San Francisco Fire Department Fire Commission Vice-President and President

Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Steve Nakajo

Steve Nakajo: San Francisco Fire Department Fire Commission Vice-President and President

California Fire Departments Oral History Project

Interviews conducted by Shanna Farrell in 2016

Since 1954 the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Steve Nakajo dated June 8, 2016. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited.

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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Steve Nakajo “Steve Nakajo: San Francisco Fire Department Oral History Project” conducted by Shanna Farrell in 2016, Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2017.

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Steve Nakajo is a member of the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) Commission. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and lived in Japan, where his parents are from, before moving to San Francisco. In this interview, Nakajo discusses growing up in the Fillmore district, his childhood and education, ethnic consciousness and social change, culture in Japantown, the culture of San Francisco, working with the Juvenile Justice Commission and Arts Commission, joining the SFFD Commission, integrating the department, administration, SFFD leadership, challenges, controversies, and triumphs, the consent decree, budget, political changes, interest in logistics, and his hopes for the future. iv

Table of Contents—Steve Nakajo

Interview 1: July 26, 2016

Audio File 1 1

Birth and upbringing in Salt Lake City, Utah — Parents’ Japanese heritage — Father’s death, family’s move to Japan — Schooling in Tokyo — Managing conflict and dual cultures and languages — Returning to the United States, living in San Francisco, attending Catholic school — Another beating — Japantown and the Fillmore — The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II — The Vietnam era, the Black Panthers, ethnic consciousness and social change — Teaching ethnic studies at San Francisco State University — The Third World Strike at SFSU — Academics, community organizing, and Kimochi, Incorporated — Assimilation — Changes in Japantown — Japanese Americans and black Americans — Co-founding Kimochi in 1971 with Sandy More — Japanese American generations, transition, succession — Community dynamics — Leadership — Memories of Morning Star school and Sacred Heart — Politics in high school and in San Francisco — Frank Jordan, the mayoral race, and San Francisco’s Irish mafia — The consent decree, changes in ethnic representation in the San Francisco Fire Department — Nakajo’s work with the Juvenile Justice Commission and youth — Serving on the San Francisco Arts Commission and developing community arts programming— Mayor Willie Brown — Bob Demmons, “the nicest guy” and “the most fair” — The integration of the SFFD over generations — More about Chief Demmons — San Francisco fire chiefs, SFFD history, protocol, equipment, and discrimination — SFFD administration — The Emergency Medical Service [EMT] — Chief Joanne Hayes-White — Differences between Mayor Willie Brown, Mayor Gavin Newsom, and others — Development of Bayview-Hunter’s Point — Human resources at the SFFD, and professional evaluations — Discussion of celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge

Interview 2: July 27, 2016

Audio File 2 26

Nakajo’s familiarity with the SF Fire Commission and the Art Commission — Judge Patel, Eva Paterson, Bob Demmons, other advocates for justice — Consent decree — “Hadley Roff is a patron saint of San Francisco” — Learning from Ray Connors — The SF Fire Commission and the consent decree — Fire Commission appointments — Mayor Gavin Newsom — A push to dismiss Chief Joanna Hayes-White — Negative media coverage — Politics and protocol on the Fire Commission, Board of Supervisors — More about Bob Demmons and the decision about whom to appoint as SF Fire Chief — Controversies around appointments

Interview 3: August 25, 2016

Audio File 3 49

Implementation of the consent decree — The SFFD’s mission statement — Equity, respect, gender— Discursive — Discursive — Discursive — Discursive — Discursive — Merger of emergency medical services and SFFD — Paramedics — The birth of Station 49 — “A lot of change in a very short period of time” — Changes in the atmosphere and ambiance of the Department — The SFFD’s partnerships and social service pilot programs — The Commission’s management of such partnerships and initiatives — Oversight of acquisition of new equipment and vehicles — The budget — City administrators — Ballot measures — The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and the SF Fire Commission — The Department’s budgetary priorities — Climate Action Plan, Mutual Aid — Neighborhood Emergency Response Team [NERT] — Cultural and economic changes and the SFFD — Race — Nakajo’s reflectiveness and interest in logistics — Hopes for the future of the SFFD

[End of Interview]

Interview 1: July 26, 2016

Farrell: This is Shanna Farrell with Steven Nakajo on Tuesday, July 26, 2016 and we’re in San Francisco, California. Steve, can you start by telling me where and when you were born and a little bit about your early life?

01-00:00:23 Nakajo: Okay. I’m just going to talk freely.

Farrell: Yeah, absolutely.

01-00:00:28 Nakajo: And I’m going to make some references to your outline, because your outline’s real good, to at least keep me on focus. I’m going to give a little bit of a description, in terms of how I usually narrate and speak, because I used to teach at San Francisco State University. I taught graduate division and undergraduate, and I started in ’71, after the San Francisco State strike, which was ’68, ’69, in the formulation of the School of Ethnic Studies. So I talk almost like a lecture, in the narrative with that. I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m the second son. My older brother, Ben. I have two sisters. My oldest sister is Christina. We call her Tina. And my younger sister, Helen. My father, as I explain it, was of all things, an Episcopalian minister. I say that because it just kind of, as an adult, baffles me than an Issei, first generation Japanese from Japan, would be an Episcopalian minister. I just can’t comprehend that. My mother, as best as I can get it, came over from Japan as not particularly a picture bride, but I’m sure there was some arrangement to marry my father. Basically, my recollection of Salt Lake City and being born there and the interaction is somewhat sketchy, because at a very early age, my mother and our kids were told, “Let’s go to Japan.” Pretty much the justification, in my mind, was to meet our grandparents and to be exposed to the culture. My father was supposed to join us for what I term a vacation. What happened is he died in a heart attack back in Salt Lake City, while we were in Japan. So I talk a lot about that because that basically is that, number one, you grow up without a father. But you grow up without a father in the sense that, the last time you saw him, it was back in a beginning, Salt Lake City, with some childhood. Other than that, there’s no memory of that. So for myself, it became the reality base of growing up in Japan.

Basically, the way I termed it is that we were, by my mother being a widow with four kids, I think we became abandoned. So basically, we survived in Japan. It’s amazing to me how my mother did that. But my recollection was that I remember me and my brother building our own bunk beds. I remember living in a shack that my mother was saying that the landlord up the hill was going to allow us to live in. I remember going to first grade. I don’t know how my mother did that, because it turned out to be a very prestigious school in Tokyo called Saint Joseph’s, that I later learned was a school for diplomats or foreign businessmen. A lot of Chinese, Koreans who were in Japan, they went

to that school. It was a tough school. I remember it being real competitive, but very miserable, except for one thing that I could excel, was that I used to run fast. But the instructors were all French professor. You either spoke French or Japanese. I spoke only English. It was tough. So I remember that recollection. But I remember also that how we found out that my father died was, we were living in this little shack. My mother came home, we got a letter, she passed out. All the kids cried. I didn’t understand what was going on. Then basically, one of my siblings said {Papa [Japanese]?}, which is Papa died. Everyone was crying. But I couldn’t remember any recollection of emotions. So basically, I tell my students, I tell folks I didn’t cry. Later on, that has a reflection with Kimochi, of how that was formalized.

Took us about three years to come out of Japan, back to the United States. I usually tell these series of stories about Japan and the whole thing. Again, when I lectured in the Japanese American Studies department, we had to come up with literally, many concepts. We talked about dualities, being Japanese, being American, the conflict, the clashes with that. The only saving grace I had in Japan was that I could speak English. What happened was that at the time, because of, I think, the aftermath of the Korean War or whatever, occupation, the army soldiers used to occupy Yokohama Station and Tokyo Station. Because of my ability to speak English—and this is a survival tactic—I used to hustle the United States soldiers by saying, “Hey, Joe, you want to have a good time? I’ll show you a good time. You give me a dollar, you wait here, you wait here and then I come out.” Take this dollar and two dollars and literally go home and tell my mom, “Don’t ask.” But with the other dollar, I did what I wanted to do, which was to have fun.

01-00:06:02 The last part of the story I’ll tell about Japan as this development of dual cultures is that my mother told me to go out and play, and I went out down the street. Well, it was like a country road. It was, at the time, very still developmental in Japan. There were four or five guys on the other side and they said to me, {[Japanese]?}, which is, “What’s your name?” I basically paused and said to these guys, “Steve Nakajo.” They pointed at me, called me America-jin, and they beat the holy hell out of me. So when I crawled to my mom and I told her, “I hate Japan. Japan is {[Japanese]?}. It’s mean, it’s bully. These guys are mean.” I said, “My, they called me America-jin.” She basically said, “{[Japanese]?},” which is “Stupid one, you are America-jin.” I kind of freaked out. I said,” Hey, what are you talking about? My hair is black, my eyes are black, I look like these guys. What do you mean I’m America-jin?” right? So right away, you learn that duality. So that’s part of that being able speak English and trying to survive. When she said we were going to go home, I didn’t want to go home, because that dollar that I had in Japan—there used to be a guy named Puppet Man. When he came and did puppet, he stopped and then he did intermission, where you sell candy. I used to go and buy candy. A whole bunch of candy. All these guys that whipped on me were on the corner. So as I licked my candy and looked at them, I

basically said, “{[Japanese]?}.” Which is, “Come here.” They came, I gave the candy and after that, I was one of the boys. But I ran with these guys and they accepted me; but the difference was, I’m still America-jin. But I ran with these guys. My mom said, “Let’s go back. We’re going back.” I had no concept of what Salt Lake City—what do you mean back? As it turned out, we came back to something called San Francisco, about 1953, ’54. I remember taking the Ferry Building. I tell my students, the two highest levels of visual sight was something called the Ferry Building and something called Coit Tower. I make that reference because of the Manhattanization, as we call it, of San Francisco. The first time I went to New York and I saw what it was talking about, then you begin to realize how old history is and how that came. Again, this is all developmental, because what New York and the East Coast represented to Europe was what San Francisco and California represented to Japan and Asia. So for me, returning to California or returning to the United States became—.

I’m pointing to {the Achi?} Hotel, which is up here on the corner. There’s a school, used to be a Catholic grammar school called Morning Star School, up on Octavia and Sutter. Catholic mission school. I don’t know how my mother did it, because she didn’t speak any English, but she made a deal with Father {Gutsero?}, the pastor, that if Father {Gutsero?} could convert the four kids to Catholics, we would go to school for free. That’s what happened. One day we were in church. It was like a football game. All the kids are yelling and screaming in the church. It was exciting. I asked my brother, “What are we doing?” My brother said, “Shut up, man. We’re being baptized.” So that became the entrée for me. San Francisco, {[Japanese]?}, Morning Star School, the Daughters of Mary and Joseph from Ireland. That whole kind of mix; dualities, I call it. Basically, we stayed here. My mother, to her credit— no English, no skills—became a maid for the {[Japanese]?}, we call it, for the white folks. The four kids went to school. My oldest sister, Tina, was the most brilliant one in our family. As soon as she graduated from, at that time, Convent of the Sacred Heart on Broadway, which is the most prestigious school, debutante school—. She was the only Japanese out of sixteen white girls, Catholics, that graduated. She graduated number two out of her class. But that’s only because the Convent of Sacred Heart nuns had a school in Japan. How she got to go to that school in Japan, which is prestigious, and we went to Saint Joseph’s, because my mother had a really dear friend. We had a family friend named Father {Tibusar?}. He was a Maryknoll priest, that somehow or another influenced that we kids could go to Saint Joe’s. That’s what happened.

01-00:10:48 When we’re here in Japantown, my mom said, “Go out and play.” So I basically went outside and there were four Sanseis, third generation Japanese American guys, come down the block. They kind of look at me and I kind of look at them, and the question comes out. “Hey man, what’s your name?” So me being me, I said, “Oh, man, I kind of remember this one.” So I said,

“{[Japanese]?},” which is my Japanese name. They looked at me and went, “You FOB, {[Japanese]?},” which is, “You smell like a fish,” and they beat me up. Right? The only difference this time is as they were beating me up, I got angry. So I talk often like, you can be beaten, but you can think while you’re being beaten. And while you’re thinking of being beaten, you either make a decision of I’m going to run, I’m going to get beaten, or I’m going to do something about it. Basically, for me, coming from Japan, we all know judo. So when they’re whipping on me, then after a while, you turn a couple guys. Then you kind of find out what people are made of in their heart. I went back home, this time with a chip on my shoulder that I had for a long time. Because I talk about, again, the dualities, but I begin to talk about the love- hate relationship of your community. You love your community, but you hate your community, because there’s all these—.

For us, the factor is, is that we Japanese Americans, even though I was born in Salt Lake City, went to Japan, came back, we’re one of the few minorities, I think, folks in America that went to a concentration camp. So what happens is that that kind of survival tactics—I talked a lot about that, is kind of the same kind of fundamental development of something called the ‘60s. The self- esteem, the self-survival, the anger, which is very, very different from the hatred of today, to the anger of, well, because for us—and I make the reference of that, the ‘60s—it was the first time that we as a people talked about change as a group. In that, I talk about your own self-identity. Experienced Japan, coming to San Francisco, Japan[town]. San Francisco Japantown, when you come here and you interact, you can’t help but, in those days, ‘60s and ‘70s, become African American. “Become African American.” Have the influence of the African American community. Because they’re all over J-town, man. If you understand the Fillmore and Japantown, you begin to understand the fundamental history of—that’s part of the turbulent ‘60s, or the identification of culture, history, identity is, to the elders, why, as an immigrant people, did you leave Japan? You don’t know the language, you don’t know the culture. What the heck? And then you find out that these folks came from Southern Japan. Not educators, not business. Fishermen, farmers, in a very {fertile?} system. If you’re not the oldest son in the system—. Those dynamics of—.

That was what I call the social movement of the ‘60s was. Who are we? What’s our history? Where do we come from? What is all of the fundamentals within that, right? So for me, growing up in Japantown, Japantown becomes a fundamental development of that, but it becomes a security bosom of your life. The whole community rotates around this. Amazingly, bounded by blocks. Once you leave your section, your neighborhood, you’ve got to be on guard. So we were safe in Japantown, from Morning Star down to Japantown. But even Morning Star, down on Octavia, down through Japantown, Post and Buchanan, that’s only four blocks, but it’s territorial even among your own ethnic people. Because talk about being oppressed. You’re fighting, you’re hustling among your own people, because you’re fundamentally trying to

establish some sense of success. That measurement is unattainable, because we all went to camp, man, and we all lost everything.

01-00:15:30 After camp’s over, in ’46—I term it United States didn’t, until of all folks—or not of all folks—Ronald Reagan was the one who said, “I apologize and here’s your compensation.” But there was never an apologetic nature of that, when you lost. For us in the Japanese American community today, you lost your whole existence of being a people. So all of those kinds of influences. Again, as an individual, you try to succeed and establish some kind of relative success, but the pressures are very strong from both sides, from all sides. Then on top of that, you’re trying to identify yourself as an American. Tough. Being a young man at that time, it’s either—we use the narration either it’s John Wayne or, in a social sciences class, when you talked about Americana and American history—during the first class I took after the strike on campus, I brought up {[Japanese]?}, which is the blind swordsman. It’s a movie character. I remember Professor {Bergerun?} was outraged. To have the audacity to bring up a figure such as an ethnic {group?}, in a class that was looking at American kind of societies and role models and images. Then you begin to find out your rebellious nature as a student. Meaning you don’t accept it. Therefore, what happens is you talk up the draft, the strike. So the tension in the class is very, very defined. The second time I spoke up, I’m being threatened to be ousted out of the class. I’m not arrested, but identified as one of those. I wasn’t. I wasn’t on the picket line at State, I didn’t give blood and spill it. I used to look at that and observe that and wonder, how can students stand up against {beatings?}? How can you reverse change of uprising? Even the first time watching Dr. [Martin Luther] King. What the heck is that, right? Then later on, you begin to understand historically. For me, you make studies, right? You study Gandhi and you start to wonder how all these folks are. So it’s the beginning formulation of that. So I remember searching for that. I remember going to City College of San Francisco.

01-00:18:10 I’m the generation of the Vietnam War. So all of my peer group—a generalization, but the majority of them—are going to [Viet]nam. I started to development this attitude, not so much I’m a resister or a peacemaker at the time; I just didn’t want to fight. I couldn’t comprehend shooting someone that looked kind of like me, and being in this—and the ‘60s are growing. My world is starting to expand. I always reference—because again, being an educator or being part of, you always reference different professors or different classes that just kind of opened up your mind. For me, it was a guy at City College, a humanities course, and a guy named {Meredith Beckerman?}. The guy was a hippie, man, but he kind of opened up his house. First time I drank {grind?} coffee. I couldn’t believe this, man. Introduced me to La Boheme, but introduced me to Woody Guthrie. As we started to formalize the class, the class assignment this time was bring up something contemporarily,

that could talk to what was culturally ethnic at the time. I brought in James Brown. I brought in “I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

I asked myself—because he asked me and the class asked me—“Aren’t you Chinese? What the hell are you talking about, being I’m black and I’m proud, right?” That’s the question that came about for myself, was the association of my ethnic culture, Japanese American. But you can cross over now. You can relate to a black man. You can relate to that attraction of what that imagery is. Then for me, I started leaning towards—because we’re in San Francisco and the Bay Area. San Francisco Bay Area, this is where it is, man. This is where a lot of the R and B started. So when the [Black] Panthers first started, it was a breakfast program, pancakes for the kids, with their alternative school. I mean, I’d never seen nothing like that. Free for the people. I’ve never seen nothing like that. So even among yourselves, you begin to understand the differentiation of—now we term ourselves activists that broke off from the norm.

01-00:20:35 San Francisco State had something called the School of Ethnic Studies. Black studies, brown studies, Native American, Asian American. Asian American broke off into Chinese, Japanese, Filipino. Japanese, not so much of the emphasis. But then I’m running around J-town, because I’m trying to identify myself as a homeboy down here in J-town, and I’m starting to talk about, well, what about us Japanese? It’s amazing. I tell the students how students in a group called student activists can become a workgroup that can create a class, and all of a sudden you’re the professor of the third class offered out of the Japanese American studies department. Because the first class is called Japanese American US history, on everything we never learned about ourselves, ever. And another class, which was the hardest class, was Japanese American personality. Then at the time, after the strike, S.I. [Samuel Ichiye] Hayakawa caught wind of it and didn’t approve it, because it didn’t academically stand up. So we changed it to Japanese American sociological profile, hired Professor Dudley Yasuda, who was out of City College School of Psychology, to have the challenge of sitting in a classroom with all of us ethnic people. We freaked out. The dynamics and the dialogue was just so profound. You’re the country, I’m city. There’s so much difference. You’re San Jose, I’m San Francisco. The women used to kick my ass. Just educate you, to a point of where everything that you’re mothering and talking about is being examined. So you can’t help but start to develop some consciousness. Whether it’s {generally or nine?}. It becomes another survival tactic. So the third class, I figure some class has to introduce these students on campus, which minority didn’t have this Japanese American experience, to come to the community. As we’re developing the philosophy of campus and community being a vehicle bridge, where the San Francisco State strike was for access of students of color to the university, as well as department of ethnic content, this was the most natural bridge. So I’m running around without a degree, saying I’d like to be one of the first professors, class instructors, as a team approach.

The concept of collective education became out. I would run around campus saying to the students, “If you come to the community to help me organize, I’ll give you three units and I’ll give you an A.” Because the name of the game was survival. At the same time, we were trying to establish our department.

01-00:23:23 On the campus side, I remember the first time we started talking about coming up with a project. So we decided to try to do something cultural. So in Japanese community, on New Year’s, New Year’s, {[Japanese]?}, is very big. It’s our biggest holiday. You go through all these kind of rituals. But one of the things you do is you eat mochi. So I said I’ll buy you some mochi later on. But you get these little sweet rice cakes, and you eat it in the morning and it’s good luck. So we decide, as a project, to pound mochi here in the community. The Japan Trade Center just opened. The Japan Trade Center symbolized redevelopment and the destruction of our community. It was supposed to be for economic development, but for me, that’s what it represented. Post Street became no man’s land, and everything on this side became the locals. At this point, while we’re sitting here, all of this now {has to be?} redeveloped. There’s only two buildings in Japantown that remain from before. So it’s just another {examine?}. I used that a lot when I taught at San Francisco State in Japanese American studies, about psychological conditioning. Because we asked things like, why didn’t you resist going to camp? You were US citizens. Why didn’t you do that? That bold ‘60s-ness. Why didn’t you resist, fight, give up your life? One of the reasons why we started Kimochi was culture, history, identity. You needed to have some kind of validity within your research. Part of that, for me, was oral history, because they’re living here now. If you’re going to organize a San Francisco Issei project—so the culmination of academic to community-based Kimochi, Incorporated. Why? Because I was raised a Japanese. My mother and father spoke Japanese. You grow up with the duality—Japanese, Japanese American—you grow up in the ‘60s, no membership, no qualification, nothing. Based off the Panthers, you’ve just got to be a member of the community. And we’re going to serve. We’re going to serve because we’re going to give back to our community and to our elders, the pain and suffering of our benefit, our privilege. That was the concept.

