Transcripts For SFGTV Fire 20240704

Meeting id 26645312704 and the webinar password is 1234. Please insure you are in a quite location, speak clearly and turn off background sounds. Wait for the item you would like to address to be called. When prompted press star 3 to be added oo the queue. The system will notify you. Callers will hear silence when waiting to speak. Operator will unmute you. Callers have the standard three minutes to provide Public Comment. You may watch live at www. Sfgovtv. Org. Item 1, roll call. President nakajo. Present. Vice president morgan. Present. Commissioner Catherine Feinstein has been excused. Commissioner fraser. Present. Commissioner collins. Present. Chief of Department Jeanine Nicholson. Present. President nakajo will now read the land acknowledgment. Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you madam secretary. The San Francisco Fire Commission we acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Madam secretary. Thank you. Item 2, general Public Comment. Members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the Commission Jurisdiction that does not appear on the agenda. Speakers shall address 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 the speaker. The lack of response by the commissioners or Department Personnel does not necessarily consitute agreement with or support of statements made during Public Comment. Madam secretary, is there any member of the public that wishes to comment at this time . There is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the public call in line. Thank you very much. Public comment is closed. Item 3, approval of the minutes. Discussion and possible action to approve the Meeting Minutes of july 26, 2023. Any Public Comment on this item . There is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the Public Comment in line. Public comment is closed. Any questions or discussion from the commissioners . I will need a motion colleagues on this. So move. Second. That was moved by commissioner collins and seconded by commissioner fraser. [roll call] the motion is unanimous. Item 4, report from chief of Department Jeanine Nicholson on current issues, activities and events within the Department Since the Fire Commission meeting on july 26, 2023, including budget, academies special events communication and outreach to other Government Agencies and the public and report from operations deputy chief Darius Luttropp on overall Field Operations including greater alarm fires, Bureau Fire Prevention and investigation, training within the department and Airport Division, and report from ems and Community Paramedicine, deputy chief saundra tong on the ems and Community Paramedicine divisions. Thank you very much madam secretary. Good morning chief nicholson. Good morning president nakajo, Vice President morgan, commissioner fraser, commissioner collins. Command staff. Im your fire chief Jeanine Nicholson and this is my report since our last Commission Meeting. So, you may or may not notice that a lot of city hall is on vacation, so that allows for us to really get down to work and get a lot of things done and so, there is a lot of work going on at headquarters right now, but ill tell you a little about what happened in my world the last couple weeks. Assistant deputy chief buferred and i met with the Healing Village collaborative, which is leaders in the black community in San Francisco addressing the fentanyl crisis. So, we had a good meeting with them and i have been in touch with the woman who ran that, Felicia Jones and trying to get a meeting set up so they can hear more about what our Community Paramedic teams do. I thought it was a good meeting, and thank you chaef buford for attending with me. We had fire fire Appreciation Night at the giants game last monday, and we had one of our very own kat boston single the national anthem, she did a great job and had another firefighter recognized for his horoic in the water rescue last month and there were multiple departments there as well and santa cruz Fire Departments there and they honored a member who died of cancer this past year. But we didnt win. Anyway, apec is stillit is a very big deal. The Asian Pacific economicit isnt conference, but anyway, that is coming in november with over 40 heads of state, both the prez dnlt and Vice President will be here. Chief brown, chief tong and others have been working very hard on our part in terms of what we need to do, and theres a lot. There is a whole lot. We have been meeting with other departments and plenty Law Enforcement including secret service and it is going to have a large impact on the city physically because they will close down some parts of the city for security purposes, but it is also a big lift for everybody, so everybody is doing their best and i thank them all and everyone who is on a committee, there is ton of committees, so everyone who is on a Apec Committee as well from our department, it is much appreciated. On friday chief luttropp and fire marshal kaufman and i met with the mta over at many in the mission. Many pulled together a bred breaking scenario for us and i thought it was a positive meeting, and we are finally getting some of what we need to get from them in terms ofwell see how it works out, but getting in way ahead of everybody else when some street change is going to happen. And we were able to see maps and just have a good conversation so i look forward to improving that sort of communication flow. And then really a big one, you may or may not have seen on monday chief luttropp and i were at the california puc testifying about Autonomous Vehicles, and cruz and wamo were there and i want to say chief luttropp did a great job and it was a mic drop ending for him, for us in terms of what he spoke about, and you know, its justwe have all seen it, it is just frustrating and when cruz and wamor are being disingenuous what is happening, so we said our piece, we have been doing what we can to tell our story and how these vehicles impact us and what chief luttropp talked about at the end after they talked about how great their safety records are is a incident that happened this past weekday where we had a crew fighting a car fire. I believe out by the legion of honor and a Autonomous Vehicle went around the engine and stopped right between the car fire and the engine, and you know, how would you feel if you were a passenger in that . He said it much more eloquently and but there was a gasp in the room at the time. Anyway, they keep saying everything is great and we just keep pointing to some of the challenges, and there is a good piece that just came out on nbc news about a vehicle stopping traffic on 19th avenue recently as well. We will continue to tell our story. There is however a vote i believe tomorrow and we will see what way it goes, and you know, im pretty sure what way it will go, but this is why we have the voting. The voting we have to see. Last night you may have seen we had a third alarm on 8th avenue and irving and it was a very challenging setup out there. Especially in the back of the building where several buildings came together and the construction was tough and there was a lot of hard work and a lot of looking for fire in the walls and our folks did a great job. No injuries and no loss of life obviously and just really really hard work and great coordination and again, im super proud of the folks out in the field doing the hard work and i will be heading to the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center meeting in about an hour with the mayor, so it right around the corner on market street, 11 55 market is where the Coordination Center is ask i can say there is a lot of work going on in the city to address the opiode crisis. There is huge Law