Which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Sounding Electronic Devices is prohibited. Set all to vibrate or turn the device completely off. Sounding Electronic Devices is prohibited. Set all to vibrate or turn the device completely off. Fire commission this is the regular meeting wednesday, august 24, 2016, the time is 502 item one roll call commissioner president Francee Covington commissioner Vice PresidentKen Cleaveland commissioner Stephen Nakajo commissioner Michael Hardeman chief of the department chief joanne hayeswhite. Item 2 Public Comment. At this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction speakers shall address their comments to the department as a whole and commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with the speaker the lack of a response by the commissioners are or or department 1234e7b8 doesnt constitute an agreement with or statement made during Public Comment. Thank you, madam secretary any Public Comment on this item . Would like to address the Commission Regarding a matter that does not fall on todays agenda not seeing any, Public Comment is closed. Item 3. Approval of the minutes discussion and possible action to approve meeting on july 27, 2016. Thank you. Any member of the public that wants to comment on the minutes as submitted as i understand. So moved. For approval madam chair. Thank you commissioner Vice President cleaveland and commissioner hardeman. All in favor, say i. I. Thank you item 4 discussion discussion on civilly grand jury report fire safety inspections in San Francisco a tail of two Departments Department of department of building inspection and San FranciscoFire Department. Is there anyone that would like to comment on the grand jury report Public Comment is closed. And my fellow commissioners, i want to point out that our response to the grand jury report is due on september 16th to the board of supervisors all right. So i also hope that everyone received the shobltd or shortened version of findings and recommendation that will be easy for us to refer to them who wants to kickoff the discussion commissioner Vice President cleaveland. I read the report and i believe we have some serious work in the Fire Department to address the issues of inspection i think that some of the legislation that was approved recently will move us in the right direction i have a number of questions not sure if well have a presentation from chief or from someone in the department you know the chief of operations or perhaps our fire marshall i have a slew of questions about the report quite frankly it is disturbing and so we will a lot work to do and recommendations that we need to follow through an i had a series of questions id like to ask the fink i guess ill ask of the chief and then ask it of other parties within the department the Fire Safety Task force was formed and had some final recommendations and id like to know the top 3 recommendations from that task force to the department. Good evening commissioner Vice President cleaveland. Before i ask the fire marshall to respond to the questions in discussions with commissioner president covington you will have at the next Fire Commission meeting on september 14th a presentation item on the agendas which we will provide prior to when we submit the deadline to submit the detailed response to the recommendation i have currently reviewed pretty good working draft with a number of items are in play we have work to do like you that commented with the tools with the inspector and h four inspector will go a long way in addressing the concerns i assure you, we will give a thorough presentation on september 14th id like to ask the fire marshall to talk a little bit about the task force if he can respond to the questions recognizing that he is going to be more prepared on september 14th about a running knowledge and participated in the task force. Fire marshall can you wait just one moment please i want to emphasize so we can talk amongst ourselves as a commission we find very important so that we are not forced up against a deadline that is hard for us to meet the september 16th deadline since our next meeting is not until the 14. At the 14 september meeting well have a full overview from the department so i just wanted to make that. My issue so much in the report that needs to be addressed and needs to be discussed and analyzed there is so much in this report we need to attend to it deals with the residential inspection practices of the department and want to make sure we are on a track to correct any of the problems in residential Building Inspections in our city so im not im not saying that we shouldnt i mean if we are under a deadline here then we need to talk about it tonight and talk about it quite frankly thoroughly i have a lot of questions i dont know who im supposed to ask youre not going to know what the answer is none of us on the commission will know the answers to the questions. I wasnt saying we would know the answers but saying this is the only forum in which we can speak. Ill certainly ask you a question. Thank you for waiting. Good evening chief fire marshall commissioner Vice President cleaveland happy to answer any and all questions i appreciated that. Anticipating a report on the fire safety a number of items came out of that legislation from supervisor wiener and supervisor tang and supervisor campos that was addressing the main concerns from that group has to do with with our inspections our fire complaint, tracking the inspections and writing novembers what is that process is it