01-00:25:42 When we came down to do that, we gave the students the credit that organized the {mochitzuki.?}. There was a coffee shop over here. My wife now, with her parents, used to own it. So the local boys used to hang out here. I used to tell the coffee shop, “Would you be willing to let us come in at five o’clock and cook the rice and wash it?” Then the Peace Plaza just opened up and we were going to go out there with a burner, cook the rice, and go through the whole ritual. That morning when we were going to do that, it rained. So I made an executive director decision to move our whole {mochitzuki?} into the Trade Center, without permission. Which was basically, no one’s going to

stop us, because “we the people.” We did this {mochitzuki?}, and it was wonderful. We’re high, we were making mochi, we’re pounding taiko drums, up to a point where we didn’t know how to do anything afterwards. Once we cooked the rice, then everyone began to realize that we don’t know what to do after that. So what happened was, part of the class project was we discovered, in Hamilton Senior Center over on {Sonia} Street, that the Japanese elders, the Issei, were meeting every Wednesday, starting at eight, with flower arranging. Then dancing, then singing, then obento. What we did is we went over there to learn the culture, to hang out. For me, it was a testing ground, to show the elders that we young bloods were serious and committed, and then we picked up whatever. So to do the {mochitzuki?}, I asked if the seniors would come and help us. To my dismay, nobody agreed to. But that morning, when we got into the afternoon, just when we were—we figured it was over. We came to the end of the product, and now we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. We’re a bust. In the Trade Center, down the hall, came three seniors, walking with their coats and their aprons. If freaked out. I said, “Are you here, {Obu-san?}, to help us?” They said, “Yeah.” That, to me, was a conviction that even though these seniors may not have known us or what we look like, they understood us in terms of our heart.

01-00:27:54 So “kimochi” is a Japanese word. It means good feelings, feelings. There’s a kind of word {[Japanese]?}, easy. Any Japanese American can know the word kimochi. But again, part of the ‘60s and identity and culture, why would you want to start a Japanese American senior organization dedicated to our elders and call it the San Francisco Issei Project, without throwing up the name? So we threw out the name, and that became one of the attractions. Then as a student, part of the methodology is you begin to understand, with the guys at the coffee shop there, you need to have the grassroots community activists from the community, because we’ve got the heart and the passion. You’ve got to have the students, because they’ve got the heart and the passion; but as we used to term it, they’ve got the brains and the conviction. Who were we, us, to determine what they couldn’t have or wanted to have access to? If they grew up in {Woover?}, Massachusetts or Texas or Boston. Who the hell are we to say? There had to be a reason for that. So that became part of the research of, what did you get out of camp? I went to {Woover?}, I went to Seabrook, New Jersey, to work in a frozen food fish factory, which liked Japanese. So the word went back to camp and Seabrook, New Jersey got a Buddhist temple over there. They still celebrate Obon and all that, but there ain’t one Buddha head in that whole congregation. {It’s a lot?}, you know what I mean? As long as their traditional culture, right? So even in terms of Kimochi, they say in terms of our people, that we’re going to be one of the very few APIs that are going to shrink and disappear. Dr. Harry Kitano at UCLA used to say assimilation, acculturation. Right? But they also used to say if you don’t do assimiliation and acculturation, you’re not going to be accepted within the greater society. I beg to differ. I beg to differ. So with Kimochi, it became more evidence in terms of services, but it became part of the community

dynamics. So that’s what’s going on with Kimochi and with the philosophy, the development of some of my background.

Farrell: Can you tell me a little bit more about the impact that the internment camps had on the community here? Especially since you moved back in 1956, so ten years after.

01-00:30:26 Nakajo: Yeah. It’s very difficult to talk about and explain, in some aspect[s]. Because if you look at our community dynamics today or Japanese American[s] today, you would never think that we’re a people that came from that kind of historical factor. In terms of the other side of it, that whole Harry Kitano, 2015, there will be no more Japanese American community, it’s pretty much coming true. In the sense that the historical community is here, Japantown, San Francisco, but there’s only three left: San Jose, here, and L.A. Every community—Stockton, Seattle, Washington, Watsonville—everybody had a Japanese community. But that’s part of the dynamics. I talk a lot about we paid a big price for camp. Not only did we lose everything, when the Japanese came back, they had to resettle. To Japan and to the Japanese American, there’s a word called {[Japanese]?}. It’s amazing, as a people, what our people accomplished, to today’s standard. The parents, when they came back, when I asked things like—or observed how we survived. The pressures on being successful, it’s because that camp experience scarred us forever, to a point where you never want that to happen again. Now, you say that verbally, politically; but Japanese, or folks in general, they’re not going to do something like that, depending on who you are. There’s some people who died with that conviction. But what everybody else did, like some of the seniors—the ojisans I call them; ojisan means old man—I say, “Old man, how do you know you’re successful?” He said, “{[Japanese]?}. Once you live next to the hakujin, and your TV set and your car and your house is better than the hakujin,” he says, “that’s how you make it.” But what he’s really saying is that you take your kids, you send them to the best schools. So when redevelopment occurred here, everybody moved out. When they moved out, they went to the Richmond District, because there’s Presidio, there’s George Washington High School.

But what it is, is for all the Sanseis, for the Niseis to their children, moving out meant access to the universities. And access to the university meant success. Everybody was a doctor, lawyer, and the best—we’re the best. We’re the best, we’re the smartest. We’re the best. We’re so much best that when that Japanese American—I’m just saying in generalities. Because the best physician, world renowned, they can save mankind. But part of that is, what happened to your Japanese American roots? Next year is Cherry Blossom’s fiftieth anniversary. I don’t know if we’ll make fifty-one. There’s no committee. Because the young kids and stuff, Kimochi and stuff—not everybody, right? In terms of financial donation. We talked about this a lot. How come the kids don’t donate? How come the kids don’t volunteer? Oh,

they’re too busy with their lives. They’re too busy, this and that. Even my peer group. They’re too busy golfing, taking a cruise. Again, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you; but as far as the future generation, as to where we’re at—so my sense is the Japanese Americans are the only minority dwindling. 78 percent of Japanese American women are marrying outside. Seniors are dying by the day. We’re 10,000 Japanese Americans in San Francisco; we’re going, going, going, going. So what do you have left? The package. The label on the package that you sell. Japantown. Or you keep some of the sovereignty of organizations like this. We’re right in the middle of the change.

01-00:34:40 Nakajo: Tomorrow night, there’s a meeting that’s going to development the last two open spaces in Japantown, these two parking lots. After these two get built, wow. This place ain’t never going to be the same. So I was happy that we were going to do this interview here, because folks don’t mind coming to J- town. But also there’s going to be a huge hospital on Van Ness Avenue. So again, not trying to drift from the results of camp, but it’s those many perspectives. Success, we’ll go beyond. But again, a great price. You lose culture. You become part of the greatest societal toll. Now, I have this concept that again, maybe not the kids but maybe the grandkids—I just talk about what a shame it is, if you’re somebody, anybody. So when I taught at the university, or at San Francisco State, the generations of Japanese Americans, Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei fourth, Gosei fifth—so when I was at university, I created sixth generation, {Whateversei?}. Because who followed me on campus? Gay, lesbian, Latino, African American. Because the concept of community, I began to realize from a lot of folks, they never had the experience. Again, {tikitimochi?}, philosophically, what difference does it make to me if you share within the culture and within the tradition? You know what I mean? So it’s heavy, man, because it bases itself in the cultural to the greater societal. For years, man, we’ve always been separated. That’s what’s happening now, man, really trying to separate us out. But at one point, you do blend. I don’t know. I was going to use the word sad. That’s not a good word. Is that the activist generation of my peer group are gone now. Our generation, those guys knew what was up, man. All those men and women. But the world’s big now. Technology scares me, man. So an old guy like me, it’s tough. But everybody else is on it. I’m trying to figure out, how do we get that and how do you maintain kimochi? That’s what it is. Did I get the first part?

Farrell: Oh, yeah. You had mentioned when you were at San Francisco State, you’re bringing in James Brown and you’re identifying with the black community. Were you involved in the black community in San Francisco at all? Or you’re just sort of identifying with some of the things that they’re going through?

01-00:37:12 Nakajo: Well, you’re involved because you grew up in J-town. When I grew up in J- town, it’s an era. Some folks stay here, some folks go blend. I was always fascinated, man. I loved it. There’s folks like me that are rare. Back in L.A., it

used to be called Westside. It’s called Compton now. In Berkeley, there’s guys like me, some in Seattle. But we used to call us—it’s not derogatory— we used to be called black Jap. There’s not many of us left, right? But my mentality and my persona, it adapts a lot from that, or from that era. So that kind of persona, you can pick up anywhere. It depends on where you’re at. But to be genuine, that’s another story. My wife says to me, “Don’t be saying that, hey. These people don’t go for “man” here.” I said, “Oh.”

Farrell: Did you officially found Kimochi in 1971?

01-00:38:17 Nakajo: Yeah. Yeah, I’m the cofounder, with a good friend, Sandy Mori.

Farrell: Okay. It’s the third generation helping the first generation, is that correct?

01-00:38:30 Nakajo: That was the first philosophy, Sanseis helping the first generation.

Farrell: Okay. And how has that evolved over time?

01-00:38:35 Nakajo: Well, we’re, like I said, now into the fourth or fifth generation, right? We’re still here serving, but we’re in a transition and a succession plan. So I just laid out a succession plan at our forty-fifth anniversary, May 14. On October 31, I’m going to retire, for lack of a better term. But that’s because of the succession plan. As far as an activist, I never thought you retire. I thought you go to the grave, man. A lot of my peer group, that’s what’s happening, too. So it’s kind of innovative, because there’s a lot of connotations of retirement, like ballroom dancing, et cetera. That just ain’t me, right? But I’m trying to learn how to adapt to that, as well. It’s kind of interesting to contemplate, at seventy. I remember this question when I was in my twenties. I wonder what I’m going to do, man. At one point, I ran the Kabuki theater. I was into music production. I’m a band guy. I’m a manager. I did a little show business, with a good friend of mine named Pat Morita, Mr. Miyagi. He came out as a stand- up comedian back in the fifties, with the Playboy circuit. Then we popped out. I contemplated all of that. Someone asked me, “What are you going to do in retirement?” Right? I’m old now. I’m older, maturer, so I don’t need to write a book, I don’t need to make a film. But I’m beginning to think about toying with one more kind of text that has to do with the aftermath, post- redevelopment to now. I call it the ‘60s from not so-called the political, from—because part of the methodology, we used to call it was street methodology. The abruptness. That’s part of the African American persona, too. Not street in brawling, but the honesty of being street. Street, you don’t stand for no BS, man. You don’t sit in a room and have people exchange semantics and get away with that. You get up and you whip that boy in the face, you know what I mean? But you can’t do that. I had enough problems as it is, going through those kinds of things. But you begin to understand how

that is. That goes back to the combination of integration, of you need all folks to be successful.

Farrell: Then as far as your involvement with the community here, can you tell me about how you became more involved with the local government here in San Francisco, which eventually led you to the fire department?

01-00:41:15 Nakajo: Yeah, your community dynamics And that’s the first place I stand from, right? That my recognition is being part of this community—Japanese community, San Francisco, Japantown, and Kimochi. Part of that is you always begin to understand the politics, right? The politics emerges itself from day one. The movement Kimochi began on politics, because of the degree of it. Part of the discussion becomes, office holders are not—Willie Brown was our assemblyman, here in his assembly district, which included Japantown and the Fillmore. Real early in the game, when Willie Brown came to San Francisco, the recognition became, was in those days, a rarity for an African American to run for office. Part of that for myself was, you can run for office, but is it attainable? Are you truly, indeed, going to be—? Again, I come from an era of racism, discrimination, whatever. Willie Brown was successful within that 1st Assembly District. Part of that is sure, there’s some mayoral relationships. In those days, there was a board, but it wasn’t like it is now, district. So it’s either some recognition of mayor, but not in any kind of exchange of dialogue or advocacy, any kind of working relationship. Mutual friends of ours, when Mayor Brown decided to run as speaker of the house from his assembly district, we were asked if we could help mobilize on that. That’s where I began to understand, what is my strongest attribute is my street methodology and my street connections in the neighborhood. At that time, much, much stronger than now. Even in Japantown, back in the day, I’d know everything from ninety all the way down to five. Everywhere. In the community, you begin to have that kind of a reputation. There’s a lot of guys that are, quote/unquote, “players.” But you try to establish your definition, as well. Honest, direct, consistent, loyal. Because I come from a different generation. I come from that generation when you have kind of like the Panthers or kind of a militant kind of a conceptual, you begin to adapt yourself into kind of a— I’m just going to phrase it military type of attitude. You’re a soldier, you’re a captain, you’re a chief, you’re a general. A lot of guys want to be generals right away. I didn’t trip on it. I became more, just like the community activists, I wanted to be a community worker. I wanted to be a soldier. And if I was going to be the soldier, I was going to be the best soldier. So on some direct way, that basic philosophical path of soldier is still within me. But I’ve grown a lot, to understand the difference. I’m just going to talk.

01-00:44:40 Leadership is—not everyone has it. Leadership, sometimes you do have it or whatever; it’s still got to be developmentally—it has to grow. It has to be recognized, grow, and there’s got to be opportunities. Part of it, too—and

13 there’s so many examples of that—is how do you balance out ego and leadership? And what do you do with it, depending upon how you want to turn it? I began to learn. That was what the movement was good, and that was what teaching at San Francisco was good, is you begin to develop your rap. You’re forced to, in the academic setting, in the community setting, to develop your ideology. You just can’t be up there BS-ing. I know people who’ve been BS-ing all their lives, and still BS-ing. But you’ve got to be able to develop. Part of that is you fundamentally want to come with some different innovative concepts. And part of that is, as you mingle with everybody, you begin to understand the different pockets of individuals, the categoricals. Some guys are academic all to the bone, man. Intellectuals to the bone. Let them live, die, tenure, pass away or whatever, man. But depending upon where it is. And for me, at San Francisco State School of Social Work, whatever, it’s always been real tough and challenging to work with academic and administratives. I’ve always been on the wrong page. Always. Always in trouble. To a point of where either you get along and be quiet and play the game or—because you don’t survive. My last 2010 class was basically, I was a lecturer. Been a lecturer since ’71. The justification is budget cuts, right? But the justification is my kind of concept, principle, and methodologies have changed greatly in my last assignment, which was the School of School Work. Again, I’m just talking about the political reference. We backed Willie Brown, we hustle. A little arrogance comes with that. You think if you jump in there, the guy’s going to win, or you’re going to win. Depending on how it is.

I started to drift back when I went to high school, because when I went to Morning Star School, my brother and my mother wanted us to go to Sacred Heart High School. Principally because she heard that the brothers will slap you around. She figured it’s good for me, because she’s a mother, no father. When we used to be Morning Star, but Morning Stars go to Sacred Heart. There was about five of us. I used to tell the story, we took off our Morning Star coats, put on the Sacred Heart jacket, walked together, because you’re walking out of territory. When you go to SH, you’re definitely walking out of territory, because there ain’t nothing but Irish and Italians. Them boys fight all the time. Now, I didn’t realize that was part of their culture. Right? So part of Sacred Heart was, again, my developmental thinking of conviction and fighting. But also you got to learn how to develop the game, because during school and annual semesters, in roll, you get called alphabetically. So everyone stands around the room, A, B, C. So ultimately, when it came to my name, they would screw it up. They called it Nikki-joe or Nakaho. Then finally the brothers would get frustrated, and they’d say, “Hey, you, fat Jap, come here. Sit down.” Or Brother {McAteer?} would call me Mao. Said, “Hey, Mao, come here. Sit down.” But what happens is that the screaming and laughter of all your peer group becomes so profound. You know you’re going to get embarrassed, because that’s what it is. It’s just that once you get out of there, you’ve got a chip so big on your shoulders. So my reputation in high school was I fought. I fought in the hallway, I fought in the locker room. I fought. All the Morning Star boys that came with me, nobody fought, but I

fought. Didn’t win all the time. Didn’t have as many fights as they think. You’ve just got to win a few. But that develops you, so you’ve got that conviction.

01-00:48:42 I ran for office at Sacred Heart. I don’t know why. Irish Catholic. Why would I win an office? The only position I thought I could win—I cheated myself. I wanted to be vice president, because I’m a humble dude, Japanese. You don’t become president, you become vice president. You earn becoming president. So I ran for sergeant of arms. It was a crackup, man. I did strong-arm tactics. I told guys, “I’ll beat you up if you don’t vote for me,” and all that. Terrorized the freshmen and the sophomores. I know I won, but when the results came, the brother had to figure out how to tell me I didn’t win and {Michael Joiner?} won. I don’t know how {Michael Joiner?} could win, man, but he won. So then right away, you begin to understand: okay, this is how it’s done. So either you’re the player or you become part of the back. Willie didn’t make it the first time; he made it the second time, speaker of the house. After that, eighteen years, twenty-one years, the most powerful person in the state of California. By that time, I’m playing kimochi, but I’m playing whatever I can play.

It gets to the mayoral race of Frank Jordan versus Art Agnos. Art Agnos was a progressive, so we knew him as such. I didn’t care for the dude, but my guys knew him. Before that, I was too young for the mayors before that—Joseph Alioto. I came in the era of recognition of individual, with George Moscone. I liked George Moscone. That guy, he was downhome. He’d come visit my seniors and drag on a cigarette right before he jumps in. You start to be an observer of Willie Brown and the Burton brothers and the Burton machine, with Phil [Phillip] and John and all kinds of guys, man. All kinds. Moscone was in there. This whole huge machine. That’s just the reference, in the sense of being able to work within the political endeavor of accomplishing {inaudible}. Again, as a student. The mayor’s race came. I knew Frank Jordan when he was a beat cop here in J-town, and I followed him. He became a sergeant and we got tight, and he became a captain, {he?} became tight. Lo and behold, he became chief of the police department, and we became tight. I started to play that, and I began to realize as far as the Japanese community, in terms of playing politics, ain’t many. Ain’t many. Sandy Mori, who’s the cofounder, is real good at it. In my own way, I know how to play. But again, my base is off Kimochi. So I put my marbles with Frank in the mayoral race, and that became the final conviction of, you never know. You just never know. And he came in. Soon as he went in, I thought that I’d be in, some kind of {davering?} of the invitation to serve in the commission or such. What happened was as soon as he went in—and again, I’m talking freely; I guess I could talk freely.

Farrell: Absolutely.

01-00:52:03 Nakajo: His backers and his advisors—we used to call them the Irish Mafia—built a circle around Frank, a lot of us were locked out. So I basically kind of gave up waiting for my appointment, the invitation to dance and my card’s not filled at all. It got to two years into his term. In two years, he would have to run. That’s another part; it developed my ability to read, to feel instinct and to be able to conjure out or examine. I don’t need a lot, too much. When I need to study, I study. That’s the part about the politics, is you’ve got to be in there. And that’s definitely with the Fire Commission. You’ve got to be in there. If you’re in there, nothing’s new or nothing’s far-fetched. And you’re going to have this long scenario. So to my amazement, well, I played it twenty-one years. I’m a Japanese American, to boot. So as we turn the corner from consent decree Bob [Robert] Demmons, you can kind of see the page turn, from the Irish-Catholic, Italians—and all you had to do was go to Sacred Heart or Saint Ignatius, then you have to take a test, as long as you have an uncle, cousin—to Marilyn Patel and the consent decree. Everything changed. It’s a good time, too, because now you’re getting to see Joanne Hayes-White as the aftermath, or the part of developmental change within institutional. Institutional discrimination and institutional you could call it racism, institutional resistance. Again, I think you’ve got to be kind of worldly to kind of understand, what’s the other cultures? So if you had a little black of experience, have a little Irish-Catholic experience, you begin to understand that most of the guys you used to whip in the hallway are now the captain, the lieutenant, the battalion chief, the assistant chief. The first thing uttered out of their lips when they heard that Steve Nakajo’s a fire commissioner was, oh shit. I’ll get back to Frank Jordan, is that when Frank Jordan went in, well, the second year, he approached me. Or I finally approached him, because I saw the door open. Frank is still, to this day, a sweetheart of a man. I went to him basically saying, “Mr. Mayor, I’d like to have some work for you.” That’s how you would term in. My expertise at the time was not just seniors; I’ve done a lot of work with youth, I’ve done a lot of work with music productions, art festivals. Nihonmachi Street Fair, I created; Japanese American day with the Giants, I created; Cherry Blossom Run-Walk. I created some more productions, ran the Kabuki. Part of that journey, right, when your abilities speak for it.

01-00:55:18 So one of the love[s] I have is youth. Not so much children, but youth, adolescent youth and such. He wound up appointing me to the Juvenile Justice Commission, which I felt kind of like right up the alley. Over at YGC [Youth Guidance Center]—we call it the greenhouse—on Twin Peaks. Court action, {inaudible} duties of staff and such. I knew the director. African American, Fred Jordan. I heard through the scuttlebutt that Mayor Jordan wanted to off him. I began to realize that maybe I’m one of the votes. So I went to Chief Fred. Not to let him know what’s up, just to kind of feel out what am I getting myself into. It was interesting. About a couple months before that, there was a eleven-kid breakout at YGC, so it wasn’t the best of times. What happened

was that I just got a feel and I kind of knew this ain’t good for me. But more than that, not part of the African American, but part of the brotherhood. Not saying that we’re not fair and impartial, but me, in my terminology, being a hatchet man to off a black man? Come on. I’m in the neighborhood. I can’t do that. So you learn to make decisions. So one of them was, do you turn down a position? So if you turn down the position, you’ve got to have something else. So I did some research, wanted to play it safe, and found out there was a community-at-large position with the Art[s] Commission. So I went in and told the mayor, “Can’t do it. Can’t do juvenile justice. I want to grow my real love.” He said, “What is it?” I said, “The Art Commission.” The Art Commission is San Francisco Opera—it’s the whole bit. But it has other programs. So he says, “What do you know about art?” I said, “Mr. Mayor, I know what I like and I know what I don’t like.” And he appointed me art commissioner. At the time, I moved up there, up to vice president. But I developed what was called a community arts program. At that time, Bayview Opera House, the Mission Cultural Center {for Latino Arts?}, the South of Market Cultural Center, the Chinatown Cultural Center. The only existing culture center was Mission. Bayview was shut down. We energized that. Supervisor President London Breed used to be executive director for the Western Addition arts center. But that monies I funded through our program, because basically, arts community organizations were not getting funding. So how could they survive. I only knew that because I ran this festival every year and we went through a lot of hardship within that. But it’s that whole—. San Francisco’s amazing, with the amount of festivals. We call it now both commercial and community. In two weeks, come down, because we’ll have Nihonmachi Street Fair and I’ll cook you a {Teddy?} burger.

