chief of departments report discussion report from chief of department dean chrisman report on current issues activities and events within the department since the fire commission meeting on january eight, 2025 including budget. academies specially vents, communications and outreach to other government agencies and the public. good evening chief department then president morgan, commissioner frazier, commissioner nicole joe commissioner collins welcome to the meeting. i would first like to announce our new command staff members who were placed in these positions as of yesterday. >> deputy chief of operations patrick rabbit and deputy chief of administration so you me, brandon and the following is my commission report for january 22nd 2025. the following are the activities and events that myself and in some cases chief tong participated in since the announcement of my position january 8th, 2025 i attended the mayor's swearing in at civic center plaza. january 10th, 2020 5q1 announcement i clearly attended that one january 10th, 2025 attended the swearing in of supervisors connie chen an

not only my department but i'm coordinating management leads from other departments to go down to help. well, you have to understand is that there is a process by which they county and the city must request the assistance. the worst thing is to arrive uninvited before they're ready. so that is in process and i fully expect that we will get those mutual aid requests within the coming days. the fire chiefs can speak more to this. this is an active response. the fires are still burning. they're not in recovery yet. some of the things that they are just getting up they've had some shelters up or they're getting assistance centers. centers up. there will be weeks, months and years of recovery and assistance that l.a. will need. we are there to be partners. we happen to have a really very close relationship with l.a. and in emergency management world we actually speak on a regular basis every week, every friday. so we're getting ready to go and we'll mayor's office will be able to share that information once more resources go down. i also just want to thank the fire department. the most impo

that the united states department of justice stands with them. you protected our country's democratic institutions from violence and threats of violence. you charged more than 1500 people for criminal conduct that occurred during the january 6th attack on the capitol, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to that attack. you brought to justice those who kicked, punched, beat, and tased law enforcement officers who were protecting the capitol that day. and you pursued accountability for that attack on our democracy wherever it led, guided only by your commitment to following the facts and the law. i am proud of the work you have done. i am equally proud of the way you have done that work. i am proud that when i visited you in communities across the country, i saw not only the skill with which you have done your work, but the depth of your compassion. in uvalde, i saw how you truly honored the lives of the 19 children and two teachers who were taken from their loved ones. in pittsburgh, even after the tree of life trial was over and it felt l

he has great experience in the intel department, department of defense. i have known cash and i believe that cash is the right person at this time for this job. you will have the ability to question mr. patel speedy and of questioning right now about whether he will enforce an enemies list that he announced publicly on television. >> senator, i'm sorry. there will never be an enemies list within the department of justice. >> thank you. the fbi's data what is the fbi's role in national security and counterterrorism and how important is that role? >> i believe now more than ever counterterrorism is so important and vital in our country. we are facing such incredible threats here and abroad. if i'm sure many of you saw fbi former fbi director wray interview on 60 minutes. he talked about the threats that frankly get i don't have my security clearance, but the threats from china come from china right now that are so great. >> given that speedy sleeper cell within our country. >> given that importance as dash is a responsible to call for shutting down the fbi'

other departments do. audits showed it and we knew that from our discussions with our doj. >> right. and i guess i just i'll leave it at that but i guess i think that the chart on page 14 sorry page 13 does show that this is not just a staffing issue because other departments are doing more with with way less than than what we we have. >> i mean i want to i want to respond to what you just said though, which is you know, you agree in theory that supervisory review is a good thing. this is this report is not the first time this has been raised right at page 14 of the report it quotes cal doj which says that sfpd was quote resisting the institution of supervisory reviews. if you go back to march of 2007, there is a report a lengthy report by ph.d. addressed to the mayor's office that did a comprehensive look at how we do stop collection that report recommended supervisory reviews page 52 of the report you know related recommendation ins you know cpe in 2020 recommended adopting policies, kind of strict polic

