Newsom Veto Undermines Black’s Campaign Message

As Daly explained at the October 17th Board meeting, police foot patrols is a simple reform that District 6 residents “have been clamoring for years.” It’s an issue that Daly himself raised when he first ran in 2000. The proposed legislation creates a one-year pilot program in the Tenderloin, South-of-Market, Western Addition and Bayview. It will direct the Police Department in these neighborhoods to have two daily shifts of foot patrols, with the discretion to expand the program if feasible. Police chiefs at various precincts will meet on a frequent basis to discuss the program’s effectiveness, and provide the Supervisors with regular progress reports. Due to concerns from the Police Chief about staffing shortages and emergency responses, the legislation would not go into effect until January 1, 2007.

In his Veto Message, Newsom wrote that it is “very dangerous for the Board of Supervisors to dictate where police officers are deployed … They know better than we do in City Hall what is required to protect residents, as well as ensure their officers’ safety.” Supervisor Sean Elsbernd essentially made the same argument at the October 17th Board meeting when he said “the Board of Supervisors should not tell a paramilitary organization on how to deploy its troops.” But if elected officials should be powerless to control what law enforcement does, why do we have a Police Review Commission? What can a Supervisor do when there’s a high crime rate in their District?

Supervisors who pushed the foot-patrol legislation were simply listening to the needs of their constituents who demanded this change. Tenderloin residents, for example, overwhelmingly agree that the police could do a better job dealing with basic quality-of-life concerns on the street if they got out of their cars and patrolled the sidewalk. Neighbors frequently complain about rampant drug dealing in front of their homes, as police squad cars zoom up and down the neighborhood’s one-way streets – only to stop if the problem becomes violent.

Read More
http://beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=3876#more