transparent access to that information by the residents here in the city things like that that would be thats the thing that most caught my attention and taken strides to address this at this point. Release that i dont put you under the gun i really do we have a lot of things to work on as a department a lot of the things need to be done between us and dbi the department of building inspection obviously well need additional funds to do a more expensive job of inspecting the residential buildings in the city i think that well get that funding but certainly have to should good faith were ready to do it. Ill say this commissioner Vice President cleaveland i did not have the opportunity to give that input if i had i would have been able to tell the grand jury a framework were working on and the end process ill say most if not all 90 percent of the recommendations as addressed towards the fashz office is underway and if not underway where a structure is laid out well plug in resources and upcoming. Im delighted to hear that. I dont know how much detail but the framework is in place. I have a number of questions i hope it appropriate madam chair to ask those questions. Thats why were here. Okay what what is status even if r two groups staffed what is the status of that. If you clarify there are two groups. Right. Our engine and Truck Companies that dont inspectors and the bureau that followups on complaint from the inspections so to clarify im not sure youre talking about the r two group. One of the things that is confusing the way we define the residential inspections different from the department of building inspection you know there rh2 are 3 or less and 90 units and less than 75 feet so, i mean were not talking about highrise were talking about low rise residential buildings and i know that the Building Inspection Commission and Fire Commission are supposed to get together e tote it is recommended to get together and two commissions and look at the inspection process, if you will, of Residential Properties in the city and i think we should do that its a good recommendation but but there is things youre doing now that are more immediate and working on the backlog and making sure that people that our captains and our command staff, if you will, in the firehouses and fire stations across the city are trained better on code inspections issues part of this report. Understood so we inspect the city inspects all arcades as far as the highrise inspections that is nor commercial space or residential space but a highrise team inspects those rh2 under the highrise. Those not highrise down to 9 units are engine and Truck Companies our field inspection unit inspect we have a list right now it is roughly 4 three hundred i believe in that range blow 9 unit 3 to 8 thats the Building Department we get into the units if this is a fire complaint someone calls the department theyre not on our annual list to inspect as far as training we are in the process and have an existing rh1, rh2 training manual already we have in the process of updating that i have the draft on any desk as we speak were currently videotaping some training inspections well inspect that building rh1 and rh2 fully loaded all the bells and whistles and rh2 not common to todays standards walk through a field process and document start out with the manual our check sheet the actual inspection and wrapping up. Thats some of the issues you know that you need a standardized form, if you will, to do the inspections and needed to distribute those for rh2s more uniformly across the city because denser areas of the city have more things to inspect so the people those station houses have more work to do than other parts of the city so somehow kind of distribute it equally across the board and prioritize these inspections based on the latest of the last those are the things youre in the process of doing; correct . As far as low balancing. Low balancing. The deputy chief can you speak to that. Commissioner, i agree a lot of things to be answered next time with all the recommendations were addressing them and basically trying to get an overarching response with a timeline for recommendations but i got up here to directly answer what youre saying about spreading them out we cant move the buildings some neighbors will have more rh2s than others not going to send engines or trucks in those areas in the response times to the citizens for emergencies i agree with the report in this regard followup on the rh2s that are being done and set up more appointment with the owners to make sure it gets done i feel the compliance rate is very good 94 percent. 94. Thats pretty good without enhancements to the program so i just. When you inspected those and found dishes the correction rate was 94 percent. 