Clerk this is a reminder to silence all electronic devices. San francisco Fire Commission regular meeting december 13, 2017, and the time is 9 02. [ roll call. ] clerk announcements. The next Fire Commission meeting will not on january 10th, 2018 in city hall in room 416. The Fire Commission will resume their usual meeting schedule in 2018 consisting of the second and fourth wednesdays of the month. Item three, general Public Comment. Members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commissions jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. Speaker shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or Department Personnel. Commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with the speaker. The last of a response by the commissioners or Department Personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Clerk item 4, approval of the minutes. Discussion and possible action to approve Meeting Minutes on november 8th, 2017 and december 1st, 2017. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment on those minutes . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Commissioners, what is your pleasure . [ inaudible ] move by commissioner hardeman, do i have a second . Second. Second from Vice President nakajo. All approving . All in opposition . Clerk Environmental Health and safety. Director Anthony Boone to provide overview of duties, current findings and expectations for 2018. Welcome, mr. Boone. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning commissioners, chief. Thank you for having me this morning. First, let me say its an honor and a privilege to be part of the department and provide an overview of Environmental Health and safety for the department. I think the over arching philosophy that i bring to the department is to use all my skills and resources and knowledge to make an inherently dangerous job safer, if that makes any sense. I was talking with chief hayeswhite yesterday about firefighters are not at a fire scene at all days, all times, but safety is a 24 7 job, so paying attention to things in the fire house and even offthejob safety is critical to maintaining a healthy firefighting force, so it is my over that the overarching philosophy is that the culture of safety is infused in the members of the department as well as the civilian employees of the department. As far as duties go, you probably surmise my duties as an Environmental Health and safety professional, and the anticipation, recognition, evaluation and control of workplace hazards. Thats kind of an overarching description of what a fire safety professional does. There are a lot of Different Things that come to the table. Ive spent the First Six Months its been exactly six months since ive been here, trying to acclimate myself to department function, getting to know the nomenclature of what firefighters talk about. For example, knowing what a box is, knowing what a grader alarm is. Understanding the different divisions, the separation of suppression to support services to ems to Homeland Security to investigation and prevention, so getting to understand how that works, and then, really, just understanding the rank and file from the chief of department all the way to the assistant department chiefs, to the assistant chiefs, the batallion chiefs, the captains, so what i did was i spent a lot of time acclimating myself to that, as well. Ive visited approximately one quarter of the fire stations so far, introducing myself and what i bring to the table to members of the department and being able to answer questions. One of the biggest things that ive done since ive been here is from an environmental side, i brought our underground storage tanks and reporting system into compliance with the state, and i think thats probably the biggest success so far up to date. Ive spent a lot of time Reading Health and Safety Policies and assessing those health and Safety Policies to see how they can be made more robust to be improved so again, the members of the department can function and also maintain calosha and epa compliance, and thats what ive done so far. Going forward, i had a couple of bullet points that id like to read, and then, ill talk about them if you have any questions. Looking forward to 2018, continue assessment of policies and procedures and trying to upgrade them so that theyre in uptodate status for the department, so i wrote this as to assess and provide tools to improve as necessary the culture of Safety Awareness around the job of firefighting in all phases. Again, from prevention to suppression, investigation, recovery, with the purpose of reducing injuries as best we can. Once again, assessing Fire Department safety programs for calosha compliance, and updating them as necessary. Also, developing providing developing and providing health and Safety Training that is not only calosha compliant, but i think would also enhance the safety of the members of the department. Also, to provide Environmental Health and Safety Support within the framework of the departments fireyear Strategic Plan and act as a health and safety resource to the Fire Department, again, in any phase that i can support to make the job a little bit safer. And then, finally, kind of a cat catchall to provide whatever the Department Needs from me in the realm of fire safety, so thats what i hope to do going forward. And with the chiefs cooperation and all the deputy chiefs and assistant chiefs, assistant deputy chiefs, i believe we can make this job inherently safer than it has been, even though its not bad in the sense that its not safe, its just that its an inherently dangerous job, and id like to do my part to make it even safer. So that is what i do, and that is what i bring to the table, and ill entertain any questions. