Proposition N could help pay off first responders’ student loans with the goal of attracting new hires amid staffing shortages.

Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do.

Support

Proponents say the measure would help alleviate staffing crises across multiple departments. They also say it would act as an “innovative incentive” to attract highly skilled talent in a competitive market. 

“Our public safety and health care ecosystem is severely strained right now, and we need to create incentives to prevent a catastrophic breaking point and ensure that we can attract and retain excellent, qualified candidates to serve our city’s public safety ecosystem,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who co-drafted the measure and is running for mayor, at a July 22 Rules Committee meeting. “These are the people we count on every single day, and we must prioritize proper staffing levels.”

Supervisors Shamann Walton, Matt Dorsey, Joel Engardio and Connie Chan also support the measure, as do Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the San Francisco Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association and San Francisco Firefighters Local 798. 

Opposition

Larry Marso, the registered opponent of this measure as well as of propositions C, E, G and M, argued in his official opposition statement that Proposition N fails to address underlying issues that lead to student loan debt among first responders, such as rising education costs and inadequate compensation. He also said the measure could encourage early retirement, as workers may be more inclined to leave once their loans are forgiven.

What it would do

Proposition N would create a fund to help police officers, firefighters, paramedics, sheriffs, nurses and 911 dispatchers employed by the city pay off their student loan debts. Money from the fund could also pay for job-related educational and training expenses that today aren’t eligible for reimbursement.

To qualify, first responders would need to be hired in 2025 or beyond, and work for the city for at least three consecutive years. The city would pay off at most $25,000 per person. Proposition N does not have a funding mechanism. The mayor and Board of Supervisors could later decide to put money into the fund, which could also receive donations from private philanthropy.

Regarding the lack of funding, Safaí said that asking for taxes in an economy still struggling to recover would be a hard sell, and that he preferred to not automatically set aside funds from the city’s annual budget for a narrow group of individuals as City Hall faces persistent budget deficits.

When asked for examples of private philanthropy in city government, Safaí cited Mayor London Breed’s recent bid to fundraise $25 million to acquire pandas from China for the San Francisco Zoo. He also mentioned donations from Salesforce to the San Francisco Unified School District and a donation of at least $1 million from an individual to the San Francisco Police Department “to help with their technology purchases.”

Cost

The San Francisco Controller’s Office estimated that it would cost $315,000 annually to administer the fund after the program had been set up. The city could begin paying off loans once the fund collected $1 million.

Campaign finance

As of Oct. 7, the “Yes on N” campaign committee had raised $101,000, according to data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. That includes $50,000 from the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs Political Action Committee and $20,000 from Marina Cleaners Inc. The campaign committee that backed the failed Proposition B on the March ballot — the measure would have set minimum staffing levels for the police department — also gave $25,000.

No group opposing Proposition N had reported fundraising activity to the city.

History and context

City officials and department employees have been vocal in recent years about vacancies among law enforcement, 911 dispatchers, nurses and others involved in emergency management and response. The mayor and several supervisors have deployed numerous strategies to increase hiring. Proposition N is one of several proposed measures — including propositions F, H and I — on the November ballot that address first responder recruitment and retention.

Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Rafael Mandelman, Myrna Melgar and Aaron Peskin voted against putting the measure on the ballot. While they don’t oppose Proposition N, Supervisors Peskin, Melgar and Mandelman expressed concern about overloading the ballot.

Peskin, the Board of Supervisors’ president and mayoral hopeful, said it was unnecessary to put the issue before voters when the supervisors could establish the fund on their own, a sentiment Mandelman echoed.

“Sometimes you’re bringing something to the voters and it’s really important to get them to weigh in on it, but I don’t really see that,” Mandelman said. “It seems like it certainly could have been done just as a regular old ordinance, although I think people would have asked, even if it weren’t on the ballot, ‘How are we funding this?’”

Safaí said he wanted a mandate from voters to create the fund.

“It’s important that the voters of San Francisco have an opportunity to weigh in on this and make a strong statement,” he said at a July 30 Board of Supervisors meeting.

Votes needed to pass

Proposition N requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.

Click here to return to our full voter guide.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Oct. 9, 2024, to clarify that the “Yes on N” campaign committee received donations from the campaign committee that had backed Proposition B on the March ballot.

The post Proposition N — Create Fund to Pay Off First Responders’ Student Loans appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition H would lower the age by which members of the San Francisco Fire Department could qualify for their maximum retirement packages, from 58 to 55, in an effort to encourage them to protect their health by leaving the work sooner.

Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do.

Support

Earlier retirements could save firefighters’ lives by reducing their exposure to smoke and toxic chemicals, which recent studies show to be more harmful than previously known.

“We have to take a step to make things better for the lives of those who have come after us and the younger folks who have come in the department,” said Floyd Rollins, president of the union representing the city’s firefighters, at a July meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

The measure has the support of the full board and nearly every prominent candidate for mayor in this election.

