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tv   [untitled]    August 1, 2010 1:30pm-2:00pm PST

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madam clerk: this is a resolution approving an amendment to the contract between the treasure and the department authority and another. president chiu: this item is adopted. i 19. madam clerk: i 19 is a resolution authorizing and directing the port executive director. presenident chiu: this is adopted. madam clerk: item 20 is an ordinance, and 21 is an ordinance, and item 22 is an ordinance during that -- dedicating a portion of the
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state trust parcel five. president chiu: these items are passed on the first reading. item 23. madam clerk: this is an agreement with the san francisco museum of modern art and its affiliate for the proposed future conveyance by the city and county of san francisco for real property located on howard street in exchange for the conveyance of real property located at 935 folsom st.. president chiu: supervisor alioto-pier? supervisor alioto-pier: i want to thank the people involved in this project, including the museum of modern art for their generosity and the work that mr. fisher has been done. we are going to have a truly
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unique and wonderful museum of modern art. this collection will bring so much to the city, and i think we have so much to be grateful for, and i am also very appreciative of the fact that this helps us petco to deal with the fire station upgrade, so i just want to say thank you for all of those involved. president chiu: a quick question for the city attorney. is there anything we need to do to adopt the amendment in the agreement? this is just for our reference? >> mr. chairman, a new copy discussed in committee has been submitted to the board. if it is not in the file, it should be on the way. i have a copy for myself korean there is no need for the board to take action. president chiu: can we take the
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same house, same call? this item is passed. item 24. madam clerk: this is an ordinance amending the san francisco police code and the business and tax regulations code and fire code. president chiu: this item is passed on the first reading. next item. item 25. madam clerk: item 25 is an ordinance amending a section map. president chiu: this is passed. item 26. madam clerk: item 26 is a resolution imposing in terms zoning controls. president chiu: supervise alio to-pier?
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supervisor alioto-pier: there are no zoning protections for child care facilities. along with supervisors dufty, daly, mar, and others, this will include an authorization. if they replace child care on off-site, no cu would be needed. bringing this is planning commission -- i wanted to note -- i want to thank everyone who was involved in this, and i appreciate your support. president chiu: supervisor daly?
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supervisor daly: one of the largest child care centers was faced with closure. it has been very difficult, i know, for families who have children there, trying to find out what the future is in terms of education. for their families, and then, more generally, in the south of market, so i want to think supervisor alito-pier. i am happy to co-sponsor. president chiu: any further comment, colleagues? a roll-call vote on this item, please. madam clerk: [reading roll]
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there are nine ayes and two no's. presidentchiu: if we can skip over to item 37. madam clerk: establishing programs for the unified school district. president chiu: supervisor mirkarimi, do you have the amendments to this item? supervisor mirkarimi: fake you, mr. president. yes.
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allowing for extracurricular events -- thank you, mr. president. learning from that experience and debate, i asked why we do not have a service academy, and the unified school district for the fire department and the sheriff's department -- i have been working with the police department, and supervisor maxwell has, too. this is considered to be an ad hoc program already in place.
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for those interested in a public safety career. these discussions are underway. potentially, a particular applicant to, in the police department, becomes an applicant in the department. this is an all-time low in san francisco. well over 75% of our officers are outside san francisco. when you look at the recruitment budget and what they are able to cultivate it is considerably lower.
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when we talk about implementing strategies, we also reach out to communities, also the disadvantaged communities, that may help benefit. learning a particular trade or an interest in learning the process and potentially working with the city and county of san francisco. i make very simple amendments. the converse is dcyf, responsible for developing the plan, and oed would consult, and another would assist in developing the curriculum. this was submitted some time ago. present chiu: supervisor
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mirkarimi has made an amendment -- president chiu: supervisor mirkarimi has made an amendment. coveys, can we take this? a roll call -- colleagues. madam clerk: [reading roll] there are 11 ayes. supervisor campos: that item passes on the first reading. supervisor chiu? item 38.