Enforcement presence from local state and federal now and turning the screws to some folks and the word is on the wire out there that for folks that are selling is that the tl is too hot right now, so obviously this could be they are just going to displace people elsewhere, but if they keep their foot on the gas pedal, which they are going to do, hopefully we can see some significant change out there, because its been accountability has been the one piece that weve been missing a little bit and so now we are starting to see the impact of that. And then this saturday is the filipino parade celebration. I will not be in attendance. This is the first parade i will miss, but i hope to see that many of you are able to attend and that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you very much chief nicholson. Madam secretary, any Public Comment on the chiefs report . There is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on our public call in line. Alright. Public comment is closed on the report. Any questions or comments from the commissioners to the chief at this point . Had Vice President morgan. Ill be quick. Morning chief. Thanks for your report. I was read in one of these reports that you guys are having collaborative meetings with crews and the other Autonomous Vehiclewhats the otherwao . Wamo. Ill let chief luttropp speak about that. What i can say we are having a few more meetings now that the press has been active and we have gotten them to meet with us, but chief luttropp. Good morning president , Vice President , indiscernible deputy chief Darius Luttropp. What we had in the past week or two weeks is the meeting the chief has been asking for in the past few months. We asked for technology and policy makers to meet with us. In a structured meeting with sfmta in attendance, we selected small groups of incidents and we were actually able to getane get in a room and see from the car perspect positive because all we had were reports from field staff, so we could kind of compare their understanding what was going on with their vehicles and our understanding what was going on with the vehicles and it was highly illuminating i hope on both sides and we could see the difference and the cultural gap that existed between us and from the meeting on monday and speaking to some of the people postmeeting, i hope these will continue. I think they will learn as much from us as we learn from them, and if it makes our operation safer for the city of San Francisco that is always the chiefs intent. That is great. It is a kep step in the right direction to compare notes and get this thing under control. So, i think that is a positive effort. Thank you god they are reaching out to you guys finally and maybe you guys can make headway. I know we cant avoid the future, but we can reel them in better like you are doing and it is definitely a concern, especially if they are interrupting emergency situations like you know, you guys have noted in the past. I know they will take a lot of jobs away. Thats what i dont like about them. Just my personal opinion you know, but i know we cant avoid the future to some extent, but yeah, i think the collaborative meetings will help greatly. I was just curious about that. Thank you chief luttropp. The other thing, we had the last month or two three big fires. Did we get anywhere with the investigation of how they started or all of them are still under investigation . I believe they are all still actively under investigation. Okay, there is no rumor of arson . We dont want to speculate and have it be incorrect and we dont want to entertain any rumors another. Our fire investigators are doing their Due Diligence and they were at the fire last night. I saw them there as well last night, so you have been busy. Yes. Yes. Okay. Alright, thats all i got. Thank you chief. Vice president morgan. Commissioner fraser then commissioner collins. Thanks for your report chief. Thank you very much. I want to say, first of all im really happy nobody got hurt last night. It was a big fire. Im just relieved nobody got hurt last night in the big fire and all the other fires. I guess what i want to say is, perhaps a point of personal privilege about Autonomous Vehicles, and that is, last night i was driving across town to attend the death of a friend, and it was late and coming back to my house, which i was coming mostly across town from the middle of the city through the east side of town where i live, and i was shocked at the number of Autonomous Vehicles i saw. This is like 11 30 ish, 12 oclock. There were so many. It occurred to me how they are compiling their safety data if they are skewinging towards driving around the city at night when there is very few people on the street and very few cars and i think that is a question i like to ask them. If they are collecting and skewing the data towards that. They will be fine out there because there is nobody around. I did see a couple problems crossing intersections and being confused with people kind of flailing around the streets. It makes me question their data in their regard. If i may commissioners, yes, they do havei think over twice as many vehicles out at night as during the day. And yes, that would certainly skew their data. The data looks good if that is how you compile it. Looks better i would say. Myself have written to the puc a couple times. There is a form on the website. Easy to do and encourage anybody listening and all of us to take advantage of that. It is very easy to do that. I just want to say too, thank you to all the people in our Fire Department who responded to the fires on my block of late and knocked them out very quickly. The whole neighborhood was so appreciative, felt cared for everyone was super professional of course, but i felt very proud to be a small part of that. How that happened. The point of personal privilege, the difficult situation with that house because it is two fires in the same home is emblematic of so much of what is wrong now and whats not working and so many departments telling not just me, but various people on my block, there is nothing we can do. To me that is unacceptable and the Fire Department did everything they can do, but there is reliance on other departments and its harmful to all of us and all of our departments if we are not able to do anything in a situation that is dangerous, neglectful, abusive all most, and im not going into a lot of detail, about we can talk about all this later. I do want to say the Fire Department has been super responsive and im grateful for that. Again, if i can say for clarification for those unaware, there have been Mental Health challenges with the neighbor that lives in that building, thus yes creating fires et cetera. But yeah, im glad that you were happy with all of us that responded there, so thank you. Thatser all, thank you chief and thank you all. Thank you very much commissioner fraser. Commissioner collins. Chief luttropp, i like to ask you if you would to expand a little more in the comment you made about the cultural gap between our view of the danger posed by Autonomous Vehicles and the Autonomous Vehicle companies. Thank you for the question. So, i mean i think it would take a little more time then maybe we want to do here, but i think at the basic it was a misunderstanding of our operational needs. The fact that they didnt know the distance that would be required for us to do work so their vehicles would pull far too close to our vehicles. The misunderstanding of our technological ability to communicate with the cars. They didnt know we are not able to get a cell phone out to call the Customer Service rep to make the change. If they asked early in the process we would have been happy to queue them in on what basic fire operations look