tv [untitled] August 5, 2010 2:30pm-3:00pm PST
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[inaudible] president marshall: all right. this item is now closed. i want to thank commissioner dehey suse for bringing it -- dejesus for getting it to our attention and get tg approved. >> -- commissioner dejesus: i want to thank the department for everyone working together on this issue. thank you. president marshall: we will then move the agenda back to item number one. we'll go back to the regular agenda. the clerk: mr. president, item 1. sir, we'll give the room a moment to clear.
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7:11 peam. that is public comment. this is where members of the public may address the commission for a period of time determined by the chair. subject matters that are within the jurisdiction of the commission but do not appear on the agenda. >> thank you, lieutenant. this is general public comment on issues that involve the san francisco police department. first speaker, please state your name. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is john templeton. i'm working on african merge
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heritage regarding buildings in san francisco. one of those buildings is 4546 3rd street owned by clarence williams. it is caberet that dates before the earthquake. del is not a building like it that's owned by an african-american in the state of california. it has come to my attention that the permit officer in bay view and the captain are blocking him using his alcohol permit. the justification basically comes down to them not wanting african-americans to have a bar to drink in, which strikes me as the height of racial profiling. it is not as obvious as shooting someone in the back when they are laying down, but it is no less a violation of civil
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rights. we sent a letter to chief gascon, also to fred blackwell, redevelopment agency, i just saw him in the hallway and they still baffle me as to why the police department is being counter to the out-migration task force, preventing someone from opening what would be the largest business on 3rd street. so we have waited. the permit officer is being arbitrary and capricious. he hasn't put anything in writing. he's done something that ksh -- such as only talk ong cell phones other than taking calls that raise questions about whether there is corruption involved. there is no justification for the continuation of this practice, and we regret we have to bring this to your attention. but i would like to bring this forward and he can discuss it in
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further detail. >> thank you. >> for some particular reason. he never even gave me a reason why, other than there is concern of the residents. [inauddible] for some reason they don't want an african-american to do well on 3rd street. so i had to get additional assistance to talk to him because he never gives me a straight answer, he never gives anything in writing, and he constantly changes his mind.
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i hope that you guys can talk to him. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good evening. my name is sally stevens. i'm the chair of the city of animal control for the commission. i'm also chair of the san francisco dog owner's group. last week we heard in the newspaper that the reassignment of officers involved in the vicious and dangerous dog unit and concerned about possible closure of the unit. the community was outraged. we were angry, we were worried, and upset. i have since spoken with the chief and commissioner hammer, and other people. it appeared there was some kind of misunderstanding over what was happening. i was very glad to hear from the chief that there is a lot of support for the unit, the
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vicious and dangerous dogs unit. this is really a model for the community. it is one of the department's success stories and community leading at its best. at the first signs of tregs aggression, which this unit has largely pioneered, has been githe quite successful. there is a lot of community support for this unit, and that's crucial for this and other units. right now, if there arefully major changes, he might obviously lose that support. i wonder if everybody realizes the importance of the dog court and the unit. there are a lot of early intervention things that are done. i would be happy to talk to any and all of you about the community's highly innovative and successful unit. there is a dog behaviorist who
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is an expert witness all at dog -- dangerous dog hearing around the entire state area. her experience is that the one in san francisco is by far the best. i urge you to butt an item on your agenda about all of this. it is really critically important in the commuent and there is huge community support for it, and it is one of your success stories, so i hope you can learn more about it. it is really an unsunning hero. i hope you will consider putting that on your agenda smed >> thank you. >> good evening commissioners. i wish to state my opposition to disband the dog court. i have since learned that this
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was a misunderstanding. i have worked with the dogs in custody. countless dogs over the years have been custody due to complaints to be heard by the dog court hearing court also referred to as vicious and dangerous dog hearings. i would expect that due diligence from the people who made this decision to lower the unit into forethought, a transition period, and up-to-date knowledge about how exacting and complex a dog court is. i am investigationing this operational decision and i will
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ask that officer herndon and officer denhi's reassignment be made. they will have some tough shoes to fill. i am not alone in my apprehensions about the lowering of the war of the san francisco police unit. among those is commissioner jim hammer. i hoach you hear from as many -- i hope you hear from as many concerned members in san francisco as i do. i hope you will put this as a general order on this unit on the agenda of the police commission and timely manner. 6 -- i also trust the public will have ample time to go on public record. thank you vemp. -- thank you.