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madam clerk, if you could please call item 38. madam clerk: item 38 is an ordinance amending sections 1060.20.4 and 1070.20 of the san francisco police code. president chiu: violence and violence around certain night clubs in san francisco. at this point, almost monthly, we have a homicide or a significant issue occurring in or around nightclubs, and the need for additional powers on the part of the city to suspend licenses is something that we legislative last year. several months ago, after the shooting that occurred at club suede, which is in my district,
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shots fired, one person killed, others injured, it was discovered that they did not have the authority to revoke permanently the license of a club that had a long history of violence and public safety issues. this was introduced really to deal with the fact that the city attorney had to spend hundreds of hours to shut the club down, and we want to provide the city with powers to make it easier to revoke a license in which a club has a history of public safety issues and public nuisance issues, so, colleagues, i would like to ask your support. i have one amendment. according to the deputy city attorney, there are references to the civil code section from the state code, 3840. from the california civil code for the definition of nuisance. the correct number should be
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3480. those changes should be made on page two line 19 and on page four line 16. supervisor campos: we have a motion from supervised chiu and a second from supervisor maxwell. now, on the underlying ordinance, can we take that on the same call? without objection. president chiu: we will now call item 39. madam clerk: irresolution approving the san francisco child and family services review improvement plan. president chiu: this resolution is adopted. next item. madam clerk: item 40, a
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resolution authorizing the airport commission to accept approximately $800,000. president chiu: same house, same call, colleagues? this item is adopted. next item. madam clerk: item 41, appointing carol kingsley to the san francisco police commission. president chiu: colleagues, same call? this item is passed. next two items. madam clerk: item 42, emotional quarter raincoat voters of an ordinance, and item 43,
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establishing the community policing policy. supervisor mirkarimiñ in implementing what i think is a community policing strategy that is often well talked about but not well implemented. you asked a hundred people in this room what you think community policing is and you'll get a hundred different answers. there's nothing institutionalized. when you look at the department orders of the san francisco police department, there is very little that describes anything except references that were memorialized back in 1994. community policing has involved considerably as we have learned from cities like new york, boston, chicago, seattle, many
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others. and overed years we've addressed the problems that have been spot fires and of chronic distress throughout many of our districts and throughout the city to be able to require that the police department be more engaged. not that they're not and not that community policing v.i.a. a slice of that feature being foot patrols isn't happening but i believe it's time that the voters also have an opportunity to weigh in as to how important the strategy is. and i know that the police department realizes it's an important strategy but as debate often has revealed, this is a strategy that is quote, unquote, seen as a luxury in the police department's menu of how to deploy forces and it's often a reactive strategy. i believe there have been perfect candidates where we have foot patrols. it's something i've been
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talking about since coming into elected office and it's highly irregular and highly inconsistent. that would stem a lot of concerns and distress and aggravation people were feeling by periods of either neglect or confusion. that's why law enforcement and/or city was not more effective. we have seen when foot patrols have been applied, they work. the correlations really go, i think, unchallenged as it was studied by the controller in 2008 when they commissioned an independent study that saw, i think, the true benefits of what community policing is v.i.a. so it is worthy of extending those lessons learned into what may, some people feel that the legislative what was
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unconventional and orthodox back in 2006 when we legislated the demand and we overrode that veto, my district as well as others were well entrenched in what was considered to be the land morning or historical high crime rates. i'm pleased to say and delighted to say my district as well as other neighbors have benefited hand somely from that level of focused attention. in the southeast sector of san francisco when we saw an uptick of tension between asian american community and african-american community, literally the first response had been expressed by people and came to city hall was the dispatch of 32 police officers to walk beats and be part of community policing. the question i ask is what if
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we were able to see several of the offices there in advance? that would have been certainly a greater investment of preventive medicine in law enforcement to be able to channel, to vet and respond to concerns instead of reacting to concerns which seems to be mostly the way it is now. having the ability of being able to identify where these areas of note are, whether it's in the southeast sector, whether it's the polk corridor or the south of market or wherever it may be, the chief of police has complete discretion in the deployment. in legislation, this ballot ordinance gives the chief that discretion. but it will definitely rival a bit of a debate because they will say we don't have enough resources. they will say that personnel is deficient and we can't do this. and that gets to the core, i think, of the debate, a philosophy of how committed we
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are, i think, to community policing. those were the same levels, i think of debates and backs and forth that other communities have had, too. your support would be greatly appreciated. i know this is a split file. i would like to thank you for your support and i look forward to answering any questions. thank you. >> thank you. police chiu? president chiu: thank you. i want to say thank you to ross mirkarimi for bringing this measure. when i was in graduate school 20 years ago, i studied at that time a relatively new reform of community policing which has now been adopted by police departments around the country and i think everyone knows this is something we need to do and i think it's quite common sense to ask to move forward that our police department have a plan that we can discuss around foot patrols and community policing. that being said, there is a