like in the city of San Francisco and i think we might be in that place now. They have a insurance set of policies and procedures that we will have to work at unraveling with them. They seem amenable to it at this point, but as ai dont think they understood the danger of driving over a uncharged fire hose which we understand very well in the agency. Just being in the room and talking about it, if they effect the changes we need to make i think we are bridging that. Where in the corporate hierarchy are the people you are meeting with . So, in the last week we are at the level of development heads, Vice President s of policy, at the level we would like to speak and see change made. At the same level as the folks who presented at the cpuc meeting and prior to that, it is no disrespect of people were seeing but they employed people as Public Safety outreach professionals. The main goal is train us how to interact with their vehicles and as the chief and i said we need their vehicles to learn how to interact with us. The onus cant be on the firefighter on the street to figure what dance i have to do to make a vehicle stop or no longer be a hinderage in the fire scene. Do you feel it would be worthwhile or helpful to deal with the ceo of cruz or wamo . Im the chief of operations for my executive officer, my chief, so im dealing with people i believe are kind of at that level as the chief of operations forparticularly for the San Francisco operations, and i think the ceo perhaps understands the value of their meeting with us, because they are very ernestcurrently untheir meetings with us and well see if it results in changes to their street behavior. The ceo i asked that question because the ceo made a Public Statement about blanketing San Francisco,b as you know with more of these vehicles, so it would seem we have their attention at this moment, the puc vote is imminent. Im just asking whether kicking it up a notch intensifys the heat. What i hear you saying is you think you are dealing with the right people . I think kicking it up a notch would intensify the heat and im sure there are People Better suited to sit with the ceo of cruz and wamo. Perhaps people in a legislative function or people who are in office in the city or my chief. This is a lot of money at stake, which is what driving it, so a ton of money, and a ton of money has been paid out to all sorts of organizations and people and we understand that. Again, we are not trying to stop you know, technology nor would we be able to, but to chief luttropps point, initially they did not want any information from us, they basically told us this is how you cut apart one of our cars, this is how you do xy and z, and so it was a lot of things could have been avoided as i stated at the meeting the other day. A lot could have been avoided had they come to us sooner, much sooner. From a business perspective, the main thing that Autonomous Vehicles must prove to the public is safety, and what entity is more steeped in safety then the Fire Department . I applaud you for using the Fire Department platform of safety to get the attention of those who will make money and get more business by proving that they are safe. Thats where im headed with this. But i dont want to go off on a tangent if you tell me we can certainly speak offline about this as well. Okay. Happy to sit down with you andyeah. Great. Commissioner collins. Thank you very much commissioner Vice President morgan. So, can we then conclude this report and report from operation Darius Luttropp present please . Good morning ing again commissioners. Deputy chief Darius Luttropp. I will switch it up a bit today and i brought pictures this time, so well doif i could have sfgovtv go to the lap top. Thank you. This is operation for july of 2023. You have the statistics in front of you. Not dramatic increase, but a slight increase in july, building alarms up by 85, total boxes was up a decent amount, 12, so about 33 percent in full boxes, but total boxes, a miner increases. There was a greater alarm in july. I kind of presented at the last meeting i thought water and cliff rescue calls would increase significantly and they have. Not in this month, perhaps next month. Next slide. So, i did want to highlight some different operations because i wasnt guaranteed a greater alarm this month. The report i was going to talk about a specific function of the San Francisco Fire Department and it comes out of this fire, box 092 ailth, pier 28 that occurred the 25. It came in as a small outside fire. The companies arrived on scene they discovered that what was presenting above the visible exterior area of this pier was actually just the product of a decently established fire on the under side of the pier. They struck a box and they upgraded the incident. The rest of the Companies Responding applied water in a way we were all taught, but rarely used. They went to what is called a circulator. It is used to fight basement fires predominantly so a device at the onedf a house, puts out a tremendous amount of fire, like a large sprinkler. They made progress on the fire while waiting for the fire boat to respond. The pick schrs highlight the power the fire boat brings to a fire like this. You see the under pier is being addressed by a nozzle on the hull of the ship that monitored directly to that area and they were able to knock down the bulk of the fire with the fire boat. Great resource. Next slide. However, in a pier fire like this, they get established and they end up in the wood and they can be very very difficult to find and if you leave any piece of this fire, we have the tremendous pier fires we have seen over the years in the city of so this requires hard hard work by the companies on scene. You see them cutting up metal plates to get to the fire under the deck and they had to remove a significant amount of material and operate house lines underneath the pier, including off the skiff of the fire boat so they deployed the smaller boat and they can drive under Indiana Jones style and look for the last pieces of the fire. Very very effective operation run by chief indiscernible and it went tremendously and they were for a significant amount of time, tremendous amount of work but you see the smiles on their face. Chief indiscernible division 3 received a phone call from our rescue captain who is our interface with the coastguard and he highlighted two ship board rescues that need to be made later in the day. The ships were going to arrive in the bay. One was going to be at port so they were going to be a pier and the other at anchorage so she came up quickly with a very strong plan that involved if necessary a technical operation to get two severely injured workers from the first ship, which was called the atlantic glory. They had been working at sea a couple days prior and fallen and sustained significant injuries so she detailed a plan early in the day and when the ship arrived early the Companies Went to work and it was a tremendously efficient operation and they both want to hospital safely. The second incident was two sailors ill on a vessel and this required the fire boat to go out and retrieve them at anchorage and also highly successful operation. I thank that chief for that approach. Now that we have a plan in place for both incidents. The last photo is a drill walkthrough i was able to attend. They set up at pier 80 in response to the newark fire that killed 2 newark firefighters. These are ship or auto carrying ships and these are all tesla ev and you see how close they are together. The Fire Fighting system are not designed to fight a lithium fire. We are in stations with large drills and i want to thank chief indiscernible setting up the Training Opportunity for people in the field. Then we did have a greater