Opposition

But one mayoral candidate opposes Proposition H: incumbent Mayor London Breed.

Breed is backing Proposition F, which would bolster the San Francisco Police Department’s dwindling ranks by allowing retirement-age officers to continue working while being paid pension benefits. Breed said that supporting both propositions F and H would be fiscally irresponsible as it would increase the cost of government at a time when City Hall faces persistent budget deficits.

“When you’re a candidate, you can promise the world,” Breed told the San Francisco Examiner. “When you’re mayor, you have an obligation to be a responsible leader.”

San Francisco, which has a $15.9 billion budget, is struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote-work norms have emptied downtown offices and depressed commercial real estate values and tax revenues. Officials in July finalized numerous cuts to departments and services to resolve the latest projected deficit of nearly $800 million over the next two years.

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco also opposes Proposition H. The party’s chair, Starchild, said in the official opponent argument that it would overturn voters’ “prudent action” of 2011, when they approved today’s pension rules. Starchild said those changes protected firefighters’ retirement packages by helping San Francisco avoid bankruptcy during the boom-and-bust cycle that culminated in the 2008 Great Recession — some other California cities did not fare as well. Proposition H shows a “lack of planning” for the next bust, Starchild said.

“Better to explore ways to protect firefighters and reward them for their heroic service which do not increase unsustainable future spending obligations,” Starchild said.

What it would do

Today, firefighters and other fire department staff hired before Jan. 7, 2012, can qualify for their maximum retirement packages by age 55. Those hired on or after that date can qualify by age 58.

If passed, Proposition H would make all department staff eligible for their largest retirement packages by age 55.

Cost

The estimated annual cost to implement the measure would be about $3.7 million in the first year and increase as more firefighters started their retirements earlier. City Hall would cover the difference by taking on debt — and interest rates would push total annual costs even higher, possibly reaching $21.2 million by 2041, said City Controller Greg Wagner during the July meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Costs would later fall as the debt was paid off, Wagner said.

Those estimates do not include the fire department’s potential expenses to increase its hiring rate, to fill positions vacated by firefighters who retired earlier, Wagner noted. It costs about $115,000 to hire and train a firefighter.

Campaign finance

As of Oct. 7, the “Yes on H” campaign committee had raised $1,397,950, according to data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. 

No group opposing Proposition H had reported fundraising activity to the city.

History and context

This ballot measure has roots in efforts, from over a decade ago, to rein city workers’ pensions, which were a growing financial burden on local government. At the time, when San Francisco’s budget was about $6.8 billion, the city controller projected that pension costs would grow to nearly $1 billion by 2021.

That was due to many factors, such as climbing wages and health care costs, and eligibility rules for pensions. Proposition C, passed by voters in 2011, sought to improve the city’s finances by altering those rules.

This included pushing back the age by which public workers became eligible for their full pensions, equivalent to 90% of their final annual compensation: Most personnel could retire with full pension benefits at age 65, raised from 62; for firefighters and police officers, the threshold became age 58, up from 55. The firefighters’ union supported Proposition C, as did the full Board of Supervisors and then-Mayor Ed Lee.

New findings on risks of firefighting

Recent research has better revealed the long-term health impacts of firefighting, animating supporters of Proposition H.

Exposure to smoke, toxic chemicals and fumes contributes to mental health problems, cardiac issues, chronic health conditions and, most notably, cancer — the leading cause of occupational death among firefighters, who have a 14% higher risk of dying from the disease than the general population, according to the official proponent argument for Proposition H.

Firefighters may suffer higher death rates from all cancers, including mesothelioma, which is especially aggressive and deadly, according to a 2020 study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The study found that older firefighters had higher incidences of lung cancer, leukemia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD, correlating with exposure to fires.

Even firefighters’ protective clothing may be harming them. Scientists have long known that firefighters’ bodies have high levels of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” linked to increased rates of cancer. A study published last year revealed that their clothing contained PFAS. And a study earlier this year showed that those chemicals became more concentrated in protective gear that was deteriorated or subjected to high temperatures.

During the July meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Lorenzo Rosas, a legislative aide to Supervisor Catherine Stefani, said that 300 active and retired San Francisco firefighters had died of cancer in less than 20 years, and female firefighters had breast cancer rates six times higher than the national average.

Rosas said that not passing Proposition H, and maintaining the status quo, would take a financial as well as a human toll. The firefighters’ union faced “$12.3 million in increased compensation costs, solely as a result of more firefighters’ cancer claims,” he said.

Votes needed to pass

Proposition H requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.

Click here to return to our full voter guide.

The post Proposition H — Enable Earlier Retirement for Firefighters appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition I would improve retirement packages for 911 call dispatchers, as well as nurses who transitioned from temporary to full-time staff positions, in an effort to attract more people to those city jobs.

The measure could help fix persistent staffing shortages and improve emergency and health services in San Francisco, supporters say. 