But I became an art commissioner and I served for two years. Mayor Jordan then became second term reelection, and Speaker Brown jumped in. I said, “Uh-oh. What am I going to do?” Personally, I told my guys, “I’m going to back Frank. Frank was good to me.” I’m a loyalist. Back of my mind, I knew that if Frank and Mayor Brown wouldn’t pull it off, there’s going to be a runoff. So kind of instinctually, I figured that it might happen, and if it does happen, it’s good timing. Happened. The runoffs came. Frank Jordan ain’t going to win against Willie Brown in a two-off, no way in hell. So in terms of politics, what do you do? You go with the winner. You never sit around and say, I did my best. Come on. I’m a veteran. So I took my boy, good friend of mine, asked him to go to the speaker, ask him, what would he feel? They said, “The mayor will welcome you with open arms. But you’ve got to do a press conference.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” Because a week before that, Frank Jordan had made a major mistake by letting two shock DJs from L.A. do an interview with him in his shower, naked. It hit the Chronicle. It looked like hell. Big joke, everyone’s laughing. Just didn’t look mayoral, you know what I mean? Good old Frank.

01-01:00:17 But a good time to jump. But again, out of respect to Mayor Jordan, I at least went to see the man, told him to his face. “Hey, Mayor Jordan, this is what’s up. This is what I’ve got to do. I’m going to go this way.” So we’re still friends to this day. I told Mayor Brown, “I’m not going to talk about degrading Mayor Jordan. I’ll talk about the final analysis.” So we had the press conference and I was in the audience. Must’ve been about a hundred people in there. Cue came, I raised my hand, I jumped up there, cameras hit— boom. “In the final analysis, I have come to the conclusion,” ah-ah-ah-ah, boom, I did it. Sat down, came back home, he went in. It was funny. Mayor Brown’s a dandy; he’s a well dresser. He brought back the fedora. So I pulled out my fedora and—because again, the image is, we’re all in now. Willie’s in, we’re all in. It was the funniest scene. There were so many dudes with long coats and fedoras and shit. It was a riot, man. Then the inaugural party. I didn’t want to go to the pier with Santana; I just went home. Went home, sat there, phone rang. “Stephen.” I go, “Yes, Mr. Mayor? Congratulations.” “I want you to show up tomorrow at this interview.” “Okay, Mr. Mayor. Can you let me know what we’re interviewing for, Mr. Mayor?” “Fire Commission.” “Got it, Mr. Mayor. I will be there, on time.” Put the phone down and I said, “Okay, here we go.” Went in the interview. Straight-up interview. My dear, dear friend {Russell Rocha?}, former commissioner. Ideal position, because the president, or a member of the Fire Commission was Hadley Roth. Hadley Roth just passed. Hadley Roth was a legend. Part of the awakening towards politics in San Francisco was because of Hadley Roth, in many ways. When Frank went in, I considered leaving Kimochi. I went to Hadley, chief of staff, and I told him, “I’ll work for you, man.” Hadley didn’t give me the time of day, basically. So basically, it was the end of that. But then when we became fire commissioners we worked together. Dear, dear, dear friend of mine, all the way up to him passing. But when Hadley moved out and retired out of the commission, he told Mayor Brown, “Steve deserves it. He’s in.”

Mayor Brown being a loyalist—I’m talking about the first time I became president. But through the ranks, became the first president. But basically, the interview for the Fire Commission, five of us were chosen. {Rosemary Fernandez-Phil, Ted Solas, Russel Rocha?}, Hadley Roth, myself. Was the first exposure of the {bind?} of the politics in San Francisco. Why you’re there, what reason are you there for, and what’s the constituents? I loved it, man, because we were in the consent decree. I’m a Japanese American from J- town, but I love to be challenged intellectually. Had a chance to be exposed and sit with Judge Marilyn Patel, who’s still alive. Now, Judge Patel, for me, was special because she turned over the {Coranovis?} case of the concentration camp justification. And because of that turnover of that case, we went into a redress operation. So for me, she was like a hero to me. But again, objectively, this is post the consent decree. So now I have to sit in as one of two commissioners, in the negotiation of the transition of hiring, promotions, all of the reflection of what the community is today. Joanne Hayes-White

came in on that first class of diversity in numbers. I never told the chief this, but I remember when we went in to the swearing in of Chief Demmons. It’s a crack up. It was at Herbst Theatre, and I put on my fedora, man, put on my shades, put on my overcoat. {Russell Rocha?} says, “When I first saw you, I almost shitted.” I said, “Good, because I wanted you to feel that.”

01-01:03:56 But that was the whole thing. Got up on stage, man, and the signal that went out is, there’s going to be changes now. Clearly, I wanted the image of I’m a Willie Brown man. I didn’t care if they felt I was an enforcer or hatchet man or whatever. I didn’t care. All I know is what authority felt like. But not ego- wise for {money?}, to support Bob Demmons, who turned out to be the nicest guy I’ve ever—the most fair. I couldn’t believe this dude, man. Because we hit it off so well, we got into some real confidentiality. I was able to give him support, and {Willie, his wife?}. And I understood that. That’s where the black part comes. He knew it, I knew it. He knew I knew the agenda, I knew it. He knew what I thought, I knew it. But this guy, man, when it came to promotions and certain—he would tell me about individuals that he was thinking of promoting, and these were the guys that tried to hang him. So I used to look at him, I go, “Are you trying to tell me that you’re that fair?” Right? He’s sitting there looking at me, goes, “Yeah, I know they tried to hang me, but we’ve all got to get along.” That’s Bob Demmons, right? I used to see how in the commission meetings, my heart used to break—but again, you’ve got to keep your composure—because folks knew how to get to him. If he gets upset, he starts to stutter. If he gets upset, he shows it visibly. In some of the commission meetings, by some of the members, depending on the issues, brutal. Bru-tal.

Even now, with Joanne—the kind of mentality of delivery and testimony in public. San Francisco, it’s amazing, man, what people say out there. But you begin to learn right away, this is the public domain, this is what happens, you keep your composure. So for me, right off the bat, not knowing I was doing twenty-one years, was my job is to be at the meeting, to have the quorum, to pass the legislation, to provide the—then everything else just blossomed after that. Because when I first went in, I wasn’t popular, man. I used to go to [Firefighters Local] 798 meetings and sit in the back. I got asked to leave, at a meeting. It was kind of a show, in some ways, but I didn’t resist. I got up and left. I just had to remind everyone I got invited to attend this meeting.

Farrell: Why did they ask you to leave?

01-01:07:28 Nakajo: Because they felt that the dialogue they were going to have about different issues of the department wasn’t going—. They were going to hold back if the commissioner was sitting in the room. But it was other motivations. But I got up and left. But I let the guys know. And later on, that made a significant difference, too. It’s interesting because I’m older now, so a lot of the members

are younger than me. When I first came in, everybody was my age or older. So I’ve seen this whole turnover of generation, their emergence. And never to a satisfaction level, but women, minorities, gay, les[bian]. I’ve seen it integrate. Like in all big organizations, there are some who are really competent and really dedicated—which is many, the majority—but there’s some folks in there that just—it has changed. The people who are coming in, the youngsters, they’re eager, they’re smart, they’re educated. I still fight with certain images. We have an Asian Firefighters Association. In the beginning, I used to tell the Asians, “You don’t got to give up your Asian-ness to be a member of the firefighters.” I used to tell guys, “You almost made me feel like you’ve got to be Irish-Catholic instead of being Chinese American.” You don’t got to do that. But later on, you begin to understand. Just like the discussion about contemporary times now, of reflection, that even if you’re a colored individual, your mentality is quite different from being part of that, because you’re exposed to a great integration, right? So there’s some folks now who are members of color and they’re just as thick in the brain cells as the other guys. This kind of macho kind of imagery. But it’s changed greatly. It’s changed greatly.

So my whole internal goal when Bob Demmons was there was—I know Bob well enough not to protect him, to support him and serve him, all the way through when Mayor Brown decided that Chief Demmons was no longer going to be serving in that capacity, and watched how it’s delivered and who’s going to deliver it and the reaction on that. Because Hadley was the president: I was the vice president. I don’t think Bob had a clue what was going to be delivered. I could tell, actually, by the reaction. But it’s not that easy to hear that your services are no longer required, whatever, one way or another. It’s just again, you take the emotion out of it, it’s one {end up?} or another. But Chief Demmons did a wonderful, wonderful job. Because I was the vice president, becoming the president’s second term, the job of search and interview was under, I guess, my chairmanship, but the commission participated. So we had to go through that whole search, that whole paper screening, that whole interview process. Politically, who we had to try {to randomly?}, after analysis, try to interview for the job. That was the first time we hired an outside—.

01-01:11:01 Nakajo: When Chief Demmons left, Chief Paul Tabacco served in assistant capacity, which was supposed to be temporary. I think it lasted a little more than a year. Therefore, good for Chief Tabacco, he retired as chief of the department. So he’s in there just as much as anybody else. Some people want to put a little asterisk and stuff there, but that ain’t the way it works. What was awkward for me was that when we went through the interview process and offered it to Chief Trevino, Mario, being the first guy outside, being a minority chief, Las Vegas via Seattle, Washington. Charming guy. Good-looking. Looked like a damn movie star, man. Carlota Del Portillo was one of our commissioners, and he just charmed. It was {two women?} {inaudible}. I’m not saying that

that had had any factors. But clearly, he was articulate, smart, able to connect. We hired our first time out-of-state fire chief for the department. It’s quite a change. Quite a change. Not only for him, in terms of the learning curve. Part of it, too, is that again, my observation and just by being there, you begin to understand that there were certain things about the department that are—. You can leave a position or go to another department, and the job has consistency. If you have administrative abilities in the fire department level, you can be operation, you could be suppression, you could be {fanchion?}, or you could be a firefighter. But the rank from firefighter, lieutenant captain, battalion chief, assistant chief, BC, you fighting the fires; AC, you’re pretty much directing the fire. But when Chief Trevino came in, again, we talked about— again, Mayor Brown was adamant that he wanted to change. Because I asked him, I said, “Hey, Las Vegas, flat. Come on. Come on now.” The nature of it. That’s part of the fire department is through the years, you begin to understand what is the nature of our department? They’re the specialists on hills. Which is why the wooden sixty-foot ladder, that’s rarely used. Such is nature. But it’s been working for 150 years, in some ways. But we’ve modernized ourselves, as well.

01-01:13:38 For example, when Chief Trevino came in, being an outside chief, well, obviously, you have a different lens. So part of that is he could see that right away. But it’s not like adaptabilities are going to—you’ve got to win everybody around. You can make some changes. One of the changes was, we never had a safety officer. That means when a fire is on the scene, you’ve got a command post. But out of the command posts, there’s supposed to be one officer there that’s supposed to be designated for safety. Turnout coats, whatever. We never had that. Sometimes {it’s brought up?} because of our 150 years, our traditions, and our reputation. We only do it our way. You’ll run into that, in terms of even adapted hose. San Francisco has a different diameter than everybody else. So when they come and fight a fire over here, you’ve got to almost carry an adaptor on your truck, to be able to hook up. We’ve been like that forever. Something like the sixty-foot ladder. But he established the safety officer. The most controversy—and it was kind of painful, in some ways, and I’m going to say I helped push it—was the zero tolerance for drinking. Because the department, for one reason or another, historically—again, when you start to learn the history in the annals and what folks did—there used to be this concept called blue bars that every station— not every station, but certain stations—had a bar; and that the fire guys would have one or two or whatever, and that sometimes guys would go out and they’re toasted. It can’t happen. You just can’t have it. That’s part of the discrimination against women. Can’t have it. Ain’t going to have it. Incidents of discipline have run gamuts. Taking the towel and whipping it against a women firefighter, it’s okay. The boys do it all the time. Nah. Charges? Unheard of. Demeanor, verbal exchanges, innuendos—{no?} charges. But you’ve got to have the timetable {inaudible} BCs, they have to have the right to reinforce the charges as the members try to develop there, right? Because

this is a society that we don’t rat on nobody, right? Everything’s tolerated within the house. We all get along. That culture can easily adapt itself to the paramedic, when that whole era came about, as well. So Chief Demmons, I call it almost like the transition with the consent decree, definitely, within mind frame.

[Interruption]

01-01:16:27 Nakajo: But also administratively. For example, the department administration—part of a generalization, but I learned it, too—was handled by the commission secretary, a guy named Ray Connors. If you ever, ever have an opportunity to interview anybody, it’s Ray Connors. He’s like these other guys, but he was the fire secretary from 1950s on. Still active, still around in San Mateo. Sharp, sharp. When we did the 150th panel discussion, he came out with reams of material. But the department administration, budgets, all of that that we have two or three people do now, it was him. So when Bob came in, he modernized it not just to Ray Connors, but he had responsibility move to department and chiefs. Analyze your unit, come up with a budget figure that’s going to be submitted within the general. So quote-unquote, the “centralizations systems” is a lot of Bob’s contribution. Resistant with a lot of different personalities within that. But with Mark Corso today, with the system that it is now, it’s more than streamlined. Mark Corso is one of the best at what he does. But he’s amazing, too, because again, the twenty years is from the consent to the budget deficit years to the lean years to the different developmental growths. Part of development, too, Bob coming into a new era, was the merge of the health department, the ambulance system, over. I always complained about it until I was kind of told to cool it. No budget included, no conceptual merge, conceptual. But all of a sudden you get this huge system, ambulance services. That clash lasted for years. Secondary citizens, you’re not part of us, you’re not worthy, you don’t deserve to be in the house. I don’t know where we’re going to put you, right? So in the beginning, they were in the house. You get so many calls we can’t sleep. You’re in and out all the time, right? So the separation of that, to the point of where developmental methodology, rapid deployment. “You mean to tell me our ambulance guys are sitting on Fifth and Market Street waiting for a call?” “Well, commissioner, they’re busy so they’re sitting for a while.” So you do a ride along, right? I said, “Where do you guys go to the bathroom?” “Oh, we go to the McDonald’s around the corner.” “Where do you guys eat?” “Oh, we eat off the subway.” “You mean to tell me you guys sit in this rig for ten hours?” Now it’s twelve hours. “But we’re running, commissioner.” You go out there young, enthusiastic, dedicated, amazing.

When we adapted the EMS patch, I told guys, I said, “I’m not one of these guys that says I told you so.” I said, “I don’t want to create, by the patch, a secondary subculture within our culture.” With this bond that passed, or is going to pass, with this emergency medical getting their own facility, major,

major stuff. Again, the reflection of all this dialogue maybe took twenty years for it; but with that establishment, I think we’re finally, with emergency medical, up to a real operational equity. Still overworked. We’re trying to do something with supervisor {statute?}. Trying to deal with that. We’ve got vehicles up the yin-yang, in some ways. From deficit year spending to everything we asked, we got, the last two years. But that’s part of the deficit with Gavin [Newsom].

01-01:20:13 Chief Hayes-White is good friends with Mayor Newsom. Chief Hayes-White also went to University of Santa Clara with Mayor Newsom. Chief Hayes- White is a public servant. The mayor, in my terms, took many opportunities to ask the fire department to cut budgets, to be an example to other departments. So what we have now is what we lost all during the years. And the stress and strain of that, it’s amazing to how we survived but what we’re up to today. That deficit spending to the development of to where we are today for the last three years in the {middle?} has been, for lack of a better term, the attack by 798. I’ve been here long enough to say it’s not everybody. I’m going to almost term it the president and the executive committee members, isolated. This attack has been going on for three years. Now it’s the fourth year. I think. Three or four, I lose sight. From vicious to somewhat civil, but never congenial. Never in a professional working manner, to this day. My opinion, the president of the 798, to service the members, ought to remove himself, have a new election. I feel that way with certain other employee groups, too. They don’t reflect the membership of today. In terms of the attack on the chief, it’s kind of like what’s the attack on? Lack of leadership, micromanagement, budget deficit, budget this, but that? Where’s the argument, at this point. So when I see the attacks, depending upon who it is and what it is, I think it’s ran its course for those guys. I think they better figure out a different tactic. But with the low popularity of Mayor [Edwin] Lee, it’s kind of subsided because Chief [Greg] Suhr resigned from the police department. That satisfied one component, and there’s a component that’s never going to be satisfied. But that’s quelled it a little bit by taking the spotlight off of Chief Hayes-White. In the meanwhile, the budget and the successful news of the budget—vehicle replacement, Mayor Lee hiring plan— even the attack on the mayor, let along Chief Hayes-White, what are you going to attack the mayor on? He’s given us everything that we’ve asked for.

The difference between Mayor Brown, Mayor Newsom, there’s a lot of difference. A lot of difference. Mayor Brown make a decision, analyzed. He’s a mover and a shaker. Mayor Newsom, I never got too close to him. I just played my securities. Mayor Lee, I know real well. But Mayor Lee has served the city in a bureaucratic position for almost thirty, forty years. If anything, he’s running this city like an accountability service piece. The guy don’t get nervous. So as he plugs navigation center, homeless program, police department recruitment, fire department vehicle needs, personnel, he knows what to do, in terms of shoring up. The rest of it depends on the economy. But

now, San Francisco being what it is going into this third year, I don’t know, man. His popularity’s down to 26 [percent] or something, because the image is we’re successful, but nobody can live here. That’s generalization, right? But the supervisors, everyone’s going to be battling in November. So the whole climate of the city has changed somewhat. I’m fortunate because Mayor Lee reappointed me as a fire commissioner. So I’ve got three years left to serve as a fire commissioner on this charter, on this term, backed up by the twenty-one years. They can’t take my twenty-one years away from me. So I know I’ve got that within the contribution. That was in reference of where one has to keep pretty much attuned to what’s going on with the department. But the department is huge and the city is huge.

01-01:24:50 With the whole development of the Mariposa, Third Street, Third Street down, Bayview-Hunters Point next, Treasure Island Next—good time to come here, man. It’s going to be popping. Well, good for you because you come from a big city, you’re going to see some comparisons to that. The other part about that is, make sure we don’t lose some of our heart. But Bay Area, man, California is wide, boy. But in terms of today’s state of affairs, it’s kind of interesting because I think I know all eleven supervisors. Out of eleven, I know a couple of them really well, especially President Breed. Assemblyman Phil [Philip] Ting, Assemblyman David Chiu, know them well. Enough to have a good, strong conversation with all of these guys. Mayor Lee, three years. So, Kimochi has been my executive director community base. October 31, that changes. My question becomes, where do I play from? Joe Citizen, right? But I still have my Fire Commission level. But on one hand, as an activist, you don’t want to give up relationships that you fought all your life for, especially if you can do some quote-unquote “productive” things. So I think Chief Hayes-White is now eleven years. That’s a long time. So I think right now, in terms of Chief Hayes-White, she’s not acting like any change, even during the time that they were after her. But the tactic of 798, in terms of this embarrassment and push, she’s an Irish-Catholic woman. Redhead, to boot. You ain’t going to move Joanne Hayes-White.

Sometimes the tactics, it’s not accountable and {formulative?} to the person that you’re talking to. Ain’t no one going to force her out. It becomes either the boss, which leads to the last series, third-term president of the Fire Commission during this turmoil. It’s on the guy that instituted the first evaluation in 149 years of the fire department, on the chief of the department. I think 798 and some of the folks—again, speaking freely—maybe saw that as a opportunity to fire the chief, because out of the five commissioners, it just takes three to boot. In my political reality, to oust a department head, you’re going to need five. You can’t get no three to two. Come on. Maybe four to one. Maybe. Maybe acceptable. But three to two? So what happened was not only did I conduct the first evaluation, I had to go to HR and study a whole evaluation process and ask the question, how does the chief get evaluated annually by the city? Well, the chief of staff, with the mayor, submits the

evaluation to the chief. I find out that HR and her evaluation, it’s a self- evaluation. I said, “Really? Self-evaluation, huh? Really?” I said, “I want to see the rest of them.” All nine years, right? Self-evaluation. I said, “Really?”

