March 9, 2022, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 400 n San Francisco n California n 94102

This meeting was held in person and remotely on WebEx

The Video can be viewed by clicking this link:  https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=180&clip_id=40727

President Feinstein called the meeting to order at 9:07 a.m.

President Feinstein read the Ramaytush Ohlone Land Acknowledgement.

2.         RESOLUTION 2022-03 [Discussion and possible action]

Resolution making findings to allow teleconferenced meetings under California Government Code Section 54953(e)

Commissioner Covington Moved to adopt the Resolution.  Commissioner Morgan Seconded.  The motion was unanimous.

There was no public comment.

3.         GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

David Osgood with the Rincon Center Tenants Association stated that Management at the Rincon Center has been instructing residents to ignore fire alarms.  He added that Rincon Center is a mixed-use complex with offices, shops, and hundreds of apartments in multiple buildings and it is a safety issue.  He suggested that the Fire Department implement procedures to make sure that all alarm testing is only done in a very limited, controlled, and professional manner. 

4.         APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES [Discussion and possible action]

Discussion and possible action to approve meeting minutes.

• Minutes from Special Meeting on February 22, 2022 – 9:00 a.m.

Commissioner Covington Moved to approve the 2/22/22 minutes and Commissioner Morgan Seconded. The motion was unanimous.

• Minutes from Regular Meeting on February 23, 2022.

President Feinstein abstained from the vote as she was not at the 2/23/22 meeting.

Commissioner Covington Moved to approve the 2/23/22 minutes and Commissioner Morgan Seconded. Vice President Nakajo agreed.  The motion passed 3-0.

There was no public comment.

5.         CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT’S REPORT [Discussion]

REPORT FROM CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT, JEANINE NICHOLSON

Report on current issues, activities, and events within the Department since the Fire Commission meeting on January 26, 2022, including budget, academies, special events, communications, and outreach to other government agencies and the public.

Chief Nicholson acknowledged the presence of Deputy City Attorney Zach Porianda and thanked him for all the work that he does for the Fire Department.  She announced that tomorrow will be the grand opening of Station 35, the floating fireboat station.  She touched on the COVID numbers, the budget, and the Street Wellness Team which began at the end of January, and she is told, the most effective street team in the city in terms of connections.  She stated that she swore in an H-3 Level 1 class this week as well as welcomed a bump-up class where EMTs become paramedics for the EMS Division.   She thanked Chief Tong and everyone involved for their hard work.  She added that she is also in the middle of the hiring process for the 130th academy, which she anticipates will start in May with at least 50 recruits.  She asked that the meeting be adjourned in honor of Robert Moser and Brendan Ward, two retired firefighters who were important people in the Department who recently passed away.

There was no public comment.

REPORT FROM OPERATIONS, DEPUTY CHIEF ROBERT POSTEL

Report on overall field operations, including greater alarm fires, Emergency Medical Services, Bureau of Fire Prevention & Investigation, Homeland Security, Airport Division.

Chief Postel reported on operations from February.  He mentioned that they had 16 working fires, three of which were greater alarms.  The first greater alarm was on February 3, 2022, and it was a second alarm at 3036 16^th Street where 24 people were displaced and Assistant Chief Juratovac was the incident commander and crews did an excellent job.  The second was a third alarm on February 12, 2022, at 324 10^th Avenue where 10 people were displaced and Assistant Chief Mike Thompson was the incident commander.  The third greater alarm was a second alarm on February 13, 2022, at 1451 Larkin Street.  He touched on other significant fires that didn’t go to the greater alarm, including a homeless encampment under the freeway overpass between Glen Park BART Station with one fatality and he described the confined spacy entry to try and save the person.  He also highlighted the February 25, 2022, fire, at 1212 Turk Street where a victim succumbed to smoke inhalation, and they were unable to revive him.  He stated that EMS call volume seems to be returning to normal mostly following the Omicron outbreak and that the increase in staffing due to the influx of the H-3 Level 1 class is drastically reduced the Medic to Follow calls.  He added that Community Paramedicine is having a very positive impact on all the different aspects of the homeless crisis in the city.  He mentioned that there has been a delay in the training of paramedics for the 5150 program and April will be an optimistic time for that program to get implemented.  He added that EMS-6 has continued to do a great job and the program works with high frequency 9-1-1 users and they have reduced the use of the top 20 users of the system by 35 percent which frees up those resources to respond to other medical calls that are still occurring.  He stated that the overdose response teams are continuing to work to reduce overdose deaths, educate users and they try and connect them with services.

Chief Postel touched on the Bureau of Fire Investigation and Prevention where he and ADC Cofflin are continuing to work on a study with the firm Fehr & Peers, analyzing response time increases in the Fire Department and the impact of the different changes in the street landscape on those response times.  He touched on the Airport Division and the Division of Training.

