't get our vehicle back in the station. so and then, um, uh, the possibly the most egregious one happened at engine 36 right down the street. and, um. they were going on a call, so they all got in the rig opened the apparatus door. put their lights on. went to pull out. an autonomous vehicle stopped right in front of them. i guess they're taught to stop with lights. so it stopped right in front of them, so they got out, tried to get it to move. it wouldn't move. uh, they couldn't get to the call. um and you know, we're fortunate that it was not a, um life threatening, uh, call, but you know, these things are unacceptable to me and to our members and you know, i am

really concerned that it's just a matter of time before someone gets. really injured, if not by one of these vehicles by the actions of one of these vehicles because we can't get somewhere to help someone or to rescue someone or to stop the fire from growing. so, um, i am having, um , uh, upcoming meetings today. i'm speaking with the director of the m to jeff tumblin. i know. he also has real challenges with them because they slow down his busses and the like, um, and, uh, later this week, i'll be meeting with the mayor's office and president peskin and the m t a about autonomous vehicles as well. so we are. there may be a board of supervisors hearing coming up. i'll keep you posted on that. but really, really concerned about this stuff, and it's just it's not okay, so i know you all, um, will lend your support in whatever way we need. but right now, i'm taking further

steps this week to see what we can do. and that concludes my report. thank you. very much chief. at this time, we'll entertain public comment before the commissioners asked questions or comments, madam secretary. there's nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the public call in line comment is closed on the chase report. cd one commissioner's questions comments at this time commissioner by einstein. yes chief just about the autonomous vehicles because i share your concerns, and i myself was, uh, driving up a street. uh this week and the autonomous vehicle was signaling that it was turning right and i got off the street. i just like took a side street. i said, i'm not driving alongside this thing. and then turned left. um you know, and i

know that can happen with real drivers, too, but it's really. kind of creepy and scary when there's nobody there. i also read and i don't know if this is true or not that, um there was a need, i believe by i'm not sure if it was a san francisco firefighter or firefighter adam marin to bring the car to stop because there was an accident. and there was no exterior mechanism. no way for the firefighter almost was run over , um, to bring it to a stop a and apparently, what he or she had to do was, um, smashed the windshield. they just smashed the windshield. that brought it to a stop. and then whichever company was said oh, no. all you

have to do is break one of the side mirrors, you know the driver's side mirror or the passenger side near well, who knows that i mean, what kind of cooperation is going on? between these companies and our first responders, who are often in precarious positions. you know, i believe this happened in a tunnel if memory serves me correctly, and you don't expect to have stopped cars in tunnels , but when you do, these cars seem unable to pick up on a red light or a flare or or anything else, and they're they're they're just putting more and more people in danger. and you know, i'm i'm not going to speak for my fellow commissioners, but i think they would agree with me that if there's something we need to do as a commission if it would affect anything i mean, i think we really should consider doing that, and we're going to

rely upon you to come back to us and tell us what we can do, because it's just really inexcusable. it's difficult enough to get around this. pity um, now with busses and bike lanes and um ah, skateboard and all sorts of things, um, without vehicles that don't have anybody driving them so but i hope you will come back to us. um after after your couple of meetings, because the danger is really very real and present and someone is going to get help. may i respond through the president? um thank you, commissioner. yes i know that our members. i think it was our heroic bot members at a fire had to break the side window of one of these vehicles that was trying to enter the, um you know the area of the fire. i don't

remember what fire that was at, but they did have to break the side window and you know, we've been told you can call this phone number to get, you know, and we don't have time to call the phone number. um so we've also had the police try to stop them from coming into a, you know, a fire zone. um uh, fire ground. and you know they had problems. there's also a really funny. maybe not so funny video of, um the cops pulled one of these vehicles over once. and the cops got out. to walk up to the vehicle and it took off. so um, yes. so there's just, you know, there's a lot that needs to be worked on and again, uh, technology is here to stay, but they need to get it right for us. thank you very much. commissioner finds. thank commissioner fraser. thank you. thank you for your report, chief, and thank you for updating us on our financial

position really appreciate knowing that um, my fellow commissioner has already said a lot of what i feel about the zombie. i mean, autonomous vehicles. um it's not only unacceptable. i know to our members, but it's also an acceptable to a lot of citizens . so if there is anything that we can do, please sign me up. beyond issuing bats for everyone to go after those mirrors, when necessary, certainly had my own experience in my neighborhood with the white jaguar company, um, almost being hit twice in my own block, so yeah, it's a problem i need i need say no more other than we need to do something and sign me up. thank you if i may through the president chief pastel would appreciate axes, not bats. thank you very much. commissioner fraser at this point, vice president morrigan. yeah. thank

you for your report, chief. going back on your earlier report. i did attend that equality awards. it was a very nice function. but i didn't sorry i missed you. i didn't see you. i heard you were there, but i was looking for you. but, yeah, it was a real nice event. and uh, lot of people were there and it was. it was a good way to spend a saturday was for a good cause to as well. i just wanted to the nice location to yeah. but, um to the autonomous vehicles. i know the and it seems like they're just trying to eliminate us. you know, you know he may i watch out, you know. and i know the teamsters don't like them media what i mean and i know in some of the construction industry, they even want to do some type of automatic heavy equipment. can you imagine if they make a mistake with that heavy equipment, it's going to be a price to pay big time. but, you know, they're always, uh, i know

they had some test sites and in the bay view. i forgot. i'm not gonna mention the outfit, but they notified us. they were trying to get data from us to do the automated stuff. but there were so behind that equipment was moving so slow. i don't think we have to worry about them for about 10 years. you know what i mean? because they weren't very productive and you know it was in it was a very early stage of the development. it was a bunch of people in a warehouse on computers, and you got all this heavy equipment outside running by itself, but it was running, solar charging and flow and i don't think we have to worry about them for at least 10 years. you know what i mean? but you know, back to the autonomous cars, but. you know any help? we can give you guys you know we're on board, especially for safety first, you know, i experience one. uh. thanksgiving last year on the bay bridge, i guess. well the

tesla of it, the guy ahead and self driving mode went batty on the bay bridge. and, uh, i was behind it, i guess an hour or whatever. and i heard the car at the report i heard was the car went erratic. and just all over the bay bridge. the guy put in self driving mode. maybe he couldn't get it back out. and then it just came to the left and just stopped in in moving traffic. so it was like a three or four car pileup behind them, and i got caught up in that mass because i was going out of town, but thanksgiving and i'm like, yeah, thanks a lot. you know what i mean? thank god. no one was seriously hurt, but, yeah, i do see the dangers of this autonomous stuff. i mean, it's not, you know, they don't. you know, they don't have it perfected yet, and there's so many. so many variables they don't consider in real life. you know, in real life action, i guess you know, like like you said. that was kind of funny.

the police officer tried to you know, get the cars, attention, and it you know, wouldn't recognize the police officer, you know? so. yes. so whatever we could do to help you with that were on board with it. and i do see, you know, i'm not really a big fan of him either. um ultimately, it's going to cost people work is my main considered. you know my main concern, you know? yeah and safety to you know what i mean? is we should be my main concern, but yeah, ultimately there, you know, trying to you know? you know, cost people jobs and, uh, in the long run and that outfit . i'm not going to mention their names, but they act like they're here to stay. they got a big warehouse in the bay view that they just built. you know, some of our contractors did it and, uh, that that's part of my union that i'm affiliated with. and so they act like they're here to stay. unfortunately, and, uh so

we'll see where it goes. anything we can do to help you guys were on board with it. and thanks for your report. thank you very much. vice president morrigan. thank you very much. chief for your report. has my fellow commissioners have medicated in terms of this automatic driverless car. um issue um, you've heard and i don't have anything. too much to add to that beyond. appreciation of giving us real examples. and sending the videos over, especially with um. the firing bombing of the sense that district when that first came up with the vehicle. um i think it's important because we flag it previously as citizens in our neighborhood. but now that we hear about it in terms of real examples that concern is, uh

alarming. i with again echo that you bring in the information back. we know you will. my biggest question is. through approval process of who approved this to a point of i know experimentation is winding operation is another thing, but um. it's like where where? where where? where was the decision made? and i know you're talking to department has key folks mayor's office, but sounds like we don't have much control here and that concerns me, chief. yeah if i may, um, just say briefly this state dmv, um, has the oversight. so, um yeah, we don't have much power with them. so we're we're starting grassroots and see what we can do. right because some definitely it's got to be done. and so the commissioners are there with you as well. alright commissioners. if there's no other, i'm going to move on to a

cd two's presentation. madame secretary at this point, please call that i am or did we knew we need to do public comment on the chief's report, or did we do that? we did public comment, and now chief postal is up. okay. good morning chief post, though. good morning, president nicasio vice president morrigan commissioners. feinstein frazier. nicholson command staff. bob hostel, deputy chief of operations. this is my report for april of 23. the operations report. uh, month of april. we had a relatively quiet month 21 working fires. to greater alarms , 10 water rescues and to cliff rescues. uh, first grader alarm was at 16 25 leavenworth street . this was about 1 30 in the afternoon. the assistant chief mike thompson was the incident commander. uh this was a four story type five apartment building. uh surrounded it was