01-01:28:07 Then what happens? Well, we, HR, we send it up to the mayor’s office. So me being me, I go, “Does anyone read it? Does the mayor read it?” But you know I’m facetious right? Because these guys know me, too, even the mayor’s office. I’m out there going, “Hey, man, did you guys read this thing? You guys know what’s going on? Because they’re asking me, “Where is it at? How is it?” To the mayor’s credit, when I did see him one on one, he said—because that question was looming. What’s the future of the chief? To his credit, he didn’t answer that. He looked at me and goes, “I want a fair and professional evaluation.” I got that, boss. Conducted a fair, honest evaluation. Some of the commissioners pushed for a vote. I didn’t accept it. I didn’t agenda-ize it. I read a fair evaluation submitted to the mayor. You’ve got your departmental, now you got the commission evaluation. I came up with benchmarks. I came up with a six-month review on the benchmarks. There’s a lot of things. Strategic development plan, newsletter, budget, vehicle replacement program, minority groups. Right? So to the credit of the chief, she ain’t just kind of sitting there sleeping at the wheel. She knows how to interact within that. The commissioners, they did want a vote. I think they thought that they might have the votes, realizing that if there was some indication that it might be split, pretty much I would be the, quote/unquote, “determining factor,” as president of the commission. Quite frankly, just didn’t feel comfortable with that. Nor did I feel it was my role. So I sent it up and as a part of that, Chief Hayes- White is still chief. We just came off a successful budget program and the {implementation?} of all these different committees. We just got the fire boat on Sunday. Too bad we didn’t call you up. I didn’t get to go. Four-thirty in the morning on the fire boat under Golden Gate Bridge.

Farrell: Oh, wow.

01-01:30:17 Nakajo: To meet the new boat coming in from Seattle, with spray. You would’ve wrote home to Mom and Dad, man.

Farrell: Yeah.

01-01:30:24 Nakajo: Yeah. So next time, I’ll tell Chief [Mark] Gonzales to hook you up. You come to the Fire Commission?

Farrell: I do.

01-01:30:29 Nakajo: You going to come to the next one?

Farrell: It’s on Wednesday?

01-01:30:31 Nakajo: Yeah.

Farrell: I think I’m around, actually, yeah.

01-01:30:35 Nakajo: Okay. You want to be introduced?

Farrell: Sure.

01-01:30:37 Nakajo: Okay. Well, if you come, let me know. Text me.

Farrell: Okay. Okay.

01-01:30:40 Nakajo: You’ve got a card, huh?

Farrell: I do, yeah. Yeah.

01-01:30:43 Nakajo: Okay. So anyway, just because this is part of our 150th and I think people ought to know this other part of it.

Farrell: Right. Yeah.

01-01:30:50 Nakajo: But I want the department to meet you, so they call you up and you can get access, man.

Farrell: Yeah. [That’d] be great.

01-01:30:57 Nakajo: Take advantage of it, man. I’m telling you.

Farrell: Yeah. That would be great.

01-01:31:00 Nakajo: Oh, it’d be fun. Be fun. You know, the 75th—not to digress—but the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, we got to go on the boat underneath. Amazing. You sit there, that’s where your love of the Bay Area, you go, wow.

Farrell: Yeah, I know. Incredible. Yeah, this is probably a good place to leave it for today.

01-01:31:21 Nakajo: Okay.

Interview 2: July 27, 2016

Farrell: Okay, this is Shanna Farrell with Steven Nakajo on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. We are in Japantown, San Francisco, California. Steve, last time we left off, we were talking a little bit about your transition into the Fire Commission. But I was wondering if you could back up and tell me a little bit about your familiarity with the Fire Commission? You were on the Art Commission, and working with the government at that point. But yeah, a little bit about how you came into that role.

02-00:00:44 Nakajo: Yeah, I think the reference to the Art Commission or the entrée into commission levels of participation was the realization that you could have some skills and qualification. But I guess the best way to put it is, if you don’t have the political connection to make that a reality, which is an appointment by the mayor. For me, the Art Commission was by Mayor Jordan. It talks to that nature, but it talks to how much do you know about it? So when Mayor Jordan asked me the question, “What do you know about art?” Again, part of all of these things, you’ve got to be geared for however you handle the question, which is part of preparation. Do you have a skill enough to be spontaneous enough, intelligent enough to be able to handle the question and to make an analysis instantaneously of what your answer’s supposed to be, and maintain that as close as you can to, I don’t know, it sounds good, I like it. Rather than an answer that I gave, which is, “I know what I like and what I don’t like.” The Art Commission was a great entrée because I made some reference about the world the Art Commission brought, which was all the majors—the opera, the performing, the ballet and all that. But for example, the Art Commission was a huge commission. I think it was like fifteen, sixteen members. It used to be huge. I couldn’t understand how you take care of business with all of that. More than that, the Art Commission had categoricals—dancing, music, craftsmen, all of the {preemptor—?} statues, renovation. Again, you learn that. I think yesterday we were talking about this project being a good entrée to San Francisco. The Art Commission was a good entrée within that as well, because coming from Japantown or being part of a ghettoized environment, which is limited, you only kind of read or dream about those aspects. Even if the question was, how many times have you been to the opera? I could kind of say maybe once. Or the symphony, maybe twice, both on a school project field trip. It’s embarrassing, in terms of a limitation, but there’s an understanding of what there is. On the {Choir?} Commission, at one point, we would sit there and wait for everybody to come in. This woman would walk in, this older woman, and everybody kind of just seized it up, straightened up and kind of—it was almost like a movie star walked in. I didn’t know who the heck this lady was, this—forgive my kind of vernacular descriptions, but this old white lady, looking good but it turned out to be someone called Dodie Rosekrans, that I later on found out was a heiress of the sugar industry that lived in a house in Pacific Heights, they termed it, that was a big patron of either of ballet or the arts. But you begin to realize that

certain—in Japanese it’s {okonomochie?}—rich people who have different prestiges are part of the contribution. So the reason why I know this is only because [of] the interaction. But she threw, I guess, Christmas parties at her house. I remember the first time going there, and I just thought I was eating dinner in a museum. I never saw so much artwork. I don’t even know how to act. What do you do? So all of that kind of interaction, in terms of {preparating?} for the Fire Commission, is that on different levels, you’ve got to be able to get a feel on how to {be able to use integrated?} societals.

02-00:04:36 The reference to the Fire Commission was previous, what knowledge did I have? To be honest with you, none. Again, being a Japanese American male, you later find out that—again, I went to Sacred Heart High School, which is a Catholic high school, made up of a lot of Italians and Irish here in the city, but the main funnel to the San Francisco Fire Department and Police Department. Catholic-Irish tradition, if you will. Italian American, if you will. But I didn’t have access to that. So for myself, the closest concept of San Francisco or public service for me, because you begin to develop public service as a being real early in life. You kind of find out you’re kind or you want to kind of stand up for someone. For me, it was a contemplation that maybe I want to be a police officer. And for me in Japantown here, with the African American community around you, nobody thought about being a police officer. The other part about that is, you don’t have a role model to look at, at all. So the concept of that. It’s like a police officer, I’m going to be tough, rough, whatever. But it never got to that, because in those days, they had a height restriction and you couldn’t wear glasses, so you kind of dismissed that right away. The thought of entering public service or being part of public service, for me, never entered my mind. The only thing that occurred to me was always the tradition of the development of community services. That’s where my Kimochi, my academic career over in San Francisco State, City College, whatever, occurred with that. So the only time that it really became a point of real reference was the phone call from Mayor Brown, telling me to show up for a process. And the process, it was the first time for me of going in. Mayor Brown, then I found out, that transition teams are all different and varied. Mayor Brown being Mayor Brown, being a member of the assembly and such, he knows the rules and regulations, but he’s really a great organizer, in terms of policies and such. But also in terms of logistics. There was an actual committee named Transition Committee. There were actually two chairs, prestigious San Franciscans. A guy named Rudy Nothenberg was the chief administrative officer. These names that I throw out—one of my candidates and colleagues later on became Hadley Roth—are all associations by name that you read in the paper. There’s nothing in my endeavor there that would ever even get me close to that. I made the rev about civic, with the first approach of Mayor Jordan. Now when I go to the Fire Commission meeting, I never take anything for granted. But I always walk through the door and I always think to myself, look at yourself, man. You come in here like it’s no big deal. It’s just a regular day at the office. That was just never a

contemplation before. So not real concrete information, more—I think I used the reference of getting the call from the mayor, of the mayor making a selection within. I find out the Fire Commission is a prestigious, honorable commission. I know enough to know that either police or fire, or one of the two, planning, you jump off for a political career. Traditionally, police, as we find it. That motivated me. The main point that I think I was talking about was when the boss, Mayor Brown, tells you to serves and gives you a specific assignment, you do it. I felt honored, but I felt like I was a member of the club. I also felt like I’ve got a job to do. Again, based off of my experience, street methodology, loyalty, and old school, we call it now, to serve. So it wasn’t just trying to be selected. The selection committee with the interview, you had to sign in, you had to sit there and wait, everybody around. I remember the first time I met {Russell Rocha?} sitting next to me, or {Rosemary Fernandez?}. You begin to realize that there are a lot of people interviewing for this job. It’s a commission, so the whole exposure of that is a new experience.

02-00:09:21 It feels similar to a job experience, but more {intent?}. It almost felt, because I had the academic kind of background, like a dissertation presentation. Somewhat legal, or ramifications of that. Three people on the other side of the table judging you for what you say. I didn’t know how well I did, because I never quite went through that. Later on, I began to think maybe it was more that it was the process, and that the end result was that you were part of Willie’s boys going in. The new wave, the change. In San Francisco, part of your notes is the marked differences of eras. Truly, when Mayor Brown went in, that was totally, for me, the interpretation that our time has come and we’re going to go in with this black man. Like I told you, once the assignments came through, clarity. It’s the Fire Commission, we’re coming out of something called—you do your homework right away—something called a consent decree. Then you’re exposed to the whole litigation. Right away it becomes—and part of your notes is—it’s you versus them. Specifically, after all this time, the employee groups, they had filed their grievance, led by the black firefighters, specifically Bob Demmons. There’s other individuals in that, firefighters that said they were part of leadership. Don’t matter. I know Bob was part of that. I know Bob followed through with that. Bob and that whole era of the consent decree exposed a whole world of advocates for justice. One of the true experiences was Eva Paterson. Still alive, still out there. You ought to meet her in life. She’ll knock your doors off. She is one dynamic, powerful, articulate woman. A guy like me, once you run into folks like that {or Bob?} you sit there—Judge Patel, I made references—you sit there and you learn. You just suck it up as much as you can. It was interesting because part of the consent decree was part of negotiation of interpretation, as I find out, in terms of process of implementation of consent decree language. What does affirmative action mean? What does numbers of men, women, black, minorities, whatever, what does that mean? Then you can have policies and definitions of that, but like the EMS, it’s got to evolve itself into our

workplace and you have to have an analysis of the workplace or the environment. I think I made references the other day to that. But this is all learned. This is all learned.

02-00:12:15 So when I went to the interview, then later on found out that I was going to be part of the commission, first assignment was showing up at the swearing in of Bob Demmons. Quickly, you size it up. Because I made reference that as I entered that auditorium, I wanted to make sure there was clarity as to who I was, without making an announcement, because I knew that the culture and the membership tradition had never seen someone like me. As I made my entry in there, sat on the stage early—it’s a calculated strategy to come in early. I believe greatly in feeling out the environment to get the vibes, study the group, see what’s up. I was intimidated, as well, because the tension was so great. The tension in the audience, which was mainly made up of, what I remember, a lot of white folks, white officers, white members. They had to be there. They didn’t want to be there, but had to be there because of the ultimate—talk about ballsy. How ballsy can you get, by a mayor to appoint the plaintiff. How ballsy can you be? Bob Demmons cracked me up. Now you know him. That guy just cracked me up. His entrée to the stage was from the back of the auditorium. The soundtrack that he put on, I think it was the title of “I’d Be a Hero.” I forget they sang that. Mariah Carey, somebody. That thing goes on and Bob Demmons comes marching down the aisle with his cap underneath his arm. I said, “Our day has come, come, come.” Because from that point on, there was a former commissioner named—how can I forget him? Well, Judge Patel asked us to convene with two commissioners and the chief, and there was another attorney. There was two terms, Special Master Jim [James] Jefferson, from the former commission, and the monitor. I used to crack up because I heard that Jim Jefferson’s fee was something like $450 an hour, and {inaudible} was something like $350 an hour. I used to say to myself, I never heard Jim Jefferson talk so slow in my whole life, and go through processes. But it was real interesting to see that, because that gave me the whole exposure to the question of what did you know and what do you find out. The instantaneous education that one has to do. I talked about Ray Connors, who again, that culture. The old Fire Commission used to be on Jones Street, which is Tenderloin. I think it’s a homeless bed now. But it’s interesting because part of that, too—and you’ll find this out—is that why it was downtown, city hall, the Tenderloin, because everybody was around city hall, because everybody’s meetings was at city hall. But not only was the fire commissioner, there was Original Joe’s was there, the biggest bars and clubs that you could have in Van Ness Avenue. Because when everybody came out—generalization—a lot of them hung out in the bars, and this is where business was conducted. I’m not saying the fire department was, but it was just the walk. So when I came into the Fire Commission at the {inaudible} after twenty-one, twenty-two years—and there’s the banner hanging in my office of the door indicator. I’m probably the last one of the modern era commissioners to have experienced that. And I’m grateful.

02-00:16:16 I make my reference to Ray Connors because he was my instant professor to again, not knowing much, and then the curve got to go. I specifically make the consent decree and the negotiators of that, because I had to have the comprehension. I talk about Bob and the swearing in, but the understanding and identification in the employee groups. I talked about being asked to leave [a] 798 meeting. I talked about the identification of the Black [Fire]fighters group with the AFA, Asian [Fire]fighters group. The original organizers were very strong. But as you lined up with somebody, you alienated somebody else. It’s just the way it was. I talk now, in terms of contemporary, it was—the lawsuit and the consent decree is something that has to be historically referenced to, period. Because without that—some people say the black moment, oh, this and that—without that, you wouldn’t have—what do you call it? The first movement of advancement and non-discriminary practice within the fire department, up and down, through every level. What world do you live in? That’s where a guy like me comes out. But to the credit of the department and to the mandate, the consent decree—what the consent decree did for me was, always gave me a proficient oversight to how the interpretation on a global scale with the fire department is supposed to practice. Then you begin to learn all the other intricate components of the department. Ray Connors helped me, educated me. Then all of a sudden you begin to find out, what are all these multiple roles? It’s not only attendance that you’ve got to attend to, for quorum and business and humongous budgets and the operational process of that, but this whole world of discipline, and how this department has a legality component with discipline tied into the—. And there’s reference of paramilitary environment. Because without the other—meaning without the paramilitary environment—you can’t have the kind of functionality of the department. You’ve got to have the disciplinary components to that because there’s violations. I found out personally—again, a reference to my grandfather and what his role was in Japan as the emperor’s aide and the commandant of the Japanese military schools, and on the other side, the founder of the Japanese Boy Scouts, the music director. I can’t think of more of a better role model for myself, to have this man who had all of these skills. But that’s what’s nice about Japanese quality, character as well, is you take the arts and culture, just as valued to other principles. They balance. But that’s when it became real clear to me, in some ways, the aspect of leadership. That leadership is not particularly a title, but it’s what you can make of it, as well. Again, I talk to a lot of people. But you don’t know these things unless you go through all of these experiences.

02-00:19:46 It’s a test of ego, all the time. The test of ego is also associated with the youth and idealism and zeal and strength and tenacity or whatever you want to call it. The difference with me is, I had good teachers. Ray Connors, internally with the department; Hadley Roff, with the commission and with the entrée into the greater components. Because Hadley Roff is a patron saint of San Francisco. The thing about Hadley and me is he genuinely loved me and I

loved him. He began to understand, just like Ray Connors—Ray Connors, {after we sat through?} {inaudible}, a couple times he pulled me aside and says, “You know, Steve, man, I’ve been around for forty-some years, and you’re pretty damn good.” Meaning the analytical components of what is discipline? It’s supposed to be about impartiality, objectiveness. So I’m out there at State, trying to teach immigrant boat kids about critical thinking and analysis, analytical. They’re intimidated by the term analytical. So that dual culture qualities have to come into play, because I used to lecture to my women students—I remember these women— Vietnamese boat children, I used to call them—when they came to State. They were so intimidated, so scared about public speaking and such that they would try to—I remember one student asked me if she could squeeze her stuffed animal underneath the podium as she delivered her speech. But what it became was, you’re a woman, you’re Vietnamese, you’re American. Your critical thinking and analysis comes from three different levels. Part of it is the instantaneous interpretation within your brain, even though you may not speak proficient English. So she picked it up. But for myself, you have to practice that yourself. Are you there for the membership, or are you there for the department? Management versus membership. Can you indeed process due process? Can you objectively see what the rules and regula[tions]—? Can you operate in a semi-million operation? Then underneath all of this is firehouse discipline, tradition, the network. The scuttlebutt of the fire department is amazing. Amazing. So you begin to understand, for myself, in terms of the discussion of what you learn in the fire department, how you learn it, is that the scuttlebutt and the firehouse chatter is just as legitimate, as to what’s factual. It’s amazing to me what is so-called factual and non-communicative is at the lunch table at the firehouses. These folks got a lot of time to interpret one way or another. Some of it, for me, is they throw the numbers. I think suppression is less than 30 percent, less than 20, maybe, because EMS is 75 percent. So the traditional fire image is this—I call them rolling ambulances, depending upon who you want to serve. And the budget is eaten up by the frequent fliers and the transients. So how do you really serve?

02-00:23:11 Nakajo: The guys, when you come tonight, I want you to be introduced. But also I want you to sit up in front, because the room is going to be packed with all these wannabes. These wannabes aren’t young. A lot of guys now who come are transfers or guys who are working in different departments, because they want to be part of the prestigious San Francisco Fire Department, the historical part of it. But the truth of the matter is, is that everybody can’t be suppression. So even in terms of the exposure and the knowledge base, like the errors of the department, the consent decree—you know, benchmarks— EMS merge, the twenty-year span of EMS merging with how it occurs even now is the role that falls down to the firefighters. Thank the Lord we’ve got firefighters who fight fires. It’s unusual. San Francisco, the Mission has been hot. We have more four-alarm fire alarms than ever. I’ve never had a five- alarmer in my whole career, and we just had one in Bernal Heights. Four

alarms, again, for myself, {the phone?}, it’s up to the commission. You can go one alarm, two alarm. I got two alarms up. I just want to know. In the old days, when I was more {ganky?}, healthy, I’d jump out. You jump out because you want to be seen. You want to be seen by them and you want to know. You want to know, why am I playing for this ladder? What am I doing with this hose? Just what’s going on? So the biggest fires we’ve had recently, we had one at Mission Bay, four-alarmer. Almost lost it. Almost lost it. It’s just like the earthquake in San Francisco. So the city has rebuilt. That’s great and wonderful. But we’re packed, and we’ve got a different kind of terrain going on now. So you’ve got to have that. So that when the budget cuts occur during the various years, you may cut some suppression, but you’ve also got to have this {arm of?} paramedic or medical services. That EMS is just as {comparable?} to the department. So I’m going to stop right about there, in terms of the phase of what you know.

Farrell: Yeah. So before we get to the EMS merger, I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about what you learned from Ray Connors.

02-00:25:47 Nakajo: Ray Connors, right off the bat—I hope you meet him, man. Like Hadley Roth, I never met a guy that was so dedicated and professional in my whole life. I met a lot of guys, but Ray Connors, this white guy, this guy didn’t have to be nice to me or kind to me or help me out. But he was so good at his job. A guy like me, I pick up on guys like him right away, because I understand what they are and what they can contribute. He was the commission secretary, but he knew everything. He’s the guy I would talk to. When I, still to this day, before Hadley passed, I’d call Hadley and I’d call Ray. “What do you think?” Near the end, when Hadley, because of his health and stuff. It’s just to engage him. But I still would need him. Because I understand from this role, how important self-esteem is. Same thing with Ray. When you give that many years and you give that kind of dedication, you just can’t be forgotten. So at the panel, when Ray was there—you know, typical Ray—he stays up, pulls four of his boxes. He didn’t say much that day. He was really nervous, but he was really emotion that day. He’s got all his notes, right? But every one of these things, he can give you hours. Just like a book. But he would have all of that, but he would interject some real honesty and candidness that I need. Guys who know me, cut to the chase. Sometimes people think I’m abrupt or not kind of whatever. I don’t try to project that, but I get it and I try to make— I don’t know why, it’s not fast analysis. It’s no good with making the fast analysis, if you’re wrong. But I want to be able to get as much as I can to let my machine within myself conjure up what I’m feeling and stuff. So I just look at Ray as my teacher. My teacher, my professor, my friend, my colleague, my consigliere. But this guy. What was tough about Ray was that previous to the modern era of Bob coming in and playing, so-called, the budget director, which now still is in place strongly with Mark Corso, Ray was the guy. He was also the guy who knew all the members within the department, to get anything asked, get anything done. He was the internal guy.

So again, within the department, you begin to understand that. Administration, management over here. That’s why in some ways, I feel pretty good. I’m weak at the bottom-line membership. But I think my reputation is down there enough to the membership of a reputation like I know what I’m doing. I ain’t no fool. I don’t take this for granted. I don’t take you for granted. But I also think that the word is down that I’m fair. Or at least you should be able to approach me. But a lot of the young guys are different from what it is. Like I said, when I first got in, and through the years of Bob to Tabacco to Trevino, it was a whole movement and emergence of an era of firefighters that, again, retired out. Things changed, though. The rules and regulations. Disability and going out on light duty—we’ll look the other way and let it go and all that— started changing, because real accountability within the administration started to occur.