alarm. The greater alarm listed is box 7424, which occurred the 27 on 19th avenue. This is from midway through after the second alarm struck and you see fire over the roofline and ill read from chief indiscernible operation report. So, 2042 hours at 1242 19th avenue lincoln and irving. Resulted in two injuries to firefighters. One larseration to the hand and the second a result of fallthrough floor well kraez in a second. He was uninjured at the time but the next day seeked treatment for soreness. Struck at 2042 for apartment on fire. First on scene declared smoke showing and working fire. Battalion 8 came quickly. As a indiscernible battalion 8 on the day was a captain working betweenian chief with two days previously worked as battalion chief and established command quickly. Took control of the scene and began to fight the fire. On arrival there was heavy smoke from the open garage with residents outside. indiscernible lead 200 foot line to the second floor and then battalion 7 arifen from Richmond District and assigned fire attack. indiscernible bravo 3 with aerial went to the roof. They were trying to get alternate access from front of the building so aerial to the bravo side. As they push down the hall they had success. Knocked down visible fire and they were making headway. They reported water on the fire. This pont they relized perhaps they were not addressing the main body of fire and this is a problem not unique to the city of San Francisco, but very very common on a building. This building had undergone significant renovation and had offices built and other spaces built in the rear of this building that were plywood and heavier wall then normal, so the well established fire in the rear of this building burned through a portion of the room that they were fighting fire in, but you can see that is basically the top of the chimney. They can put out all the fire in that space, but it wasnt necessarily addressing the fire behind them. After initial success, that fire did manage to burn to the second floor and start to burn into the bravo walls, especially because it had a open area, a light well to access. A second alarm struck. Multiple floors of fire and fire into the bravo exposure. Chief indiscernible command strikes a second alarm and begins to reorganize to address fire in two buildings. The fire was addressed by lines. The rear of the building, the previous battalion 8 fire command became fire attack on the charley side or charley division, and was able to knock down all visible fire on that side. At that point they had command of the space, and they were successful putting out the fire. So, great job by all companies on scene. Definitely a second alarm, and i want to command all the actions of everybody who fought that fire. Here are pictures. You see the number of hose lines off the firs arriving or engine. The bulk of the hose. Great job. You can see the hallway they were accessing and the number of doors and partitions, so basically it had been chopped up in a very very small room. Some of these rooms had a lot of storage in them, et cetera. Ill get to my next a second. They were described as hording conditions but a complex layout and a lot of material in the structure itself, not necessarily the furnishings, but paneling and plywood in the space so it a a lot of fuel and created a lot of heat. So, this is the glossary word. Sorry to see commissioner feinstein isnt here, but we are hearing a lot on the radio and common usage is hoarding conditions. Obviously this presents a tremendous challenge. It is access challenge. It has a tremendous amount of fuel. It is a search challenge. It is very easy to topple any piece of these hoarding piles as you move through the a space so the configuration of the space you went one direction isnt necessarily the same coming back. A lot of challenges. It feels like increasing problem, but obviously we are going to address training and try to overcome it. The final, this is not technically a july fire. This is the morning of august 1, but the companies came on 31 so ill cheat. I will present next week but didnt want to let the month go by without pointing out the tremendous work by the San Francisco Fire Department at this incident. These pictures are arrival photos. This is what it looked like when they arrived at this fire. This is open correction framing, some light weight, some fairly heavy so the vertical is heavy, if it chapss collapses it is hazard but horizontal light. Easy to burn through and collapse. The battalion chief positioned the companies in the most effective manner possible and made it clear in the earliest communications what was going to happen at this fire. This fire was a defensive fire, this was a fire that had the potential to spread greatly and that collapse of this building was imminent and was going to happen. It was guarantee there would be a collapse of the structure. He positioned all companies and began to go to work. On the oak street side in the immediate exposures there were people who needed to be rescued and carried from the building, and all this went on with this fire and the potential for collapse overhead. The bravery demonstrated by the members at that time reflects the greatest tradition of the San Francisco Fire Department. We will revisit what happened there later. When chief arrived, this is chief stowerty fire, he took them in and saw he had a geography problem. The hickory alley, a tight alley with turn of the century buildings was in grave danger and he wasnt going to be able to limit the size of it until they got a handle on the main body of fire at 300 octavia so he set up the command structure , put the rigs in the correct place and put out the fire. Tremendous win. There was 7 other buildings damaged. Next slide, please. You can see that the main reason for the additional extension of the fire is the collapse itself. When the walls came down, all the debris you see on the roof of all these buildings was still on fire when thrown on the roofsism all those are small pieces of wood. They are not embers. These are very very large chunks of wood that maintain heat for a decent amount of time when they were thrown and they were scattered all the way down the block. This did start 7 additional small fires contained because of the positioning of all the companies and all the chiefs put in place. Couldnt be prouder. Chief couldnt be prouder. So, you can see even when the fire is over, it presents a significant overhead hazard. Sorry to say that is still in place but should be rectified today, so the scaffolding was in place, still portions of it building that had not collapsed so ongoing issue. That is the end of the slide presentation. I will move to the bureau of Fire Prevention investigation. From prevention, there were many many promotions this month and many changes in his internal staff, but i believe fire marshal has arfbd where they need to be and well get the efficiency and great work. If you are troubled by any of the numbers in his report, know that is the transition from the last fiscal year and with all the moves and he will be well ahead of schedule by next time. We did attend sfmta meeting with the chief and the directors of mta and where think we are in a good place moving forward. The fire marshal has been the face of the Autonomous Vehicle reporting at the level of captains and bureau and then hes also been the main face of our street scape changes. Hopefully he can reduce his bandwidth and he began work on addressing or lithium ion battery problem lurking and coming over the horizon. There are units because we did talk about it the arson unit recollect 19 structure fires under investigation, 25 vehicles, 21 outside fires under investigation in july. The Airport Division continues