on an alley on one side and then leavenworth fronted on the other side. there was wires everywhere in front of the building, so we had very difficult roof access. the fire was the top floor. corner unit will be the alfa bravo co corner of the top left corner as you're looking at the building. um engine 41 was the first unit on scene. they made an excellent hose lead up the interior stairwell. this building had no standpipe. so it was all large line with y and ready line lead. um laddering, as i mentioned was very difficult because of the wires on the exterior of the building. we actually through 2 50 ft ladders at this building. it's uh you know, pretty unusual. to see 2 50 ft ladders thrown on one building and the truck crews did a great job. up there. um, the main fire unit had several rooms and the occupant was a hoarder. so we had heavy fire involvement. we had very difficult. conditions to advance the hose lines through the unit

to hit the various rooms. um but with the teamwork and the coordination they were able to get in there, and they were primarily contained it to that top floor corner unit. a little bit of fire in the attic space. uh but fortunately, it didn't get much outside of that. watching the video on citizen. ah! prior to responding to the fire. i looked at it and thought we were going to fifth alarm. i thought we were going to burn the whole top floor of it, so they did a heck of a job on that one. um so thanks to the cruise there. um a second alarm, which was not included in the report. uh, occurred on april 28th around midnight. this one was at 704 bayshore boulevard, the kelly more paint store. um first units responded, arrived on scene and saw what appeared to be heavy fire coming from the roof and the rear of the building. um a large warehouse paint store. heavy fire load. what it turned out to be was the building was up against the hillside, and you had a homeless encampment, the back and

homeless encampment. not only was that burning, the hillside got going in the fire burned up the exterior wall got into the parapet wall around the roof of the building, but actually didn't penetrate the structure. so uh, the first bc on scene battalion 10. recognize the potential here and rightfully requested a second learn, because if this building at this time of night had this much fire in it, we were going to be there for hours, so fortunately, it hadn't gotten into the structure. we got crews on the roof. they were able to keep it out of the structure. another incident that i want to. i want to mention it didn't happen in april, but it did happen just two days ago, and this was, uh monday about 1 30 in the morning. this is the second alarm in a high rise building. i'm sure you saw this on the news that six locksley's avenue right off right off of sixth avenue. so this fire was started by a lift the lithium ion battery, which is becoming, um more and more frequent than we're responding to fires that are started by these batteries.

um our crews were able to rescue five trapped occupants, and i'm not talking just went inside and walked him out of the building. there were people on the phone. there was somebody in a wheelchair. there was people trapped in a unit with a towel. under at the at the bottom of the door to keep the smoke out. our people went in, and they were able to conduct a search. find these people safely extricate them from the building . why we advance hose lines in there were able to put this fire out. this was a high rise building. the fire was on the second floor. we had smoke extending to the upper floors again. just a testament to the professionalism. the training the system that we have in place in this city. uh huh. is what led to this outcome. what? what what could have been a disaster turned into a routine incident for us so after everybody at that one. um those were the significant fires. i want to talk about. the bureau fire prevention investigation, so we do have good news. i received an email that the bollards for capp

street have arrived. they were supposed to be installed earlier this week. but due to the rain that we had over the weekend, they had to wait for the street to dry out so they should be installed. any day now, uh i did get an email this morning that they're concerned about utilities underground where they're supposed to be going in, and so they'll adjust to that. but they are here. they're going in the concrete k rails. we've gone away. so that's good news and thank god we haven't had a disaster on capp street with those k rails in place. now the bad news, which the chief had mentioned earlier. we're having, uh multiple incidents with these driverless cars a day. and she a chief alluded to some of the more egregious ones. uh there's some other incidents where cars have stopped behind an engine company, the driverless car and they can't get to the back to get host lines off. driving those cars and stopped at the rear of a truck. well, if you have to take the 50 ft ladder

out of the back of the truck, which is 26 ft long and the car is parked three ft. from the rear of the truck. you're not getting a ladder out. you know, we know that engines know that rescue squads chiefs know that to stay away from the back on the driverless car doesn't one of my biggest fears with these cars, though, is that one of these driverless cars were coming up the street where there's a fire. and they don't know how to back out of the way and we'll have a unit that will turn the corner to come down to go to that fire, and this driverless car will be one or two houses past the incident and that that engine is going to get stopped, and they're not going to get to the building that's on fire, and the truck won't be able to come in behind him, and that car is just going to sit there and we'll spend 5 10 minutes, redirecting units to come around from the other direction. and when that happens all bets are off because those first couple of minutes are really critical. so this thing is a is a big, big, big public safety problem that has to be dealt with. so like the chief mentioned we're going to have a meeting. but these are becoming

more and more frequent. ah abc coffin myself participate in a second meeting regarding phase two of the traffic calming study that i had spoken to it. our last meeting. we settled in the corridors that we're going to be analyzing. we're going to analyze fell street. the changes on fell street from steiner street to schrader. and the control street will be oaks street in the same corridor with where there haven't been any changes. we're going to analyze folsom street between 2nd and 7th. where there's been a number of changes that control street for that will be harrison. and lastly, we're gonna analyze leavenworth for mcallister to post and the control street will be larkin. and the idea is that . we have the street whether it's fell or or false um or leavenworth that have undergone multiple streetscape changes and then a parallel street that has not undergone those changes and

we can analyze based on the response time data, the impact of those changes on our responses and hopefully we can start to narrow down. which changes are impacting us which changes are benefiting in us and which changes don't really have any effect so that we can streamline the things that are being done. we've already come to an agreement on some things regarding vertical traffic, calming speed bomb speed humps that type of because tions where they can go. we're talking with them about eliminating some of our primary response corridors from these changes the immediate streets surrounding infestation five is on webster street. they're always coming out on webster. we're not going to put speed bumps on webster street. that type of thing. it seems logical, however. it wasn't happening, so i'm optimistic. on how that's going to progress. uh, and the month of april. 97 violation citations for fire code issues were issued in the

month, 236 outstanding violations were resolved. um and plant check they had 888 total fire plants and review of those 749 have been reviewed and are awaiting responses from the applicant and there's 139 new plans awaiting review. bureau. fire investigation investigated nine structure fires, eight vehicle fires and seven other fire incidents. at the airport under assistant deputy chief darcy. they had 525 calls for service last month. several stuck elevators. they did not have any significant incidents. fortunately they brought on board a new in service training lieutenant dale dockery, who started and hit the ground running. he's doing a great job there. he's working directly with captain bri matthews, who was brought really a, uh new energy and spirit to their training program down there, so they got a lot of good stuff

going on down there, which really is at the root of what they do down there is train and prepare for the hopefully. the incident that hopefully never occurs, but but if it does the amount of training and preparation that they put into it is going to pay off. it's immensely when that incident happened, so keep up the good work down there division of training under assistant deputy chief kyle loa. 131st academy has completed all of their s fft testing. they are now working on state fire testing some of the standardized firefighter one firefighter to curriculum stuff that has to be done in the academy. um but we've got through all the s f f t testing. we have one person who was lost two demerits, which is a behavioral type of issue. two members were lost to deficiencies. and two members lost two injuries that occurred in the tower. and two people resign for personal region. so, uh, about average for the number

of people who didn't make it through. um they are due to graduate on june 2nd friday, june 2nd. and then they'll come into the field and they'll helpless. uh, make a big impact on our overtime. uh in the mandatory that we're dealing with so the one 29th classes, finishing up their final testing about the same time beginning of june, they'll be done coming off probation, and the 1/30 class is just finishing up there. six months exams. the fire reserves continue their thursday night drills. we included some pictures for you of the fire reserves in their drills on thursday nights. um speaking of the fire reserves. high rise drill. we conducted a high rise rail. uh the weekend of april. 29th and 30th. this is a full scale operational drill, high rise firefighting procedures. this was led by assistant chief, no cold jarrod evac and assistant chief pat rabbitte. so we each day brought a second alarms contingent worth of companies down. we ran them through everything. from lobby

to hose leads on air smoke machines everything to simulate the challenges of a fighting a fire in a high rise and, um, just to briefly. the high rises are logistical nightmare for us, and if you want to put 1 2.5 inch hose line in place, you need essentially six engine companies. you need to engine companies on the line. you're gonna need to engine companies in the lobby or in the stairwell , waiting to relieve them as they run out of air, and then you're gonna need to more engine companies standing by and staging, so you can rotate so one hose line six engine companies, and we're on an upper floor. so there's the logistics of getting the equipment up there. how we how we stage that equipment? how we account for personnel in the building. how we control the building systems . there's so much that goes on in a high rise and we have these fires so infrequently that we have to have a drill. annually when possible just to run everybody through the process, and i think we have plans on a

new training center to incorporate high rise type of building so we can do some of this stuff on a more regular basis in the building where we don't have to be so conscious of damaging walls or elevators or anything else so um with regard to the fire reserves. there were a number of fire reserves who volunteered to come down and help out with that drill and act. uh as as victims as civilians in the building, support us and in different ways . so thanks to the fire reserves again, a number of people in the academy class, i think also helped out and some other city college volunteers, but to pull something off like this takes, i've done several of them takes a lot of planning. there's a lot of logistics to do it, and there's a lot of volunteers to make this thing come together so uh, pat nicole. both did a great job on that. and thanks to them. and then finally, um, this week. we're doing something that's never been done before and fire department so we have three of our most senior experience. battalion chiefs conducting a truck academy this week. and