an absolute disgrace to that department. frankly to this country. i'm delighted to see you willing to step up and serve. left me ask you something. i repeatedly asked your predecessor when he sat where you are sitting whether the southern border was secure and he repeatedly told me under oath it is secure, senator. and he repeatedly said under oath our policies are working, senator, meaning the biden administration policies that gave us this devastating open border. let me just ask you. is the southern border secure as we find it today? >> no, the southern border is not secure today. in just three days we'll have a new president in this country, president trump. and he will secure our border. >> that is refreshing candor. a young man from my state, this is travis wolf, 12 years old. when he was killed just over a year ago by an illegal migrant who mowed him down. i choose my words carefully in a motor vehicle, hit him head on doing 75 in a 40. killed him, others were severely injured. just yesterday a witness sitting where y

the oak lan fire department was the first fire department i did.i did a firefighter one training program there. that got me into fire whim start the paramedic school i went to city college and fell in love with the city. i did nile internship at station 49. it was wonder. . i learned the san francisco wave doing things. like the wild, wild west, every day. i loved it was a family environment here. that made mow say san fan fire department, that's i didn't want to be. i avoided science my entire education up to becoming a paramedic. i failed my first time taking my emt registry. i hope well is nobody out there that gets discouraged if this happens. you have opportunity to take again. i d. i came back. took it, passed and continued to paramedic and pass the my registry the first time. being a woman in the fire department i am a minority here. a minority in multiple aspects. i'm a woman. biracial i'm the only black woman paramedic in the ems position. it is insane and i hope i encourage other women to join this profession that does not represent the c

at the present structure and the department of defense will provide additional firefighting personnel and capability. the federal government is working closely with national guard to deploy a state of emergency declaration. the california national national guard is adding to modular air firefighting units and tomorrow ready by the nevada national guard to the department defense has four additional maps that could be used if needed. additionally the apartment sending 10 navy helicopters with water delivery buckets with aerial suppression. with that i'm happy to take your questions. >> thanks sabrina. on ukraine the latest amount is not the entirety of what is left. how can you assure you are leaving substantial amount of money not delivered to ukraine in terms of weapons and several billion dollars in dol you think those weapons will eventually get to ukraine and is there a danger of a lag. on ukraine as you mentioned there will be a few billion dollars less for the incoming administration to decide what they decide to do with that remaining and what i would say on the question of are

he has great experience in the intel department, department of defense. i have known cash and i believe that cash is the right person at this time for this job. you will have the ability to question mr. patel speedy and of questioning right now about whether he will enforce an enemies list that he announced publicly on television. >> senator, i'm sorry. there will never be an enemies list within the department of justice. >> thank you. the fbi's data what is the fbi's role in national security and counterterrorism and how important is that role? >> i believe now more than ever counterterrorism is so important and vital in our country. we are facing such incredible threats here and abroad. if i'm sure many of you saw fbi former fbi director wray interview on 60 minutes. he talked about the threats that frankly get i don't have my security clearance, but the threats from china come from china right now that are so great. >> given that speedy sleeper cell within our country. >> given that importance as dash is a responsible to call for shutting down the fbi'

these are egregious examples of rot in the department of justice. the impact of this political infection and are once stored of all enforcement institutions -- our once storied law enforcement institutions is catastrophic. the conduct has failed to live up to our country's ideals. so, ms. bondi, should you be confirmed, the actions you take to change the department's course must be for accountability so that the conduct i just described never happens again. the ole way to accomplish this is through transparency for the congress and the american people. now to my friend, ranking member durbin. sen. durbin: thank you, senator grassley. i appreciate your commitment to the bipartisan practices preventing presidential nominees. that was in doubt several weeks ago. i spoke to senator grassley and he assured me he is committed as i am to maintaining these practices which we have established over the years. our process is rigorous and shows how seriously members of both sides of the aisle take our constitutional responsibility of advise and consent. ms. bon

once hired, they work with the department of department hr team to ensure they are in place at the timese. >> thank you, madrid. have a quick question and with regards to the career center. okay. that's open to potential employees as well as the internal employees. my question is, exactly what type of set up external low do you have in place to let people know about the ace program. the civil service, reasonable accomodation process? do you have like a for example, a separate data base that houses all that information including the external organizations that have been mention instead presentation. i was wondering how you■ get th word out externally. >> hello, good to hear from you. great question. part of the recruelty. team provided our city departments with out reach and recruitment list that list built up for 9 years now and divided to various sections. one of sections do include people with disabilitynd organize that support this is that is over 171 organizations that is accessible through share point all departments utilize that list to engage in and are encouraged to the organiza