to make great strides. They are conducting a class in airport rescue Fire Fighting to try and build out their pool of new recruits, and they dont anticipate having to draft our younger members down to the airport as the practice in the past. They have an established happy workforce who is proud to be at the airport and i commend all the chiefs, particularly chief darcie for their work down there. We included the sfo, airport news letter and im always very very jealous of people when they come up with great naming conventions and the third page is red cap recap and that keeps me up at night. A tremendously named article. Division of training. She has a couple academies in progress right now, so we have the 132 recruit academy and happy to report we did lose two early to injury, but those so far have been the only two. The h3 level 2 academy, which started with 5 lost one early, but i hear they are doingthey are great and will be a asset to the department. And then our in Service Training division is completing a in Service Training module and i look forward to a report from them and we continued our Helicopter Training work yesterday with the chp. Chief malis also in the process of securing some agreements with real estate and with public or Housing Urban Development for buildings that are going to be demolished and wunsh once we have those agreements in place it will be a tremendous Training Opportunity for our staff. Everybody loves the opportunity to train in real buildings so i look forward to report on that in the near future. We did also a meeting with the leadership and overhead of the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team and kind of tried to fiend a way to increase participation by our agency and also to give them the tools for a coordinated increase in their internal training, so that we can increase the number of volunteers trained in the future. The reserves make up the end of the report and we are looking forward to a graduation of new fire reserves next week and i want to report the number of fire reserves that showed at third alarm last night at 8th avenue was overwhelming. They are very professional and as much work as we can put them to and as much learning they can get at any fire incident think it tremendous win for the Fire Department and city overall, and that ends my report. Thank you very much chief luttropp. Madam secretary, any member of the public that wishes to give Public Comment on chiefs report . There is nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the Public Comment line. Public comment is closed. Commissioners any questions . Ill go real quick. Vice president morgan. Thank you for your report chief luttropp. The fact pier 28, you spoke of the circyulator. Does that pump water from the bay . It uses water from the engine and they had a hydrant and pumped from the hydrant. This is a circumstance where they could have drafted bay water and would have been able to apply bay water. We have the capability to do both. Thats great. Thats great. Do we know how that fire started . The pier no. Under investigation. Yeah, under investigation. It wasnt that big a fire . It was bigger then it appeared on initial, but they saved the property. Okay. I just want to commend chief stoerty and all the other firefighter that worked on 19th avenue to put that fire out and that horrible fire on octavia and oak street. That looked really bad, you know . I havent been over there. Was that a construction site . It was a construction site. I havent been over there or they have the streets blocked off. Now the neighbors are complaining about the cleanup. Well hear about that more, but that was a great job. Want to commend all the firefighters and the companies that worked on those fires and you guys are doing a excellent job and i think thats all the questions i have for now. Thanks for your report. Thank you, sir. If i may say about the cleanup at oak and octavia, it isit was turned over to the owner who has been constructing that building to take the scaffolding and Everything Else down causing a problem and they started and then stopped in the middle, and thats why the street is still closed and so dbi has issued a emergency order to them to get it done within 48 hours, so to get that road back open. It isnt because of a city agency, it is because of the ownership of that they are dragging their feet. Thank you for the report. Thank you Vice President morgan. Commissioner fraser, did you have a question . I have a comment. Thank you chief luttropp, i felt like applauding at the end of your report. Such good work on everyones behalf. Thank you. I guess i just really appreciate hearing some of the details of these large fires and i know there is other fires constantly, but the two words i will be going away with today are lithium ion batteries and hoarding and something i think we have to make a whole different set of preparations for as a community. If there is anything we can do, please please let us know, because this isthose are serious dangerous conditions and we dont hear much about hoarding in terms of Public Service announcements, but might be good to raise awareness. Thank you so much. Great report. Thank you very much. Commissioner collins did you have a question or comment at this point . Thank you very much. I have just a couple of questions, one comment to the fire marshal and maybe perhaps you can answer this as well. In the report and i thank you for the information about the transition, page 13, 14, fire marshal. There is lots of description of permits, annual permits, building, business, highrise, port property. My question is, are all these permits inspections coordinated in the administrative out of the fire marsal office at headquarters or is that combination of permit inspections with our members that are at the business . The new permit bureau off van ness. My reference is page 13, 14 and it just identifies these various inspections and i was curious if this came out of coordination of headquarters or is that part of the responsibility of the members in our department out of the permit bureau down on van ness . Thank you for the question president nakajo, Vice President morgan, commissioners collins, fraser, chief. These are annual permits, what we call operational permits in the fire code regulated activities. High pile storage, propane, Public Assembly. The bureau was 3400, approximately 3500 permits they issue throughout the city. We parsed them out to different sections within our division, so the port maybe has a hundred of them, we send some to District Office while out in the district they can do Public Assembly and the permit section does other ones. It is coordinated through our permit section, but we all pitch in to get these done. We try to go to all of these once a year to insure that they are abiding by the permit conditions. Exits are clear, stored properly, thats what we do out there. Okay, fire marshal, just to clarify, are there members of our permit team that are both at the port and are at the permit bureau on van ness . So, they wont be at both places. We have people assigned to the port who take care of everythingit is like the airport, selfcontained, so we have members at the port who do permits and also do construction inspections, who are separate so they are stationed at pier 1, and they take everything on the waterfront. We dont get49 south van ness involved with port property or airport property. We leave that to the divisions so they do the same work but separate. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you fire marshal. My ort comment and doesnt require chief to come up here, but in her report on the 27, 28, there is a calendar in terms of recruitment training by the week. It says week 2 and week 3 and it gives a description of what the various members learn and i just wanted to comment that i appreciated as a commissioner because im not quite sure if i was able to see something so detailed out in terms of information and i are think it helps the commission a great deal to see that as well as the photos that are supplied and thank you chief luttropp for your mention in the fire reserves and the resources of that as well. Thats all i have at this particular point. Thank you very much chief luttropp. Madam secretary, i move to the report from ems and Community Paramedicine, deputy chief sandra tong. Welcome chief tong. Good morning. Sandy tong, deputy chief ems Community Paramedicine my report for july. This is relatively brief report from ems today. The highlights were for the ems division we averaged about the same number of calls, 354 what we had in the month of june. The market share rose to 80 percent so a increase we have been striving for. We have been hovering at 78 percent for the last few months and this is it division between the private ambulance to 911 calls and Fire Department so we are at 80 percent minimum market share we like to be at so well see how that continues or doesnt. Ems training conducted three week ems advancement academy, considered a bump up academy with emt who go through a program and are then are able to advance to paramedic. We added 7 new paramedics to the ems division this last Training Course and we have another one starting monday actually. Also, as chief luttropp mentioned, july 10 we started another paramedic academy. We started with 5. One decided to dop out after the first day, decided he wasnt prepared so we have 4 continuing to be successful so those will hopefully all graduate september 8. July 19 we started a process for h3 hirings. This was Entrance Exam we conducted i think we ended up with another 88 new applicants or candidates potential candidates for our next hiring of emt and paramedics. For Community Paramedicine with chief simon pang, these are highlights we had. Chief april slone is our section chief of cp operations, she lead a session entitled, utilizing Community Paramedics in interagency response to street conditions. This is a conference going on for about 23 years. The Virtual Conference this time. It was typically is a conference that intersects Law Enforcement and Mental Illness so they bring together subject Matter Experts to discuss how to better inform and educate other practitioners on best practices. As we mentioned in the past, we have been pursuing a joint National Foundation grant with the son Jose State University researchers and that looks like it has been funded, so this is going to explore further and quantify the effects of moral injury and hazard on members and clients so looking forward to use that research to better develop interventions and how to integrate more equity in our work as well as training. This will start in september and a one year project and well give updates as that goes along. Also our california state regulations now requires that all Community Paramedics hold a certification from the International Board of specialized certifications and this is Community Paramedicine, so we had a number of folks take the exam yesterday. Today and i believe tomorrow. Chief pang and chief slone were successful in their exam yesterday so they are now certified officially. All of our Community Paramedics need to go through this and anticipate getting all them through. They have till november 1 when this is a requirement for all of our community paramedxes to work. Finally, we also welcome eugene tse our data policy analyst. Anxiously awaiting his arrival. A San Francisco native and brings a lot of experience already from his work with the San Francisco health plan and Alameda Alliance for health. We really anticipate a lot of work from him. We have a lot of projects that not only fall within cp but also we want to be able to utilize him for much of our ems new data as well. Wanted to highlighti dont think this in the report. Highlight a case managing work that our ems6 providers do. So, we had a 39 year old male patient with alcohol use disorder a frequent 911 user since 2020 with 109 calls to 911 since then. In 2023 so far, there are 73 activations for 911. He is clearly ramping up use of 911 and then in the month of june there were 36 911 activations. Ems6 has been reachingute to him. Engaged 24 times out of the 36 activations in the month of june. There was a very concentrated effort to try to get him to a detox program. We were unsuccessful however and so we finally were able to pursue getting him into managed Alcohol Program, which is where he is now. Managed Alcohol Program is designed for individuals who have reportedly tried and failed detox programs and so they are able to monitorthey live there and monitor prevent withdraw by providing the standard drink equivalent. That keeps them in a safe place and keeping them out of more significant medical health issues. Theres provided shelter there as long as they participate in the program, so since hes been there in in the month of july, he only had three 911 activations so that ends up being a 92 percent decrease in utilization of the 911 system. And really all of this is the result of our advocacy ems 6 Community Paramedics trying to just really work with this individual, getting them into the right place, so just kudos to our staff there with the ems 6 division. Additional data you see in the report for sort and scrt. In the month of july we had 4 additional suboxon. Then also in terms of our street Crisis Response team, the numbers of connection or calls for service rose slightly from june and then we had average of one, 5150 activation or application for the month of july. Thats averaging about 1 per day. And thats my report. Alright. Thank you very much chief tong. Any member thof public that wishes to give Public Comment . There is nobody approaching the podium and are nobody on the public callin line. Alright. Public comment is closed. Commissioners, any questions or comments for cd4 . I will be quick. Vice president morgan. Thank you for your report chief tong. I just want to say congratulations on the grant you guys got from san jose state. San jose state, right . Uhhuh. Im sure that will benefit the department, Community Paramedicine department, and thanks for a great report. Thats all i got. Thank you very much. Commissioner fraser. Thank you chief tong. Great report. It is very very interesting. Congratulations on hiring your new data analyst. I think that will be terrific. There is a lot of eye s that will want to see the data going forward. I hope there is a way to broadly present the data at some point when there is something really completed to your satisfaction. There are many people who will want to see it. The number of daily calls for one person is quite incredible, but there they go over and over and over. Anyway, thank you. Always great it hear you. Thank you very much. Commissioner collins. To piggy back on that, im sure you are thrilled you got somebody to actually focus on the data and im going to be very curious about the time, energy and money that go to one person abusing the system, versus Everything Else you need to accomplish with the resources at hand, because thats a pretty strong argument and im only assuming that is something the data person will help focus on. Yes. Good report. Thanks. Thank you very much commissioner collins. At this point, thank you very much chief tong for your comprehensive report. Madam secretary item 5, commissioner president s report and update. Report and update from Fire Commission president stephen nakajo. Thank you very much. Commissioners and just wanted to share with you a update in terms of my