“When we look to the future, we have to ask ourselves, who’s going to answer these calls?” said 911 dispatcher Valerie Tucker, referring to emergency phone calls, at a July public meeting about the measure. “Currently, we’re not even replacing the members that are leaving due to retirement.”

Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do.

Support

Proponents argue that if Proposition I increased recruitment and staffing, City Hall could reduce expensive overtime, saving taxpayers money.

The measure is endorsed by the full Board of Supervisors and Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the chapter that represents nurses and emergency dispatchers. 

Opposition

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco opposes Proposition I. The city’s government is already too large, and spending more money on public employees while expanding their ranks would increase the burden on taxpayers, the party says in its argument against the measure.

What it would do

Registered nurses working for the Department of Public Health can take shifts on a temporary basis, as needed, or they can be full-time city employees with pensions. The more years that employees work, the greater their retirement packages are.

When a temporary nurse transitions to a full-time position, the process can take months or even years. In the meantime, they are still treated as temporary, meaning their work hours do not count toward retirement benefits.

Proposition I would allow registered nurses who made that transition to then pay the city to retroactively include up to three years of prior temporary work for the city in calculations of their retirement benefits. 

Proposition I would rectify a long-standing inequity: Today’s nurses, most of whom are women, are the only city workers who cannot buy back pension time when they become permanent employees, said Heather Bollinger, a registered nurse and president of the chapter that represents them at SEIU Local 1021. 

Proposition I would also switch 911 dispatchers, their supervisors and related staff to better retirement plans on Jan. 4, 2025, though the new plans would be inferior to those for other emergency responders like firefighters and police officers. 

Cost

The cost to implement the measure would be between $3.8 million and $6.7 million in the first year and increase over time, according to estimates by the controller’s office. 

The city’s expenses would depend in part on how many nurses participated. As of July 2023, there were 1,400 registered nurses working for the city who would be eligible to buy back work credit, the controller’s office said. 

Costs tied to the retirement packages of emergency call staff would rise with other payroll expenses, including hiring new employees or giving people raises. The city employs 175 emergency dispatchers and related staff, the controller said. 

Campaign finance

As of Oct. 7, the “Yes on I” campaign committee had raised $110,000, entirely from SEIU Local 1021, according to data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

No group opposing Proposition I had reported fundraising activity to the city.

History and context

A nationwide shortage of registered nurses, as well as long hiring and training processes, have created vacancies among San Francisco’s nurses in recent months. That has fueled burnout, which in turn threatens to cause more vacancies. Dispatchers have faced similar challenges. 

“This is not something that’s unique to San Francisco,” said District 11 Supervisor and mayoral candidate Ahsha Safaí, who co-wrote Proposition I, at the July public meeting. 

“But I can tell you, talking to nurses, talking to 911 operators,” Safaí said, “they are at a breaking point.” 

Between 20% and 25% of dispatcher positions were vacant as of April, according to data that Safaí obtained from the Department of Emergency Management, which employs dispatchers. The measure’s authors say the vacancies have caused longer wait times between when someone calls 911 and when a dispatcher picks up. The department aims to pick up 95% of calls within 15 seconds, but that rate was 90% in January 2022 and 73% in February 2024. 

And an estimated 169 registered nurse positions were vacant as of March, according to data that Safaí obtained from the Department of Public Health. Those vacancies have caused the quality of care to drop at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, a public hospital, according to a 2023 Civil Grand Jury report. 

The city is filling staff shortages by hiring temporary nurses, through corporate contractors, who are paid 14% more than their full-time counterparts would be, Safaí and other Proposition I supporters say.

By letting nurses put their prior work hours toward pensions, Proposition I could draw people away from private hospitals and toward full-time positions with San Francisco.

“Private hospitals can provide better salaries and benefits and work conditions but they cannot compete with the city’s retirement package for employees,” said Esther Lee, legislative aide to Safaí. 

Votes needed to pass

Proposition I requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.

Click here to return to our full voter guide.

The post Proposition I — Give Nurses and 911 Operators Better Pension Plans appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition F aims to bolster police staffing by giving retirement-eligible officers a financial incentive to continue working: They could begin drawing pensions early, alongside their salaries, for up to five years.

Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do.

Support

Proposition F would help sustain the San Francisco Police Department’s personnel levels while recruitment and training worked toward filling widespread vacancies resulting from attrition, according to the measure’s co-authors, including supervisors Matt Dorsey and Aaron Peskin, who is running for mayor. 

If current rates of hiring and retiring hold, the department could be 40% under-staffed within five years, Dorsey says in the measure’s official proponent argument, co-signed by seven of the city’s 11 supervisors. Other supporters include Mayor London Breed and Sheriff Paul Miyamoto.

“We are facing a retirement cliff,” said Dorsey, a former police department spokesperson, at a July meeting that the Board of Supervisors held to discuss the measure. Proposition F could prevent up to 50 retirements per year, Dorsey said.