i feel no different about public works as i do the police department or the fire department. we have a baseline of operations that we must maintain but for city to be great we need to be investing in our future. and so i just like to end with that point in that i struggle with what's in front of us. i do think the staff you guys are incredible every single year you guys probably get tired of hearing from me. i'm excited to hear we got our emergency manager on site. that is great. all of these things though are about the future and this budget does not seem to do anything for the city's future. thank you mr. harvey thank you, chair again. >> i mean if i'm so sorry if your staff gets tired of us recognizing them and out yeah. get ready for more. great job. i thank you and thank you for all the time that you spent on ongoing through the budget. i came up with some questions. i have one of the question was actually you know actually i got answers i got answers multiple times so i was going to be a comment on my first question on the slide page five up out of the four major uses t

meaning departments such as d.tilizes the program more to fill exempt positions known as temporary in order to hire for the essential posi porter positions. however, you in that the now that the we lifted up that covid support, again we also have eliminated the exempt program and become to just doing civil service 115. hiring just through our program route. noticed with the exempt route it was not supporting people and it was a pilot we were trying to test. you know with exempt place ams they don't lead t permanent status. we did not give employees a wrong today they were getting per minute nancey it was a temporary position. now we stick with the regular civil service rule our rule 115 program standing. they apply for the program and after a year of satisfaction they move in a permanent position. that has been successful for employees. especially ones that are on any type of assistance to ensure they don't lose assistance thinking they'll get a permanent position. this is one of the reasons we cut the exempt pilot

women at the department of justice? >> many, many great men and women in the justice department as well, senator, as all the law enforcement agencies that fall within the department of justice. they're out there risking their lives, especially the law enforcement officers, every single day. >> can we agree, though, that there there have been and may be today, some bad people at the department of justice? >> yes, senator, we don't know for sure, because for the last four years, the curtains there have been tightly drawn. >> but but i think some a minority of people there have delegitimized america's criminal justice system. the most destabilizing act that i saw in the past four years, maybe in the history of the department, is when attorney general garland decided, on the basis of dubious facts and untested legal theories, to criminally prosecute a former president of the united states. and not only that, this is this is the special part. he decided to do it after the former president of the united states had announced t

it's is beyond the police department.re's got to be more discussion on this and with that involves other agencies as well during and another question is once the person been apprehended by the police is there because the person has no id, is there a way to i guess book them or fingerprint them to id the person who they are if it's just a mental health hold and we cannot identify them that would it be the most appropriate process only because there's no crime that we're addressing if there is a crime that usually is how that happens they get booked pending id because if it's a citation and released that person still has to be identified prior to being cited out so that that typically happens. but again not knowing all the details of this specific incident, i would need to look more deeper into that. >> okay. >> so you're looking into it and probably is going to be i guess going forward in the future it's more discussion on this or if you want to send me details of that i can look into the specific incident. i'll be happy t

i don't want a republican department of justice. i don't want a democrat department of justice. i want a department of justice that follows the damn law. and i think the american people do, too. that shouldn't be too much to expect. now, i'm grateful to president trump for nominating you. i think on any objective level you are clearly qualified for this position. you have been a prosecutor for decades, you have been the elected attorney general of the state of florida, the third largest state in america, for eight years. let me ask you, in terms of your practice, how many criminal cases over the course of your career have you personally handled? >> handled thousands. >> how many of those were before a jury? >> hundreds. i don't want to overstate but hundreds. i was in a courtroom for many years. i tried four when i was an intern jury trial. i think you had to try at least 20 in misdemeanor before you went to felony. then you were in court every day and i was also lead trial attorney for many years trying many cases. >> how many of those cases would have been before a judge? >> h

