Community Activist Nails Quan's False Claims

This is the second time I am responding to Ms. Quan's statement that the PD in the City and County of SF includes sheriff's duties. That is categorically not true. San Francisco has a PD and a sheriff's dept. They have separate functions and very separate budgets. Michael Hennessey is the elected official who runs the Sheriff's Dept. The SFPD is budgeted for approximately 2100 cops and have about 1800 on active duty. SF's population isn't even double Oakland's population. In fact, SF's population has declined since 2000. Ms. Quan also failed to mention that Mayor Newsom wants to hire more police officers. A whole goo-gob more cops.

As for the comparison between eastern and western cities, that is a smokescreen. In fact, a better argument is that due to less density in western cities, we should have more cops because they have more geographical area to patrol. As for the cost of cops, the Bay Area has one of the highest cost of living standards in the country. What is the cost per cop in SF or San Jose? What about LA or San Diego?

And since Boston was mentioned, let me again say that the "Boston Model" used to justify Measure Y would not have been successful in Boston if Boston had Oakland's ratio of police officers to residents. Boston has more cops than we do.

Finally, about Measure Y, and to paraphrase Spike Lee from a different context, "We wuz robbed." We have fewer cops now than when Measure Y was passed. Am I upset? You betcha. The wait time for a dispatcher for nonemergency calls is still pushing 30 mintues. I seldom call anymore and when I do call and get the recording, I hang up. That's good news for politicos because if enough people stop calling, it will look like the demand for services has gone down when in fact residents have just given up.