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>> thank president marshall: thank you very much. >> i am also here to speak in strong support of the vicious and dangerous dogs unit. there has been undse understanding about the issue. the unit is widely respected by the dog community, as well as the community at large. that's important. i am a very strong animal trust person. i think when there is a reason to -- ruling to youth nice a dog, -- euthenize a dog, it should be reviewed.
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if there is traininging, there is the temptation for people to just send their dogs elsewhere and become another community's problem. i want to express strong support for the unit and second ideas to agendaize the issue. >> i just want to indicate that i add this to a future agenda item. that way they know if they have left, it is coming up later in the agenda ton. -- tonight. president marshall: any last speakers in general? fub comment -- public comment une -- closed. >> a couple years ago because we
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lacked supervision the sergeant was given extra tasks. he was never taken awhich from the dog detail, he was never taken away from the assignment. if it was going to be shut down, i would be the one to do it. i did not do it. it will always be manned by personnel. it will always have the dog unit. the department's position that we had never, ever shut it down, we weren't going to shut it doufpblet -- down. somehow this information -- herndon is retiring in 11 months. weerdog going to bring new people in there. that unit will always be thrfment i will be -- there. we will not be shutting it down. i am giving my word. this unit will not be shut down. it was never going to be shut down. the article in the paper
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happened before they asked us. this operation was never, ever going to be shut down. president marshall: we can't really engage in public comment about this. and tuling actually it probably should have under the chief's report. you can have dirl questions there. all right. ruent. we can move to item 2, please. >> item 2 is the consent calendar which as presented to the commission was the police commission's third-quarter closed session. disciplinary issues you used. >> these are in your package.
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-- unless you have questions you want to asking on either of these, the second-quretter record clodse sessions the disciplinary items or the overseas quarterly report, there are no questions. we did approve the consent calendar. we need a motion. >> move to prove. >> good question. do we go over these in public at all? president marshall: we do not unless someone wants to. >> i just wanted to give it its two intentions. -- i wanted to give it its due attention. >> we have it posted for members
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of the public that do want to read the o.c.c.'s quarterly report they can go to the o.c.c. web site. president marshall: without objection. so ordered. let's move then in the -- be kind to our c.c. director, because i think we will be closed for a while. less take 3-b next and then we will move to 9. >> we will move to 3-b which is the o.c.c.'s director's report. >> good evening, president marshall, and members of the commissioner. chief, and members of the audience. i will give you brief update on
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recent activities of the o.c. c. on our statistics, a mediation update, as well as a training update. at a later police commission meeting, i will provide you with the yull -- with the july statistics in writing. since jump 30 eths was this past friday, there wasn't time to provide you the written prort, so i will give it to you orally. as of july 30, the occ opened 539 cases and we opened 31 more cases than we closed. it means that our backlog is growing somewhat. during the last period we opened 589 and closed 605. in terms of cases opened, there is a 7% decrease in cases opened during the same period. last year.