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment on this presentation . Seeing none, commissioners . Commissioner veronese . Thank you, commissioner. I would just like to say anthony has been a welcome addition to our staff in the field of fire safety and prevention, fire safety is all of our jobs, but to have a single point of contact and someone ultimately responsible for making recommendations and take i a look at each and every one of our facilities, our equipment and being that liaison, hes done a great job and off to a wonderful start and done quite a bit in six months, so thank you. Thank you, chief. Commissioner . Good morning. Good morning. How about now . Yes. Okay. Thank you. So what are the metrics that you are using to identify whether or not the job of a firefighter is safe . Thats a good question. My initial metrics would be to take a look at the osha recordable injury rate for the department overall. Im starting to compliile data from calosha injury logs to see and do an analysis to see where the major injuries are outside of the longterm, shortterm injuries, that kind of information, so those are the metrics that are commonly used in evaluating safety in reducing the osha recordable injury rate. What i heard you say physical injury. Are when you say physical injury, what what is calosha looking for . Theyre looking for by way of example, are they looking for broken bones, theyre looking for ways that people hurt themselves physically . Is there anything else that is part of the types of injuries theyre looking for that you can just further describe . There is some things in the calosha regulations about about stress, about theres actually a law on the books about workplace violence, and the ems personnel are part of that that regulation because theyre firstline responders, and theres a reporting system. And at this point, caloshas really just tabulating data on workplace violence, but there is an analysis on workplace violence, and calosha does talk a little bit about stress, but there is no compliance with regulatory stress management. How are you measuring whether or not an individual has sustained a stress injury . That remains to be seen. I dont have that in my purview at this point. That may be something that will happen down the road, but i dont have that data to support to answer that question at this time. Okay. And how about other physical ailments . What other physical ailments other than let me just give you an example. Ill cut to the chase here. What about cancer . Are you monitoring the cancer rate in the department . Not personally, not yet, but what impart of is part of the health and safety, and i will put my part when the health and Safety Committee requeens. Theres a lot of research and data thats out there already, and ive taken that data and ive reviewed a little bit of that external data. Theres a large study that involved i believe its new york city Fire Department, chicago Fire Department, and los angeles Fire Department. Ive taken those operations and look at how things are done. I havent made any commitment to the chief or any recommendations to the chief as far as cancer, but thats the longterm goal, to try to reduce that incident rate, as well. But as we sit here today i know you just started this job, and im excited about the opportunity that you bring to this field within the department, so i please dont take my questions as challenging you. I dont. Challenging what youve done, but instead, challenging where we can go as a 21st century department. Right. So as this day, do we have any idea of the cancer rate within active members of the department . I would probably defer that to the health and Safety Committee chair. I believe thats deputy chief colin beene. Yes, or department physician. Yes, or department 3 hysician, as well. But youre the health and safety guy of the department, right . That is correct. I look forward to working with you in the future because the health and safety of everyone in this room is important. I want to work with you to figure that out. Im in agreement with you. And not just figure out cancer generally, if theres a specific type of cancer, whether its lung cancer, whether its whatever type of cancer it is, lets figure out what type of cancer if it exists within the department, and i know its a big issue because poa not poa. The 798 just spent 100,000, their cancer presentation their people just spent 100,000 to test the people that just came back from the north bay fires, so this is an issue thats dear. We need to figure out what data points are out there. If theyre not out there, we need to, in my opinion, drill down and get to the bottom of it. I see chief colin beene standing up. Maybe he wants to Say Something on this issue. Commissioner, we do discuss it at Great Lengths in the health and Safety Committee. The health and Safety Committee is a joint group of union members, staff members, firefighters, and also, we do a lot of work with the San Francisco firefighters cancer foundation, so we look at everything all the documentation that comes in. What im being told by tony stephani, who oversees the cancer foundation, what were doing in regards to firefighting this time is leading the nation. I can get you that information at another meeting, but tony is new. He is coming on board and will be that point person for the department, but weve got a very Aggressive Group in our work with the union and the cancer foundation. I think what youre