activity as president. I recently had a Commission Secretary do a poll on the rest of the commissioners in terms of the remaining 5 months, 5 meetings that are left, particularly meetingnext meeting, august 23. We scheduled a closed session for briefing to continue in terms of our appeals process in front of us. I plan to bring a vote on september 13 at that particular Commission Meeting so that you can be aware of that and adjust your calendars to that. The date of september 13 i know we will have a full commission and as we proceed the next meeting of the 27 of september are going into october 12, october 12 i have preliminarily scheduled our last presentation. A former member of our department indiscernible in terms of the emt program we have. There is a update situation of sharing that we are looking at. Traditionally we fall into two meetings. Meeting 1 in november, november 8 and one in december, december 13, so i just wanted everyone to be aware of the following scheduling with the briefing next Commission Meeting the 23. The vote im targeting on september 13 as we move forward. The other points of information is that, myself and commissioner fraser are going to be meeting with cd3 and chief buford in terms of the diversity, Equity Inclusion program to get a update in terms of that, but also to try to get the commission involved in terms of what we can do with that as well. As a point of information, the commissioners, two of us will be touring the airport on august 16 and we are looking forward to that as well. The last piece of information is that, before my term expires in january, as we go into election, i do want to reach out one more time to gotc in terms of a internal meeting if we can pull that off. I wanted to share that with you commissioners so you can have that within your calendars and at that point that concludes my update. Madam secretary. Item 6 thank you. Item 6, adjournment. Okay. Like to adjourn this meeting in terms of the accident that occurred with the members of cal fire in los angeles with two helicopters that crashed. We do offer prayers and condolences in terms of that. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much. [meeting adjourned] youre watching San Francisco rising with chris manners. Special guest is david chu. Hi im chris manners and youre watching San Francisco rising the show thats about restarting rebuilding and re imagining our city. I guess today is david chiu, the City Attorney for the city and county of San Francisco , and hes here today to talk to us about the opioid crisis, reproductive rights and the non citizen Voting Program. Mr chu, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on happy to talk about whatever you want me to talk about, so can we start by explaining the difference between the City Attorneys office and the district Attorneys Office . I think it could be slightly confused. That is a very common fusion with members of the public so um, if you get arrested in San Francisco by the San Francisco police department, all criminal matters are dealt with by the San Francisco district attorney. We handle all civil matters on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco. What that means is a number of things. We provide advice and counsel to all actors within City Government from our mayor. Every member of the board of supervisors to the 100 plus departments, commissions boards that represent the city and county of San Francisco. We also defend the city against thousands of lawsuits. So if you slip and fall in front of city hall if theres a bus accident if there is an incident involving the San Francisco police department, we defend those matters. We also bring lawsuits on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco, where most famous for litigating and obtaining the constitutional right to marry for lgbtq couples have sued gun manufacturers, payday lenders, oil companies, you name it, who are undercutting the rights of san franciscans and the city and county of San Francisco. So now moving on to the opioid crisis. I understand youve had some success in court, um, dealing with manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. Could you elaborate a little bit on that for us, so the opioid industry and by that i refer to the Legal Industry that prescribes pain pills. Um over years. Uh, deceived americans and resulted in literally thousands upon thousands of deaths and tragedies that we see on our streets every day when it comes to the addictions that folks are experiencing. Many of the addictions really stemmed from what happened over a decade plus period where the prescription pain industry marketed prescription pills in ways that were false. We were one of thousands of jurisdictions around america that brought a lawsuit against the opioid industry. But weve had a particular set of successes that others have not. Ah we initially brought a lawsuit a few years ago against every part of the opioid supply chain, and that included manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including pharmacies over the course of four plus years. A number of these corporate defendants settled with us. Weve as of this moment brought in over 120 million of cash and services. To the city to help address the root causes of what were talking about. But a few months ago, we had a really historic verdict against the pharmacy, walgreens and their role walgreens was responsible for literally over 100 million pills, flooding the streets of San Francisco over a period of years where they flouted federal law that require them to track where theyre pills were going to. They had a what . What we refer to as a phil phil phil. Pharmacy culture where folks would bring in their prescriptions, and the pharmacist would just fill them without checking why someone was coming in multiple times without checking why certain doctors were seen a 100 fold increase in the number of opioid prescriptions that they were prescribing. So we had a historic judgment against walgreens recently, but its been a very intense lawsuit. And we know that will never bring back the lives that we have lost to opioid addictions. But its critical for us that we get the resources that we need. Maybe one other thing ill mention because its often confusion. A large percentage of folks who are addicted to street level drugs say heroin or fentanyl started their addictions. With painkillers, opioid medications that were prescribed through doctors provided through pharmacies and so literally the suffering that were seeing on our streets was caused by the opioid industry over many, many years and has created the significant crisis that we are dealing with right now. Right right now moving on. I understand after the recent Supreme Court ruling, striking down robust as wade that youve put together an organization thats designed to help mm. Provide Free Services to people who are both. Seeking abortions and providing them can you tell us about the organization . Sure so, um, before the Dobbs Decision came down, but after we learned about the leak from the Supreme Court about the draft that suggested the decision would be as bad as it has turned out to be, um, i reached out to leadership from the Bar Association of San Francisco because we knew that if that decision came down there would be tens of thousands of patients around the country as well as providers whose legal situation would be in jeopardy. Women doctors, nurses who could be subjected to lawsuits who could be arrested who could be prosecuted, particularly in red states . 