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so the number of cases that are being filed with the o.c.c. has reduced by 7%. july 30 we had 4 p 32 -- as of july 30 we had 432 pending cases. this is more cases than we had at the same period last year. that means there are more cases per investigator than there were at this point last year. as of july 30th, the o.c.c. had a 40% increase in the number of cases o.c.c. investigators are sustaining. as of july 350 -- 30, moving on to mediation, the o.c.c. -- july 30th last year 45 complaints
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were meeated. however, july was an encouraging month, because eight queas cases were mediated in july. so far in august, so far this month we have already mediated one case. internal affairs tranges. chief gascon discussed internal training that was to be conducted by the l.a. police department on professional standards crigs division as well as their inspector general who is a civilian oversight component in l.a. the training was lelled for sfpd members. i attended the raining, and i believe that the training was instructive not only for c.o.c.c. staff but also for the
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trainers from lapd. we recognize we have much in common in the way we conduct investigations, but that the lapd investigate ords have a much lower case load than the o.c.c. investigate -- investigators. it's really nothing new. when they did the audit, one thing they noticed was that o.c.c. investigators did not have a best practices case load. that the o.c.c. investigator's case load was 30 -- 33 per investigator as opposed to other agencies where the best practice was about 16 cases per investigator. in fact that is what we were told by the representatives from lapped. lapd. president marshall: questions
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for the director? >> i want to commend you on the policy work you do. there are a number of department comblen general orders that you have worked on -- department general orders that you have worked on. in terms of o.c.c. investigators, i noticed there are two standing needs that would have given more information, and information about low the commission is addressing that need. >> there is a need for additional investigative staff. there just is not the budget. to address that need. the o.c.c. has journal level positions but only 15 filled,
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and the two vacant positions have to remain vacant because the o.c.c. took a 4.5% budget hit. we simply do not have the salary budget to support any additional investigators mple -- investigators. >> so what we were doing is using our advisory investigators with three senior investigators to step in and a the journal level investigators with their investigations and the senior investigators are taking on their own case load, which was not the case when i first started with the o.c.c. 2 1/2 years ago. because it is very important to have our supervisoring investigators have the flexibility to audit the investigation of those that may supervisor.
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curptly, we are only -- currently, we are only operating with 13 because one is out on a general leave which could extend to a yeamplet the -- to a year. the senior investigators are stepping up and investigating cases. i don't see any immediate fiscal help on the horizon because of the city budget issue. president marshall: anything else for the director? all right. thank you, director hicks. >> you're welcome. president marshall: let's look at item 7. >> item 7. that is public comment in all matters pertaining to the closed session. closed session is described under items 9 a, b, c, and d.
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commissioner, i believe we're going to continue item 9-a. moving to 9 will have b. -- 9-b. an action item under personnel exception. a discussion of possible acks to sustain or not sustain disciplinary action pursuant to the government code, 9 c. that is a discussion of possible action to decide penalty of disciplinary charges. rfw 006.86.
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the following are personnel exception under possible actions issued. item 7 is public comment on all those matters. president marshall: item 8? >> 8 would be a vote to hold the closed session. >> commissioner dejesus: second. >> commissioner, it is 10:52 p.m., and the commission has closed session. moving to item 10, the vote to elect to disclose any or all of
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the discussion held in closed session. >> move for non-disclosure. >> then we will return to item 3. >> i think we should move to keep the remaining items on the calendar. every item that is remaining, i think we should continue those matters to the next police commission. >> i have a quick thing. i do not think we need to vote on this. i think we need to get this done between this meeting and the next one -- the hiring of new commission staff. i need to let you know that we would like to request that a chart -- that hr put up a help wanted sign. i do not think we need to vote on this. commissioner dejesus and i will
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tell hr. we don't need to hire anyone. we just need to put up a notice. commissioner hammer: i want to second commissioner mazzucco's motion. we could agree to have a short report from the department to speak on the issue, so the public knows the good work that are going to do and that is going to continue. president marshall: so we are not doing three or five. we want to take up six? i think he said we needed to do that? we will call item six. commissioner hammer: it is routine administrative business under which commissioner announcements are the following assignments. in case [unintelligible]
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similarly, an assignment of charges has been filed in case [unintelligible] for the taking of evidence on a date to be determined by the commissioner. these matters can be assigned to our newest commissioner. president marshall: those are discipline cases. public comment on item 6? seeing non-, we will call for item seven. -- item 11. >> seconded. president marshall: meeting is adjourned. thank you very much. i'm sorry. we should have announced -- >> pending our meeting at 10:55, i will know we will be dark next week on the 11th. willie back for our next meetings at city hall on august 18.
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