Opposition

The proposition’s opponents call it “wasteful,” “ineffective” and “unfair” in the official argument against it, co-signed by supervisors Hillary Ronen, Shamann Walton and Dean Preston, as well as Police Commissioner Jesus Yanez, Public Defender Manohar Raju and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

The city has previously tried Proposition F’s dual salary-pension approach, but it did not increase officer retention, the opponents said. Now faced with persistent budget deficits, the city “cannot afford” to implement this measure, they said.

In a presentation to her board colleagues at the July meeting, Ronen said Proposition F could “start to build a resentment” from other city workers. That’s because the benefiting officers’ salaries would average between $400,000 and $500,000 in the first year — money that could instead go toward easing staff shortages among transit operators and many other quarters of City Hall, she said.

“If I was a social worker or a 911 call operator, and I saw these figures, I would say, ‘Why don’t they care about me?’” Ronen said.

What it would do

Proposition F would try to address the police department’s staffing woes by resuscitating the Deferred Retirement Option Program. Voters approved this program through Proposition B in 2008, but officials abandoned it after it failed to meet its goal of being cost-neutral. Dorsey said that, this time around, the public should expect the program to cost money.

Full-time sworn officers, sergeants and inspectors would be eligible to participate in the deferred retirement program if they were at least 50 years old and had accrued at least 25 years of service. Participants would patrol neighborhoods or conduct investigations for up to five years, after which they would retire. While in the deferred retirement program, they would receive salaries, as well as pension payments that the city would hold in a tax-deferred, interest-bearing account for participants to access after leaving the program.

To minimize administrative burdens, Proposition F would reduce how frequently the chief of police must report staffing levels to the city’s Police Commission, an oversight body, from every two years to every three years. The commission would report annually to the Board of Supervisors on police staffing goals, which include increasing female representation to 30% of recruits by 2030.

Cost

The Deferred Retirement Option Program annual cost would depend on how many officers participated and at what levels of their careers. Officers nearer the ends of their careers would receive greater compensation, with annual pension payments equaling up to 90% of their salaries upon joining the program. Younger officers would receive smaller salaries and pensions at lower percentages of their pay.

The deferred retirement program’s tab in its first year could range from $600,000 to $3 million, according to an analysis by the city controller’s office. After that it could cost up to $3 million annually, but it’s possible that the program would instead save the city up to $300,000 per year, said Alison Romano, chief investment officer of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System. That could happen if its pay structure enticed officers to participate before they reached their maximum salaries, calibrating their retirement packages to provide lower total payouts over time.

At best, retaining officers through the deferred retirement program would address only part of the police department’s staffing problem. Retirees are just a fraction of officer attrition, which far outpaces the department’s hiring and training process, according to the San Francisco Police Officers Association. Last year, the police department hired 33 full-duty sworn officers and lost 417.

Campaign finance

As of Oct. 7, the “Yes on F” campaign committee had raised $231,630, according to data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. 

No group opposing Proposition F had reported fundraising activity to the city.

History and context

The police department is about 500 people short of its staffing goal of 2,074 full-duty sworn officers, determined by its 2022 analysis in partnership with Matrix Consulting Group. Some crime researchers criticized the analysis since it relied on data from calls for service and police response times, rather than on the industry standards of population or crime levels, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

To staff shifts despite having too few personnel, the department is spending heavily on overtime pay. One officer earned $450,000 on top of his $207,000 annual salary, the Chronicle reported.

The Board of Supervisors has funded recent attempts to curtail attrition. It increased wages and retention bonuses with a $17 million payment to the police department in 2022, followed by an April 2023 payment of $166 million, to be paid over three years.

Votes needed to pass

Proposition F requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.

Click here to return to our full voter guide.

The post Proposition F — Delay Officer Retirement to Bolster Police Staffing appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The unrelenting abuse by her husband continued for months even after the San Francisco mother succeeded in getting a restraining order against him. In 2020, she told police that he had started using remote technology that was connected to the car apps of their 2016 Tesla Model X family car to terrorize her.

She alleged that she would often return to her vehicle, only to find the doors open or locked, or the heat turned on, or the horn honking, or the vehicle’s ability to charge turned off.

“He had the resources to run an all-round torture campaign against me,” the woman told this reporter in a telephone interview.

Cases of the kind of technology-enabled stalking and other forms of harassment Kailey (she did not want her real name used because of ongoing litigation) experienced are on the rise as automakers are adding more and more sophisticated features into their vehicles and turning cars that were once considered sanctuaries by their owners into “computers on wheels,” said Robert Harrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. Some call them smart phones with wheels.

But that could soon change, and vehicles could once again become safe havens for their owners if California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the Access to Connected Vehicle Service bill authored by Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine. The bill sailed through the legislature last month. Newsom has until the end of this month to sign it.