, department of defense. i have known cash and i believe that cash is the right person at this time. for this job, you'll have the ability to question mr. patel, and i'm questioning you right now about whether you will enforce an enemies list that he announced publicly on television. oh, senator, i'm sorry. there will never be an enemies list within the department of justice. >> thank you. um, the fbi's. what is the fbi's role in national security and counterterrorism? and how important is that role? >> you know, senator, i believe now more than ever, counterterrorism is so important and vital in our country. we are facing such incredible threats here and abroad. if i'm sure many of you saw, um, fbi, former fbi director wray's interview on 60 minutes, he talked about the threats that frankly, again, i don't have my security clearance, but the threats facing us, senator from china, from china right now that are so great given sleeper cells within our country, given that importance, is it responsible to call fo

i'm looking forward to working with the department of justice and making the police department better in every aspect possible. the change comes as new federal oversight of the department begins. a-p-d has agreed to be monitored by the u.s. department of justice for up to five years. in the wake of the department's racist text messaging scandal. there's still work to do, but my message today is one of hope. we will reach full staffing. we will build a reputation as a professional constitutional police department, and we will put this dark chapter behind us. the city will now have a completely new leadership team, a new chief, city manager and mayor as it works to revamp and reform the department. we want our community to know that we are taking measurable steps in the right direction to address past abuses, bring the necessary leadership training, accountability and transparency needed to heal our community. catherine wade's son was one of the people referenced in those police texts. she says she trusts the new leadership and welcomes the federal oversight. i'm happy somebody is overs

you know, the department there are a lot of folks that work at the department. many of them are career individuals that aren't in the policy, don't make decisions based on politics. i'm hopeful the department will continue its current practice despite who is the president, despite who is the attorney general. maybe that's too much to hope for, given today's environment. but there are still guardrails in place. you know, we have the media. we have generals. we have. other institutions. and so i'd like to think that that that things will continue. but it's going to require, you know, vigilance by, all of us to watch what's going on at the and and be hopeful. you know, after the election i remember waking just sad and depressed, not understanding how could the american put someone with such lack of character and morals into an office that i once held and i hold that i hold dear and the more i thought about it because the american people, the american voter at this issue of who should be president through a different lens and i do they worry about feeding their fami

department and for the city, because not every department is successful. >> a major milestone for the san francisco police department. seven years in the making. >> and new at six. a snapshot of the city before the new mayor starts tomorrow. >> from abc seven live. >> breaking news and that breaking news. a wildfire that is burning homes, cars and forcing people to flee for their lives on a dangerously windy day in southern california. good evening. >> i'm ama daetz and i'm dan ashley. thanks for joining us. it's been a brutal firefight for more than six hours. the palisades fire started about 1030 this morning with dangerous winds helping fanned the flames. it has already scorched more than 1200 acres. and there are mandatory evacuations. >> this is in the pacific palisades area. and while there's not an official count from cal fire, there is video showing numerous homes on fire. it moved so quickly. some people have abandoned their cars in order to escape, and firefighters have swooped in to make rescues. the fire chief for los angeles county had this warning, telling people to be r

he has great experience in the intel department, department of defense. i have known kash and i believe that kash is the right person at this time for this job. you will have the ability to question mr. patel when you do. >> i'm questioning whether you will enforce an enemy's list he announced publicly on television. >> there will never be an enemy's list within the department of justice. >> thank you. the f.b.i.'s -- what is the f.b.i.'s role in national security and counter terrorism and how important is that role? >> you know, senator, i believe now more than ever counter terrorism is so important and vital in our country. we are facing such incredible threats here and abroad. i'm sure many of you saw f.b.i. former f.b.i. director wray's interview on 60 minutes. he talked about the threats that frankly again i don't have my security clearance but the threat facing us, senator, from china right now that are so great. the sleeper cells within our country. >> given that importance, is it responsible to call for shutting down the f.b.i.'s counter terrorism

large department. busy department, and we have a lot of things to see while working here.t job in the world to this day. >> we prep them as best we can. all the experiences and instructors and myself, we again our job is to see them-we want to see them be successful. we want to hear good reports. it is like being a parent. i are want to make sure when they leave we want to hear good things and if we don't want also want to check and make sure, what happened? i want to hear from now the probationary firefighter what happened and how we can best support them, because they are not recruits anymore. they are professional probationary firefighters and just because they left the tower doesn't mean we are done with them. i'm more invested in them now now that they are my brother and sister then a recruit because i could be working with them in the field. i found a career i absolutely hundred percent love. it is very rare that you you can find a profession that you can love that much. i'm a public to vant. i never forget the roots of what we do. we serve the citizens of san franci