Assistant Deputy Chief Pang provided an update on the community paramedic program, which started with EMS-6, and then the Street Wellness Response Team, and the Street Crisis Response Team.  He added that the Street Wellness Response Team has had a tremendous potential to reduce unnecessary ER visits, to reduce the ambulance call volume and he is looking forward to having the remaining four teams implemented in late June.

Commissioner Morgan stated that the community paramedic programs sound great and that anything that can give the police a break, especially on 9-1-1 calls and get a positive result is a success.

Vice President Nakajo thanked Chief Postel and Chief Pang for their reports.  He confirmed with Chief Pang that the Department has been funded for 5 street crisis teams.  Vice President Nakajo also got clarification of the command structure for these Street Teams, which includes Chief Pang, and beneath him are two section chiefs, Section Chief of Operations April Sloan and Section Chief of Administration, Michael Mason and beneath them, each team has captains that oversee the community paramedics.  Vice President Nakajo went through the pages of the Operations Report and touched on success stories, challenges, and how COVID upset the apple cart concerning shelters and services, and hopefully soon, the Department of homelessness and supportive housing is going to begin implementing 24 intakes seven days a week for shelter.

Commissioner Covington thanked Chief Pang for his report and stated she continues to be impressed with everything that is going on under his administrative umbrella and she confirmed that there are many organizations throughout the country that share ideas such as the National Co-Responders Consortium and Chief Pang added that many of them have used their teams as templates for best practices for this sort of work.  Commissioner Covington confirmed that the delay in implementing the 4 street crises teams is because it is very much entwined with the rest of the staffing and training that is going on at Staton 49 and they are not staffing any new community paramedic programs until they’ve pre-filled the ambulance ranks, because they select from the ambulance division, and they are waiting on this latest class of paramedics and EMTs.  She also confirmed that there is no height requirement to become a firefighter and any member can be trained to confined space rescue.

President Feinstein confirmed that crews from a truck company split up when they get to a fire incident, while three might go in with the hose or up on the roof, the other two tend to other tasks.  She thanked Chief Postel and acknowledged the quality of the write-ups contained in his report as they do give some sense of how challenging and difficult these incidents can become.

Vice President Nakajo confirmed that the incident commanders do the write-ups contained in Chief Postel’s operation reports detailing the greater alarm fires.  He confirmed that the radio communication system that they had problems with has been transitioned into a direct channel system and was put into place on Monday. Vice President Nakajo acknowledged the good work done by the members who responded to the homeless encampment fire under the freeway and the fire at 1212 Turk Street and appreciates the strong descriptions outlined in Chief Postel’s report.  He also acknowledged Chief Storti for jumping in and assisting at that fire on his way to his shift.

There was no public comment.

6.         SFFD GRANTS AND DONATION PRESENTATION AND OVERVIEW

SFFD Finance and Planning to provide a presentation on efforts related to Grants and Donations for the Fire Department.

Mark Corso introduced grant writer Shiloh Kaho who started in January of 2020.  He added that a few months after her hire, COVID hit and everything in the world changed so there’s been several initiatives grant and donation related that they have been working on that have been delayed because of COVID and in addition to that, the focus of many donors has shifted over the past couple of years.  Ms. Kaho provided an overview of the work that they’ve done between 2020 and 2022.  She presented the following PowerPoint:  https://sf-fire.org/files/2022-03/grants%20and%20donations%20update.pdf

Ms. Kaho stated that between 2019 and 2020 they raised a little over 1.3 million in grant funding and in 2020-21 it was a little over 15 million and for 2021-22 they have about $691,415 raised.  She described the slides in the attached PowerPoint Presentation.  She mentioned that she had attended numerous webinars and bidding conferences, took FEMA fundamentals grant management courses and she continues to participate in grant writing seminars and workshops to improve her skills and keep ahead of the trends out there.

Commissioner Morgan confirmed that the cultivating funding relationship with the YMCA-Bayview Hunter’s Point is a partnership spearheaded by Chief Peoples and it’s a partnership in which they are looking at expanding the pathways to being able to have a diverse and equitable and inclusive department and they offer workforce development programs to youth to get them to think about the Fire Department as a potential career path.

Vice President Nakajo thanked her for her comprehensive report and acknowledged Commissioner Covington for being a champion and vanguard for the Department to have grant writers for many years.   He confirmed that foundations that offer funding need to align with the Department’s work and that they are going to be good partners and then once they can establish that, they can build those relationships with those folks.  He confirmed that none of the donations have been solicited.

Commissioner Covington stated she appreciates how agile Ms. Kaho and Mr. Corso have been during these trying times and she acknowledged that they are reaching out to those entities that might be able to support the Department in our needs.

7.         AGENDA FOR NEXT AND FUTURE FIRE COMMISSION MEETINGS [Discussion]

Discussion regarding agenda for next and future Fire Commission meetings.

8.         ADJOURNMENT      President Feinstein adjourned the meeting at 11:09 a.m. in honor and in the memory of Robert Moser and Brendan Ward.