SB 1394 was jointly co-authored by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, D-La Mesa and Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento. It would establish a legal process for the rapid termination of a domestic abuser’s access to app-connected remote and GPS-based vehicle technology.

“Abuse of these apps can be very threatening and traumatizing to survivors,” Min said in a telephone interview earlier this week. If enacted, California would be the first state in the nation to have such a bill.

A ‘lifeline’ for DV survivors

Multiple women’s rights advocates who supported the bill say a car is a lifeline to survivors. Having safety and privacy that a car can provide is “crucial to my clients,” said Prof. Jane Stoever, director of the UC Irvine Law Domestic Violence Clinic, and a co-sponsor of Min’s bill.

Smart phone apps allow owners to check a car’s location if they forget where they parked it or to lock or unlock it remotely. The car owner can grant access to a limited number of other drivers.

Drafted with input from a number of survivors, women’s rights advocates and some car manufacturers themselves, Min said he hoped SB 1394 would address domestic violence abusers exploiting in-car location tracking to harass and intimidate survivors.

“In this rapidly growing digital age, bills like SB 1394 are a step in the right direction,” noted Shobha Hiatt, a co-founder of Narika, a Bay Area-based support group for South Asian survivors of domestic violence. “More states should follow suit.”

A woman in Southern California discovered an Apple AirTag plugged under her dash by her abusive husband that allowed him to track her movements in real time. When she asked him about it, he dismissively said, “Oh, you found it. I’ve been looking for it.” The couple is now in the midst of custody arrangements for their three young sons.

Kailey sued her husband in State Superior Court in 2020, claiming sexual battery and assault. She included Tesla as a defendant, accusing the carmaker of negligence for continuing to provide the husband access to the car even though she had a restraining order against him.

She began her requests to Tesla to end access in 2018, a year after the police began investigating her complaints. The carmaker told her that as long as her husband’s name remained on the vehicle’s title as co-owner, they couldn’t deny him access.

Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow sided with Tesla that the woman had no proof “other than her belief and imagination” that her husband had used the car’s technology to stalk and harass her, according to court transcripts. Both husband and wife had “a right” to use the car technology, he wrote. At their request, both Kailey and her husband have been identified only by their initials in court documents.

In the early part of the police investigation, Tesla had told police that the remote access logs they were asking for were only available within seven days of the events recorded, according to the lawsuit.

Kailey lost the case and has relocated out of California, she said. The couple decided to sell their car. Their divorce and custody issues are pending.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

AAI concerned about potential for harm

Other automakers offer similar tracking and remote access features, although some of them have taken steps to prevent the misuse of data their vehicles track.

In a May 23 letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), a technology-focused trade group for automakers and suppliers that represents 98% of car and light trucks sold in the United States, stressed that it was concerned about the potential for abuse of connected vehicle services to stalk or harass domestic violence survivors. Disclosing location-tracking data to an abuser could “create a potential for significant harm,” the AAI wrote.

Min’s bill would address many of those concerns. It would require carmakers to disable an abuser’s access to connected vehicle services within two business days of receiving a request from a survivor. Documentation, such as proof of legal possession of the vehicle, or a domestic violence restraining order that awards vehicular possession would be enough to sever digital access with their abuser even if they hold a joint title, according to a press release from Min’s office.

Kailey said she was happy that the bill had made it to the governor’s desk because survivors like herself should not have to go through what she did.

“The reason I bought that car was because I thought it was safe,” she said.

The post Domestic Violence Abusers May No Longer Be Able to Track Their Partners With Their Apps appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

San Francisco again faced the specter of anti-Asian hate as two major cases captured public attention this month. 

On Friday, Asian American activists and community members rallied at the Hall of Justice against a judge’s decision to grant probation and mental health treatment, rather than issue a harsher sentence, to Daniel Cauich, who in 2021 stabbed Ahn “Peng” Taylor, a Chinese Vietnamese woman in her 90s. That was just weeks after the police department re-opened an investigation into the death of Yanfang Wu, an elderly Chinese immigrant who died after being pushed down on a sidewalk last year. 

The cases were reminders of why concerns persist over violence against Asian Americans in San Francisco — and of why the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice still exists. 

The coalition, a group of nonprofits serving the Asian American community, formed in 2019 in response to a wave of racially driven attacks. Its goals include increasing public safety through grassroots efforts like community-building and victim support, including for Taylor, Wu’s husband and about 80 other Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in this past year. The San Francisco Public Press accompanied staff from Community Youth Center, a coalition member, in the Richmond District in late 2023 during one of their frequent outreach events visiting Asian residents and businesses throughout the city.  

That day, outreach workers ducked in and out of various stores on Clement Street, home to many Asian-owned businesses. 

They tried talking to whomever they met: store owners, employees and sometimes people they passed on the sidewalk. They handed out flyers and small gifts like whistles and electronic keychains that played a siren with the press of a button. 