Farrell: So I’ve been interviewing Bob Demmons, and he talks firsthand about the consent decree. Then some of the other guys don’t really talk about it very much. I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how the commission saw the consent decree through, or how they were able to ensure what the agreement was?

02-00:30:12 Nakajo: That first team—Hadley, myself, {Russell Rocha?}—. {Rosemary Fernandez-Pfifer?} was the first Latina woman, but she was an attorney; {Russell Rocha?}, first gay; Hadley, Hadley; so myself, myself. We were real keen on how we got there. {Ted Solas?} was old-time San Francisco. Reminded me of Dean Martin. From the Sunset District. Realtor, self-created man. Love that. But Roth did his thing, man, and did it so old school with a martini it just wasn’t funny. He got there because he backed Willie. Willie was one of his boys. He ran that whole south side. But he was always doing his thing. Got himself in trouble by saying all the wrong things, a lot at the wrong times. Good guy. He used to come visit me. But finally, eventually, he had to resign or got removed and stuff. He passed away. {Rosemary Pfifer?}, in the beginning, when she was president and such—because she was the attorney and because she was skilled in some ways—it’s not that I disliked her or liked her. I played her as a colleague, but I watched her, because I thought she was slicker than what she was. Meaning that she was smart, she’s intelligent, she’s an attorney, she knows why she’s in there, and she’s going to utilize that. She wasn’t that much of an aspiring star to be one way or another, because in those days, you just don’t know because everybody’s jumping out there. Except for Hadley was proven. I didn’t know if {Rosemary?} was going to be a judge or something, but she was an administrator anyway. {Russell?}, God love him. That’s another guy you should talk to. Goddamn, man, {Russell?}. Gay attorney, just a fair, honest, passionate, intelligent to this day. I made a recommendation that he get selected back. We’re one short, the commission. We’ve been one short since January, when Commissioner President [Andrea] Evans decided not to re-up. But all three of us were conscious—four of us—conscious of it. So the implementation of the consent

decree to support Bob was really strong. Hadley, God loved him, loved Bob Demmons, and tried to work with him. Bob Demmons, like I said, in terms of traits and personality and such, he had all the intelligence and all the creat[itivity] and all the vision and such, how one implemented that, in terms of persona and personality. Plus in a lot of ways, like I used to say, “You’re the plaintiff, man. You’re the most hated dude in this department, man. You’ve got it so stacked against you, man.” It’s honorable and ballsy that you appoint the guy, but you get the leader up there and the rest of the crew is somewhere else—what the hell? Either they’re going to undermine you, they’re going to backstab you, they’re going to pull a Julius Caesar on you. You know what I’m saying?

Farrell: Mm-hm.

02-00:33:23 Nakajo: That’s just my street methodology, in terms of it. The kind of discussions I have with you, we share it, because I know that stuff, man. It’s either you know or you don’t know. So to Bob’s credit, he stuck with it. Stuck with it, implemented it. He had a seminar right off the bat, in terms of officer trainings. It was ama[zing]. He hired this why guy that was really good. Tried things that never happened before. Buy the officers into discussion, buy the officers into dialogue. To Bob’s credit, fair analysis within and thinking of the greater department and operation. Appointed guys, like I told you, that just hated him. Interesting with the department as {this man is terminal?}. So someone says to me, “The department’s messed up.” You can’t get no [more] messed up than what we was and where we came from. You can’t tell me, you can’t tell Commissioner Nakajo, because we’ve done a great deal. But to the credit of the men and women of this department and everybody who serves, we’re functional. I mean to tell you, man, when the bell rings, we go out. We serve. It’s to the credit of that and the training and such. To the new young bucks coming in and such, that’s really got to be profoundly educated and profoundly indoctrinated into policy and procedure within the ranks, because we’re changing the environment within that. But it’s amazing to me, in terms of that. Because every time I go out there, I see it. I see it, how they jump out. And equally, the women are just as enthusiastic as the big white guy or the African American. There’s pride and sense of community and such. So again, for myself in personal reference, from J-town to Morning Star to Sacred Heart, you begin to understand, can you really be accepted within the benevolence with the fire department? Yes, you can. To a point. I ain’t going to go to everybody’s barbeque, but to the point. I don’t know if that helped.

Farrell: Yeah. I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what the commission meetings were like during that period of time? Or what some of the conversations were, the questions or the agendas being set?

02-00:35:48 Nakajo: Well, the bad parts or the negativity parts was that the commission, when I was down in Golden Gate, started to become rambunctious, in the sense that members of the department—. Mainly this guy named {John Darman?}. I call it the {John Darman error?}. He’s still in the department. On issues that affected him—that’s the best way I could put it—disciplinary or whatever, chose to attack Bob Demmons as the culprit of these allegations. And he would show up. I remember one time at Golden Gate, he came up for public comment. He was still wearing his fire uniform, which is against the rules. Bob was so pissed. Bob told {Helen Gamble?} to come over, assistant deputy chief, and tell {Darman?} that’s he out of dress. So as a compromise, {Darman?} went out, took of his fire shirt, took of his fire belt, came back and just lambasted the chief. When we moved down to the new headquarters—our headquarters is beautiful—we had our own commission room. {John Darman?} proceeded to follow us down there. Through the years—I would say maybe about—it felt a long time—three, four years—he would come to every commission meeting and blast. I remember many times that—. It’s just as bad. I don’t know if you were at sessions where 798 recently would be attacking the chief.

Farrell: No.

02-00:37:40 Nakajo: But it’s interesting how in public process, through public testimony, you could say what you can say. Your semantics is depending upon how you want to say it. {John Darman?}, sometimes would maybe raise his voice and be very animated, very disrespectful in those days, to now where it’s almost counter practice. Traditionally, what happens is that public comment is over here, the chief sits here, the officers sit here, we sit here. I remember that as a chief, as you hear this criticism, Bob Demmons, he’s just got to sit there. I remember a couple times I thought I could see steam coming off of Bob’s head. Because Bob, when he’s displeased, he’ll show it to you. He ain’t going to jump up and down and go crazy, but he sure will show it to you. And he just kept on doing it, to a point where Hadley was getting exasperated, because Hadley just couldn’t handle this. That’s my interpretation. It just got old, man. It got old from the verbalization, whatever, in terms of the tone and such. But then {Darman, John?} decided to bring a camera because of all—where we are now with public TV is a long way from where we were. But {John Darman?}, to his credit, would find out all these rules and regulations of how to conduct a commission meeting. There was one era in there, I guess, where you could film the commission. He’d come out with his own little camera and stand out there in the audience and film and film {inaudible} public testimony. He got quite good at it and kind of laid the track that you could comment after every item. He’d comment after every item; but it’s up to the chair to be able to say, I heard that before. At one point or another, Hadley had no control on him. {John Darman?} wouldn’t hear. Wouldn’t hear it. Different style. You get me up there, a different style. I’m not going to throw the gavel at you, but I’m

definitely going to let you know who’s in control. That went on for quite a while. To a point, in my interpretation, that Hadley just had it. This is after Bob was retired. Chief Tabacco was in place as the temporary. I think it stopped with Tabacco, because I didn’t see Tabacco ever get attacked. Paul, to his credit, was very low key. It was a tremendously unpopular position. To some, Paul Tabacco is the savior, back from the black dude to the white guys. It’s just generation[al]. It’s just that, as I found out later on, as I learned, that wasn’t Paul Tabacco’s demeanor. To his credit, he served, too. Real uncomfortable. I would say Paul Tabacco, during acting chief, was nothing but congenial. But it was temporary. To when Bob resigned or when Bob left, there were a lot of people happy about that. Just the feel. I’m making a generalization of observation. Because by that time, with the attacks, with the attacks, with the attacks, with the tone of the attacks, with the accusations and the personal attacks, it drove Hadley crazy or it drove the chief crazy; but at some point, quote/unquote, “near the end,” I call it, somewhere between Mayor Brown and Hadley and the whole change issue, I remember Bob started to isolate himself. Meaning that I got the word that the chief just stays in his office. I don’t know how true that is, but for me, it was believable. Believable in the sense I’m not saying Bob Demmons hides in his office; it’s just that you get to the point, if you’re, any chief executive officer, if you ain’t got the support of the mayor or the commission—I’m not saying that Bob was never in trouble with the commission. Never. In terms of Mayor Brown, the decision was Mayor Brown’s, of change. But when that came, it occurred. But it was ugly. It was ugly, distasteful, trying. A couple of times, it got so rambunctious that after the meeting—the Fire Commission, in the old days, would be sparse in attendance. Fifteen, at best. Now it’s packed because the word went out four years ago that a guy who attended three years in a row got hired. So packed. No seats, five guys standing. With the recent hire now, there may be three guys standing. But when you come in, it looks like—we call it men’s clothing clearance sale. They look like models. Good guys. But all white, too. When you come in tonight, you count how many women—maybe one; count how many blacks—maybe two. But I remember one time after a meeting, {John Darman?} got so rambunctious I followed him to the back of the commission. I knew there was a little bit of audience. It was a pretty filled meeting that day. I remember I went up and I confronted him. Because I felt that after the gavel went down.

02-00:43:35 Nakajo: I said, “Hey, man, you better watch yourself. You better tone it down or you better be respectful.” Something like that. Not aggressively adversarial. Again, to my credit or to his credit, when we see each other now, he’ll shake my hand. I’ll say something like, you still here? But he cooled it for a while. But Hadley was gone, Bob was gone, Tabacco was in there. The commission meetings, at some points, would be cantankerous because of, beyond {John Darman?} and Hadley, {Ted Solas?} would just fuel the fire, because he would say these—he reminds me of Donald Trump somewhat—would say these remarks off the cuff that just would be outrageous. Like, anybody can do

a firefighter’s job because it ain’t rocket science. So the folks in the membership got mad. They came to a meeting. The guys who testified had a PhD in rocket science or something. Physics or something. So {Ted?} was a bog drama queen. The poor guy, man, that son of a gun, man, he brought his wife and his two daughters to the commission meeting. Because the word was it was going to be a show-down meeting. It was packed. Union guys got up there and they just laid into him. At that time, the commission, I call it second era, because there’s different eras. The commission was Pat Norman, lesbian African American; Carlota Del Portillo, Mexicana Latina woman, activist educator; myself; {Ted Solas?}. I forget who else. But it got so bad that {Ted Solas?} told everyone to go take a hike. As I remember, got up in the middle of the Fire Commission. Excuse me, let me back up. Before that happened, after the public testimony, Pat Norman raises her hand as a commissioner, and wants to make a motion to denounce the commissioner. Which never happened before. Because one of the things you learn is {collegian?} respect. I missed the last Board of Supervisors meeting, because I heard they almost had a donnybrook. It’s better than drama, reality TV now in San Francisco. But it never happened. So when Pat Norman put it out there politically, showed no confidence to the remarks of the commissioner. Somebody seconded Carlota Del Portillo as a commissioner and the motion’s on the table. What the heck are you going to do? So to myself, I voted in the affirmative. He got so freaking mad he got up there and walked out of the commission meeting. It was just terrible. His wife and two daughters had to follow him. It was just like—who’s that guy—Ted Cruz’s wife trying to walk out of the convention center. That was one era.

02-00:46:37 Nakajo: Another era was that got the word we’re going to have this new commissioner. It turned out to be this guy named Doug Goldman. Douglas Goldman, of the Levi Strauss fortune. Doug Goldman, who does the Sigmund Stern concerts, because his mama is {Gertrude?} Stern. Doug Goldman, who is Dr. Douglas Goldman, graduated out of University Berkeley, but never practiced medicine. I knew we were in trouble somewhat, because at his swearing in at the mayor’s office, there was a red rug coming out from Post Street up the staircase. I didn’t know what the red rug was. It went up, and then when we went in the mayor’s office it was there. All of a sudden I began to realize that Douglas Goldman of the Levi Strauss ancestry is going to be sworn it. It was the first time I saw royalty, so to speak, being sworn in. I think it was Gavin. I’m not sure. I think was Gavin. I’m not sure; I can’t remember. He started to come to the commission meetings. He lasted I think about four months, five months. Because he was so pomp and full of himself. Didn’t have a clue how to conduct himself in a commission meeting, and decided, because he was an MD, to—he had an agenda of trashing us on our EMS response time, that it was unacceptable, et cetera. He had the data. He just went crazy, man. It became an issue of him being so disruptive among the business of the commission, and administration staff couldn’t provide him enough information to satisfy him on a level. I talked to my wife about this

interview. She said, “You sure you ain’t going to get in trouble with what you talked about?” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Depending upon the stage of his game. I remember responding to a fire one time early in the morning, and catching him and I think it was Assistant Chief Fred Sanchez face to face, arguing about something. Meanwhile, this house is burning behind us. Not that they didn’t take care of it, the firefighters. But I thought to myself, two o’clock in the morning somewhere in Pacific Heights, I said, “I think this is kind of inappropriate, man. This commissioner’s out here in the face of the chief.” I also didn’t think the chief reacted very well, either. A similar commission meeting occurred, where I think it was Paul Conroy was president, that we would reject his motion of something to do with the EMS. We rejected it. I seconded, I called for the question, we had the vote. Next day. I know, boy’s out. Unfortunately, at that time, {Rosemary Fernandez- Pfifer?} was reappointed back to the commission. I think it was Gavin, with Douglas Goldman. I don’t know, for some reason or another, she decided to line up with Doug Goldman. It was ugly in those days, in the sense that things weren’t working; it’s counterproductive. I remember saying to myself, {Rosemary?}, if you line up with this guy, you’re going to lose. I don’t know why, unless you particularly want to make a stance and you want to get the heck out of the commission. Interestingly enough, she left when he left, as a point of principle, as I recollect. So for me, it was beyond the Hadley and {John Darmans?}. Then {John Darmans?} opened up some of the window to 798 or various accusations, based on inabilities of administration with Bob, but also I think running into issues of ineptness. Just to me, on a chief level, when you’re talking about dysfunctional, ineptness, non-capabilities, it’s just insulting, to me. But folks chose to start hitting that level.

02-00:51:20 Nakajo: Then there was the {Ted Solas?} era. That’s the beginning, when {Ted?} was still around. Doug Goldman’s, I think, the second era. I remember clearly the first year when I was president—I’m drifting a little bit—was, again, when Hadley left and I became part of that. When Pat Norman, Doug Goldman, Carlota Del Portillo were commissioners with me and I hit the presidency, it was tough to keep continuity with the commission, with also Doug Goldman. Because Doug Goldman, when we hit into these discipline hearings, he didn’t have a clue. He judged more on bias than anything else. I just needed one experience to do that. But I didn’t feel I had any kind of political connection or influence on the mayor to say, this guy ain’t good for us. As it turned out, he self-destructed. But I remember Pat Norman was real strong. Carlota Del Portillo, bless her heart, was real strong, in their mind convictions. So just to pull some harmony with these guys, I’m just going to say it, more out of ego than anything else, was real tough. For me, skill level is you work with all kinds, man. But when you work with ego folks—because harmony on the commission is utmost. So for me as a commissioner, it’s longevity, harmony, balance, and performance.

02-00:52:59 Nakajo: The first time I became commissioner or president—I was vice president, I moved up to be president with Hadley. Then you’ll see me serving, then all of a sudden you’ll see me drop down to vice president. The reason for that is because when Gavin came in, I was in Carmel, hanging out at my house down there. My buddy called up and said, “Hey, Nakajo, man, you better watch TV, man. They’re introducing the new fire chief of the department and you ain’t there.” I said, “Really?” So I turned on the TV set, Channel 5, noon news, and there’s Gavin Newsom, there’s Joanne Hayes-White, there’s Paul Conroy, Commissioner Conroy, and there’s Fred Sanchez. The mayor is introducing Joanne Hayes-White as the first woman chief of the San Francisco Fire Department and Paul Conroy as the new Fire Commission president. So I put the phone down and checked it out. So what became, again, a learning concept is to this day, Mayor Newsom never called me to tell me that I was going to be removed and bumped as president of the Fire Commission. So what happened was Paul Conroy’s still around. Good man. If you ever get extra funding, you can talk to him. Then you’ll have the whole package. Good man. But he felt bad. He felt bad, but he didn’t know how to approach me. He’s an attorney. When you’re an attorney and you’ve been through that kind of experience on a high level, it just kind of amazes me how people can’t have the courtesy and conviction to just talk and just say, hey, man, Gavin put me in. So for me, Gavin’s, Mayor Newsom’s interpretation—again, I made the reference, whether it’s negative or not. I know it’s a double negativity. But I thought, the Irish Mafia has come back in. Joanne Hayes-White. The only group left is the Sunset. The west side. There ain’t nobody left in the community. But they ran this community for a long time, the city and county. Paul Conroy, part of that dissent. Gavin, clearly. So what that meant to me, like Frank Jordan, is you’re getting cut out again. To Paul’s credit, it bothered him. The secretary of the commission, {Tanya Bauer?}, who was a friend of mine, who I helped. When Ray left, I didn’t know how we were going to replace that dude. But we went out for search and such. But I had an acquaintance that worked with me in the senior network, {Tanya Bauer?}, that was the secretary for the Commission on Aging. If you have some experience. I told her about this opportunity; she came over. So I knew her. Me, I’m not stupid. I know it’s not your cronies or your friends that are among you. But if you’ve got your associates on key people—commission secretary. I’d rather have you inside than outside, sometimes. The best inside, outside. That’s how you make things move. So she says, “Paul wants to know if you’ll be vice president.” I said, “What do you mean if I want to be vice president? I’m president.” “You ain’t no more.” So I had to hear it. Tell me. Someone tell me. I said, “When is it going to happen?” She goes, “Next commission meeting.” I said, “So what do you want to hear?” She says, “Well, we’re going to introduce Paul as president and he wants to know if you want vice president.” So me being me, I said, “You mean to tell me that I’m president, no one tells me that, and you guys are going to demote me to vice president? Are you crazy?” Then you learn the first rule of commission or participation. Can I show the membership and offices and everybody in the world that you

can descend yourself from president to vice president and still be effective and still be in, in executive level? So I took it. It was embarrassing for me, but I covered it. Real embarrassing for Paul, because we had to move our chairs. Well, not the chair, name plaques and the gavel. I played it off. I played it off like when I moved, I left my Diet Coke and I said, “Just don’t take my Diet Coke.” I took it up and put it on my side. It got a chuckle. Because every once in a while, I’ll come up with some humorous gem. I’m known for that sometimes because sometimes you just need to lighten it up, man. Then I want people to know that I’m paying attention. So we did that. Paul’s a great guy. And I served. I served, I kept my mouth shut, became a good soldier.

02-00:57:50 I wasn’t real close with Gavin. He knew who I was. I was banking that I’m a Japanese American male and he couldn’t mess with me, if he wanted the API vote. At that time, it’s nothing to what it is now. Now it’s a monster. In those days, it was a paper tiger. But I was banking on it. Plus I’m not Chinese, which means I’m a rarity. I’m Asian, but I’m Japanese. Us guys are supposed to be known to swing all ways. That’s how I play J-town. We may not be the biggest things, but we’re the gateway. We’re the bridge. We’ll hook you up to everybody in San Francisco. So he took a year to reappoint me. So I thought, maybe I’m out. Why is this boy waiting? So I actually got twenty-two years in, but that one year don’t count. Usually you can’t do that. Then he finally reappointed me. I figure if he appoints me once, he’s going to appoint me again, man. Because two term. So I became two term. Then the next question was, can you descend to the rank of commissioner? Obviously, I sure can. When I became the president the first time, after Hadley, I initiated as informal policy, a collective leadership. So this commission is the only commission that after one year, the vice president moves up and the president moves out, so that everybody can serve collectively. I learned that from the old days. I think it works. There’s some conviction. I wouldn’t be surprised if Francine Covington wants us to change that. But last year, when I was coming off president—well, when Andrea Evans was coming in and I was coming off—we started to talk about breaking that tradition. Some of the guys, men and women, once you’re president, you’re president for life, almost. I come from a different school. Everybody has a chance to contribute. Keeps the chief and everybody fresh. But as I ascended to myself as a commissioner, same question. Can I be effective? Can I be in there? Now I know. I’m a institution, if you want to call it that. Then when the elections came back up, in fair and square, it’s a crack up, man. Michael Hardiman tells me—because the rotation went to Michael Hardiman; I came up as the vice president—he doesn’t tell me directly. Yeah, I give him credit. He called me and said that Nicole Wheaton, at the mayor’s office, suggested that he be a two-term president. I said, “What?” I said, “You’re going to be two-term president and you’re going to deny my opportunity by collective {informal?} policy of the right to be president?” I didn’t go for it. I caused so much grief. I went to the mayor’s office, I went to the mayor. I went to the mayor one-on-one, I said, “Hey, what’s up, man?” He said, “I don’t know, I’m asking you what’s up?” I said,

“What do you mean you’re asking me what’s up?” He said, “When I called for your appointment, I hear you resisting, whatever.” I said, “Mr. Mayor, man, collective leadership, whatever.” I said, “You want Michael Hardiman to be two year in a row without me coming up?” I said, “May I remind you of our collective relationship type of loyalties?” I put some pressure on him. I talked about, “You used to be department HR, man.” He knows neighborhood politics. Basically, I use terminology like, I’ve got your back. I’m a commissioner. I’m the one that’s—I started giving him examples of what I’ve been doing actively. Walked out of the office and basically, what happened was I needed to buy time, a month between where the election was going to be. I strategized and implemented—it was really terrible in some ways, but it was cool—the election process where Michael Hardiman got nominated in the open agenda of that, and I asked Andrea Evans to nominate me, as well. That caused confusion. Part of the confusion was that Michael Hardiman said to me, “You can’t do that.” I said, “What do you mean I can’t do that? This is an open dialogue in front of the full commission.” As I glanced over to the chief’s office and to 798, these guys are all like, wow, man.