94 percent were done. How about in the weakness one of the things theyre talking about inspections are not conducted on weekend more people instead of going to those rh2s those apartment buildings you cant get in people are working monday through friday whats the appetite, if you will, for doing code inspections on the weekend. We had a meeting regarding that we were at the 798 he made that suggestion we suggested that weekends as well as maybe the rescue squads to do the rh2s and an third recommendation. Yes. I believe we were contemplating the weekends he came up withs rescue squad and some companies do a reinspection; correct . Id like to do them every 24 months but the weekends; correct more of an opportunity to find people home and one of the concerns we do more than that extensive drilling on the weekend more special hand coverage and still respond to emergency calls so one side inspections on top of all that. Let me ultimately well need nor people in the department to do what we have to do in order to have the kind of Inspection Program that i think we as a city need were going to have more personnel; right . Take a more active role good idea. When you make those inspections your building awareness of the property and the firefighters that are inspecting overseeing buildings need to not only look at it from an awareness stand point to protect that building if it were on fire but also be on the look out for Code Violations so two sets of criteria in their minds when theyre going through an apartment building. Agreed and in response i know what comment youre addressing the Engine Company the roles twofold respect to the building and at the same time it serves an, an orientation not one or the other both are important. Right. That education includes the Company Captains approximately if the report the captains are unfamiliar didnt know what had the bureau prospective of violations are corrected we have work to do across the board. If i could jump in commissioner Vice President cleaveland without further ado, with all due respect we dont agree with all the findings i personally take offense to an allegation that captains are not familiar with the foundational fire code certainly the fire preservation more expertise not in fire preservation every Company Officer has that expertise and if it requires liaisoning their findings we dont agree with their findings we agree with many of them. I totally understand. But just thats a little bit of its a misnomer about the personnel isnt department their very well trained and like i said this report is a is a serious report and a lot of things we can address in them and obviously any City Department that gets reviewed by the grand jury there are findings the theyll have finding that you need work and do some work on certain packs of that department and the services you provide our department is a super seriously Important Department in the city were protecting people and lives and property so we need to look at those recommendations and address each and every single one of them i look forward to the department formal response so we can discuss it and make sure that the things we put into place to address those problems that we have will be put into place and will be successful. Thats it thank you very much. If i may add one thing two Different Levels of knowledge required one for maintenance with the fire alarm youre basically experienced as far as the underground, etc. Two Different Things the Company Crews dont need that level of expertise that the bureau has. Great well separate that out so the inspection from our division will focus really more specifically on construction new construction, and we can terrain the firefighters and stations to do existing buildings theyre not going to be doing new construction inspections thats your work for sure so again ill have a lot more questions but table it until a formal response thank you very much. Thank you commissioner Vice President cleaveland. Commissioners commissioner nakajo. Thank you very much madam chair thank you very much commissioner Vice President cleaveland when this item came up for agendized matter this evening i asked preliminary for some perimeters how we were going to handle this because i think the document itself is about one and 29 or thirty pages and in terms of having a discussion required all of us to read digest is it is complex and commissioners and colleagues as the task of the grand jury their process and finding is exactly what they feel their responsibility so i take it from that particular perspective and that lens i also know that a lot of this finding have limited real participation and answers in terms of departmental level i take it again from an objective point of view they feel finding in direct sense of belonging nature my grand jury year after year the department will answer grand jurys report scheduled for september the 14 chief . Correct. And that our submission date is the 16 so commissioner Vice President cleaveland and commissioners, i have confidence our department will adding each and every single one of those issues i appreciate you commissioner Vice President cleaveland for holding the oversight as your prerogative to put out those questions that concern i looting who is going to summarize this we have a different perspective and i encouraged the department and the vice mayor to have any kind of a dialogue of information between now and that report so the department can be alarmed with all the questions the Vice President has they can be addressed and answered in the report as well i take it as a perspective grand jury and i had to take one session out that was to heavy and thick a categorical of dbi being the Fire Department personnel i went to the Fire Department section and went through that has i read through that the biggest pages i looked at was the recommendation pages page 49 and 57 and 62 and 64 and quite frankly chief concerns of all those issues none of the issues in terms of the concerns are news to me as a commissioner i granted been in the seat for 20 years but comes down to the requirement that are our Building Permit and process in the amount of residents out there, there is quite a bit of those numbers so i always concern myself number one enough personnel with the funding to be able to do this particular inspection on that particular level so i thi