Outreach worker Lida Vatanadilogkul checked in with Thai merchants. “I would let them know that if they need any resources or if they know anybody who has been a victim of a hate crime or other incidents, we are here to help,” she said.  

Over the past three years, Vatanadilogkul and her colleagues have taken similar walks through commercial districts with significant Asian populations, acting as a reassuring presence and connecting people with services after harrowing encounters.  

“If something happens to you, we will be here,” said Henry Ha, the team’s leader. “We will follow up with you, we will walk you through the hard time to help you to recover and heal.”  

Recent data on hate crimes hints that San Francisco has become safer for Asian Americans. There were 60 incidents that merited anti-Asian hate crime charges in 2021 and 14 in 2023, police Sgt. Jamie Hyun said at a February committee meeting of the Board of Supervisors. But because those figures miss many types of potential bigoted behavior, they fail to represent the full public safety situation, Hyun said. Ha has found also that some victims, especially seniors, might not report incidents or seek help after being attacked. Many are immigrants who don’t speak English, which makes it challenging for them to file police reports or navigate the legal system. 

But if people don’t talk about what happened to them, Ha said, it could hamper efforts to prevent similar incidents. That’s why one of the team’s aims is to identify crime victims and help them report their experiences. Outreach workers speak many languages — Cantonese, Thai and Tagalog, to name a few — so that they can penetrate diverse communities. 

“If you speak the language, you will make a lot of elderly [people] feel more comfortable,” Ha said, “and they will share what happened with you.”  

Back on Clement Street, Ha met with Andy Wei, a locksmith whose store had been broken into and vandalized. He later helped Wei secure a $1,000 city grant to repair the damage. 

But the team’s work is about more than preventing and responding to crime. Members spend most of their time cultivating relationships. Their hope is that people will feel comfortable reaching out to them when facing situations they do not know how to handle. 

“We cannot do all the work by ourselves,” Ha said. “We also need to rely on the community to help each other look out for each other, to let us know who needs help.” 

The post As Attacks on Asian Americans Regain Spotlight, SF Group Seeks to Soothe Community appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Algunas personas recitan una oración de agradecimiento por el tiempo que pasaron en la cárcel del condado de San Francisco. Entre ellos está un hombre del Área de la Bahía al que llamaremos Carlos para respetar su solicitud de anonimato. 

“Gracias a Dios que yo me salí,” Carlos dijo, 29. “Busqué una mejor vida porque me acerqué a buenas personas, me acerqué a personas que me orientaron, me acerqué a personas que querían en realidad verme triunfar en la vida.”

Esas personas eran proveedoras de programas en español en las cárceles del condado. Carlos es de Honduras y llegó a San Francisco por un trabajo prometido que nunca se materializó. En cambio, vendió drogas.

Todo eso cambió cuando fue encarcelado en la cárcel del condado de San Francisco por cargos relacionados con drogas hace casi cuatro años. Cuando era encarcelado, conoció a un trabajador hispanohablante de ReSET Justice Collaborative – una de las organizaciones comunitarias que trabajan con el director de los programas de la cárcel para brindar capacitación vocacional, cursos educativos, tratamiento de trastornos por uso de sustancias, clases de manejo de la ira, actividades culturales, clases de inglés y observancias religiosas.

“Ellos fueron a visitarme a la cárcel. Y desde ahí ellos me suscribieron a lugares donde podían ayudarme,” Carlos dijo.“Luego de que salí me ayudaron a conseguir un trabajo que aún todavía lo tengo. Tengo dos años trabajando en este trabajo acá. No volví a regresar nunca más, nunca más a mezclarme con ventas de droga. … No me he vuelto a meter al Tenderloin y me ha servido mucho porque le he traído más tranquilidad a mi familia.”

Pero desde entonces, los programas ofrecidos en español en la cárcel del condado de San Francisco se han vuelto prácticamente inexistentes porque los cierres de rutina causados ​​por la escasez de personal han hecho prácticamente imposible impartir clases. Incluso con los diputados trabajando en turnos obligatorios de 16 horas, no hay suficientes para acompañar a las personas que administran sesiones de rehabilitación y otros programas de capacitación a las cárceles. El 2 de febrero, numerosos proveedores de servicios sociales para la población latina encarcelada imploraron a la Junta de Supervisión del Departamento del Sheriff en su reunión que los ayudará a obtener acceso a la cárcel.

Parecía que el liderazgo de la cárcel respondió al llamado público la semana siguiente anunciando un nuevo programa de recuperación del uso de sustancias y una clase de arte terapia ofrecida en español; sin embargo, un portavoz de la cárcel dijo que han estado planificando las clases desde octubre pasado. Sin embargo, algunos trabajadores carcelarios que llevan mucho tiempo expresaron dudas de que los programas durarían más de unas pocas semanas.

La falta de programación en español es un problema crecientemente grave ya que el encarcelamiento de latinos ha aumentado desde el lanzamiento el junio pasado de una ofensiva policial contra las drogas en los vecindarios de Tenderloin y sur de Market.