02-01:02:46 So what happened is I was pressuring Commissioner Covington to not vote for Commissioner Hardiman, because she had some criticism on his ability. I said, “If you have some criticism on his ability—he’s already served one year—you’re going to deny me the opportunity to go up and support me? But she didn’t want me to do it publicly. I surmised that it would’ve been embarrassing for her to make that conviction and that choice. I remember her telling me, “Don’t do it.” I said, “I’m going to do it. I’m just telling you where it’s at and what you’ve got to do.” Because I’m not trying to violate anything, Brown [Act], Sunshine [Ordinance] or whatever; I’m just trying to advocate for myself. So when there were two nominees for the position, we had to take the vote. What happened was that Michael Hardiman didn’t get the vote to be president. I didn’t vote. I denied, Andrea denied; that’s two. Michael voted for himself; that’s one. {Francie?} declined to vote. Then I had to call a reminder to the commission secretary and stuff that no commissioner can decline. It’s either yea or nay, by the rules. So forced her out. So she said no. So we didn’t get him in. But then I asked for myself to be up. So Andrea voted for me, I voted for myself, and Michael didn’t, and {Francie?} did. So I became president of the commission, by advocacy and by vote. Straight up. All straight up. By the merit of the question. That’s my third time up. Then at that time, as I was narrating yesterday, for lack of a better description, I call it organized campaign to oust the chief, by the executive board of 798, organizing a coalition of employee organizations that affirmed the question. Me, I just questioned the motivation and the tactic. Then went into the evaluation process. So that’s that part there.

Farrell: So you’re referencing a push to dismiss Chief Joanna Hayes-White.

02-01:05:36 Nakajo: Right.

Farrell: Can you tell me a little bit more about that incident and how that led to evaluations?

02-01:05:46 Nakajo: It’s really crazy, because that motivation of the ouster of the chief the way, again, trying to term it, didn’t come from the commission. It came from the motivation of Tom [Thomas] O’Connor as president of 798. I say that because as president, I received a call from him after the fact, that there’s going to be a meeting called by all the employees and they’re going to ask for her resignation. Previous to that, there was various criticisms of her micromanagement, her lack of confidence in certain people, staff officers. If you were an administrative level, if you didn’t do her will, you would be exited. As you’re exited, you’re isolated. Particularly one of the things, I think the straw that broke the camel’s back, was there was an accident of Truck 1. The driver was a guy named {Michael Quinn?}, that was the same graduating class as the chief. He hit a motorcycle guy. We just settled. I think it was $7 million. The guy was drunk. Not only was he drunk—my phrase is, his alcohol level’s high. He cut out.

Farrell: The motorcyclist or the truck driver?

02-01:07:03 Nakajo: The firefighter.

Farrell: Okay.

02-01:07:04 Nakajo: He cut out. There’s video and there’s a big investigation, and he cut out. What they caught him was inside a bar, guzzling three pitchers of water. As they tried to look for him, they couldn’t find him. They went back to Station 1. Station 1 is known as the Alley Cats. Those guys claim to be the hardest working statement. Don’t disclaim that. It’s just the other stations work hard, too. Station 3 says the same thing. But Station 1, it’s like being a paratrooper. You’ve got some braids on. They’re Alley Cats. Basically, long story short is that he came back to the house, they did an alcoho breath test on him, he violated the levels. The police department came, [he] got busted. We just settled out of court. Chief Hayes-White charged I think five officers. Maybe six. One of the officers was her classmate, who’s still very active—good guy—Dave [David] Franklin. The other one was the institution of the department, Art Kenney. He’s been a forty-five year member as a chief for the department, assistant chief. He’s like the dude. And then subordinate chiefs, five of them. Files a report, another hearing, the whole gamut. Every one of those guys filed an appeal. I guess I could talk about it because it’s post, meaning that we already decided. Chief Franklin was the only found guilty of all his charges. Served time. Served time. Served penalty. Chief

Franklin{[sic]?}, I think that was partial; some other chiefs, partial; some were dropped. But that kind of was one of the things that broke the camel’s back, besides the way the chief operates, administration. This is my interpretation. The demeanor she holds, the decision making. So there became a reputation of the chief’s subordinate officers are like a revolving door. The reputation is if you don’t serve the chief as you will, do the task, you’re not going to survive there, and you’re going to question that. There’re some key members still within the department that are part of that criticism. Some of these guys criticize, but it doesn’t get in the way. Someone like Tom O’Connor in 798, I guess they decided this is what it is. They call an employee meeting. The employee meeting’s, some of the representatives— because I did a lot of work on this—some of them maintained that they didn’t know what the agenda was. What the agenda was, a uniformed statement that everybody had to sign to, to ask for a no confidence and the ouster of the chief, that they thought they could take to the mayor; the mayor would see that and would fire the chief. What basically happened was everybody signed on it, because it became one of those pressure-by-consent—everybody signed onto it. Everybody got a bitch. Every bitch you had about the chief came out as concrete. In a lot of ways, I think some of those guys, especially AFA, {Norm Compo?} made a calculated error. His own kind of negative biases on the chief, as a representative of the organization. I think he didn’t serve the organization well. I think some of these other guys, maybe. I’m not going to question that. The Asians, I know these guys somewhat. But as that mandate went to the {inaudible} with twelve other representatives or whatever they had in there, basically, the mayor didn’t conform. He said, “Thank you very much. I’ll look into it,” whatever. So that atmosphere is coming from our side.

02-01:11:01 With that, the newspapers, every chance 798 gets to put in negative press about the chief, it’s in. All the time. In those meetings of that, when they were hot, the union, they would bring out all their troops. Then the chief had no, I call it, alternative but to bring her troops out. So one time we had a hundred Irish guys from the Sunset come. It went on and went on and the fever pitch— TV stations, interviews. A veteran commissioner, I ain’t going to talk to nobody. But it becomes kind of like a street rumor or scuttlebutt firehouse that on the commission, there might be some votes to fire the chief. I think they identified, the union, two commissioners that would be willing to look at that. They thought maybe one would. And two, they didn’t know where I was at. I don’t know, maybe they did what maybe reinforced. I think definitely, my reputation with the union is, I’m a rubber stamp for the mayor, without question. But they pushed that by the articles of confederation—which is true—we hire, but we hire through the recommendation of the mayor, and then we hire; the mayor hires. On the firing, we can fire her, by the article. So we looked that up. That was clear. So there was a big, big, big, big push to do that. Advocacy, all the commissioners being talked to, whatever. That’s when I went to see the mayor and asked, “What do you want to do, boss? You want to conduct—?” What do you want to do, basically. I think from all of that, the

final evaluation of conduct a fair process of commission—I’m president the first time by the commission. I took the assignment on enthusiastically. But as I narrated yesterday, I did my research with HR, Micki Callahan, found out the process. Got something like six different forms of evaluation. It got down to let’s use the same form that HR’s been—why duplicate it, why confuse? But we went through the process. I got pushed real hard by a certain commissioner to have a vote before Christmas, with the intention, I believe, to oust the chief because it was {intolerable?}. I resisted, totally. I just thought in my gut and such, I just didn’t think it was warranted. Is it alcohol, misappropriation, sexual scandal? What is it? Then unfortunately, to this day, the way I interpret it, Tom O’Connor’s attack on the chief, from a 798 perspective {that I’ll turn into?}, clearly a personality attack. I don’t like you, you don’t like me. I’m not going to say that too much of the chief, it’s just that the chief—you get kicked around and bashed, you’re going to be defensive. It’s natural. In terms of the chief, in terms of her persona and trait, she’s a fighter. You just ain’t going to tell the chief what to do, man. Especially if it ain’t true. Then more than that, she has self-esteem and pride. She’s not going to go out on no negativity that she ain’t done her job. It’s a different tactic and strategy. A guy like me does another strategy. For Tom and the guys, it’s a direct attack, and attack, attack. You only can go to the well so many times, or cry wolf, and after a while you get tired of it, man. But that was their goal.

02-01:14:34 I think after they went over the cliff. I don’t know how you cannot go over the cliff. We conducted that. Now, that battle—“battle,” that issue—has not stopped. But it should’ve stopped recently, because President London Breed, when my name and Michael Hardiman’s name were up for recommendation of reappointment, Supervisor Breed pulled that out and she referred it to the rules committee. You usually do that if you want to question or stop the commissioners from being reappointed. Candidly speaking, the stupid thing about that is me and Michael Hardiman just got sworn in by the mayor’s staff person previously, a month before. If you want to do an unofficiality, I guess you can go it, but as far as I’m concerned—. So now we’re going through the theater. Part of it is that for lack of a better term. Supervisor Breed has been very critical on the Chief ever since she was a commissioner. She was critical of the chief in demeanor and relationship, ever since she came on. I don’t know what happened. I have my opinions, but I don’t know what happened. But Supervisor Breed also had a tough time with some of the staff. Not the officers, but—she also felt, to her credit, that the chief was not forthwith with information and dialogue. She feels that; that’s her prerogative. At different times, maybe the chief is reluctant as well, in my interpretation. But you can always find out the information. The difference is formal or informal. There’s some things that just don’t happen on a formal basis, once you’re in commission and you’re in session. What happens in there, people don’t forget that. That’s just the way it is. Supervisor Breed, again, I always knew internally that she had aspirations to run for the Board of Supervisors. Her reappointment, or her appointment to the Fire Commission from Mayor Lee, I

thought was pretty good, from the mayor, to do that. She {inaudible} a person, as well, but being African American, I thought that was pretty good. When Supervisor Breed left the Fire Commission to run successfully, from the podium of the Board of Supervisors—and I think she makes this public—that one of her agenda items the oversight of the fire department. Part of the oversight of the fire department, in my interpretation, is the oversight on the chief. She’s very, very, very critical of the chief. Call if it you will, whatever. She calls it on administration, management, et cetera. So the idea of pulling our names off the rules committee was for us not to be appointed back to the commission. The interpretation was the mayor would appoint two other commissioners, and then they would have the votes to fire the chief. I thought, again, that was a far-fetched pitch, because ultimately, even if we were removed—I don’t know how we could [be], since we were voted in—the mayor still has to appoint his commissioners. Why would he appoint commissioners if he’s not supportive of the policies and the personnel that he has in office?

02-01:18:13 The scuttlebutt firehouse was that the union, 798, was going to give Supervisor Breed money and troops for the reelection. Those kinds of things are believable. The fact that Supervisor Breed would take me out personally, Steve Nakajo, that’s insane. Not only am I her district member, I run a senior center. I’m the one that kind of mentored her for a long period of time. When I instructed at San Francisco State, she was one of my speakers in my class. She’s the one I {followed?}. I know her well. When I was the art commissioner, I created the funding to fund her position. Those political kinds of compromises are believable, if you’ve been in politics. But I didn’t appreciate it. You break cardinal rule number one, disloyalty to a member that’s been loyal to you. So I chose to fight. I was advised, don’t take this serious. So I pulled my constituents out. This was in March, I think. I had over 200 letters and maybe a hundred people at the rules committee. Supervisor Breed was not a sitting member of the rules committee, but she chose to sit in. She had me up there for forty-five minutes, asking me about budget, morale, discipline, lawsuit of two African American cadets out on the training— everything. Again, it’s a strategy I thought was between myself and Commissioner Hardiman, I’m the natural to go up first and I want to be up first, quite frankly, because I can handle it. So Supervisor [Katy] Tang chaired. Supervisor [Eric] Mar was there, Supervisor [Malia] Cohen was there. Out of the rules committee, if you get a non-recommendation, it goes up to the board; they can vote you out. If you get an affirmative to go up, they vote you in. Or they pull no action. Supervisor Breed has thirty days to get me out. So I handled her forty-five minutes of her, I thought I did a hell of a job, myself. I kind of thought to myself, I should be paid these big bucks all these administrators and all these other guys are being paid. I handled it all the way through.

02-01:20:29 Nakajo: When the final question came out, Supervisor—my interpretation—Cohen, I thought, pretty much was going to be allied with Supervisor Breed, for past deals that they make, whatever. It’s not a derogatory; it’s the way it is. So she failed to vote on the motion. Eric Mar wanted to affirm the motion. Katy Tang didn’t want to vote and affirm, but the political move was by no action at all, the resolution dies, I automatically go in. I was up there for forty-five minutes, by the time Michael Hardiman got up there. Since we’d been attacked together, we had to strategize together. Even though Michael pulled what he pulled about this presidency, at the end, when I won the presidency, he came up and said, “It’s nothing personal. It wasn’t me.” I accepted it. But I went back to the mayor’s office and said, “Well, if it wasn’t him, who was it? Because I want to know.” Right? But by that time, they knew that whoever engineered or suggested that, they knew I beat him. And the mayor knew it was this guy, because by the time I finished that evaluation, as I gave my verbal as to what was the summary, he appreciated and thanked me for my work, patted me on the back. I just turned around and said, “I just want to prove to you a guy from J-town can do the job.” He looked at me. Because I ain’t stupid. Because one of the questions was, are we going to pull this evaluation before your election or after your election? Because after the election, you’re in. You may be unpopular, but you’re mayor of San Francisco. You’ve got three and a half years left. To a guy myself, if he’s the mayor and I’m the commissioner, he got three years, I got three years. Right? It’s depending upon the effectiveness of what’s going on with that, but that’s—we concluded. Poor Michael Hardiman, man. He was just really emotionally and distressed about this whole thing, because he was the union guy that the union was depending upon to side with the dissidents to off the chief. But what happened was that Michael Hardiman—I know this—thought a great deal of the chief, and he went with what he felt. He got there and— poor guy, man—he dragged his wife to this hearing. So {Marine’s?} sitting next to him all worried. I did forty-five minutes. He got up there. I think he was up there for five minutes, because by that time, I had so many holes in my body. Because one of the strategies was to exasperate and wear out Supervisor Breed, which you don’t do. And I did. No more questions to ask, the tone’s gone. What more are you going to do? So as she exited out, before Michael Hardiman got up—because the questions already done. You ain’t going to win on this one. Some of her action internally, it was kind of—because the only one who got up to speak against me or us, in a indirect way, to choose to attack the chief again, was Tom O’Connor. He got up there and quite frankly, he looked like a fool. Disrespected Supervisor Tang, the chair; spoke over his time limitation; got excited; disrespected her some more; stormed off. Supervisor Breed cut out. Supervisor Tang was so angry she cut out and went after Supervisor Breed. That’s just my interpretation. Supervisor Mar is the only one sitting there in this process. I’m just saying that because it’s the political realities of how things occur.

02-01:24:27 For myself, issue over. For Michael Hardiman, a great relief. At one point, he stood up, turned around, and looked at the audience of 798 and apologized. I come from old school. You don’t apologize for nothing, man. I’m Japanese American, man. If you’re wrong, you apologize. You ain’t wrong, you don’t apologize. So I walked out and his wife was happy, he was happy, and I felt I did my job for this boy, too. Took the hit. Someone described me as, “You did a hell of a job, Commissioner.” I said, “Yeah, I felt like the fullback who opened the hole, gave the ball to Michael, and he scored, right?” I’m candid, I’m facetious. But that was March. That’s pretty recent. Personally, I don’t have much respect for Tom O’Connor. I’m not going to hold that bias against 798, but I don’t have much respect for the methodology and intelligence of the group. I have no respect for the president of AFA, {Norm Compo?}, because I know that he’s not a good representative of the membership. I’m totally disappointed in the lack of leadership or independence in the membership employee groups. I like them—Latinos, Los {Bombardiers?}, I like the women—but that’s part of the reality of {inaudible} functionality. Employee groups here in 798—departments, operating, administration, membership. The budget is so good this year. Does that [answer your question]?

Farrell: Yeah. How does the dynamics of the commission change based on who the chief or the mayor is?

02-01:26:28 Nakajo: A lot. The mayor denotes who the chief is. In Joanne Hayes-White’s case, my case, she survived two mayors. Gavin, going into. Gavin, she cooperated with all the way. Good soldier. Mayor Lee, same thing. But Mayor Lee, on the other hand, because of the budget atmosphere, has really stepped up and come through. Just the budget makes the chief look good. But to her credit, like I mentioned yesterday, she’s implemented various programs and such. Some of the thinking about when the chief was under heat is, some of the old guys, they say, ah, it’s good for the department to have a new chief every three, four years. I don’t know. I don’t know. Well, now she’s eleven years. That’s a long time. I’m sure she’s contemplating something. But she’s still young, she’s still contributing, she likes her job. But it’s changed a great deal. To her credit, she’s been part of that change.

02-01:27:34 Getting back to Bob, I remember Bob sitting there trying to figure out who to promote to captain. He’d be talking to me about Joanne Hayes-White. “Her son got a bad heart and she’s good and maybe I should put her over to training, so she can spend more time with her kids.” I looked at that dude, man, I said, “Man, you are a good man.” I said, “You mean to tell me—?” Again, that’s how I administrate too, in some ways. You’re bending over backward, whatever. That’s not what the consent decree’s supposed to be, man. The criticism of the chief, you ain’t been on suppression, you ain’t been on the fire. It’s evolved from a frontline fighter, through the ranks, to an administrator. That’s what it is. Someone asked me, “Who could be the new

chief?” It’s not one singular person, it’s a collective of administrative. But the main manager could be a civilian, in my opinion. That’s what it is now, if you look at it. Suppression is suppression, administration is administration, the chief’s here. Mark Corso has really stabilized the finance. It’s a bigger structure. We’re all a lot more sophisticated. Bless Francine Covington’s heart. She’s old time. She excels and thrives on this, man. She loves this stuff. And she’s good at it. She’s straight up. Buttoned tight, straight up. Timing, agenda. [William K.] Ken Cleveland, brand new—not brand new, but first- time commissioner. Pure political appointment. BOMA [Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco] manager, director. To me, that was somewhat of a conflict of interest, but Mayor Lee chose to pull him in. He’s my vintage, so I appreciate it. Mature, older, smarter.

02-01:29:34 The guy before him, the last controversy, was a guy named Don [Donald] Carmignani. I don’t even know the dude’s name. I think he lasted less than a year. Appointed by the chief. He surprised me. He looked like [a] Jersey boy. He looked like he just came off the reality TV. I never saw a guy come to a commission meeting with gold chains and an open shirt in my whole life. But he was a contractor, whatever. That’s what’s so hard about the harmony. I think it’s factual. He got busted for spousal abuse, so he got removed. Not removed, resigned. So I didn’t even have a chance to pull any rapport with him. But Francine Covington came in to replace London Breed, basically. Andrea Evans—attorney, colleague, again, long time—she resigned in, I think it was January, to move on. We haven’t still been replaced, so we’ve got four. The leftovers are me and Michael. {Francie?}, I think she’s been on three years; Ken, two years. I’m supposed to be the institutional base on it. My style is I take care of business. Play no games. Everyone knows it, too. Administrative officers, you get in front of me, you better know your stuff because I’m going to ask it. If you don’t know it, you better find out. It’s not a threat. It’s just a long time ago, I learned—. I enjoy different personalities getting up there and just serenading their worth or their expertise. Because otherwise, how can I make a judgment? I play a lot on that. My style is a lot through the chief, through the officers. But even the chief got used to it now. Before, I think from our era on, with Hadley and stuff, {he?} never had so many questions asked, in terms of articulation, explanation. With Ken Cleveland, he’s a fiend for that. So is {Francie?}. So among us, good old Mike Hardiman talks about the Giants game, 49ers, {fireballs?}. But he’s good, because he’s downhome, in the ranks with them.

Farrell: Well, I think this might be a good place to leave it for today. Then when we come back next time.

Interview 3: August 25, 2016

Farrell: All right. This is Shanna Farrell with Steve Nakajo on Thursday, August 25, 2016. This is our third interview for the California Firefighters Project/San Francisco Fire Department Oral History Project. Steve, we had talked a little bit about working with the administrations, but I wanted to dig in a little bit further to some of the programs and initiatives and some of the issues that you’ve dealt with during your tenure as part of the commission. Moving chronologically, one of the big things was the consent decree. We talked a little bit about how that played out over time, but I’m interested in hearing a little bit more about the actual implementation about the consent decree, and how actually the department worked to integrate that.