this is, uh battalion chief dean chrisman, tom mcguire and jim o'connell. have developed a curriculum of what the. nuances of truck work as a san francisco firefighter. and they're teaching a weeklong class. we have 30 students in there. and what they're doing. this is the foundation of why we're so successful as the fire department. the tools were used two techniques we use the little tricks of the trade that have been passed on from generation to generation that we learned 30 years ago from the people who taught us when we came in who they learned it 30 years ago from the people who taught them some of this stuff had been lost. uh some people have been going to other fire departments trying to gain knowledge and they were bringing back things that were really incorrect. it didn't work within our system. so these three chiefs recognized what was going on, and they wanted to share their knowledge . so they've developed this class. they're putting it on. our hope is that this thing is

something that lives on forever, and it will be given hopefully a couple of times a year to as many people i just want to take it as are available. um really? what this does is this is going to educate the next generation firefighters. on how the best fire department of world which is us does its work and why we're so successful. and i say that with absolute certainty, nobody does what we do as well as we do it. and by doing this, the lessons that are learned from that wall of firefighters who died in the line of duty. on the wall and headquarters. and from the knowledge gained over the last 150 years of firefighting in this city and buildings that many of them are the same today as they were 100 years ago. that's not lost and lives on forever and what makes us great continues to make us great. and we share that knowledge from within and pass it on. so with that, that

concludes my report for the month of april, and i'm happy to answer any questions. thank you very much. chief costello. at this point, we'll take public comment on cheap hostels. report. there is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the public call in line. public comments closed on cheap hostels, report commissioners any questions or any comments at this time? commissioner fraser. thank you briefly. thank you, chief post l for your report. um. i was learned a lot from your reports, and i'm grateful for that. the second thing is, i appreciate hearing about the class that some of our members have developed to pass on history. i applaud that. i think it's just incredibly important and valuable. agreed the best fire department in the world with your assessment. and, um. just the last thing i want to say. i'm sorry to go back to the

autonomous vehicle, but you did bring it up. that there is a form on the d m v website to fill out for incident and i did fill it out back in march. i got back up. two sentence. email thank you if you have any more information, blah, blah, blah. but i think it's behooves us to flood them with this many if there's people in the department that experience it, whether they're on duty or off duty. i think it's worth it to flood them with those forms. it's not that hard to fill out. anyway, um i go by capp street all the time. i'll enjoy looking for the new installation and checking it out. anyway, um really impressed with the work that everyone does . and i appreciate your report. thank you. thank you very much. commissioner fraser. at this point, commissioner feinstein, please. yes, thank you, chief. your report and, um, as usual, it was full of a lot of very interesting, um, stories, in

fact, and what have you? um i have a question about lithium batteries. i don't know much about batteries. i know that when i have disposable regular batteries. i put them in a little plastic bag and i taped them to the top of my garbage bin so they don't get tossed into the regular, you know, big garbage. dump truck that comes, um so that you know something happens. lithium batteries, though, are in scooters. yes in when you're when you're referring to the problem we're having with lithium batteries. can you tell me what? what kind of lithium batteries what they're used for. how the what? where the danger lies within them. so that that's the

rechargeable lithium ion battery . so you have them in scooters. you have them in some of these e bikes. you haven't cameras. a computer has a lithium ion battery in them. and what's predominantly happening is people are these these batteries are having issues where they stopped charging or something, and there's some fly by night places that will repair your battery for you. or you can buy a battery off ebay that came from god knows where. and it's not a u. l listed battery or the repairs that are being made are being made by somebody. who's it's not a lab that understands what they're doing. when you charge these batteries, you get some you you'll get a short circuit or something in the battery that causes them to start to overheat. and when they overheat, you get a chemical reaction and then that chemical reactions. what causes the fire ? and so you've heard about these tesla battery fires in vehicles and you start this chemical reaction that we can't put out with water and they generate a ton of energy. and this energy obviously starts the room on fire and the building and so even a small lithium

batter, ion battery and a computer or camera, something like that. um once that. energy released starts than. you know that it's not like a piece of paper in the garbage can getting started. it's a lot more energy that comes out of it. i don't know if you remember there was a dive boat incident a couple of years ago down to southern california were like 35. people burned up on a boat where they had they had a traced it to a lithium ion battery. the been plugged in charging overnight that battery overheated that chemical reactions started and burn the boat up. overcame. everybody was smoking and killed all 35 on the boat. so these are the small incidents are happening. a number of our greater arms recently are a result of these lithium ion batteries. there was also an incident out in battalion 10. where there was a large lithium ion battery storage. energy storage facility and they had a they had a fire reaction and one of these banks of batteries, and

we were there for hours and hours and water won't put it out. you have to basically let the thing burn itself out. well, not only is it a fire to hazards materials incident so we have battalion to or has this materials chiefs. have done a lot of research into this. they're doing some training right now, with our hazmat specialists on how to respond to these things are chiefs have been been made aware that when you have a significant lithium ion battery storage, not bike battery, but energy storage. how's matt has to come out? it's very dangerous for us to be in that environment. there was a couple of incidents and arizona where firefighters got exposed to the gasses from these fires and got really sick from it. so it's a new york has done a lot of studies on it. it's a big deal, but it's primarily non u. l listed batteries or people who have worked on a battery trying to make a repair, causing it. and if i might just ask ignorant. follow up question. if

you can't put the fire out with water. what do you do? you let you let it burn out? you have to let that chemical reaction run its course so you can protect the exposures. you can but, you know, prevent the spread of the fire, but the but the in in a big battery storage energy storage facility. it has to that once that chain reaction chemical reactions starts, it has to see itself to conclusion . so you just prevent that energy from getting into the building and causing more damage. thank you. and thank you for your report. um, uh, on on all the other aspects. um they're full plate going on. a lot of new stuff out there stuff. i appreciate the education. thank you. thank you, mr president. thank you very much. commissioner feinstein. vice president. more gun? yeah thank you for your report. chief post l i'll be quick, but not

really a question. i mean, it's just a remark. i mean, what's going on with bashar? it seems like there's a fire there every month, sometimes twice twice some other. i feel sorry for station 42. i guess they get the first call on that. i don't think they mined the fires clean that area up a little. i know it's an industrial area with just seems like there's a fire there every month. i mean, i mean, but you know it is what it is. you know, there's a lot of issues related to homeless out there with fires. yeah i know that's part of it. yeah, i would imagine. yeah. okay and, uh, yeah. i just want to thank for the you know, for the great report in the rest of the command staff, uh, for the great report, and all the numbers, uh, assistant deputy chiefs around oh, and kill laura and darcy at sfo. thank you for your reports. thank you very much. thank you

very much. vice president. more gun may i just interject for one moment? i just want to, um about the fire the most recent fire on bayshore chief post l said there was an encampment behind. um, it wasn't just like tents. it was full on construction. i mean, there was a ton of stuff back there. i don't know. two by fours, too, but you know, just they had built a little city back there. so that's what was on fire, and that's why it looked like the whole building was on fire. but it's not just tent encampments anymore. so yeah, there's pallets, and they bring in plywood they build. structures there. you know, there's a lot of fire load, and, uh so they're building these up against buildings, and it was impressive when they got there. it looked like it was uh, a lot and there was a lot of fire unfortunately, was on the outside of the building and not inside the building. thank you

very much. thank you for that you additional information. nicholson. um chief post l i just got a couple of questions. i will ask. chief colorful for clarification question off this report. um specifically, just some questions. i'm very happy with the good news with cap street. um, i know that we've been waiting for that. so, um once that's installed. if you could. could you informed? yes, we will and the commission this week because we it's been on our list. i wanted to answer a question pacific lee about the referral to the 6 70 fire in there. kind of school. universities of school. off of the sunset towers, if you will. yeah yeah, and you did made a description in terms of those rescues. and again, the media is pretty good and again. i want to acknowledge the attendant baxter in terms of the information that

goes out to the public. we're um and that was quite a big number five rescues where those rescues and i thought i saw seniors and disabled in that rescue. one of the people was a disabled person in a wheelchair. yeah, and she was elderly, i think was a female elderly person. um a couple of the people were, i think you know, just normal asia adults, but there were a couple couple senior citizens that were taken out of there. okay and again, we commissioners. we get our notices off our phones as well. right away. i knew kind of where that was. and uh, once i hear towers that kind of sets, it sets it off as well. so again . i appreciate the hard work of our members but also the rescue. that occurred that day as well. the other question. i wanted to ask you in your report and caught my ear. was the second alarm at 16 25 11 worth street. um venture and bernard and again

with the commissioners in terms of the city once something goes up, isn't addressed. if i wanted to do a little bit of a location in my mind, i kind of drift towards that. but i didn't recognize these side streets and i know that chief thompson this year and you were saying that that fire had the potential of giving to your greater alarm. so with that, a victorian and then alley or what was that was a four story wood frame apartment building. actually had a when you got in the building, it looks like something see in southern california, was probably built in the sixties stairwell. and then when you got up, there was a it was like a courtyard type design, so the apartments all ran around the exterior of the building with an open courtyard. in the center. and then the roof. construction was a flat roof, and there was not a there was not a large attic space in the building. which is fortunate it would have really turned into something much worse. so two by 12 ceiling

