2nd deadly fire drives Schaaf to act quickly
For all the task forces and planning meetings, it took a second deadly blaze for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to finally make a move to beef up the Fire Department’s depleted staff of inspectors.
It was clear after the Ghost Ship fire killed 36 people in December that the city had big issues with its inspections. The Fire Department revealed that it had never checked the converted warehouse for safety violations, even though there was a firehouse just a couple of blocks away. The few inspectors on staff were failing to get to hundreds of buildings a year.
Still, city sources tell us Schaaf was preparing to go through the normal budget process to hire additional inspectors for the Fire Department’s six-person enforcement bureau. That would have meant months before the city even started the process of hiring additional help.
Then came the fatal fire last week at a halfway house on San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland — and the revelation that rank-and-file firefighters had been trying to get the inspections bureau out to the building since early January. One had suggested that the department consider “shutting this building down immediately.”
Even after repeated visits
by firefighters and emails up the chain of command about the building’s hazards, the department didn’t get around to inspecting it until March 24. The owner was given 30 days to fix problems that included missing fire extinguishers, broken alarms, exposed wiring and garbage in the halls. Three days later, an accident involving a candle set the building ablaze, and four people died.
According to our sources, Schaaf — who initially had defended the inspection process — hit the ceiling when she learned about the delay last week. It was only then, we’re told, that she began putting together her plan to start looking around immediately for six more inspectors to hire.
In a statement Friday, Schaaf maintained that the changes have been in the works since the Ghost Ship fire, but added, “Our initial investigation of the San Pablo Avenue fire further underscores the urgent need for reforms.”
The truth is that Oakland’s fire inspections bureau has been broken for years. Not just Schaaf, but her predecessors Jean Quan and Ron Dellums had taken few steps to fix it.
The first word of trouble came in an Alameda County civil grand jury report in 2014 that uncovered extensive staffing shortages in the inspections bureau, resulting in hundreds of commercial and multiunit residential buildings going without safety checks.
In response, Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed complained of staffing cuts over the previous decade that had “a substantial impact on the department’s ability to deliver services.” For years, Reed wouldn’t hire a fire marshal to oversee the inspections bureau and instead tried to do the job herself.
The Ghost Ship warehouse wasn’t even on a list of buildings the department should be inspecting. We’re told Fire Department officials have been working with other city departments in recent weeks to create a reliable database of properties that need annual checks, and fire crews have been ordered to report potentially hazardous buildings to the inspections bureau.
Now it’s a matter of getting enough inspectors on board to make a difference and prevent another tragedy. Even though the process is starting now, under the most optimistic scenario it will take months to actually hire the new inspectors.
City sources tell us they are looking at stopgap measures — such as assigning alreadytrained firefighters to help with inspections — until the new hires report for duty. Deflated: The surprise hiring of former assistant Wyking Jones as the new head coach of Cal’s men’s basketball team was greeted with high-fives in the locker room — but considerably less enthusiasm among some key boosters.
“I’m very upset,” said one marquee donor, who asked that we not use his name.
Jones’ elevation to the top slot came just a week and a half after coach Cuonzo Martin left for the University of Missouri. Jones has never been a head coach anywhere, and dissident donors are asking whether Athletic Director Mike Williams cast a wide enough net.
Donors say Williams kept them in the dark during his brief search and relied on a committee of underlings to help make the call rather than consult an outside search firm.
And upsetting donors is no small matter, given that Cal already is looking at shrinking or eliminating some of its smaller sports programs to deal with the school’s $100 million budget deficit.
“Talking to the donors is in the job description of every athletic director in a major university, but Williams has had zero communications with them,” said a foundation board member at a rival Pac-12 school, who has spoken to a couple of Cal’s bigtime donors.
In fact, we’re told one decades-long booster sent an angry note to Williams, canceling all 14 of his season tickets for basketball and pledging to sever his ties to Cal athletics altogether.
UC Berkeley officials couldn’t immediately tell us how many season ticket cancellations they’ve had since Jones’ hiring March 24. But Cal sports spokesman Herb Benenson said, “Whenever there is a coaching change, it is normal for some people to not renew tickets, while others up their selections.”
Benenson also downplayed the donor disaffection, saying, “We feel good about the way we conducted the search. We spoke with dozens of donors throughout the process and took feedback on what they’d like to see in our next head coach.”
And while acknowledging “there will alway be differences of opinion” with any large group, Benenson said the response to the hiring of Jones “has been overwhelmingly positive.”