03-00:00:58 Nakajo: Yeah. As we were starting to be reflective on the question, I started to talk about being able to be part of those meetings, the meetings between the special master and the monitor, I’m talking about, {Chermacho Pratt?}. Jim Jefferson is a representative from the commission, being a former member of the commission, African American, during the consent decree. But by the decree of Judge Patel—. I did some reflection, in terms of the degree of personality and makeup of the individuals, the players in that. I never personally got to be able to have any kind of interaction with Judge Patel, except for verbally being able to observe her in being part of the Fire Commission as the mandate came out. But it’s amazing to me how one can make rulings and decisions based on findings, but based on equity. Because the whole name of the game in the consent decree was equity. Part of the atmosphere of the times—the ‘60s, the ‘70s, whenever that was. Certainly, in my interpretation, initiated by the black firefighters, the Asian firefighters, those minority members with the department that took it upon themselves to file a class action, become the plaintiffs of. My interpretation of that is, again, there’s groups in an organization, like black firefighters or Asian firefighters; but in those are makeup of individuals that provide the leadership and direction. There’s a debate that could go on with who did what, who influenced what; but I’m going to reflect it back on Chief Demmons. I didn’t know him at the time that he was part of that, but I knew him when Mayor Brown appointed him as chief of department. Part of that understanding and comprehension of what the consent decree was, was being part of the witnessing of those particular sessions. As Jim Jefferson would propose a question of interpretation, as {Chermacho Pratt?} would give the legal interpretation, as Bob Demmons, being the chief of department—I’m going to say amazingly—had the ability to be able to take those interpretations and be able to put that in some kind of logistical format administratively, of how that practice is supposed to be. It sounds so generic. But on every level, from hiring to promotions to {attitudinals?}, institutional {attitudinals?}, in terms of race and gender in the San Francisco Fire Department, this is the first time consent decree was forced, forced by lawsuit, to come into compliance within that. I guess part of this is that maybe—and this is my interpretation—that

Chief Demmons, being the plaintiff but being part of what was wrong with the department, in terms of fairness, in terms of accessibility, in terms of equity and respect—two tremendously different {inaudible}. As a human being or as a person of color within the department that’s traditional, and then still trying to work as a team to save lives. It’s just kind of amazing. Because those, fire department, police department, are the highest level of institutional, to me, public service that one can render. Those meetings were long and arduous. Sometimes to a point of where the interpretation of how something applied itself, like testing—measurement, testing, consideration of culture. I made a reference at the panel seminar that we had for the 150th at the library, that I remember clearly sitting with Chief Demmons as he worked on the mission statement. You would think that something like a mission statement, I thought at the time, is institutionalized. There’s a hundred-and-some years before that. But he was able to start with that first as a focus. He’s the one that said, “Let’s put it on the back of the card. Simplistic stuff. So people won’t forget it. Simplistic stuff. But in there, I think there’s a couple lines at the back end that says things like, “I don’t feel like pulling out my card.” Talking about equity and gender. Can I do that?

Farrell: Absolutely.

03-00:05:51 Nakajo: Yeah. Talking about equity and gender. Okay, so the new card, maybe I’ll make a difference and make the announcement. Well, the new card didn’t have it. The old card did. Maybe I’ll do something about that. But in there, there was a reference at the bottom end, of equity, respect, gender. I’m paraphrasing somewhat, but it wasn’t there before, that’s my point. With that being at the back, at the end of the card, I think for Chief Demmons, it was a constant reminder to the troops, to the membership, to all of the individuals. I guess that’s the meat of it. The institutional education, sensitivity, respect, those words, in terms of as everybody came in. Everybody came in, meaning minorities who went in. Those individuals who were part of the consent decree classes, every one of them, whether you’re a woman or a minority or whether you’re Latino, African American or Asian American, you had that spotlight on you—I’m paraphrasing—in my opinion, of being able to quote/unquote “measure up” to the requirements of being a fire person, in terms of what the image was previous to what the image is post consent decree. I’m using a reference to the mission statement because part of that, again, was I made some reference to hiring practice. All of it now starts to be developed within promotion between officers. That whole common concept of the department being a reflection of the changing community, the demographics. I remember equally to minority men, it was a big deal about minority women and women in general, for so long. Physicality, size, personality traits. Could women cut the job—cut the requirements, cut the training that was required to be a member of the department? In some observance, I used to say in terms of physics, I used to wonder about the capabilities of someone that has a different framework and such, in reference

to lifting 125 pounds or 135 pounds, or a ladder. Within the {solitary?} of oneself, comparative to the team approach. Today, 2016, we have members in the department that reflect all degrees, as well as sexual preference. Part of that, too—and I think I can lead into that—was the adoption of another culture, which is the paramedics.

03-00:09:10 Historically, with all of the consent decree, I’m making that reference of change. What I reflect and I remember was when I was part of the commission, the introduction and the information, knowledge base that we, the San Francisco Fire Department, were now going to inherit the paramedic ambulance services. I make a lot of reference to that historically. I wasn’t privy to that, how that politically came about itself logistically or such, budgetary. That 150th panel of the chiefs, again, helped a lot because the previous chiefs before Chief Demmons—I believe Chief [Edward] Phipps was there; I believe Chief [Fred] Postel was there. They were able to reflect the atmosphere of what they were feeling at the time, as well. It was interesting because the reference, personally as chiefs, in terms of equity, was very interesting to be able to observe, because there seemed to be a strong support and promotion of that. In there, I didn’t pick up a lot as to how did this major institution like the ambulance services become inherited within the department? Ignorance upon my part, but I don’t remember a strong monetary advocacy or budget associated with that. I remember it more of an adoption, or as they used to use the phrase quite a bit, was the merge. The merge, again, in terms of my familiarity, is usually a reference of a business sense— corporate merge, et cetera. I never was in a situation where we, the department, merged ourselves into a new unit. It wasn’t particularly the health department were merging, too; it was the component of the health department that had to do with the ambulance services. But subsequently, what happened is a whole new culture, a whole new being, now became part of your immediate fire department family. It was awkward. I think we weren’t very well prepared for it. I think when the powers that be make decisions that affect troops and logistics and departments and captains and officers, and particularly a semi-military organization such as the fire department, there has to be a real, I think, education, as well as a campaign, to be able to be prepared for that, as well as go through the logistics of that. I didn’t feel that at all. I felt that we had the responsibility, there was no doubt about it. We were going to take that over. As a fire commissioner sitting now over twenty-one years, it was the whole understanding and education of going from suppression {singularly?}, that ambulance and medical services were starting to become a main entity of the fire department. Because even when you look at it from the merge of the health department, in terms of the ambulance services, you didn’t have that much of a reflection, in terms of time or percentage of our personnel doing medical emergency. I didn’t see that. Subsequently, the system that we have is a fire department system, which means you have fire stations, you’ve got shifts of twenty-four hours, you’ve got cultures, you’ve got bids, you’ve got ownership, you’ve got traditions, and

now you have this adopted child, without any say at all—that’s my interpretation—in your sacred sanctuary. This is my interpretation. Eating out of your bowls. Difficult enough to make adjustments to women that need to shower, need to use the restroom, need to have a sleeping quarters that’s not traditional. Again, not jumping back and forth within that, but adjustments within that. So you section off a part of the dorm so that women can sleep, or you put a sign on there, some times that the women can come in. Again, this is just reflective, in terms of observation. But how do you now take a crew with ambulance? It not only becomes the merge of the ambulance services, for myself as a commissioner, a whole education in terms of what ALS is and BLS. To this day, I have to stop and think, in terms of reflection of what are we talking about, whether it’s BLS or ALS. I forget.

03-00:14:22 Nakajo: Part of it was that on an engine, you would have a medical technician, so that when the response box is called on a medical emergency, primarily, I think you—myself speaking again—in my opinion, that stereotypically, maybe I think, that the first thing, that response to that is an ambulance with a crew. That’s even a sense of ignorance that the ambulances are not just run by the San Francisco Fire Department. They’re obviously a whole private network of that. So it becomes the understanding and jurisdictions of who makes the determination of that. Then they become part of that advanced life support system, ALS. I think bilateral life support system.

Farrell: I think so. That actually, yeah.

03-00:15:21 Nakajo: Right. Part of it was the differentiation that on an engine, you would have a paramedic. Which meant again now, that you had another classification. They’re called H-3s. Which is the reflection of the true reflection, in my interpretation, of the kinds of needs and preparation that members need to have now presently. That you’re trained in fire suppression, but you have the abilities to have some medical service abilities, skills. If you’re proficient in that, you have an EMT technician with a paramedic, and those are the two that ride in the ambulance. In terms of an engine that responds if an ambulance is tied up, depending upon who responds. Very often, they’ll come around the corner and they’ll see an engine, a truck, and an ambulance. The question becomes, how come there’s so many personnel that’s here? Basically, it depends, again, from the knowledge base that if the engine responds first and the ambulance comes, the ambulance might be a component of transport. Because the engine, with the ability and skill, should be able to take care of or make a determination. It’s a handoff, basically. It’s a response and a handoff. But there are a lot of resources that go to that, to that, to that. That’s a traditional response. Getting back to when the fire department inherited the ambulance services, who are these personnel? How do they fit in? Where are they housed? Where are these ambulance s housed? And how does this culture start to work together? For myself, it was basically, again, part of the consent

decree. Nothing becomes diversity, becomes an overnight acceptance. Being around, working within community framework, you know it takes time, {attitudinal?} time. You also know there’s a degree of individuals within the department that are resistant to change, whether it’s individuals, genders, or even in terms of medics; that they perhaps aren’t the same, or perhaps not the best; or perhaps they’re not the same kind of culture within that. As I remember us developing all of this—meaning the merge, trying to house individuals, trying to come out with personnel that are both EMT levels and paramedic levels—we became real clear of, how do we do this within the hiring? Which is part of education with any commissioner, with budget, and with unions, of how are we going to classify these new personnel? So we now have a paramedic division, EMS. In fact, EMS got a different patch. It’s a red patch, and it says EMT. What my comment was, on one hand, was an adoption of being able to have a system by which to hire. But my comment was, are we creating another culture within the fire department? If we are, which I knew we were, if we’re going to do that, there shouldn’t be a separation between the two.

03-00:19:03 So thus, the Station 49 is born. A separate unit housing the EMS, housing the separation and differentiation between EMTs and paramedics, all housed at Station 49, no longer in the stations. Part of that was growing pains. We put them in the stations, but there was disruption. The disruption was that some of these ambulances were coming in, going out, coming in, going out, coming in, going out. Lifestyles and such gets disrupted. I used to get sensitive to that. But again, I’m trying to be understanding about that, too. You sleep because the ambulances are going out all the time, with the sirens? It’s part of the job. But again, if I was trying to sleep and the siren’s going off, I’d get—. If there’s fatigue associated, yeah, I guess so. I guess so. But clearly, Station 49 and the paramedic division, with the separation of patches and advancement, they are a part of our department, but if we’re not careful on the administration level, on the commission level, we could easily fall into a separation within that.

Farrell: How does the commission try to ensure that that doesn’t happen?

03-00:20:29 Nakajo: It sounds corny, but the oversight upon the chief’s office and the officers, operation chief as such, and the constant vigilance of that, is something that has to happen. We’re supposed to have five commissioners; we’ve got four. Out of the four, I know for a fact Commissioner Cleveland and myself are very, very keen on the operation of the paramedic EMS. Not that the other commissioners don’t, it’s just that that’s how large a body it is. The bond that went out was a lot of advocacy of Commissioner Cleveland, Vice President Cleveland. Being a newbie, a couple years, but instantly recognizing the need of Station 49, of expansion, as well as a total rebuild. Or part of the bond is a new facility. That’s got to happen. Because the answer of paramedics not

being in house is they’re on the street. That on the street is supposed to be rapid deployment. But you try to sit in a buggy for twelve hours. There’s no designated washroom, there’s no designated place to eat. They go [at] the gas station; they pick it up at Burger King and they roll. I just don’t think that’s equitable, personally. But we’ll get there. That’s constantly part of the vigilance. It’s just like the airport division. Big unit out there. But that’s part of the fire marshal and the prevention permit. It’s huge, a huge part of the city now. The department, twenty years, twenty-one years from consent decree, equity and such, ambulance emergency services, has just grown.

Farrell: It’s a lot of change in a very short amount of time.

03-00:22:24 Nakajo: Short amount of time. I would say now the atmosphere and the ambience of the department among genders has improved, greatly improved. I think that even in terms of color, whether they’re men and women, has greatly improved. I think there needs to be constant vigilance of that EMS and the suppression level. If we had to throughout the statistics, we’re talking about, in generalizations, 69, 70 percent of emergency and 20-some percent fire suppression. But when we have a five-alarmer out of China Basin, oh my God, you better {inaudible} natural disaster. The concept, again, referring to last night’s meeting in {HOA?} is that {they’re a wildfire?}, it just isn’t somebody’s responsibility. We’re paying the price of density. And atmosphere, climate change. Too much natural disasters. We can’t control that.

Farrell: Yeah, and I want to get to the climate change in a second. But along the same lines of working with the paramedics and the EMS, there’s been systems or pilot programs that have gone into place in incorporating social services, integrating that, working in conjunction with the department to work with issues around people who are called frequent fliers or call into the system frequently and can sap a lot of resources. From the commission standpoint, what’s the process like in implementing a program like that, that works with other partnerships, or even a new initiative?

03-00:24:09 Nakajo: All right, so I’m going to refer to the newest initiative and the most recent action, EMS-6, which is a concept of Dr. {Shay?}. The difference is two designated personnel—not enough. Two designated personnel specifically focused on quote/unquote “frequent fliers.” {Shirley Ayom selected?} that term, in case management, social services component. I’m not going to stay out of the real of the fire department. Never did this before. Just like the reference of emergency medical services and the ambulance services, it would be nice if it just played a scenario of a call with a necessity to transport to a hospital. What occurs is always a handoff. You’re at the response, you respond, the ambulance comes, they’re needed, they go to the hospital, they drop off, and EMS, they’re gone. The frequent fliers and the EMS component

to that and the drainage of personnel and such are all across the board. There’s a necessity to have to look at the models differently. The EMS model is somewhat—. The best reference the {Tagalinian?} model, which is paramedic {Neal Tagalini?}, who came up with a concept years ago, about trying to identify the frequent fliers and be able to consolidate that to where resources on the department would be more of a minimum. The difference between {Tagalini’s?} concept or program is that that was initiated, it was a good plan; but during the years of the deficit, that plan was killed. That EMS, with the new name 6, with Dr. {Shay’s?} program, is about a year old. In fact, I might call {inaudible} {for you?} now. Again, to your question of the commission, we became very vigorous to be able to support a program such as this. I give Dr. {Shay?} the credit for being able to come up with this. How he finds the time to do that, I don’t know, because he is a emergency medical physician and he does all this. But if you look at the frequent fliers and the amount of drainage they’re doing on our resources, it’s a necessity. The difference is, is not only is it EMS-6, it’s supposed to be tied into other resources within the city and county. The difference is, is that finally—I hope; {[we]?} are far away from it still. There used to be separate discussions and programs, like the {non-vacation?} center, that has some direct tie-in to what we’re doing {to EM-6?}. There’s even drug programs that are all tied in. Because the individual is a visitor or a participant, consumer of all of those components, as well as {at a system?}. On arrival, you’re with an ambulance or I’m with a truck and such, and we’re responding to the call. It’s the same guy that they responded four and a half hours ago, over at Saint Luke’s in the emergency room, with the same guy that was there two days before that. Just by their observance of how much times it takes at the hospitals, it clearly needs to be a coordinated effort.

03-00:27:51 To answer your question on another level, as a commissioner, I initiated discussion and a meeting that we had with Hospital Council, initiated through California Presbyterian Medical Centers, that tied into the Hospital Council, that started a dialogue. We had it had it at headquarters with the chief, with Dr. {Shay?}, to be able to talk about the promotions that are occurring. Because for some of these hospitals, it’s starting to be a major drain on time and personnel. That’s a good example. It’s contemporary. Now, as I understand it, we met both of those lieutenants who are part of that personnel. There might be a question in terms of, what do we pay these firefighters for? But we’re at a different day, because that same question could be supplemented for the fire prevention units, where these firefighters—or these fire personnel—all they’re doing is building inspection, fire alarm inspection. But now that’s an important component to the overall health of the city. So again, we’re growing leaps and bounds within that. But that’s my best example of that, EMS-6.

Farrell: Some of these programs and these changes require new equipment. As things wear out and things change, there’s innovations, you have to buy new

equipment for the department. Can you tell me a little bit about what the process is like on an administrative level, of getting that approved or pushed through and actually into the stations?

03-00:29:43 Nakajo: Yeah. We did two levels most recently. One of them was in reference in terms of great example of past policy by the Fire Commission, former president, Paul Conroy. We put together as a commission, a vehicle replacement program. Put it down, put it on paper, adopted it as policy. Two years ago this year, the department administration was able to bring that recommendation of vehicle replacement program back and use that as a framework for the ask, in terms of the city budget, mayor’s budget request that we did, in terms of vehicle replacement, engines and trucks, comparative to the shortage we had with ambulances. Within the last two years, we’ve been very successful, with approval of the mayor’s office and such, to get ambulance replacements. But also we’re finally trying to catch up with the vehicle replacement program that now has been reintroduced and is part of the framework. It’s great, because you have a reference, in terms of something that’s past. But again, part of our contemporary presentations at the commission is, that’s fine and dandy, but unless it’s adjusted and amended to today’s needs, it doesn’t help us out. But that’s indeed an example of what we were able to do. I’ll attribute it to the commissioners. President Covington specifically asked Chief Gonzales about replacement of parts. What happened was that it came out of the Mutual Aid program presentation. What came out was that we have five trucks that we bought from the state, that are state vehicles that are our five main vehicles that respond to a fire. The question asked was, I asked, “Where are those trucks?” Presently, because we’ve been out twice now, three times, with different fires, my question was, if those five trucks are out, state-operated trucks, and we have another mutual call—and I know some of the answer— where do we get these five other trucks and the crew? Because the answer was, we have the personnel, but we don’t have the vehicles. The vehicles have to be tied into our first responsibility of protecting the city and county. The discussion became, we don’t have enough vehicles. But also it became identifiable that some of the vehicles we have, two or three, could be put into operation, but we’re short parts. So then last night, President Covington asked for a budget presentation, itemized in terms of hoses, gadgets, equipment— exactly the question I asked—that we would need as the department, to outfit these other trucks. It’s a beginning. Beginning, meaning that they identified two or three trucks, and now there’s going to be a process, formally asked by the president, to be able to identify what we need and to ask for it in the budgetary request.

Farrell: I was going to ask about the budget and how much the commission is involved with the budget. Then once the department comes up with a budget, it’s like working with the city government to get that passed.

03-00:33:17 Nakajo: I’m going to start with the most recent scenario back, and I’m going to make a general statement that the commission, again being this veteran commissioner, in the last at least three to four year’s process—three, clearly; four, safely— has been involved strongly within the budget process. The last three years— and principally, it’s because of Mark Corso—he’s the director of finance at this point, but Mark Corso is one effective professional. That boy’s got talent and skill. He’s about the best that I’ve seen with any budget scenario. The great thing about him is that he’s young, he’s cooperative, he’s got a great personality, he doesn’t get flustered, and he knows his numbers. More than that, because he started with us a support person to Chief {Mazatani?}. Chief {Mazatani?}, again, being the commissioner—and you’ll find this out from Ray Connors—we came from a department and such that maybe one or two persons put the budget together. To a point when Bob Demmons came over, he mandated the chiefs to be able to implement budgets by the units. Never been done before, and a lot of guys didn’t know how to do that. To a point of moving towards a budget personnel person that really has strong abilities. I remember some budget directors we had, particularly one, her personality was a problem. It intimidated a lot of the working chiefs within the department. Wasn’t very cooperative one way or another, comparative to someone like Mark Corso, who’s very well accepted within the administration. Sometimes you run into these controllers and these accountants, they can do no wrong. There’s no wrong analytical analysis, period. That’s part of their makeup. Mark Corso’s not of that nature. He’s of the nature that’ll accumulate as much information and data that he can to overall be able to put it together as a budget. Our budget is some 200-some-million, plus. It’s huge. But as he goes through the budget process—the budget process now is very formal. There’s a department presentation, there’s a briefing in between. I give credit again to these commissioners, the last three years of it, including myself. We’re pretty keen, when it becomes issues of what we need to ask. Keen in being able to review the budget is a nice thing to verbalize, but it’s extremely overwhelming, in terms of the complexities of what we’re asking for and such. That’s just the internal acceptance of a budget being presented to what your needs are, comparative to years and experiences of when we presented budgets that realistically, we knew we weren’t going to get because of the political process between the mayor’s office and the Board of Supervisors. But also through the particular times and years, which were many—five, six years—where San Francisco was in such a hard deficit that politically, in my interpretation, we were asked by the mayor at that time— the former mayor before Mayor Lee—to cooperate in the cuts required. We painstakingly went through all of that cooperation and such, to the point where we’re starting to cut to the bone. Operation services were in jeopardy. The worst thing that a department can do is brownout, and we had to implement some of that. Big city like this, you don’t want to talk about closures, because the union ain’t going to go for it. It’s just not a healthy discussion. You put people’s lives in jeopardy. Even brownouts, in the city and county. We survived all of it.

03-00:37:38 But to Mayor Lee’s credit—but; it’s not a negative—Mayor Lee has put his money where his mouth is, in terms of supporting the department, in terms of personnel, because we also face attrition. Because in a department such as ours, which is traditional—meaning that individuals do more than their twenty years or thirty years, used to—now we’re facing a new generation—my peer group, as well—that doesn’t do the forty years, thirty years that their previous fathers and grandfathers used to do. It’s a tough job. The new horses or the young horses, we constantly are in need of that. But the experience that we need is part of it, as well. Once we put that budget together—again, to this chief and to the commissioners—the last two years, for sure, we have been very involved in the political advocacy of the budget. Clearly, it’s the process of how it works is the mayor’s budget first; then it’s the Board of Supervisors. Depending upon politically where the nature of the supervisors are, individually what their perspective on the fire department [is], it can be tough.