as you know, the interior department is also an energy department. as we make the transition to a cleaner energy economy, the land and water managed by the department will play an indispensable role in producing the energy that we need as well as facilitating the ability to move that energy around the country. from geo thermal and hydrogen and solar and wind, the department is at the center of our energy future. governor, i very much look forward to hearing your plans on all of these topics and more and i think we'll have very active questions from our members today. >> thank you, senator heinrich. >> we'll hear introduction from the north dakota delegation. first, we'll hear from senator hogan and then in a moment from senator cramer. >> thank you, senator, and ranking member heinrich. thank you for holding this hearing today. doug, welcome to you and katherine, welcome to you and your whole team. and thank you for your incredible service on behalf of north dakota and is really is an honor today to introduce you to our energy and natural resources c

of a department in need of strong leadership. her commitment to the rule of law emerged as a central theme of our discussion yesterday and as i made clear in my opening statement yesterday that is what i believe the department desperately need spree today the purpose is to hear from outside panel of witnesses and we are grateful that all of you were here this morning to express your views on this nominee. i will go ahead and introduce the majority witnesses. first is dave ehrenberg. until a few days ago mr. ehrenberg was the elected democrat state attorney for florida's 15th judicial district. he served in that role for three terms since he was elected in 2012. mr. ehrenberg also previously served in the florida state senate and as a white house fellow under the clinton and bush administration's. he has known ms. bondi since 2010 when he ran to be the attorney general of florida and it was a position ms. bondi obviously one. notwithstanding their political differences ms. bondi appointed mr. ehrenberg to be her drug czar to comba

ryan here today to speak because of my long career at the department, my reference for the department and its mission, and its independence. the lawyers and law-enforcement officials at the apartment of justice are critical to preventing the weaponization of the department in preserving impartial adherence to the rule of law. for the attorney geral, this means taking seriously their oath of office, which is to the constitution, not the president. it means recusal at their impartiality regarding any particular investigation or case could reasonably be questioned, and it means reaffirming long-standing policies limiting contacts between the department and the white house on specific investigations of cases. the o through the constitution means that if there is inconsistency between what the president may ask the attorney general to do and what the constitution requires the attorney general must choose the latter. although she is a member of the president cabinet and therefore expected to implement the president's policy priorities, her duties are limited by the constitution. that means

those other departments will be updating their costs and telling us okay.hose services now cost this much those changes will be in coming. and lastly, policy changes by the mayor and the board. are not sure what those are got high-level goals from it in coming administration but looking forward to seeing what the details will be and again, it is they need to stress this is a difficult time financially for the city the general funds is going to need to make difficult decisions so it in coming mayor's office has a steep learning curve not that much time to learn some difficult times. >> next item, please so our strategy tactics and outcomes are again janitors sufficient revenue from a staffing level this is the third up and coming 2026-2027 or are a third there and we increased the fees across the board and we are implemented targeted recommendations based on i pled fee study and to studio prevent rate shock to our customers in the final two years of our fee. strategy number two, our the investments to the modernizing our agency system again, that is reestabl

blinken: the neo executed by the state department and the defense department. >> i would have to say, sir, waiting until the last minute is not executing a plan at all. and it led to the deaths of many americans -- and afghan people and afghan allies. sec. blinken: the record reflects again, this decision was reached collectively. no one urged initiating the neo until we decided to do it on the 14th. >> i think in my review of our investigation, there was so much confusion coming out of your embassy, coming from the top military advisers, who told me, testified that they told you to close down that embassy in advance to protect americans and american assets and classified documents. they were left to the taliban. you were in charge by law. you may have delegated this. i don't know. but to legislate moving forward, i need to know who was in charge. that's why it is so important that mr. sullivan, the national security adviser, come before this committee and give his testimony about what the hell was going on during this disastrous evacuation. with that, i now recognize the ranking memb