joyce with the roof decking on top of that, so that fire was burned through the same thing burned to that 12 inch space, but it was burning within those joy space of the ceiling. so travel horizontally over to the next department will be to the north. um but it wasn't able to travel towards the rear of the building very far because that that joyce essentially was a fire. stop in the attic space again. i'd like to acknowledge the members in the truck chief. in terms of the members who are out there that that early morning fire as well. um can i get a question that clarification through the chief to chief colo in terms of this report? good morning. chief cholera. on our report, page. 22 in chief of postal mentioned it as well. my point of clarification as there's a subcategory of probationary training. and it indicates i'll

start with the top 130 class began probation. november 18th this what's going on? 29 class probation began june 3rd. and then 1 28 recruit class. started on december 20th three. or all of these classes went 28 1 29 30 still on probation or what is the status of that? thank you for that question. uh good morning, president of collegeville vice president morrigan. commissioners feinstein frazier chief nicholson command staff sister maureen kylo, a dc director of training. the 1 28 is off of probation. one 29th is moving to their second house. and the 1/30 still on probation as well. their first house is transitioning. okay thank you for that clarification. as long as they're on probation, they go through this additional training. that's correct. they have field training. they're

assigned a field officer. whether it's a lieutenant or a captain. they're assigned to an engine and then a truck and their secondary assignments. so they go through six months of training and both of those disciplines they have a probationary book in a curriculum that they follow. that is led through our officers. and then the division of training also schedules. regular training with the probationary at the division of training. until and then we leave their six month test and one year testing. okay so it's probation. one year it is and is the 1 28 said that they finished their probation period. when did they finish their probation period? when do they end their probation period. i don't remember the actual date. i can get that for. you just need to know, kind of like, you know, i was trying to get clarification in terms of these classes and the word probation period of time and i'm looking at the division of training in terms of all of the things that are going on. plus a graduation that's

coming up on june 2nd. how many members are graduating? chief 47, okay? and then there's another class that's supposed to be starting what end of june we will start the one 32nd 30 seconds june 26th. right. thank you for that clarification, chief. may i may i, uh, i believe it says in here that the 128th recruit class began probation on december 23rd 2021 , so it's typically a year give or take that they are on probation. okay, so they they most of them are hmm. yeah one member still needs to complete their testing because they were off disability, but it looks like everyone else's. that's good. okay that's that's that helps chief clarification and just again a stickler for words . it says 1 28 recruit class while 1 29 class. is there a difference? relation when it says recruit or is that just

additional? i think that was a typo from the cap. when they talk to recruit. we're talking in the academy when they're on probation. we're talking about probationary firefighters in the field that have graduated. from the academy. thank you for that clarification, a if i may just give a shout out. captain norm kabul will be retiring tomorrow be his last day not only taught at the academy but has managed this program the probationary program of getting these folks trains scheduling retesting testing. all the coordination that goes into managing 150 probationary is and this is all due to his work and stuff. thank you. thank you for that shout out, chief. again a short story, but i met norm kabul when he was a student of minus city college sociology class that i taught back in the day day, so it's really great to be able to see him as a member of our department and retiring. thank you very much for that acknowledgment. thank you, chief. thank you, chief still appreciate your comprehensive report, chief. thank you.

pressures secretary. chief tongue of them. good morning, chief tong. thank you for your patience. alright. i think i got it. thank you. good morning, president kodjo vice president morrigan commissioners, feinstein, frazier, chief nicholson command staff and good morning, maureen. ah sandy tong , deputy chief of vms community para medicine. this is my report for april 2023. can i have the presentation? thank you. alright from the m s division under a d . c chief neil tango illini, the ems division averaged about 361 calls on the last month of april , which is a little bit more than we did in march at 1.4 increase. this equates to about 11,000 calls at all of our e m s members are doing and so i just

wanted to stress. i mean, when you look at, you know 360 calls per day. it's a lot, but when you look at it over the course of a month, um you know, 11,000 calls they are working really hard. unfortunately we do have enough members in terms of being able to meet some of that call volume, but, uh, as you know, we all know we've been still struggling to maintain a certain level of staffing to really determine whether or not the staffing levels that we have are adequate. um but 11,000 calls for all of our members is still working really hard. um we in this last month we had about 77% of the market share. so that went up a little bit by 2% from the previous month. so you know , we're starting to inch up a little bit. we're still trying to see how that market share is evening out with the privates and the bls tier that's in the in the system right now, but we'll see how that that continues on looked at just a couple of weeks of this last of

this month, and it looks like we're creeping up a little bit, but we'll see how we even up at the end of the month. one of the activities that are members took part in was the city mt. drill that they had on april 15th. this is a partnership that we have with the city mt program. we were able to provide two ambulances, engine 25 rescue captain covid's and chief tango illini all participated on the saturday chief nicholson was also there to say hello to the group. this was an all day drill that the city mts went through, and this is something that they do as part of their training that they all learn how to manage a large scale incident they were able to deal with 20 patients, triaging them, treating them pretend to transport them, and this is really an opportunity for them to see what it might be like to deal with a large scale incident to be able to manage and triage and determine you know who's our priorities? who do we treat first? who do we transport first? it's a really good exercise with them to understand

what goes into considering how you deal with a mass incident. they they were able to get a number of volunteers to participate ex students or previous students, faculty and then chief tangling. he brought his son kai over to also help. uh so this was a really good opportunity for all of our folks to participate in this type of a drill. it's a good experience for us is good experience for them, so i'm very happy to see all of them participate in this. this is also a collaborative effort with a couple of the other private ambulance companies that work in the system to and finally we also did graduate. seven people from our last e. m s academy. this is seven new paramedics that have joined our forces. just to speak a little bit more about the city emt program. i just wanted to kind of point out. we have one of our members. uh ricardo segura. he's an e. m t and he

came to us with a lot of experience as a lead e n. t instructor from the past. he's worked and directed a various anti training programs. and when the city mt program came about, they were looking for a instructor that could help them lead their e m t program and rick came highly recommended. he applied for it, and he's been doing their cohorts. i think they're on their fourth cohort, and he's been working with them doing the lane instructing. it's just been a fantastic addition to their program. he retired member attica. um uh, sorry. bound in, uh, have really developed this e m. t um city mt program to where they've gotten hundreds of people now wanting to join this, this course. so we've been really happy to partnership with them. and as you know, once they complete their e m t, of course those that are interested and want to pursue e. m s as a profession, then also apply for a 99 10

internship program. and so we also gather those folks, um give them 500 hours and they've been able to participate in actually working alongside our members to see what it's like to do the job as an m t. but back to rick segura. um we just found out that he was awarded the ems educator of the year from the california um, say, i just wanted to read to you a little bit. about what this conor it's an honor of an ems educator who excels as a teacher. um sorry, sorry teacher who has made a significant contribution to the m s education program in the state with the description of why he was chosen. ricardo segura has the ability to connect with people of all ages, languages and diverse backgrounds. he goes to extreme links to make sure his students engage in learning has a unique ability to adapt to meet the learning needs of each individual student. he emulates educational equality mindset to faster and more inclusive

environment that will support health equity and one of the things that's really clear when we go to their graduations. the city mt. graduations is that they love rick. i mean, he is just there for every student connects with every one of them provides them with what they need to get through this program. um, and the thing that's really nice about the m t city empty program is that they are also working with these young adults, um, to, you know, better manage their finances to support them socially with their health. all of those things, and rick is able to participate in all of that. so he will be honored during ams week on may 23 at the l. a county fire museum. i also wanted to highlight another activity that we participated in on april 25th members of r e. m s division participate in a regional training exercise. that was, uh , conducted that the coast guard training facility in petaluma. this involved the u. s. coast guard e. m s providers from the

region to in california. um, say. section chief of ems operations kevin chucker helped lead this exercise. we were able to buy 22 ambulances to strike team leaders and they combined to be to strike teams, which when there is a request from mutual aid for ambulance strike teams that usually consists of five ambulances and a strike team leader and so we're providing two of those ambulances and then two of our trained rescue captains who our strike team leaders as well and so they were able to lead this this drill. which was about 50 patients who were injured in an explosion on a cruise ship. they worked with all of the members as well as the other ambulance companies to practice triaging treating distributing patients and evacuating them to a real community. uh, so this was just a really good exercise for us to learn more about how the state works. um how we can coordinate with the m esa the region. um and chief choker is working on

trying to develop even further procedures and guidelines for all of our members to be able to better respond when we requested during mutual aid requests. so onto community para medicine from chief simon ping. that's last month was the first month where our community paramedics on the street overdose team were able to administer suboxone, aka buprenorphine. this is i think we've been talking about a pilot project through the state where our paramedics will be able to, and are able to provide suboxone two members in the community who are experiencing opioid overdose. and this is been so far a very successful opportunity for us. we've already provided seven administrations of suboxone. two members and we are now and this is all through s s. o r. t s their overdose response team and

we are adding suboxone to olive, our ambulances as well. currently as we speak, actually , so all of our paramedics will also be able to provide this when needed. we also had i think this number four is that right? simon? number four of our community paramedics speaker series this month or last month we had used ucsf benioff homelessness and housing initiative faculty, dr shannon smith barney barnett in and she spoke to our members regarding alcohol use disorders, sobering centers and managed alcohol programs. this is something that we've been working with, uh, the sobering center that we have here in san francisco and we have also in the past supported the managed alcohol program. that's a city also has so she was able to provide all of our members with additional information about sobering centers and the impact of alcohol used to sort of on patients. and then we also had