Según datos del Departamento del Sheriff, del 1 de junio al 10 de noviembre de 2023 (el más nuevo disponible), el 42% de las personas ingresadas en la cárcel del condado de San Francisco por cargos relacionados con drogas eran latinas, en comparación con el 30% que eran personas negras y el 28% que eran personas blancas. Y como Carlos vio hace años, algunas personas necesitan comunicar su necesidad de ayuda desesperadamente.

“Hay personas ahí que tienen hasta problemas mentales, problemas mentales que no pueden lidiar. ¿Y cómo se los van a contar a alguien que hable inglés y no entiende?” Carlos dijo. 

El año pasado, la policía también se dirigió a personas por simple consumo de drogas para motivarlos a recibir tratamiento para el trastorno por uso de sustancias, según funcionarios municipales y oficiales. Sin embargo, desde entonces, el programa de tratamiento de la cárcel, Road to Recovery, ha estado disponible sólo en inglés, a pesar del interés expresado por parte de la población latino.

Según datos del Departamento de Salud Pública de la ciudad, de septiembre de 2022 a septiembre de 2023, los Servicios de Salud Penitenciario evaluaron que 380 pacientes latinos encarcelados tenían un trastorno para consumir opioides. De ellos, 209 buscaron tratamientos a través de medicamentos como buprenorfina o metadona.

No está claro cuántos de ellos no recibieron programación de tratamiento porque eran monolingües de español, ya que no rastrean datos sobre preferencias de idioma.

Pero en un caso en octubre pasado, la proveedora de servicios Joanna Hernández del Latino Task Force, una asociación con sede en San Francisco de más de tres docenas de organizaciones comunitarias, dijo que fue testigo de un grupo de hombres en el programa del Road to Recovery en la cárcel del condado No. 3 en San Bruno. Hernández dijo que de los 46 hombres en el programa, 20 hablaban español y apenas podían entender la clase.

“A veces, simplemente se sientan y entienden algunas de las palabras, pero si no, simplemente van a sus celdas,” dijo Hernández en inglés. “Y luego me lo comprobé con el personal y me dijo: ‘No tengo personal que hable español y apesta porque siguen poniendo a personas que no hablan el idioma en este módulo del programa.’

“Es algo que pasa mucho dentro de las cárceles. Entonces, la gente está volviendo al mismo lío, volviendo al mismo comportamiento – si no volviendo peor, porque fueron confinados y arrancados de su familia, de sus hijos, de su religión, de todo.”

Ali Riker, directora de programas del Departamento del Sheriff, dijo que estaba consciente de que los hispanohablantes van a Road to Recovery, el programa en inglés. Dijo que cree que esto sucedió porque sabían suficiente inglés como para solicitar acceso al programa.

“No prohibimos la participación a las personas que lo solicitaron,” dijo Riker. “Sé que no es lo ideal. Estamos haciendo nuestro mejor esfuerzo. ¿Es suficiente? Ya sabes, necesitamos más. Definitivamente necesitamos más recursos.”

La Cárcel #3 del Condado de San Francisco en San Bruno es uno de los lugares donde los que son encarcelados pueden ir al programa Road to Recovery, un programa de rehabilitación para trastornos por uso de sustancias. El programa no se ofrece en español.

Read this story in English.

Hernández se unió a los otros proveedores de servicios sociales latinos en la Junta de Supervisión del Departamento del Sheriff el 2 de febrero. Dijo que ha experimentado el caos causado por la escasez de personal.

“Cuando llegas a facilitar tu clase, te dicen: ‘Lo siento, no llegamos al mínimo, el programa está cancelado’,” dijo Hernández. También dijo que descuidar las oportunidades vocacionales y de rehabilitación en la cárcel es contraproducente para los objetivos declarados de la ciudad.

“Sé que la gente quiere seguridad pública,” ella dijo. “Y sé que la gente quiere que cese la venta de drogas y que les roben o les golpeen los coches. ¿Pero qué hacemos encarcelando a la gente y no reciben ninguna rehabilitación?”

Los efectos negativos a largo plazo son especialmente tristes para los jóvenes encarcelados. Del 1 de junio al 10 de noviembre, hubo 10 veces más latinos de entre 18 y 24 años ingresados ​​en cárceles de San Francisco que las personas blancas o negras entre la misma edad. Y los defensores dicen que los más jóvenes necesitan especialmente programas de reinserción social, ya que los antecedentes penales les impiden adquirir habilidades laborales, avances profesionales y oportunidades económicas.

Los representantes del grupo comunitario dijeron a los comisionados de supervisión que ellos y otros proveedores de programas están en la mejor posición para ayudar a cambiar estas vidas.