the department of justice and of every other department in the government. richard nixon abused the internal revenue service by ordering tax audits of people on his enemies list. congress then made that illegal and created an inspector general in the treasury department to keep an eye on that. the inspector general act of 1978 passed the united states senate unanimously, zero opposition. and one of the things that republicans really loved about it was that inspectors general were charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse in every department of the government. waste, fraud and abuse was one of the republican battle cries that ronald reagan was using then in what would become his successful campaign to be the next president of the united states. and republican senators of that era were as outraged and offended by republican president richard nixon's corruption, as democratic senators were. outrage at presidential crime did not become partizan until the trump era. after the corruption and impeachments and indictments of donald trump, congress once again

chief of departments. report. discussion. report from chief of department sandra tong. report on current issues, activities and events within the department since the fire commission meeting on december 11th, 2024, including budget academies, special events, communications and outreach to other government agencies and the public. good morning, president morgan, vice president frazier, commissioner. collins, commissioner nakajo command staff. kathy. happy new year, everyone. sandi. thom. this is my report since our last meeting on november the 11th. we have been following closely what's been going on down in southern california and the fires that are rapidly expanding over there, and have been asked to support some of the firefighting efforts down there. so we are in the process of sending a strike team down to the los angeles area. more to follow as we get more in the coming days. so i wanted to speak a little bit about the events that happened over the last month. pretty much as you all know, it's been a little bit of a light month in terms of activities and events giv

the department. we need to complete our budget submission process to the comptroller and mayor's office by february 21st, and then the mayor has until june 1st this year to submit the full proposed budget. last year, there were some enterprises that we were actually grouped with that had our budgets on may 1st, but this year everyone's on the june 1st date because those other enterprises that have fixed budgets, their their fixe. and for us, they're hearing us in june like everybody else. finally, the board of supervisors needs to adopt the budget by july 31st. so that's kind of the high level cycle. so we received from the mayor's office budget instructions in early december. they asked for an ongoing reduction to general fund spending of 15%, which for us is a $200,000 cut that they're asking for. and they are asking for that reduction to be ongoing. additionally, there's general guidance about eliminating vacancies and to not add new positions to the budget. they want us to consider slowing hiring

look at each and every department. i don't know if one department is more important than the other. i will work very hard every day. as senator welch had said, it's not only fighting crime. i think that's just first and foremost on americans' minds. but that's why there is an entire huge civil division that falls under the department of justice. to protect consumers. to do the antitrust cases. to do all the medicare cases. to do all the other cases. it's multifaceted. first and foremost to keep america safe and restore integrity to that department. i don't think i can stress enough that 72% of americans have lost faith in the department of justice. senator schmitt: the belief of the american people need to have, again, is that people are going to be treated the same as you said earlier, there is only one tier. not two tiers. when you dig down to some of the comments you heard and questions on this side, that's the big concern. don't want it tilted in anybody's direction. you just want it to be fair. you want certainly the top law enforcement official in the country to view it that w

it's a department that is misused. instead of using border protection to do that, protect our border and security, they've utilized those resources to incentivize a instead of using the cybersecurity infrastructure set to do that, they engaged in mission creep and utilized it to censor americans with the misinformation. i'm concerned about disaster relief creating greater and greater increasing levels of moral hazard resulting in higher costs of these disasters. let's cover each one of those. how do you gain control over a massive agency whose resources and personnel have been misused? how do you root out those individuals who instead of securing our border open it up and facilitated this? gov. noem: this has been a big topic of conversation in most of the meetings i have had was how do we fix this agency, the reputation is it is broken and dysfunctional. that is the question i get the most, why would you want to head up a dysfunctional department? because the mission of the department is to secure the homeland, it is

the commission interacts with the department through the department heads.e commission would send a request to director o'riordan through the commission secretary, with its priorities and wishes and potential changes to the budget, and to get into some of the other questions that you had asked. the department is one of the earlier phases of the budget. after the department submits its budget, it goes to the mayor's office. who who makes changes? they will submit mayor's proposed budget on june 1st. they can make any changes they want. after that. then the supervisors take over and they can make limited changes. they can't change anything. they can't increase the oversight overall size of the budget. but they make their changes. and then it's passed by the full board and signed by the mayor again. so that's the order of operations. it doesn't come back to the budget, does not come back to the bic after it, after the department submission is made in february. okay. thank you. i think you actually answered my question. i was going to ask timing and phases of th