by YUJIE ZHOU and JOE ESKENAZI SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)
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Mayor London Breed today appointed a new interim chief of the San Francisco Fire Department: Sandra Tong. Tong was the department’s deputy chief of emergency medical services and community paramedics. Not only is she the first Asian American chief, she is also the first San Francisco Fire Chief who did not ascend from the firefighting side of the fire department.
“I have known Sandy Tong for many, many years, and she has consistently stepped up to the plate,” said Breed. “The fire department does an extraordinary job of responding to emergencies and putting out fires and saving lives and doing all the incredible work. But almost 80 percent of the calls that come into the department come from the EMS division, and it requires someone who understands.”
Prior to being named interim chief, Tong was the highest-ranking Chinese American within the department. Deputy Chief of Administration Shayne Kaialoa, whom Mission Local is informed did interview for the job, is also Asian. But he is a Pacific Islander and is not Chinese.
With Chief Jeanine Nicholson abruptly announcing her retirement on July 26, both department insiders and San Francisco politicos anticipated her replacement, to be appointed by Breed only months before November’s election, would be Chinese American.
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Politics aside, fire department veterans spoke highly of Tong. Her colleagues gave high regards to both her personality and her performance in a managerial position. Tong is both “the nicest person in the world” and “an extremely competent manager,” said a veteran firefighter.
Her pedigree as a 35-year-employee on the EMS side of the department, however, led to consternation among veterans on the fire side.
“Traditionally, you get a fire chief that comes from the fire service, meaning they were a firefighter,” a department veteran said in an interview today. “And Sandy Tong, the new chief, is one of those people that has only been a paramedic who only worked on the medical side, and has never been a firefighter.”
What difference could this make? “It’s just that people have concerns that if there’s a major conflagration, if there is an earthquake, if there’s a disaster of some large scale that usually defers to the chief to run the incident … she might have difficulties running an incident and having an intimate knowledge of what’s necessary on the fire side,” the veteran firefighter added.
Another veteran firefighter expressed similar concerns. “We would like to see that job filled from somebody within the command and control structure of the fire suppression, somebody who’s actually worked on a fire engine,” he said. “Not just a medical aid with multiple apparatus people and things going on. There’s no command and control in that respect from the EMS side.”
These concerns were not universal, however. “It’s four months, what can happen?” said a third veteran firefighter, who stressed that Tong is a good person who has been around.
“I think she’ll be good at what she does. She has other people there to take care of things that are her blind spots. And she has a doctorate in administration so she might be pretty good compared to the last three chiefs we’ve had, to be honest!”
It remains to be seen whether the appointment of Tong can really bring Chinese votes to Breed in her re-election battle. “Sandy is not a well-known commodity,” said political consultant David Ho. “She doesn’t have the prior department head appointees’ sort of historical background that’s involved with the nonprofit sector and the community engagement.”
The firefighters union, which gave its sole endorsement to Breed in the last contested mayoral race in 2018, last month voted overwhelmingly to award its sole endorsement to mayoral candidate Mark Farrell.
Tong has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and used to be outgoing chief Nicholson’s supervisor when the latter was a paramedic in the early 2000s.
“Let me just tell you, she suffers no fools. Don’t take her for granted. She knows what she’s doing,” said Nicholson at today’s ceremony, which also marks her last day in the department. “She is a hard worker and she does the right thing for the right reasons, and I am incredibly comfortable and incredibly confident in passing the torch on to Chief Tong.”
Breed, however, noted Tong’s connection with the local Chinese community. “I am also really happy that she is a native daughter of San Francisco, born at Chinese Hospital in Chinatown,” said the mayor during the ceremony. “She has deep roots in Chinatown.”
“Mayor Breed, thank you so much for this incredible honor,” said Tong. “I am humbled by this opportunity and will serve you to the best of my abilities.”
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YUJIE ZHOU
REPORTER. Yujie Zhou came on as an intern after graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is a full-time staff reporter as part of the Report for America program that helps put young journalists in newsrooms. Before falling in love with the Mission, Yujie covered New York City, studied politics through the “street clashes” in Hong Kong, and earned a wine-tasting certificate in two days. She’s proud to be a bilingual journalist. Follow her on Twitter @Yujie_ZZ.More by Yujie Zhou
JOE ESKENAZI
Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.
“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.
He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.
The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi
