>> roll call. commission president mazzucco. president mazzucco: present. commission vice president marshall. vice president marshall: present. i>> commissioner james slaughte. >> slaughter. >> mr. president, you have a

quorum. >> good evening. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wednesday, march 232011 regularly scheduled police commission meeting. would you please call line item number one, the tenant? >> that would be general public comment. the public is now welcome to address the commission on items that are not on the agenda that are within the subject matter and jurisdiction of the commission. speechspeakers shall direct ther comments to the commission as a whole. during public comment, neither police nor personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions presented by the public. they may provide a brief response. in addition, the police commission should refrain from entering into any debates or discussion with speakers during

public comment. please limit your comments to three minutes. president mazzucco: thank you. good evening. >> good evening. my name is neil. i have spoken with you previously in the past. i have two items to talk to you about. one is one that i brought approximately a month ago. i sent the sheriff said letter requesting the cost analysis of the data program that he has used from day one, and what the monthly costs are. two is a reflection of his input on the collaborated study, where the police department gets too hot to% less the funds and allocations than the sheriff's department -- the police department gets 200% last then the funds allocated for the sheriff's department.

here are seven copies. secondly, i'd like to request that this commission bring george back before you so we can have a question and answer session related to the conflict of interest that is taking place under the crooked cop probe that has been shut down by the interim police chief, which also took place in los angeles, based on the record, what george worked there. it took place in oakland five years ago, where there are still missing two of the three so- called cops. i want to know personally what he knew about it while it was taking place while he was the police chief. we have no information on that. for the city and county of san francisco, with no input coming

from his office on the whys and hows of his investigation. i think by doing your duty to the city and county of san francisco, it would be advisable to bring him back before this commission for a question and answer session. i thank you for your time. president mazzucco: thank you. any further public comment? >> good evening, commissioners. my name is david snyder, and i appeared before you a couple weeks ago. last week, a cab driver was good enough to come down here to raise once again the issue of the reporting of attacks on cab drivers and high-tech solutions. for purposes of identification, i am co-founder of the united taxicab workers, affiliated with

the afl-cio, but i am not speaking officially on their behalf. as you probably know, there was an article that appeared in the examiner on wednesday, march 16, called cabbies talk about threats. i want to bring to your attention what i think is part of the problem. if i could get this up here a little bit. i don't know if this photograph and. it is not photographing. is there any way that we can get this to copy? ok, i will just read it to you. there is a section that deals with one of our concerns, and it

is a quote by an officer. it says this million dollar data collection system does not track crime specifically involving cabbies. that is part of the problem. we need to ramp that up. i would suggest that perhaps there be some intergovernmental cooperation between the sfmta and the police department to effectuate greater reporting of attacks on cabdrivers. specifically, in the cabs there are data terminals that could relate in real-time information regarding and attacked to all 1500 cabbies if the city had the

will to do that properly. there is more that i wanted to say, but that is it. i presented this addition to the sfmta. i will provide copies to you. this will give you an idea of what is going on. there is one other if you want to respond to that i could tell you what the glitches, but i could come back. president mazzucco: actually, the chief has a response. >> good evening. i was as concerned as you were about not being able to track crimes that occur in the cabs, and i think the officer was not correct. i think we can do that, and if we cannot, it is a simple fix. it is a simple matter of adding a code to the computer system. >> thank you. president mazzucco: any further public comment? >> good evening, commissioners.

i just want to state for the record that i really wanted to come up here and criticize officers' conduct, and unfortunately until this stops, somebody has to do it. i want to read a letter that was written by a 14 year-old who lives at the hotel. this was brought to my attention last week, one of my comrades who is the co-founder of our family project named a june bug. i will not expose the kids name because he is a minor, 14. president mazzucco: i agree. >> he was at the hotel on mission street. he says on the day of november 19, 2010, three cops came in my house for no reason and put guns to warheads. one said he would put a bullet in my mouth. i said, no, you want. some indian, put me on the wall

and put handcuffs on me and searched me. these cops had no search warrants and just busted in on us. the cop who slammed me -- i am sorry, he fractured my knee and i had to put a brace on for two months. they started to bust in once a month with no search warrant and started to take me for my mom and send her back to germinate -- and threaten to take me from my mom and send her back to germany. this scares me because they are not protecting us. they're causing crimes and harassing us. thank you. that was upsetting for me to read this letter from a 14 year- old who lives there. i don't think i need to tell any of you how i feel about this issue. i have been raising this issue a number of years. i felt compelled to bring this

to you as an entire administrative branch, because he is a kid and he is still growing and he feels intimidated by the police officers. i figured i might as well raise a voice for him, so everybody here is aware of how extremely disturbing this is because it can lead to serious dramatic ramifications for him to grow up thinking that all police officers who are supposed to protect and serve, and unfortunately with so much that is going on with corruption and things like that, of course he will feel traumatized. i just wanted to raise that issue. thank you very much. president mazzucco: thank you very much. any further public comment? dr. marshall has a quick question. >> did the person make a

complaint with the occ? >> i -- vice president marshall: yes or no? >> he'd never raised the issue with the occ. president mazzucco: if you could take that letter when you are done showing it to the chief and give it to the occ? ok. all right, further public comment? we will reopen it for you. >> i am desperately, -- i am debbie, with the domestic violence consortium. we are here today to thank the police department for the new protocols that were announced today at a press conference at 4:00. we're very excited about institutionalizing what is coming to be a cutting edge, leading edge new piece of

policy. we're very excited about it. also, the implementation of an elder abuse unit, and the new codes for child abuse and elder abuse. we just want to take this opportunity, because this is a great day for us and we're very excited about the progress we have made, and i think it is because of our partnership with law enforcement that domestic violence homicides are down 80%. we're very excited and happy to be partnering with you. president mazzucco: thank you. >> and the child abuse and elder abuse council is alleged to be part of this council. we're delighted with the new dispatch codes. it gives as much updated information as possible about the impact of family violence in the community. until we change the code, it did not happen. we're thrilled the police department work so fast. not as something is going on on a report, they know if it says it elder abuse, they know it is

elder abuse, child abuse they know, and domestic violence. thank you for working with the captains and commanders. they have been amazing. we look forward to continue working with them. president mazzucco: thank you very much. i am glad that you caught me before a closed off. >> so often you hear not complimentary things from this side, so we wanted to come here and thank you and thank the chief and his team for all the work that has been done. president mazzucco: we appreciate hearing these good things. we hear about them in a daily basis, but we generally do not hear them in front of the commission. >> we will try to come back more often. president mazzucco: okay, we're going to move into closed session for a disciplinary matter, but we have some folks here regarding a brief report we're going to get on the status of the budget, which is line item number 6. if that is ok, could we call

that next, how of order, line item number six? >> yes sir, we have three people here, experts who can tell you about personnel issues, or lack thereof, talk about the budget, and they are here to answer any questions you may have. president mazzucco: thank you. >> item 6, status report on the preparation of the 2011-2012 budget. if possible action to provide instruction to the department or take other action on the budget. >> good evening, commissioners. i am here at the request to keep you updated on the process that moves forward. for the fiscal year 2011-2012 budget, we submitted the department's proposal to the mayor's office with the 10% reduction the mayor's office had requested. we have not at this point been requested to submit any

additional contingency reductions, and i would be happy to answer any questions you have. president mazzucco: thank you. commissioner slaughter? commissioner slaughter: my questions are about the reductions the department is making going for about where those levels are going to be and what we are planning on doing to replenish them. every indication we have is we are at serious risk over the next three, four years to have a substantial reduction in force, and i want to see if that is still the assumption from the financial side, and if there has been any contingencies made in the budget for adding an academy classes. if you need to give an overview there. >> on the financial side, we are projecting somewhere around 100 retirements next year. that is where we have the majority of the savings that we were able to offer to the mayor's office, just by saying

that the department would not fill those retirements. commissioner slaughter: that would bring the force level to what? >> right now we have 2229 sworn officers, not counting the people who are off sick or not on duty. if we were to lose the 100, as such, we would be down to 2129. you could pull out about 200 who are usually an ada-compliant or light duty, that takes us down to 1900. that and then those at the airport as well. >> we have over the past six months received some dire projections about force reduction over the next couple years. is that still the view, chief,

mr. landis? this is still the case, there is no money in the budget for new classes? >> that is the case, but we have federal money left and we're going to hire more officers and the next three, four months. we gave back our initial 10% giveback we were obligated. there is no money in this budget for hiring of police officers in fiscal 11 -- in fiscal year 2011-2012. we lose between 6-8 per month. commissioner slaughter: could you describe the effect of the drop, on the force levels and the budget? >> i am not projecting that the program has a reduction on the budget. commissioner slaughter: do you -- president mazzucco: good evening, ms. gomez. >> good evening, commissioners.

i am the human-resources director of the department. commissioner, in response to the question, as ms. landis indicated, our average attrition level on a yearly basis is approximately 100 officers. based on that, and as the chief indicated, based on the current staffing, we will continue to see that attrition over the next several years. just to provide you with -- here we go. that based on the number of officers that are currently qualified to retire, based on

the minimal age of age 50 and 50-plus, 25 years of service, we currently have 479 officers in that category. looking at the next two years, it will grow incrementally to 500, then 598 over the next two years. commissioner slaughter: in the next two years, we will have 600 officers eligible to retire? >> yes. commissioner stoddert: obviously not all of them retire. do you project the effect of the program on potential retirements? >> certainly. commissioner slaughter: here is what i am trying to get at. we have been told we could have up to 25% reduction in the force. i regard that as the no. 1 that public safety issue facing san

francisco. 25% reduction in force and academy behind it, i think that is a pressing issue. i am acutely concerned about it and i want and trust that the department is making every effort to convince the mayor's office that ultimately controls the budget to add those classes back. i want to understand the effect of these problems. >> commissioner, in response to your question, i have included a projection of what our staffing would look like if we had no academy classes and if we had two, three, and five. based on our attrition, we would be at approximately 25% below our current staffing. >> the bottom line is we lose 100 per year. in order to maintain that, we would have to have at least two academy classes per year, and

that is to break even. we have 36 people who will complete the program in 2011. 36 people in 2012, 46 people in 2013. that is a total of 123 people who would complete the program, who are enrolled now. the bottom line is in order to maintain the staffing that we have now, we have to have at least two academy classes every year or we will not break even. commissioner slaughter: i don't mean to put words in your mouth or your staff's mouth, but could this be the number one public safety issue facing san francisco now? we have the america's cup coming up that will require creative staffing, let alone the potential losses we are facing. >> i agree, and i have spoken to the mayor on many occasions. he is well aware of our staffing issues. we're doing everything we can to look at every administrative position.

we're looking at 20% reduction in staff, what that would mean as far as cutting back on some of the units that we have, looking to put investigators back in the field. we're looking at all possibilities. anything i can throw on the wall to see if it will stick, we are experimenting with every way to get people in the field. but the mayor's office is very cognizant of the fact this is a big issue. commissioner slaughter: what does an academy class cost? do we know? >> the vast majority of the cost for academy classes are in salaries. leading up to and including everything except salary, it is about $1 million. commissioner slaughter: if the mayor says he wants to act two classes, what would you tell him that would cost? >> it would entirely depend if

we would be allowed to begin them earlier in the year or later in the year, because, again, it a salary. we are looking at one fiscal year and the cost of staff shelling out -- showing up the last three weeks of the year, it is almost nothing. if we look at the beginning of the year, it is almost millions. commissioner slaughter: i am not following. you have a class. i understand that it is salaries. you are talking about the salary of one class arrives? >> exactly. commissioner slaughter: let's say we want to complete them in a year, start early in the year. what is the conservative no. of what an academy class would cost assuming it starts early in the fiscal year? >> unfortunately, i did not look at two academy class ates, but

for three academy classes, spreading them out through the air, about $9 million. commissioner slaughter: but there other costs? >> it is approximately $1 million per class. commissioner slaughter: it would be approximately $9 million? >> equates to approximately the salary reduction that we gave as are cut. >> deborah, stop, stop. the commissioner is asking if today he wanted to get two classes, it what will that cost. >> if you start earlier in the art -- but no, just give me a ballpark figure. commissioner slaughter: even if it spans a couple years, i am

just trying to figure out -- >> if you start at the beginning of the year, it is about $4 million of salary and fringe, about $1 million of other cost. if you start mid september, which is the earliest we would be able to, that it would be $5 million for that one class. commissioner slaughter: i guess all i am trying to get out in the open for the public so that the mayor's office consider is budgeting is just priorities, and we have to have priorities. we have to decide if it is a priority of the city to spend an extra $5 million for an academy class, or whether instead we think it is worth it or acceptable to wait a few years and tried to backfill. we don't do the budgeting, the mayor's office in consultation with the department does. i guess my personal view is i would encourage -- i am sure you

are doing this, i would encourage the chief and the department to pound the table as hard as you can then say this is the number-one job of the municipality, and we need to be hammering that home at every turn. to me, there are many important issues that come before this commission, but none more and pour the that. -- none more important than that. >> following up, we have been told there are 479 officers today who are retirement eligible. here is my concern. if at some point in the budget negotiations we ask the officers to take a pay cut, if we do that, the officers probably would retire because their pension would be premised on their last year's pay. if we ask them to take 10% pay cut, that means the officers would probably retire before that pay cut so they are not

affected that extra 10% the rest of their life. is that an issue we are addressing? are we concerned about that? i know if your retirement eligible, taking a pay cut, they will just retire. and we piggyback that with inflation we have received about the time that it takes to train an officer, get them up to speed. if we get in a situation where fall under 79 officers retired to protect their pension, i think the public needs to know that the time that it takes from taking the exam to become a police officer to doing a background check to entering the academy is probably six months, nine month process at the soonest, followed by six months in the academy, followed by four months in the field training program, followed by in some cases it takes two, three, sometimes for years to get an officer where they're comfortable and fully qualified. that is my concern.