26 states where rights are being rolled back or in the process or have already been rolled back because of the Dobbs Decision. So we put out a call to lawyers all over the bay and frankly, all over the country, and as of this moment there have been over 70 law firms that have answered our call to be part of the Legal Alliance for reproductive rights who have committed to reviewing cases and providing pro bono assistance to patients and providers who are at legal risk. We also are looking at potential cases that these lawyers can bring against various states. In these areas that are looking to deprive women and patients and providers of their of their rights. Um it is a very dark time in america, and im really proud that that barrier attorneys, the Legal Community care have stepped up to answer the call. Its very important thats great. So now the non citizen Voting Program that was passed by voters just for School Boards has faced them Court Challenges recently, but it was in place for the most recent election that weve had. How do you see that situation panning out . In fact, its been in place for now. Five School Board Elections. Um so a little bit of background in our San Francisco schools over one out of three kids. Has a parent who is a non citizen who doesnt have a say in the election of the policy makers that dictate the future of our San Francisco public schools, and so over a number of years, there has been a movement to allow immigrant parents to vote in School Board Elections. Few things ill mention about that is our country has a very long history when it comes to allowing immigrants to vote. From 17 76 for 100 and 50 years until after world war. One immigrants were allowed to vote in most states in our country on the theory that we want to assimilate immigrants in American Democratic values and institutions, and it wasnt until an anti immigrant backlash in world war one that that sort of ended. But in recent years, um cities across america have allowed this to happen. In fact, at this moment, believe there are over a dozen cities that have voted to allow non citizens to vote in a number of context. Now, this is particularly important in our schools just given how challenge our schools are, and given that we know that when we engage more parents in her school system, regardless of their citizenship it helps to lift up our schools for all parents. And so in 2016 the voters of San Francisco past about measure that allowed this to happen. Unfortunately earlier this year, there were conservative organizations that came to San Francisco to bring a lawsuit to try to overturn this , and i should also mention it is obviously the perspective of our office and our city that this is constitutional. Nothing in the constitution prohibits non citizens from voting. And in fact, theres an explicit provision in the constitution that allows chartered cities like San Francisco when it comes to School Board Elections to be able to dictate the time and manner of those elections. And so, uh, we are involved in litigation on this issue. There was an initial ruling that was not good for us that essentially said at the trial court level. We shouldnt allow this. Um we appealed it up to the appellate level. The Appellate Court made an initial decision to allow this past november election to proceed as it has for the last previous four elections. Were going to be in front of that court soon. Stay tuned. Well see what happens. It was good to hear that the city was able to reach a settlement with the center for medicare and Medicaid Services are meant laguna honda could still operate. How did you manage to reach that agreement . It was not an easy conversation. Just a little bit of background. So laguna honda has been an incredibly Important Institution in San Francisco for 150 years, taking care of our most vulnerable patients are frail, very elderly patients, many of whom are at end of life. And a few years ago, there were some issues in that hospital. Some violations of rules that we very much want to make sure dont get violated. There were folks that werent using proper ppe, who are bringing cigarette lighters into the facility, who might have brought some contraband into the facilities. We have zero tolerance for that and have made that very clear. We self reported some of these violations to the federal authorities. And unfortunately from our perspective, they took the very disproportionate step of ordering the closure. The permanent closure of lugano, honda. Problematic on a number of reasons. First and foremost, there are just no Skilled Nursing facility beds not just in california but around the country. After their order came down. We literally were putting 1000 calls a day to Skilled Nursing facilities around california and around the country and could find nowhere to move the 700 patients that we had had in the gonna honda but just as disturbingly as we were forced to start moving some of these patients, a number of them died. Theres a concept in medicine known as transfer trauma. When you move someone who is that frail and unfortunately, folks folks died and we were at a point where we were five weeks away from the deadline for the federal government. That they had provided to us to close the facility. So uh and we have been trying for months to get the federal government to reconsider their action, so i was compelled to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco and very pleased and appreciate that we were able to come to a settlement whereby transfers will be delayed at least until next year. Were going to have at least a year of funding. To keep the facility open, and hopefully we can get back up on our feet and ensure that no future violations occur because this is an institution that has to stay open for the good of these patients. Quite right, quite right. So finally, congratulations on winning an important public Power Service dispute with pg and e. Um why is it important that the citys rights as a local power provider maintained well, so San Francisco has been a local power provider for decades. We are fortunate to have access through our hedge hetchy hydroelectric system to provide electricity to a number of providers, particularly public recipients of that. And unfortunately, pg any has used its monopoly when it comes to private electricity to try to stop that, and to block that, and from our perspective, they violated federal law in adding literally tens of millions of dollars of expenses to San Francisco and institutions that were trying to ensure um, public power infrastructure. Put years of delays on our ability to do this, and so we had to bring a number of appeals in the federal commission. Ah we were successful in those appeals, and there was a decision recently that basically held the pg and e could not use its monopoly to unfairly delay or add tens of millions of dollars of cost. To the city and county of San Francisco, as we are trying to move forward with our vision of public power. Clearly pgd has not been able to serve not just San Francisco but northern california. Well we all know that with the wildfires with its bankruptcies, with all the issues that theyve had, we think there is a different model to move forward on and we are grateful to the court. And providing a ruling that allows us to move forward. Well thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate the time youve given us here today. I appreciate and thanks for your thanks for your questions. Thank you. Well thats it. For this episode, well be back with another one shortly for sf gov t v. Im chris manners. Thanks for watching. Yeah. Good afternoon. An announcement for asl viewers. Due to the importance of showing unobstructed videos, we ask that our asl viewers use the webex link provided in the description of the live stream. For viewers who would like this town hall meeting to be translated, please click on the webex link in the live stream description and click the icon in the bottom left corner to select your preferred language