what youre asking. Yeah, no, absolutely. And as i mentioned, im not challenging tony. Im encouraging him to get more information. And i understand what youre saying about how were doing probably better than most departments, but he see what a lot of departments are doing on stress, and its actually pretty path particulaetic. Not to be too critical. Back on cancer, i would like to know the statistics not only within the department, but the statistics of the firefighters that have retired. We have to be sure that were not putting them in a position to be sick once theyre in their twilight years, where theyre enjoying time with their families. I would expect by this Time Next Year that the department has an answer for this, and not only has an answer for this, but has a program, an active program where we are meeting a much higher expectation, where were doing things. I know the department was spent some time i spent some time at station 49. I saw the new washing machines. Yeah. Were doing things to get the chemicals out of the uniforms. Maybe were doing it already, and maybe it exists, but id like to see getting a new program of mitigating the cancer risk. Not only now but for the future generation, the past generation of firefighters sfl absolutely, and i do think i can get you some of that from the cancer foundation, because they do track the retirees, so i think i can get you that information. Yeah. And then, on the stress issue, one in four firefighters have some sort of measure, by all the studies that ive read, some sort of measure of ptsd. This job is a very serious job. We see things that we cant were you n unsee or the firefighters see some things that they cant unsee. The stress thing is something thats been very important to me, and i think everybody in this room. I know were losing John Christie to potential retirement midnext year, and we have just hired on dan nazareta to facilitate additional stress treatment in that unit, but i would like to know how many firefighters are suffering from ptsd. As i told the chief previously, if we are if we dont know it, we cant manage it, aeasurf we cant measure it, we cant manage it. I think thats it for me. I have really High Expectations for you. I think you can probably feel that, and i look forward to working with you and the rest of the department on these important issues, these people want to know that were taking care of them in a very proactive and small way, too, so thank you for your efforts and weve got a lot of work to do, indeed, all of us. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you commissioner veronese. Vice president nakajo . Thank you. Just a couple of questions of clarification. Yes. You made some reference to compliance with our underwater storage tanks . Underground storage tanks. You want to get a bit more specific with what that is . Are we talking about citrons, or what are we talking about . No. Were talking about fuel storage and gasoline storage. Several fire stations have tanks that are under the ground to provide fuel, diesel to the emergency generators and to the engines and trucks and the epa requires certain things. If those tanks are above a certain galamount, then, you have to have a program how youre going to manage it to prevent leaking of that that fuel or fuel oil into the soil, so you have to manage that, and you have to report how youre going to respond if theres a leak, how youre going to monitor the tanks and things of that nature. And as california is going has gone to an online reporting system, and so theres something called secer the California Environmental reporting system, so i went to check off several things in boxes to make sure those are in compliance. The tanks are not monitored, theyre inspected, things of that nature. Like gas stations. When you see gas stations, they have to be compliant with these regulations. All right. In terms of our stations, how many stations would you say have these underground approximately 16. Okay. Like, station five . Station five. So when station five is rebuilt, that tank would be rebuilt in that station, as well . I believe thats the plan, yes. Okay. I see chief rivera nodding his head, so thank you very much. Also, when you find issues that need to be corrected and such, safety issues and such, how do you logistically convey that . Is that working with the department or in classroom training . How do you do that . Well, theres a couple of things at this point, and thats something that ive actually tried to figure out how to work that, so the way ive done it and ive responded to a couple of inquiries, if you will, to a couple of stations, and what ive done is done an inspection, done an investigation. Made my evaluated, make my recommendations, and i forward that to assistant deputy chief rivera, who would then forward it to deputy chief williams and get it back to the assistant chief of the the division chief and then get it back to the batallion chief or through that station, so through that chain of command that they can input and make those recommendations, make those changes if necessary. Thats an education of the members of that particular station for something that needs to be improved . Correct, and i would and if members of the station have particular questions from me, an example being station the Treasure Island training facility, they had specific questions for me, and i answered them directly. Yeah. To give them satisfactory answers and move forward from there. Okay. Mr. Boone, is there some kind of system of follow up that you make in terms of the in compliance . Simple phone calls, and then, ill go back and in