four fellows. these are san francisco fellows that are, uh recent graduates who are hired by the city to work, um, for a year under city, different departments, and we were able to, um, borrow them for 10 weeks , and they helped create a wiki page, basically a resource that our members can use to access resources in the city where there is mental health resources , shelter resources, so they started that process for us, and so we're now able to work on in an elaborate on their and their work so that all of our members will have access electronically to the services that are available in the city. um here we have the data from our community para medicine division . and i added this little chart here. i had chief paying helping with this and it's just a little bit more information about how am six has really made a difference in the lives of our clients, and this is not part of

your pack it but i can sit. share it with you. if you'd like. um so here we see ah! how effective our ams six providers have been, um, just in the month from april two. from march to april. there was a 68% decrease in utilization of the top 20 utilize ear's and over the course of the previous years, you'll see that in the first two columns, it will say the number of individuals over the past year who used either over 100 911 activations or 90 to 100 activations. and in 2020 in the month of april, looking back, 12 months there are nine individuals who use 91 1/90 times in a year. that number has decreased to only three in the last year, starting 2023 so to us that is, you know, really showing the effectiveness of r e. m s six captains. they're able to you know, sort of identify somebody who's a frequent user and be able to more quickly recognize how

vulnerable they are and be able to get them connected to services more quickly, so we're able to see a lot less use of 911 for some of these that are what we would be, you know, kind of defining as chronic users are frequent users. so kudos to all of the work that they do because it really is a lot of difficulty in managing these folks that have some significant issues. so that's my report for april. thank you very much, chief tong. already public comment at this time, madam secretary. i see nobody approaching the podium and there is nobody on our public call in line, but the common is closed at this point commissioner's questions, comments for chief tong commissioner fraser. yeah. thank you, chief tong. that was so interesting, and this is a

fascinating area of our work to me as well. the 68% decrease in the utilization. of the top 20 users should be a headline in the newspaper. really it's an amazing accomplishment and from my very limited experience of going out with a couple of the m s captains. you know it makes and my own experience as a nurse. it really makes complete sense that this would work. but having this kind of documentation is wonderful. and i congratulate you and everybody on it as well as your entire report. so thank you. thank you very much. commissioner fraser. commissioner. vice president organ. any comment question. sorry yeah, yeah. thanks for your report. and i'm sorry i missed dr shannon smith. uh, bernardin's, uh, i guess she was on the field had a virtual speaking engagement. i missed that. maybe i can catch it on

youtube. i think she's onto it, uh, especially when we need more recovery houses and san francisco and. and more, you know, support. you know, with your street response teams are doing great. i'm a big fan of him. and i think that would, uh we have great solution to getting a lot of the homeless off the street, you know, because most of that has to do with addiction and alcoholism and is a big part of that. and, uh and i think that's where recovery could begin. you know what i mean? especially in some of the real bad areas in san francisco's tenderloin and some of the other areas which would cut down you know, the 911 utilizes and all the other drama that comes with it. yeah so i do want to catch her, uh, her her little speaking engagement. maybe i can catch it on youtube. other engagements. yeah. so

yeah, and all the other stuff? yeah. thanks for your report. thank you. thank you very much. vice president morrigan. achieved tong. thank you very much for this comprehensive report. i just have a couple of comments. one question. first of all the picture. that's part of this graduation with the 70 mts headquarters. just got to tell you i love this picture. you all look good. and uh, the seven graduates as well. i know a graduation is coming up on friday. um so i'm really want to emphasize the importance of that chief nicholson in terms of the good work. that we have, which drifts in my mind a little bit. a informational question is how many paramedics do we presently have within our department? in various. um but i believe we saw some numbers yesterday. i'm gonna have to get back to you cause i don't want to miss quote

some numbers, but i can. okay i can let you know because our fts are divided between, um paramedics and emts, but they don't really make a distinction between how many have to be paramedics or how many have to be mts. so depending on when we graduate numbers who you know, goes over to the suppression side. those numbers change pretty regularly. again. i sprained that on you just curious in terms of all of the work we do and all the reason. graduations of what does that number looks like but also are you mentioned? my other question was how many h h ones or umts? i'm i'm saying paramedics and mts because of this department and all the good works or anyway. um ah! congress has provided me so we have 260 ft. es for the ambulances. um and you know, right now it looks like we have. it's probably in the range of, um 2 to 1 numbers

of paramedics. two emts on the ambulances. um so you can do the math on that. but yeah, and then we have others to that are doing other positions. but for the most part 2 60 fps is what we have for fts for ambulances. okay because in your report, you made a reference to about 11,000 calls. that's a whole hell of a lot of work. yeah and again, who does that? and so i wanted to see the numbers to our members, but also times 24 hours or seven. seven days a week. 24 hours. you know, that's that's the reality based it's a lot. i agree with commissioner fraser's two people should know about city and county of whatever. which also brings my comment to this significant numbers of the m s six numbers because again with this state of affairs in san francisco homeless mental health crisis is um, we were there. um, s six. and so all of

the data in terms of the frequent flyers and the reductions and all this. this is real numbers. yes so it's really , really important and i just want to emphasize, um how important is significant? that number is how significant units are services are based on how many folks we got out there that are coming into our department as paramedics the mts, which is a career, you know, i mean, stone cold career and i run into them all the time. i'm going to shift quickly in terms of the mt. program chief nicoson because recently. i get a lot of calls or folks kind of know who i am in a sense that i'm the president of the fire commissioner, remember the fire commission? and when i say that i'm talking about all these young people that i run into recently, i had branded you a firefighter, one individual who wanted to be a firefighter, young man at the cherry blossom festival who was volunteering

for our booth but also came out you senior center participation. and it's rare when they contact me, but he followed up. and he basically wanted to know how more can he be exposed to the department? generally i talked about if you're a student at city college. maybe the fire size courses. we just had jim connors in that program in here. or fire reserves, but they can if you're not a city if you can't get into fire reserves, what do you do? and so we had. i had the opportunity to introduce him to the anti program that we have. and contacted the black firefighters. but also former belief, captain adequate bhawan. um again. i know the story of she was a student of mine back when she was in high school. when we were doing a step to college program. and it's amazing again. the students who come through and retire has a great curriculum. i'm glad you

brother lieutenant rick segura. because this young man now has somewhere to go. that's going to give them resources strength, guidance advice. that's what i asked you can you provide guidance and advice? but it answers a greater question in terms of where is our resources coming from? so i just wanted to acknowledge that as well. um that's pretty much what i have. thank you very much. chief tom. thank you. madam secretary. item five presentation and update from the office of employee health, dr jennifer brokaw and nurse practitioners stephanie phelps to provide an overview an update on the office of employee health. thank you very much. and before you approach doctor broke on and there's phelps so i wanted to say what a privilege it is for us to see you this morning and also thank you for your patience. we have some oversight commission and one of our pleasurable oversights is,

uh, now office called office of employee health when they used to be the doctor's office or what? that references right commissioners again. we're full commission. all of us need to be exposed to what's going on and updates. therefore i've been asking the project through the chief of the various chief syrup , but equally in terms of an opportunity, so we really appreciate you coming this morning. having the patients and looking forward to this update and welcome stephanie phelps as well. thank you, president. kodjoe and good morning, vice president more ian. i haven't met you before. i don't believe or in this setting. ah and commissioner feinstein and commissioner fraser and chief nicholson and command staff. we're very happy to be here and i think we have a presentation loaded. did you bring it on a stick. oh, we emailed it. to you

, right? but it needs to be on a so i've got that written. copy if you want to do it. oh, so sorry. do all of you have written copies. okay, okay. oh, if we can go to the overhead sf gov t v. i think we can just work off paper. in any event. um we are delighted to be here this morning. uh this is i've begun my fourth year as supervising physician in the department. last time i was in this room. i was interviewing the for the position and i believe it was december of 2019. very auspicious time in our health history, so it's been um, a. uh really rough and tumble three

years, but it's calming down and we're getting back to the usual business of the department. uh, and one of the first things we did was changed the focus of the office from the office of the physician of the san francisco fire department, which had a very disciplinary connotation to it to the office of employee health, which is more multidisciplinary, and i'm so lucky to work with stephanie phelps, who's both a nurse practitioner and a phd and occupational health and she is really, um, expanded the scope of the practice of the office and uh, lent a lot of her expertise to, uh, the wellness of our membership. so the first update is that we have officially rebranded the office. the signage has changed in front of our door. ah we are fully staffed for the first time since i ah joined the department well