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broader conversation on the november debate around sit lie and part of my support was around a policy commitment that i think our city ought to devote to foot patrols and community policing rather than a sit/lie ordinance that has had legal questions and there are many other ordinances that have tried to address similar behavior and have failed. a number of weeks, mayor newsom decided to device language between his hotel tax and the hotel tax placed on the ballot by thousands of san franciscans to be placed on the november ballot and i have to admit his decision to do that, which i thought was a very clever way to provide a real choice of san fan sis cans on that issue inspired me to suggest an amendment and that's to provide a clear choice to voters that we need to think about policies
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like foot patrols and community policing and restorative justice and other justice models rather than the sit/lie ordinance that i think many of us, the super majority of us here at this board have had significant concerns about. colleagues, i would like to urge you to support item 43 and hopefully with that, we can provide voters a clear choice and policy priorities for law enforcement here in san francisco. >> thank you. supervisor bevan dufty. supervisor dufty: thank you. i thought the police department was not being responsive to the concerns and i felt there was some maneuvering around here where it was said that the legislation was bad but yet still a day before the legislation we were being assured that everything in the legislation was, in fact, going to be done. so what is a bit different for me here and now is that there
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have been a number of reform tools that have been established by the department and that we've established model station at ingleside and that there are a number of reform initiatives that are on paper, being implemented, being considered as it relates to the structure of our district stations and so i guess through the chair, i would like to ask the author, given that we previously were able to establish mandatory foot patrol initiatives, what's the purpose of going to the ballot? why is it so essential that we have the voters vote on it? because if in effect we have to make any revisions down the road, it would have to be done by the voters themselves. supervisor alioto-pier: supervisor ross mirkarimi? supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. in your support is the eighth and the veto override which is essential and we appreciated
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that back in 2006. this is the study, the foot patrol program evaluation report that the city controller had commissioned and that public safety strategies group had presented on april 8 of 2008. there were a number of hearings, public safety had joint hearings with the police commission and it was well received. the population of san francisco was also surveyed at that particular time. 79% of the people of san francisco want foot beats. we realize we cannot satisfy that high demand but what we did realize in that pilot which was approximately 14 months but we realized at any one time after that pilot, nothing is made permanent which we respect because the discretion is in the police department about deployment but nothing is also institutionalized so while we had a chief predecessor who may not have put the kind of level of importance on what foot patrols are and we, as you i
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think insinuate, we have a chief now that might make reforms, who might be more sensitive to these kind of strategies, what if that particular chief is succeeded by somebody else? what if that chief is succeeded by somebody else who does not share the same strategies or the same outlook? what if any of us were succeeded in a way that community policing is not of the same, i think, import in order to see it implemented. by us not having the ability of the voters to articulate how important this is to them continues to contain the debate in here where i think it's highly politicized. i think we allow the voters to weigh in and i guarantee you, with the outcome that i predict would be a popular outcome to this, it will also move what i think is an obsolete strategy from 1994 of the 1971 number that has been put on the
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charter amendment because the police department knows that they are literally handcuffed by an objective that's the ceiling but also by a floor because we don't get way beyond 1971 ever. they're also above or significantly under. i think the demand on our police department will be well felt when people see something that they like, that they know that works and that will help, i think, prompt other reforms that are long overdue and i think going to the ballot will help showcase this. supervisor dufty: i want to thank the author for that. the chief has brought a level of dynamism to the department, having participated in many meetings. i think that the command staff is very proactive and looking at effective problem solving and looking -- and has had a dramatic impact in a number of
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different areas as we've seen. and so i -- for me, i just feel that these are issues that if we were not having support from the department and the leadership of the department, i think it is something that any board of supervisors could address and so i question the purpose. if anything, i think as popular as foot beats are, i think our chief, frankly, is just as popular and it is because he's taken on issues and been willing to bring change, to bring technology to the department and to bring a sense that even when he steps on toes here at the board or anyplace else that he's standing up for the role of the department and has been a strong voice as the chief public safety officer for the city. so i appreciate what our colleague has done previously as it relates to foot beats, but i do believe this is something that can be addressed to the board. >> supervisor michela
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alioto-pier. supervisor alioto-pier: thank you. i would like to thank supervisor dufty for his remarks. i was the dissenting vote in committee on this item and the reason i voted against it had a lot to do with that supervisor dufty just said. there is nothing that would preclude us from establishing a policing policy or a foot beat program within san francisco here at the board of supervisors. there's nothing that would prevent us from doing it by ordinance and there's absolutely no reason it should go to the voters. this is one of those examples, in my opinion, where the people that elected us to do our job say, well, why aren't they doing it? why do we need to make this decision? can't they sit down, come to the table and figure out these problems by themselves? that's what we elected them to do. and i think that that is what we should do. the chief has been a real leader in this regard and in many other parts of the police
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department and right now, taking any power away from the chief to give to the board of supervisors to me seems to be misplaced. we should be trusting our chief to do his job. he's been doing a great job thus far and i, for one, will be supporting the beat program, the beat patrol program that he and his officers put together and would like to put on to the streets of san francisco. >> thank you. supervisor campos. supervisor campos: thank you. i don't think that this vote is about being for or against the chief as someone who served on the police commission, i understand the importance of protecting and safeguarding the authority of the chief, but what i will say about this measure is that it's not just the prior chief that's been given a lot of opportunity, was given a lot of o