San Francisco’s fire chief is under fire. A letter calling for Joanne Hayes-White’s job is on its way to the mayor’s office from all the rank-and-file groups within the department.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is expressing support for his embattled chief. Lee says he has confidence in his fire chief, who told NBC Bay Area on Tuesday she has no plans to step down.
“I’m proud to serve in this department, and we’ll continue to address the issues that we need to address,” Hayes-White said Tuesday.
It’s the fire department’s handling of ambulance response times that is driving criticism of the chief’s office.
Supervisor London Breed calls it a "public safety crisis."
“Last month alone, in August, over 374 calls were over 20 minutes in wait time and they’re Code 3 calls,” Breed said. “Code 3 calls means that it’s a serious, life-threatening emergency.”
Breed said the department was given money for 16 new ambulances, but that was two years ago and they have still not arrived.
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“My goal is to ultimately get the problems fixed, but I just don’t’ have any confidence in the current leadership to do that,” Breed said.
Breed said she isn’t a part of the no-confidence letter from firefighter’s union executives, but she feels they are taking her lead.
“From my understanding, the employee associations all agree with the route that I’m taking,” Breed said. “I don’t know if that’s explicitly stated in the letter.”
At SFFD headquarters, Chief Hayes-White acknowledged there is a problem. “It’s not a great day for me for sure,” she said. But she says the beef is with the unions over her disciplining of some members of the department.
“When there is behavior that is counter to a professional organization, I need to address that,” Hayes-White said, “and I have and, frankly, I think that has been difficult for some people to receive.”
Chief Hayes-White said she is concerned about the amount of time it takes for ambulances to get on scene, but she disagrees with the numbers that Supervisor Breed is reporting. The chief is not alone. There are supes that say the August numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“In terms of getting paramedics to someone who is suffering trauma, that time is actually going well,” Supervisor John Avalos said. “We are meeting our standard.”
Avalos says the criticism of Hayes-White is tied up in the politics of a large department that has had discipline issues.
The mayor says the chief has led the department through the worst recession in a generation and is now dealing with a growing city.