, since barbara marino retired a year and a half ago. basically we just hired a terrific woman treat the straw ter, who is a medical evaluations assistant, most recently at san francisco general in the department of pediatrics, but she also had experience working for two mayors. and the office of small business development here at city hall, and she's just a very capable san francisco native, very energetic and she's made our job a lot easier, uh, completing administrative tasks. um. we have just come through. we also have doctor janie bryant working with us who's a part time physician. and she works generally two days a week. um speaking about covid, um. you know, i just like to acknowledge

what a toll the virus took on san francisco. um, on our department. and on us, you know who were in any kind of command staff position or administrative position in the department. it was it was very taxing on our office. there were days when we were, um putting uh, you know up to 15 to 20 people off on covid leave and then trying to keep track of the time to put people back. to work as well. and it really took all of our time so that other tasks that have traditionally been done by our office really got put by the wayside, for instance, we didn't keep up with ocean mandated tb and hearing we have not done health check in a in a few years, um, just managing our disability claims became difficult because we were

managing covid all the time. but, um. right now, and i think this numbers is still valid. we only have three members off on acute covid leave meaning there in the 1st 10 days of their of their, uh infection isolation. we only have one member who's been off for more than 30 days. so for all intents and purposes , we're in a would be nice to think we're at an end of the pandemic, and that's certainly certainly the state of emergency has gone away. but we're definitely in a nice lol. and we're appreciating that and we're getting to other business in the department. i wanted to say that, um that i got a message that i have not seen the department of public health message to the rest of the city yet. so um, i'm going to give

you a heads up that i got a message from them that there is a new, um, order that one dose of a by violent booster is a lifetime dose. so until you're 65 or if you have immune compromise, either due to medication or underlying medical condition, in which case you can get reboost id every four months. but that was a bit of a surprise to me because i thought that we would be boosting at least yearly, and it's given me a little breathing room in terms of covid vaccination, which we also did in our office. um. we are still requiring and 95 masks on medical calls, and they are required for members to wear until they dropped the patient off at the hospital and leave

the hospital. but in terms of the firehouse and you know headquarters that there is no mask, mandate people mask as they see appropriate or if they're not feeling well. i'm going to have turned it over to stephanie to talk about our tbn hearing screening, which we've just completed. good morning and thank you for having us so we launched a mobile tv and hearing program we started in november. we just did a couple makeup weeks last week and we screened we did over 1381 screening since that time, and we have about 1700 sworn members, so we do still have some more members to undergo screening. we're also working with our vendor, um, to refine things for the upcoming years. we're also looking at bringing some of this in house. and of those that were screened . we had six that had confirmed

positive. so what that means is there's two types of tuberculosis tb. there's active and there's latent active tb. you're contagious, latent tb. your body has been exposed to it at some point in time, but you're not contagious. what you do is you get a chest x ray and make sure that looks okay. and then you monitor for signs or symptoms. so of the almost 1400 members that we had screened. we did have six we'll never know where they contracted it very well. could have been a call we just got and it's suppose your notification last week from a hospital that are members transported and active t b patient. um so what we do is we continue. we get the chest x around them, and we continue to monitor their symptoms. and then we're also working with dph. they offer quantify urine, which is the tv blood tests that we do . you've probably heard of the tv skin test. the issue with the skin test is it has to be read 48 to 72 hours later, and a lot of our members are either 10 12 or 24 hour shifts and then they

could be offer a number of days . so the department of few years ago went to a blood test. so you get the blood test done, and about a week or two. your result is back. and it's just one stop shop kind of thing. and then looking at our medical screenings for 2022. we had 235 roughly this. i was looking up our toxicology. your indirect screen results roughly 235 pre employment, physical exams, 117 promotional exams and 146 in the probation exams were currently screening into probations for ems and fire right now. um so it's been a busy time and we are screening the 1 32 h two academy right now as well and then we'll be screening, a ems class and about two weeks this is just a brief overview of injuries and illnesses in 2020 to 38 oh, seven zar injury reports, meaning that something occurred

in the member self treats as you can imagine, the most common injuries we see our back knee arm and shoulders and then a 50 20 is once that someone needs medical evaluation for that injury. it could be a medical evaluation occurs at the date of the injury or injury could have occurred a couple of days ago weeks ago months ago that they've just been self treat. eating and it's gotten worse. so in 2022. we had a 502 covid claims workers compensation claims 51 back claims 33 knee 30 arm in 25 shoulder injuries but as the doctor broke all mentioned a lot of our covid claims they returned to work after their 10 day. isolation period. um some just need a few more days to recover. but the vast majority return after that 10 day isolation period. so a couple of things that we're working on. we collaborate with the battalion, chief of health and safety and wellness, matt alba and we also have a new behavioral health unit. captain heather buren. we had a meeting

yesterday with julian robinson, who is the director of the worker of workers' compensation and our workers compensation supervisor for fire claims ed stone along with bc alba and the behavioral health unit, including captain buren and was great because we talked about stress and ptsd claims and how we can work with the pave your health unit. so that they can also file claims for members if they feel more comfortable talking to the behavioral health unit and what it means to file a stress and post traumatic uh, stress disorder claim. what is the process? so we're all speaking the same language to the members, and they know what's going to occur when it's filed. we discussed occupational environmental health concerns with r s f f d industrial hydrogen ist tony boone. he's going to be leading a group of students on monday for a tour of station for their nursing students and industrial hygiene students, and some are occupational environmental reddest resident students. he also does hearing conservation

training for our new hires. station visits dr brokaw's then station visits with captain buren as well talking about mental health resources. talking about alcohol, use different health concerns. and so those have been well received. we have monthly meetings with chief o'connor and our deputy director of policy and finance, mark corso, and our battalion, chief of health, safety and wellness, our industrial hygienists and our office. and we're also looking at launching 30 and 30 out, which would is an initiative. the field has said the goal is 30 years in service and then 30 years of retirement . and so we really want to address the top three concerns, which is cardiovascular, health, cancer and mental health. oh this way. and then, um, just a few other things we've done covid and flu vaccine clinics in october and november. um i'm

thinking about reformatting the flu clinic this upcoming year. maybe we just do. division of training morning seemed to be very popular for the field. and so we'll look at that. in march. we had fruit boxes sent to the stations in honor of national nutrition month. two weekends ago, we did a big climate oracle. this was from the leukemia with the leukemia lymphoma society, where we climbed over 2000 steps at work , allow and raised money for that, and we had an s f f d tent with our pto was also there and so that was great. my calves hurt for a couple of days after, but it was a good good climb. and so the future events will have a wellness table at the gym. gallagher inter station competition that's coming up this saturday. station cancer champions where there's a training that's going to be coming up in july with bc alba and then we're going to be. csaba is also heading up a fire service organization

organizational culture of safety survey through the drexel university, so this will provide the department with some objective data to assess our safety culture, and the plan is to offer this survey every year. so we can address um, where improvements needed. to finish up. um we wanted to talk about what we have on the horizon and the biggest thing that we're looking forward to, and really it's been dangling right in front of us for three years, and i think it's actually going to come about is we're going to transfer to an electronic health record. we've already digitized every file in that apartment. we no longer have any paper charts and our office which is a miracle. but they're not truly electronic health records are just scanned copies that we can access but apparently the final final final back and forth with the contract with the electronic health record company is back with the city attorney and very

close to being approved. and that's going to be a huge improvement for both us and for, um for the members of our department because they will be able to access their health record at any time and if they need it for any employment issue, or um or future medical. they will be able to get it. uh, we're also considering bringing tb and hearing and house this. this latest effort that stephanie spearheaded with a third party vendor. it was a success and that we got so many people screened, but there were a lot of hiccups with the third party vendor. and if stephanie hadn't been bird dogging the process the whole time it wouldn't have gone to well, so we think we can do it, um, treat that are medicals evaluations assistant is also a full bottom ist so our office is actually looking a little medical and then finally, uh, we are going

to restart health check this year, there will be an rfp process for vendors to bid on health checks. so we're looking forward to talking with, um members of the union and, uh, and command staff about what health check should comprise. and how the data is handled. um but i think it's very promising . um, there's a lot of interest in having it and we'll get it done. thank you very much. thank you very much, doctor. thank you very much. stephanie phelps. at this point, i'm going to ask for public comment for comments and questions from the commissioner . there is sorry, nobody approaching the podium and there is nobody on our public call. call in line. all right. thank you very much. commission secretary by the communist closed at this point. commissioner's comments questions at this. commissioner feinstein. thank you. thank you

very much. um. all that you're doing to, um, transform the office of the physician into the office of employee health and reaching out in these different ways. i have a very simple question. um because i thought everything was made pretty clear here, and it's probably to you a dumb question. but if, if our, uh it paramedics m t. even firefighters are responding to a medical call. and they're wearing an n 95 masks. does that prevent them? does that protect them from whatever exposure they might have to tuberculosis? yeah, that's actually a very good question. yes, it should. so it's got. it's a true for another words. correct correct

against covid and tuberculosis closest. and one thing we learned, uh and when we were doing this, uh, tb screening it from the dph physician who's in charge of tuberculosis for the city is that there are a couple of neighborhoods in san francisco in which tb is so endemic. it looks like you know, a third world country so are and this is unusual for the united states. i mean, we are particularly density and international city a lot of comings and going so our members are more at risk of contracting tb on the job, then firefighters elsewhere. firefighters also isn't a new phenomenon. i mean, i learned that from my years at the hall of justice, uh you know, and people that would be brought into custody and what their rates of tb were, and it

was very neighborhood links, so that doesn't come as a big shock to me. yeah but, um not not not surprising, but yes, to answer your question, and 95 masks are protective against tb and meningitis and let me let me ask just one follow up question if i might do our, uh personnel. where the 95 masks when i see them driving, and perhaps there in just in in in, uh, an ambulance with one other person , and they're definitely not masked. i'm not sure if they're supposed to be or not, um, if it's just when they come in to contact with a patient with a patient. i also see them unloading, you know, especially at st francis or other hospitals