Farrell: Given that the fire department is such an integral part of San Francisco, and it is generally looked favorably upon [by] residents and citizens and civilians, have there ever been times where it’s been hard to get support of budgets that you want passed?

03-00:39:27 Nakajo: Two different ways to approach it. If it’s a ballot measure to the general public, we stand real good. Again, there’s only a couple of references {I?} was part of the twenty years, the budget deficit years. We used to criticize the chief for cooperating with the mayor—I used to—in the amount of cuts that we had to take time and time again. But depending upon the interpretation, if the mayor, we use the term is your boss, and he makes his request, the first thing you want to do as a big department is do a cooperative nature within that. But you get criticized for that by the rank and file and by everybody else. It’s a no-win situation. To the Board of Supervisors, most recently—I haven’t used the reference within the last year—there was a campaign to oust the chief. Depending upon who you want to see was behind that ouster, there were politicians and supervisors, some who supported that. Whether you support that and in truth, are you able to enact that, is one and two different things. In this scenario, it never occurred. But there was some verbalizing criticism. You can look at it as criticism or you can look at it as the supervisors have abdicated their oversight privilege. I’m a professional. I’ve been around, I know what’s going on, so I accept one way or another. It’s part of the job. But this mayor has been very supportive. That’s the only kind of experiences that I could say within that. But being a sister to the police department, I would think that those two departments are generally favored by, and that’s something that occurs. I’m not going to try to drift, but look at Oakland, with no chief, fire and police. Look at San Jose at this present time. San Francisco just recently had our police chief resign. We’re in the middle of a quote, unquote, “national campaign.” Again, there’s a debate. Internal or external? I was part of external, external, when it came to the fire department,

with Chief Trevino coming in and the difference within that. So I think I tried to answer that as best I could politically.

Farrell: You had mentioned that the commission is really keen and pretty savvy about what’s going on. How does your knowledge of issues that are impacting the city or kind of which way the administration is going, how does that inform your budgetary decisions or things that you want to see move forward?

03-00:42:19 Nakajo: I think you’ve got to be pretty close to it. My instincts tell me that you need to know what the mayor and the supervisors are thinking. Which means that you’ve got to do a lot of work. Clearly, if the mayor is supportive of the department, you’ve got to be able to have a read on him, but a read on the economy and where it’s going to go. But singularly, not just to the mayor. There’s obviously, if you’ve been around, it’s his advisors and his department heads have the influence to do budgetary kinds of agreements. And you’ve got to pay attention to what’s going with San Francisco, because I don’t know, I’ve only been in this city, but—. And it’s changed a lot. And the supervisors have changed a lot. It’s kind of interesting. What am I, sixty-nine, seventy? Never been in a position where I know every supervisor that’s sitting in there. Pretty good, too. I know the mayor real good. Never been in that position. So you work real hard to be in those positions. It doesn’t mean anything. But what it means is accessibility and a discussion, and that’s what you need to have.

Farrell: Can you tell me a little bit more about how that’s changed over time?

03-00:43:44 Nakajo: Again, my preference is Mayor Lee, because I know he’s the strongest support of the department; but also during the last couple years, when the chief was under some scrutiny, he asked a lot of support from the Fire Commission, and I was part of that. Not in terms of particularly the chief, but the process of supporting the chief and the department, in terms of serving the city. I know Mayor Newsom, but not personally or as well as. There’s terminologies such as inner circle, outer circle. Well, in terms of Mayor Lee, I think I’m close. Mayor Newsom, not so much. But I survived those eras. Again, my only references is Mayor Jordan, Mayor Brown. Mayor Brown, a loyal supporter of him to this day. I think it’s important. Mayor Jordan did me right, and we’re friends, dear friends and supporters of each other. It takes familiarity and consistency within that. The Board of Supervisors is different because it’s that four-year neighborhood kind of process. When it was district-wise citywide, it was different, because everybody had to have a piece within every knowledgeable {pace?}. When it becomes {this year?}, it becomes very turf- oriented. Depending on the supervisor, you can see how they balance that district to overall. Some of those supervisors are more city-oriented than district-wise. I’m not saying that as a criticism; I’m just saying that that’s how

they play it on both ends there, which is a tough job. But that’s volatile, depending upon who’s in there.

Farrell: What are some of the fire department’s budgetary priorities?

03-00:45:33 Nakajo: Well, the problem with the budget of the department is—and that’s how they always get it explained—is what a large, large—I can’t say the percentage {[of] us?}, but it’s a large percentage—is personnel, in terms like 80 percent or such. But a large component of the department is personnel. And it is personnel-driven. That’s kind of the given within the budgetary priorities is you’ve got to have the personnel to work, to work. That’s where the scrutiny and the oversight becomes, versus an image of wasted dollars or unused positionings or fat positions for no work or abuse of systems. I think we’re beyond that. So that’s about the best I can handle with that.

Farrell: You had brought this up before, but I want to come back and talk about it now, some of the Climate Action Plans, especially with the drought that’s been such an issue the past few years and some of the wildfires, because we are in California and there is wildfire season. Can you tell me a little bit about the Climate Action Plan?

03-00:46:54 Nakajo: Yeah. I think this is, again, based on last night’s presentation, in terms of Mutual Aid, but we have more requests for Mutual Aid. That’s, again, with the over effect of at least the last two years, three years, if not the drought. Just from observational levels, how frequent these fires occur and how many and how close they are. You may think that Shasta’s up that way or Clear Lake’s over here or Monterey, but they’re very close, Santa Cruz and such, even in terms of atmosphere. You go outside. Last week I was outside and you could smell the smoke from these fires. The tragedy of it is that it’s just not one fire, it’s six or seven fires. Again, being a fire commissioner, the first thing you think about is the personnel that’s fighting that. Then I think of CALFIRE, then you think of the budget. At some point or another, you begin to think—well, depending upon your expertise and such. But certain fires, like the one down near Big Sur, it’ll be the end of September before they control that thing, or the next rain in November. The difference is, is that it’s blowing, burning away from residents, versus burning the forest, which is something not expendable. But the other problem down in Southern Cal is that everybody lives everywhere now. If that’s the case, earthquakes, storm, hurricane, tornado, depending on where you’re living, it looks like for myself, California and wildfires or fires are going to be an inevitability, compared to structural fires. Then the other thing that’s obvious is the natural disasters that are going to occur.

Farrell: The natural disaster planning or the earthquake planning, how has that developed over time? Especially with the innovation of new technology and sort of how dense the population is here.

03-00:49:06 Nakajo: Well, San Francisco’s department, volunteer component of that, ambulance part of it is NERT [Neighborhood Emergency Response Team]. What’s good about NERT is that it’s constant vigilance. In terms of the preparation, we could do a lot, because it’s part of that. I don’t know, again, how folks feel about that, but there’s terminologies of inevitability versus not. Again, just by observance of what goes on recently with other countries and such most recently, ’89 was a consciousness. Loma Prieta. Boy, it took us a long time to recover from that. Again, the energy of the people {emerge?} itself. But that’s generations ago. I find myself talking, because I find myself when I do this, that in some ways, I feel we need to do more. But it’s an education process. You can train, but you don’t know how it feels. For a lot of us—I’m drifting again; I can tell I’m drifting. Because I got in a conversation the other day about we’re losing the whole World War II generation, the “greatest generation.” How do you verbalize that anymore? It became simple. I was in the hospital, as you know. The siren went off on Tuesday, and one of the nurses says there, one of the older European seniors—gets scared off her because she just remembers that. That sound hasn’t changed. To apply it to 2016 standards, to myself sitting in a hospital bed, it’s kind of like okay. You know what I mean? Like ’89. You’ve been in ’89, once it hits or whatever, it just flashes itself back. The preparation of that, I’m not sure. So many bottles of water, so many of this and that. I’m concerned more with the humanistic ability to work together. Again, NERT is our example of that, but that’s a pure volunteerism and so on. We’re coming up on 1906 again. We lost our last survivor. So they’re talking about that coming up. I guess maybe it’s a different era of discussion—I’m sorry, I’m adrift again—because 9/11’s coming up. We’re going to do a ceremony. Supposedly, there’s a commemoration that we’re going to accept this year, down at the new headquarters there at China Basin. Usually we do it at Station 6. So we got the briefing last night. But all these things, I started thinking about. It’s interesting because 9/11 this year’s on a Sunday. What’s happening is we’re doing 6:45 down at China Basin, new station, where the police department is. They call it the public safety office. But anything 10:30, like I’ve done for twenty-one years, we’re at Saint Monica’s doing mass. Which is usually for the fall fires and police. But we tied 9/11 into it. Commemoration, which is basically remembrance. I think that’s the biggest thing, is trying to figure out some way how we could, I don’t know, promote it.

Farrell: Yeah, keep the public memory alive.

03-00:52:53 Nakajo: Right, right, right.

Farrell: Actually, sort of related, how have you seen the cultural changes that have taken place in San Francisco over time—whether that be sort of the nineties dot-com bubble, now the tech boom, gentrification, things change. How have you seen that impact the fire department?

03-00:53:25 Nakajo: What was the reference? The dot-com boom, the what now?

Farrell: In the most recent tech boom, maybe the recession, but these cultural—I feel like there’s been a cultural shift. I may not be from here, but sort of when you look at from 1968 [to] today.

03-00:53:40 Nakajo: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Learned individual beyond you and me have identified that group. That group is now a couple decades, huh?

Farrell: Mm-hm.

03-00:53:58 Nakajo: Got to be now at least twenty years. When I used to go to the fire department back in the day, when the dot [dot-com] boom was happening, I used to marvel at how many people were on the street, and they’re all yelling. Oh, yeah, it was yelling. Everybody’s yelling. Everyone’s got a Levi’s shirt, men, women, everyone looked good. No matter what time of the day it was down on {Department Six?} Street, whatever, where the action is, everybody was always on the street. I used to say, “Is this lunchtime?” It didn’t matter. For a lot of young folks who were hanging out, everyone’s smoking a cigarette or doing whatever they do. Not everybody, but everyone’s out, man. Then the recession hit. Ghost town, man. I remember going down {in the reflective?}. Now that we moved our meetings to City Hall, even going to the Fire Commission, I marvel at what I don’t know and how much this city has grown. Because you can’t see beyond the buildings no more. You’re in a tunnel. So not being from New York and such, I remember the term Manhattanization. I remember a friend of mine used to tell me when were young, “Nakajo, man, you’ve got a big-city personality.” I used to say, “What do you mean by that?” He says, “You should go to New York, man. You’d do good in New York.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” Right? As a tourist, you go there and you just kind of stand there and go, wow, man, this place is pumping, right? When you’re young, you either dig it, or you’re excited by it, or it overwhelms you. I could take that taste. Now, being a Japanese American— I’m sorry to drift—coming from J-town, man, first time I hit Washington, D.C., New York, man, I thought {inaudible}. It’s the same thing that most of our young people now, when they go to college back east, especially the women—generalization—they don’t come back. All my friends that are my age, their daughters, they’re all in New York. And everyone’s getting older. I almost feel like asking the question, is that what you worked for, to make your girl Berkeley, and now she lives in Manhattan? Is that really what you worked for? His oldest daughter’s trying to be on Broadway for the last ten years. In

the old days, you would say good luck; but now, who knows? Who knows? You don’t even have make Broadway; you could be singing in Central Park during the summer for nine years, you know what I mean, and still do something. But it’s that taste. Which is the same taste as we used to say, our generation, our parents’ generation, we paid a big price for our success, because the kids all left the community and jumped out. You get a big taste of that. You almost feel like you’re American. You know what I mean? It’s amazing to go down there. The boom is back. There’s people all over the place, man. This time I’m bitching. There’s too many {boscos?}, too much cars, I can’t see the sun, there’s too many buildings. The thing that’s most messed up is I don’t even know where the hell I am. I’ve been coming down on this street for—. Your landmarks. Make a right turn on Second Street, go to the fire department. I’ve got to figure it out sometimes, because I’m not sure as to where I am.

03-00:57:26 So the fire department, man. I asked, “Can I speak to AFA?” I asked {Norm Compo?}, “Can I speak to the membership, your luncheon membership? Let me give the old punchline, get involved in AFA, get involved 150th.” I said, “Hey, {Norm?}, I heard you guys don’t have meetings no more.” “Ah, we tried to call a couple meetings, but nobody shows up.” I said, “What do you mean nobody shows up?” “Because we’re all communicating. Ain’t no need.” But I said, “What do you mean ain’t no need?” Then I started drifting about my daughter. I told her, “Don’t take no more pictures of me, because I’m tired of people coming up to me and telling me they saw me at Father’s Day lunch because you plastered my face off of your Facebook.” I said, “Number one, it ain’t nobody’s damn business what we do here.” I get hard on my daughter, right? Then other people, I don’t even see them. Because they’ll take a picture and next thing I know, I’m up. I told her, “I don’t enjoy going to a fire department function and someone says, “Hey, man, I saw you at the {inaudible},” blah-blah-blah. But that’s her generation. She’s not young, either. She’s right there. She’s about forty-something. But everything beyond her—. Like my intern. I have to ask him when I communicate about showing up and work-related {[things]?}, I said, “Don’t you read your emails?” “No. No, man. Text me, man.” “Text you?” I said, “My email has more substance, more beauty, more direction. I could tell you how much a punk you are.” “How you going to text me, man?” Lo and behold, text every time, 100%. Sometimes I have to say, “Can you let me know if you got this text? Because yeah or okay, it ain’t enough, man. Or three days later, I’m asking you to respond and you respond. For my generation, that ain’t respectful.” That’s kind of what the department has been. It’s funny. I don’t know why I do this. I’ll go to the Fire Commission meeting early, a little earlier. Because I’m an organizer, I know, man. I all of a sudden decided that this time, I’m going to go to the back of the line of the recruits or the potential, and walk all the way to the front. Traditionally, what I do is that after the meeting, I’m the one always that has been the first guy to jump out and shake everyone’s hand. Not only do I shake everyone’s hand; I ask them for their name. Some of these

kids, man, they told me their name three, four times. But now I make a point of it. I shake their hand, ask them their name. Sometimes I’ll look at their face. The problem is, is there’s too many of them that want to be members of the department. The difference in the problem is, is that they’re all good. Right? I want to be able to say hello to them, at least let them know that I’m paying attention to these guys. Last night, there were about four women. Two Latina women, Mexicana women, I asked them to come because they volunteer. I told them about the Fire Commission. They’re like kids in a superstar movie. I’ve been a community worker all my life; but sitting up there at the commission and you’re answering questions, there’s so much power in it, it just isn’t funny.

03-01:01:01 These kids, a lot of them, these young men, they don’t have {substance?} of community, nor do they have any relationship with any higher authority, beyond what they see. All they want is the earnest desire to work for the fire department. That’s so clear. There’s a whole lot of white boys out there. So that the black guy, or like in last night’s case, the two Latinas, I told them, because they’re {a member, I?} says, “Do you remember me?” I go, “Yeah, I remember you, man.” I said, “You see any women out here?” They go, “Yeah, a couple.” I said, “You see any Latinos out here, Latinas?” She goes, “No.” I said, “Remember that.” Just as a hint. Then I point to Chief [Raemona] Williams, African American woman, assistant deputy chief. “Need an example? There.” But the structure of it is so stacked against them— generalization—that to many of those guys, I felt like saying, you better come up with another career, man, because you ain’t going to make it. I know you ain’t going to make it. As well as you think you are, and if you put it—.” There’s a couple guys that come volunteer for me at Kimochi. The reputation is out. They think that if you volunteer for Kimochi serving the seniors that Commissioner Nakajo will give you some kind of a nod, if I have an opportunity. It could be true. But I’m trying to calm them down and try to tell some of these other guys, you ain’t no special kid that I just met. A guy like me, how do you do that? The only way I know to do that is I tell them straight to their face. That’s hard because a lot of these guys can’t handle that. Or I get to a point of where, do I need to say that? But I definitely need to say, you all better think of a secondary career, because ain’t everybody can be a firefighter in the San Francisco Fire Department. But that’s how much it’s changed.

03-01:03:04 I went to the restroom right before the commission meeting. There was this— my terminology—pretty, I thought, attractive older white lady sitting on the bench. Looked like she was somebody. So me, man, I’ve got personality, right? I talk, or I say hi. She kind of went to the restroom, she said hi to me first. I came back, I said, “What are you doing, Fire Commission?” Because that’s why I thought she was there. She goes, “No, I’m going to take pictures of all these boys.” Over a hundred young men wearing their suits. The standard joke is, yeah, that’s the models for the men’s clearance sales. She

goes, “I’m going to show all my girlfriends and all my girlfriends’ daughters all these men that’s out here.” I said, “I’ll guarantee you that they’ll be out here. They’ll be out here every week, right?” But that’s kind of a long-winded answer of the separation and differences between this generation and where we came from. I’m not quite sure. I don’t doubt their sincerity, their appetite to do public service and such. A lot of them seem so inexperienced in life functions. That’s just my m.o. A lot of them are not young; they’re people who have worked. But it’s just I don’t know how to answer your question.

Farrell: No, that was actually pretty great. Yeah, I very much appreciate that answer. I guess I wanted to—that was a reflective question, but—maybe ask you one or two more reflective questions. What has it meant to you to be a part of the Fire Commission?

03-01:04:46 Nakajo: Again, you only realize value if you’re able to—. I don’t know how different I am, but I’m a certainly reflective person. The other thing about me is, I don’t know how different it is, but I never forget. So those kind of images and emotions that I had when I was young or coming up, I can catch that real easy. Part of that is, it becomes a very humbling experience. But what it is, is it’s only a humbling experience because of the position that I’m in. For years, you strive for fulfillment. I used to use that term when I taught at State a lot, social work {inaudible} fulfillment, the drive for purpose and all that good stuff. Again, I reflect the child of the ‘60s, right? But I earned this, without a shadow of a doubt. There’s a big difference in the interpretation of leadership. I used to kid my students and say, “Are you born leadership, or you assume it, or how do you do that?” I’m one of these individuals that really feel that everybody has it. Everybody has it. It’s just a matter of where it’s at. In terms of this community and how we reflect it and how traditionally it’s been—I’m a Japanese American product that went through that—it’s hard to get acceptance in this community. I came up when those role models were there. And these guys were very simple guys, man. Because of the war or whatever, {inaudible}. But they might’ve been a drycleaner during the daytime or a gardener, man, but Goddamn it, man, when they came to the church meeting with their suit or whatever, these guys, their conviction was so strong. The other thing about that, about things, I’m a pretty serious dude about everything. So I enjoy this position. I know that I earned it, but I don’t want to abuse it, and I definitely don’t want to be an egotist. When you’re young or whatever, everybody has their rightful ego and self-esteem. That’s crucial and essential, to me. But to be that beyond the means—I use the term legend in your own mind, stuff like that—nah, man, I don’t need that. But I do know what I can do and what I can influence, up to a certain point. Then after that, I don’t take myself that serious. You know what I mean? Come on, you know what I mean? You think you’re a legend in your own mind. It’s a very humbling experience. You’ve just got to drop back, man, get your ass kicked a couple times. Part of that is my upbringing, without a father, with a mother. When you have that kind of upbringing, I used to tell people, “When you’re

poor or brought up poor, you’ve got to lose that.” It’s that kind of reflection. But I’m very grateful, very pleased, as to where I’m at. But I’m no dummy, man. This didn’t come with my good looks; it’s because I advocated for it, put myself in the position to do it. I think I’m best operative in my persona at the commission, because I like to show the amount of—bottom line, everyone knows I give them respect. But I also want equal respect back, because I’ve got something to say; I want you to listen to it. Don’t play me. That’s the other part, just don’t play me. Because otherwise, I’ve got that street mentality, too.

Farrell: My last question is, what are your hopes for the fire department of the future?

03-01:08:40 Nakajo: Tough question, because I’m a logistical person. That discussion about the earthquakes and all the components of and the airport and the paramedic— we’ve got a lot still to do. The reason why is because of changing dynamics in San Francisco. The ambulances are rolling hospitals. You go out and run around with these guys. The need is so obvious it just isn’t funny. Separation of the who’s and whose not. The other part about the ‘60s and nowadays is the non-emotion that we’re starting to rear among ourselves. We could see poverty and stuff or someone getting killed and it don’t matter. You roll, you still roll. I don’t know about that, you know what I mean? That social consciousness level, I’m not sure. But there’s a whole lot of violence out there, boy, and people are sure getting used to it, man, in one way or another, or the general acceptance. I try to make some sense out of Black Life Matters [Black Lives Matter] and all of that. It’s not hard to understand. You’ve just got to be able. We had our era; this is a different era, right? It’s just that we’re part of this era because of what we did and didn’t do, or what we forgot and didn’t do. But it’s amazing to me, man, how societies and individuals and leadership can be so cruel. You know what I’m saying? It just amazes me, man. I thought we’d be utopia by now. That’s what I was taught when I was a kid, man. But that’s not the way it is. Again, that street mentality. You grow up. Then my generation, we’re all fighters, right? But it’s just interesting, because age has a way of really being the equalizer. Age and positioning. Thusly—here we go philosophically—thusly, life, you know what I mean? That’s why the stuff you’re doing is important, man. But that’s about [it].

Farrell: Is there anything else that you wanted to add?

03-01:10:43 Nakajo: No. I totally enjoyed this. Thank you for your patience. I really enjoyed this.

Farrell: Thank you.

[End of Interview]