, unloading patients and they're not wearing masks. hmm i can't comment on that, um i just don't know. i think that's a question for cheap tongue or a doctor lecoq, but, uh i know. they know they're supposed to. well ah! i'm supposed to do a lot of things, too. but, um yeah, i know they're uncomfortable. and what have you but you know, in order to preserve their health and well being i would think they would like to wear those masks. perhaps we'll put out a reminder. oh how perfect. thank you. okay. yeah that was my question. yeah. thank you. commissioner fights time before commissioner fraser, the chief of the department. would you like to have a comment here? thank you very much, mr president. i just want to say

thank you to both of you and the rest of your office. trita is awesome, too. um and you know, i know stephanie. you have been here and then beloved by us for, um quite a while. and then our dock came along right during covid in your both in the frying pan together. and you just, um you're both super resilient and you've just done a wonderful job for us. and you know, i'm so proud of our office of employee health. and you know, i know we had a good doctor. when i came in back in the day, dr owen, i think before that we had who was that doctor used to whisper in your ear to see if you could hear. um anyways, i don't remember that. but right, doc newsome? yeah can you hear me? can you hear me now? but um anyways. ah but they're always looking at ways to improve things for our members from, you

know, doing this tv thing when we had to do tv it was, you know, it was like a one off, okay, you're going today. take your regular car and drive to general and you're going to go to the hearing and this and that and it was a logistical nightmare. and i understand this one had challenges, too. but um , but you know, they're always trying to move in the in the right direction, and i'm still crossing my fingers about the electronic health records. um and really hoping we can we can get those but just thank you for all the fantastic work you do, and advocacy for us, and, um, you know, it's really nice to have people in there that care so much about the members of our department. so thank you speak for both of us. we do really care about the members. we we really admire the tough job they have. and, um we're on. we're both honored to serve this department. thank you, commissioner fraser. thank you

so much for your report, and it's wonderful to meet you and see you both. it's certainly an understatement for me to say you're a small but mighty office with an amazing impact, and that certainly comes through. um dr. broker you mentioned october october of 2019, which is the month that i retired from a long nursing career. and then boom. there we were. you brought back a lot of memories, and before i was a commissioner did get the chance to meet some of the members by just volunteering to do covid vaccinations at a couple of states, uh, stations. which is really fun and interesting. um i'm also curious about um. the whole issue of after covid and mental health. in the way that i think it's becoming clearer as time goes on , how it affected people emotionally, and now we're going back to normal. as if that's

something that's so easy to do. and i know there's no answer to this and just and i know you're entirely aware of it, but that the idea that impact or the collision of ptsd some of the emotional hangover from covid and all the rest of it that there is a handful of work. there are a couple of big handfuls of work for the mental health peace for our members. and so i applaud the tb and hearing screening. those are essential, especially with the physical impacts of the work that's being done. but i'm curious what your thoughts are about some of the ongoing mental health. thank you for bringing that up. commissioner fraser. i couldn't agree with you more. i think we're in a really precarious moment in time as a society. and um, and you know that that transfers to the

department where human we're living in society, and they're continuing to do really difficult work that involves, you know some traumatic exposures. you know, i think it's stephanie may have something to add, but michael is to continue to be accessible and to continue to convince the field that i'm not here to end their career. i'm here too. you know, maximize their career and their well being. i can't always accomplish that. there are people that have conditions that are career ending, but i don't want to be seen as um. you know the enemy or an intimidating force. i want to be seen as an approachable. person and. i am starting to accomplish it. you know it's taken a few years, but people are calling me up and closing things that i can't believe they're disclosing to

me. but um, when i when i handle it, and you know the way in a confidential way or, you know, just offer them the help and get them on the right track. um that reinforces the trust. and so. um, you know, stephanie has been , you know a trusted resource for the field. i'm so grateful that she was there through some turbulent years in our office to maintain some level of trust. but together and with dr bryant as well, i think we're seeing as a largely benevolent force now. um and here to harness all the resources that the city has to help our members and the and the city has committed some really tremendous resources. i mean, the this mental health benefit that is 10 free sessions per issue, you know, through the e a p with a therapist completely

confidential is really, uh, wonderful thing that the city of san francisco committed to and we want to make sure everyone is aware of it. and that, um they shouldn't be at all. a stigmatized by accessing it that uh so. as long as we can remain accessible and in the positive ledger for the field, i think we're doing what we can for mental health. stephanie, please. i agree with dr broke all i'm honored anytime someone reaches out to me because i know what it took for them to make that call to our office and the silver lining of covid is we do have a lot more resources, bringing mental health to the forefront for first responders and having culturally competent clinicians and employee assistance program who is very

responsive to our members and have taken an interest in our members. and so, having all these resources, it's changed just so much in my time here and reducing the stigma and i know when people call they're like, oh, am i the first person to file a stress claim or ptsd and was like no many have come before you. many will come after this is, you know, we treat it just like we would an ankle or anything else we have you know steps that you take and then we also connect you in with the employee assistance program, um , to get you into these culturally competent, competent providers, and so the departments also expanded its behavioral health unit and we're working closely with them, which has been great and so we'll continue to do outreach regarding mental health with them as well. thank you very much. commissioner fraser. well, just to wrap it up. when islands is said and done. this is about healing. broadly and it's obvious i think to everybody here that you're providing that kind of an environment and you're carrying is really on

display. so thank you. and i appreciate your work. thank you very much. vice president. more gun. yes thank you for your report. doctor brokaw and nurse phelps, uh, had one question you might have mentioned that that's great news about the new vaccine. for a lifetime. evelyn did i say that right? when will that be available? or did you already? it's the by violent backs vaccine that you've probably already had. yeah so the by violence, it just looks like they've run the numbers and looking at the strains that are circulating and this by violent vaccine. covers it and offers an adequate immune response for a prolonged period of time for most people. um now again, i think the caveat is just like when you you're over, 65 you get a stronger flu shot and you start to get new move acts

because your immune system's getting older you're going to have to get more covid boosters or if you have a compromised immune system due to a medical issue or because of medication you take you may want to get a. mm hmm. you know, more frequent booster, but we're not going to have to do a department wide booster every year, which is really good news. um i do anticipate will have surges again of the virus. i don't think we're done with this thing. it's just something we're going to have to live with. and hopefully you know everyone if there won't be a need to do mandates for masks, it'll be people will say ah, you know, my kids sick. my wife sick. i'm going to put a mask on her. no. mhm i already see that behavior among people you know there. at headquarters. at least you know about a third of people are in a

mask at any given time. and although i'm not in a mask right now, because i think the numbers are about as low as they're going to get, you know, come the fall or if there's a surge i'll put we put masks on back in our office. yeah. great. i have a dumb question for you want here ? you mentioned the yeah. mr feinstein. why you mentioned the . testing in the hearing testing. is there some kind of correlation of that it seemed like arbitrary combination very arbitrary. understand what? oh it just happens to be the to test that ocean mandate. higher departments perform yearly, so hmm. yeah. okay tb is, uh, is that related to pneumonia? i

forgot it's not causing pneumonia in it and its active form. okay it's a it's a multi organ disease. it can affect the bones that can affect. the kidneys. it can go anywhere. wow, it's a pernicious little bacteria. do we have a vaccine for that? there are vaccines, but, um, the bcg vaccine. remember that back in the sixties that is a. it's a very crude vaccine for tuberculosis, so there is no good ah, vaccine for tuberculosis. and. increasingly there are fewer and fewer treatment options. you know, it's a very it's getting to be a very drug resistant bacteria, so don't get it. oh yeah, i think i'm really scared. okay i thank you for your report

. i think that that's all i have . yeah. thank you. thank you very much. vice president margon. um i just wanted to say how great it is to have you and stephanie here. i think for us to commission in terms of oversight to the physicians office, as you will. to having this as an update. um. clearly for me indicates a change. and stephanie was through all of those days. i called her a front liner. oh for yourself, doctor before covid. post covid if you will. and i'm having you there. it's a big difference. i never used to push the button in the elevator to go up. you know, in this there was something there and i think you've done a great job in terms of the change of culture and the image, the newsletter helps as well. but just your access your report and you're you all are very friendly. so when i see this

staffing with photos, i appreciate that. because for us , it's like, okay. dr janet brian. okay so now it's it just brings it closer as well as your office coordinator as well. um the question of the covid, um. i appreciate what your office in which you folks did during that time. i appreciate your acknowledgement of whether toll it took for all of us. including this commission. how definitely for you. some of us are still part of that. um, me personally , uh, try to be good for 3.5 years and finally, car covid from my daughter. you know what i mean on the birthday birthday dinner, but your question is interesting. commissioner fraser because somehow or another, i hate the same. i don't know. i use that as another excuse. i'm always looking for excuses, but i just wanted to know because your information on a booster

because i wanted to know that i needed to do another booster. is important. but also the fact that it's coming from yourself with your office and your accessibility. you were the last position that gave me a shot, so i appreciate that as a member of the department. stephanie your talents and your dedication. your education is really amazing . um i have a good friend, retired paramedic out of this department that can't hear anything. and he swears it was the sirens and so to bring that in house and for us to be able to address it with the t b is really, really important. i love the electronic health record keeping. i love your passion. your dedication, doctor. i know that we're going to have some surges if you will, or whatever else happens so and the department is increasing in numbers. i think just doing health checks and examinations for promotions or new classes is quite a challenge, so i just wanted to acknowledge all of

that, and thank you so much for that. commissioner for feinstein, please sorry. i'm gonna. a couple other things that have come up in this discussion that i have a question about. okay so cow osha mandates that members be tested for tuberculosis and hearing loss correct. am i right? that we offer it to members? yes okay, but in my in my correct that it that that cal osha is requires it or there's an aerosol aerosol disease. transmissible exposure. um. dph requires that we offer it to members and screen them also for latent tb if they've had a positive tb test, and you're right. it sounds strange that tb and hearing is done together, but since it's recommended that it be offered annually, it's just easiest to package them up

together. hopefully if we do health check in the future, which we have our proposal for would be putting that all together. so if they have blood done to check their white blood cells, red blood cell liver function, kidney function all that then they could also have that tb test done at the same time, okay, but i have more of a question. i'm sorry about the hearing test. that is that required or just offered, so it's highly recommended that they have a hearing test done because, while firefighters in particular they look at an eight hour time weighted average for hearing and if we've done das emitters before with ucsf, and during an eight hour time they may not meet that. threshold for a hearing conservation program, but over the course of 24 hours , there is supposed to a lot of impact noise. so you're thinking building building alarms, chainsaws? things like that over time, so it is recommended based on a 25 exposure that they do have hearing tests done, and

we've tried to make it as easy as possible by having it. at a location that reduces their out of service time. as i bet everybody can hear the sirens. it's the radio sometimes that are more of an issue. i say. okay um, that that that was my second follow up question because president nick a geo, uh, that reminded me of that. i recall reading in the paper, one paper or the other that the by vaillant wears off. yeah. and i got. to i think i don't know. i've had six vaccinations or something. yeah, well, i hope i hope i don't have to reverse course on this. i mean, i'm quoting a dph email i got but they have not put it up out to the public. so i guess there's a

chance that they will reverse course. but i think i'm not a vaccine ologists, and it's a very complex science. while it's true that your antibodies go down after a few months after the by violent thing, there's that t cell immunity that persists. i see. so you're still that the protection being from death and hospitalization? your t cells take care of it. that's excellent to no thank you. i was just confused from what i've read, and it's confusing. it is it is what what i'm looking for is some nasal vaccine that you know would would stimulate the i g a in our mucous membranes so that we never even get sick at all. but you know, it's i've heard conflicting reports about how close that is. thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much. commissioner feinstein commissioners. at this

point, we'll conclude this presentation. thank you so much doctor broker stephanie phelps. madam secretary. item six. public comment on item seven. public comment on all matters pertaining to items seven and seven b and c below, including public comment on what are the hold items seven b and c in closed session. is there any member of the public on item six. madam secretary. there is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the public comment line is closed, and secretary i'm seven. possible closed session regarding personnel matters. vote on whether to conduct items seven b and c in closed session. the commission may hear item seven b and c in closed session pursuant to government code section 54 9 57 b and administrative code section 67.10 b. thank you very

much. madam secretary commissioners. i'm going to need a motion and a second on this. the commission continuing thank you very much. commissioner feinstein. thank you very much. commissioner fraser. president nicasio. how do you vote? commission vice president morgen how do you vote for the moment, madam secretary we have. we have quorum and the motion passes. thank you very much. the commission will now go into closed session at 11 05. thank you very much members of the public and

thank you. hmm. no. i shouldn't. i don't want to get going, and that's better about you. abscess part of upgrade. it's just bullshit. any action taken in closed session. as specified in california government code section 54 9 57.1, a in san francisco administrative code section, 67.12 b there is nothing to report. so we will go on to item nine vote to elect whether to disclose any or all discussions held in closed session as specified in san francisco administrative code

section 67.12, a. commissioners to the motion on designing, please. a move that we do not disclose the items discussed in closed session and thank you very much. commissioner fraser. second thank you very much. vice president. more gun. president nicasio. how do you vote and commissioner feinstein? how do you vote? the motion is unanimous. item. 10 adjournment motion, please. i moved with it. we adjourned. thank you very much. commissioner feinstein, 2nd 2nd vice president morgan. thank you very much. this meeting is adjourned. thank you. thank you. thank you. commissioners. thank you.

today we are going to talk about fire safety. we are here at the urban center on mission street in san francisco. it's a wonderful display. a little house in the

urban center exhibition center that shows what it's like in a home in san francisco after an earthquake. one of the major issues that we are going to face after earthquakes are fire hazard. we are happy to have the fire marshall join us today. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> we talk about the san francisco earthquake that was a fire that mostly devastated the city. how do we avoid that kind of problem. how can we reduce fire hazard? >> the construction was a lot different. we don't expect what we had then. we want to make sure with the gas heaters that the gas is shut off. >> if you shut it off you are going to have no hot water or heat. be careful not to shut it off unless you smell gas.

>> absolutely because once you do shut it off you should have the utility company come in and turn it back on. here is a mock up of a gas hear the on a house. where would we find the gas meter? >> it should be in your garage. everyone should be familiar with where the gas meter is. >> one of the tools is a wrench, a crescent wrench. >> yes. the crescent wrench is good and this is a perfect example of how to have it so you can loosen it up and use it when you need it. >> okay. let's go inside to talk about fire safety. many of the issues here relate

to fire, for example, we have a little smoke detector and i see you brought one here, a carbon monoxide smoke detector. >> this is a combination of smoke and carbon monoxide detector. they are required in single homes now and in apartment buildings. if gas appliance is not burning properly this will alert you before the fumes buildup and will affect you negatively. >> this is a battery powered? >> this is a battery powered and it has a 10 year battery life. a lot of times you may have one or the other. if you put in just a carbon monoxide detector, it's important to have one of these too. every

house should have a fire extinguisher, yes. >> one thing people expect to do when the power goes out after an earthquake about using candles. what would you recommend? >> if you have a battery operated candle would be better to use. this kind of a candle, you wouldn't want it in an area where it can cause a fire or aftershock that it doesn't rollover. you definitely want to have this in a non-combustible surface. >> now, here we have our stove. after a significant earthquake we expect that we may have gas disrupted and so without gas in your home, how are you going to cook?

>> well, i wouldn't recommend cooking inside of the house. you have to go outside and use a portable stove or something else. >> so it wouldn't be safe to use your fireplace to cook? >> not at first. you should check it by a professional first. >> outside should be a safe place to cook as long as you stay away from buildings and doors and windows. >> yes. that will be fine. >> here we have some alternative cooking areas. >> you can barbecue and if you have a regular propane bark could barbecue.

>> thank you for joining us. and thanks for this terrific space that you have in this exhibition space and thanks for helping san francisco stay >> 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

i'm chanel joyce i'm a firefighter for the san francisco fire department. i currently am the station 4. in the mission bay districtism lived in san francisco in noe valley. grew up with my mom and i went to high school in san ma te'o. after high school i went to mississippi where i played volleyball in university of southern mississippi. what got me going after college was i was applying to place related to fire and police i loved my experience but my family is home. i grew up here and could not be far from my family anymore i came back. >> i have been a firefighter for 4 years the transition to the fire department has been seam tells is the same. team work and coming together.

transitioning to the job med me comfortable that i made the right decision to come become and work for a fire department that is big in diversity and equality and becoming a fell. i got to be a member at a few different fire stations. each station has their own culture. i worked in places that are xroem and with a young crew and had the most seniority have 3 or 2 years in whatever it may be. learning stuff when people have been in the job for 20 plus years and learning from people got in it grew me to adopt and work with everybody. >> a lot of people will come up to mow and say, thank you for your service noise to see a woman in the fire department. you are doing it. it is nice to see kids waiving look a woman firefighter.

they get excited i love that part of the job seeing the excitement that people see. you are a woman you can do this job. every person has a good experience with the fire department. no one ever spokous they say, they are here. they're do this work and everybody loves them. not everybody gets that in their job. i don't do it for the recognition but niez nice to see people that respect had you do and know you did a lot to get here and you still do to work and you set your life on the line for other people. it is cool. learned and expand it across the city. [♪♪] the tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors,

merchants, workers, and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. the tenderloin emergency initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services, and increase investments in the neighborhood. >> the department of homelessness and supportive housing is responsible for providing resources to people living on the streets. we can do assessments on the streets to see what people are eligible for as far as permanent housing. we also link people with shelter that's available. it could be congregate shelter, the navigation center, the homeless outreach team links those people with those resources and the tenderloin needs that more than anywhere else in the city. >> they're staffing a variety of our street teams, our street crisis response team, our street overdose response team, and our newly launched wellness response team. we have received feedback from community members, from residents, community

organizations that we need an extra level and an extra level of impact and more impactful care to serve this community's needs and that's what the fire department and the community's paramedics are bringing today to this issue. >> the staff at san francisco community health center has really taken up the initiative of providing a community-based outreach for the neighborhood. so we're out there at this point monday through saturday letting residents know this is a service they can access really just describing the service, you know, the shower, the laundry, the food, all the different resources and referrals that can be made and really just providing the neighborhood with a face, this is something that we've seen work and something you can trust. >> together, city and community-based teams work daily to connect people to services, -

>> good morning, everybody. thank you for coming here today and to roll out and as what will be an important intervention. we know that the occupying and epidemics in your state is one of the most deadly public health crises in a long time. >> opioid related overdose are not the real cause of death but we've seen a doubling of people who have died in overdose over the last 5 years. we are in the midst of a public health crises there are solutions we have to