“Somos culturalmente competentes,” dijo Bianca Sánchez, administradora de casos de Bay Area Community Resources. “Implementamos un enfoque centrado en la sanación y tenemos una perspectiva informada sobre el trauma, lo que nos hace más equipados para brindar servicios y apoyo dentro de las cárceles. Como profesionales capacitados, podemos brindar servicios efectivos de intervención, tratamiento y rehabilitación para romper los ciclos de encarcelamiento.”

Julie Soo, presidenta de la junta de supervisión, dijo que la solicitud estaba en consonancia con una legislación municipal de décadas de antigüedad, que ella ayudó a escribir,que garantiza el derecho a la igualdad de acceso a los servicios de la ciudad para todos los residentes de San Francisco, incluidos aquellos que saben poco el inglés. Sin embargo, dijo, un presupuesto “muy conservador” del Departamento del Sheriff requerirá “establecer prioridades.”

Llegan nuevos programas pero persisten las dudas

Menos de una semana después de la reunión de la junta de supervisión, se lanzó una nueva clase de recuperación del abuso de sustancias en español llamado Living in Balance; También se lanzó una clase de arte terapia en español.

Riker dijo que es optimista de que las clases programadas se mantendrán estables porque desde hace unos meses, el Departamento del Sheriff ha realizado programas ininterrumpidos de 9 a 11 a.m. en el anexo de la cárcel, donde recientemente han sido transferidos un gran número de reclusos que hablan español.

Otros no son tan optimistas como Riker. Hernández dijo que las dos horas para programas compiten con el tiempo al aire libre, llamadas y visitas a abogados, entre otras actividades, y está muy lejos de las seis a siete horas diarias de programación de tratamiento de adicciones que recibían los reclusos en el pasado. Y un trabajador que ha trabajado en la cárcel durante mucho tiempo, que habló bajo condición de anonimato, dijo que cree que el nuevo plan de estudios es para impresionar.

“Hacen cosas, ya sabes, para las cámaras, y luego, cuando termina, cuando nadie mira, todo vuelve a ser como era”, dijo el trabajador, y agregó: “Le doy dos semanas.”

Sylvie Pagan de NoVA, el No Violence Alliance Program, que atiende a personas que regresan a la comunidad después de estar en la cárcel por un delito violento o múltiples arrestos, dijo a la junta de supervisión el 2 de febrero que su organización también estaba lanzando un programa para latinos en la cárcel la semana que viene. Pero, dijo, “esto es sólo una semilla en un gran balde de muchas necesidades que necesitamos para la comunidad”.

Riker dijo que espera trabajar con más organizaciones comunitarias y, con los recursos escasos a su disposición, está implorando a grupos externos aun más ayuda.

Riker alentó a cualquier organización comunitaria enfocada en brindar servicios a hispanohablantes a enviar un correo electrónico a William Cooper, gerente de servicios de rehabilitación del Departamento del Sheriff, a william.cooper@sfgov.org.

Presupuesto de la alcaldesa da prioridad a la policía

La población carcelaria creció de 800 personas en junio a más de 1.100 hoy debido a la ofensiva policial contra las drogas. La situación exacerbó un nivel ya crítico de escasez de personal en la oficina del sheriff que, según los informes últimos, necesita contratar a 207 personas para dotar de personal a su contingente de 920 puestos. El año pasado, la abogada de derechos civiles Yolanda Huang demandó a San Francisco en nombre de personas encarceladas que afirmaban haber sufrido problemas de salud graves por la falta de luz solar después de años en confinamiento. Esa cuestión aún está en litigio, dijo Huang.

“La solución es que, si la alcaldesa quiere encarcelar a la gente, y no estoy hablando de si debería o no debería suceder, entonces tiene que pagar por ello,” dijo Huang. “Ella tiene que dotar de personal completo a la cárcel. Y si no va a dotar de personal completo a la cárcel, entonces no es necesario que encarcelen a estas personas. Es muy simple. Si los vas a alojar y controlarlos, entonces tienes que hacerlo bien. Y no lo son.”

Y no sólo las cárceles están sufriendo. La oficina del Defensor Público de San Francisco demandó al Tribunal Superior del Condado de San Francisco por retrasos en los juicios, alegando que infringía el derecho de sus clientes a un juicio rápido. El tribunal dijo que los retrasos en los juicios se deben a que la oficina del sheriff está extendida demasiado en las cárceles y el Salón de Justicia.

Sin embargo, la alcaldesa de San Francisco London Breed recortó el presupuesto del sheriff en $8 millones para 2023-24, dando al departamento un total anual de $292 millones. Pero sí aumentó el presupuesto del Departamento de Policía de San Francisco en $61 millones para 2023-24 y otros $11 millones el año siguiente fiscal para un total de $786 millones. Esos fondos se destinarán a la contratación de 500 funcionarios más, horas extras y salarios más altos negociados bajos un nuevo contrato sindical.

Además, en junio pasado, los supervisores de la ciudad respaldaron una resolución del supervisor Matt Dorsey solicitando que el Departamento de Recursos Humanos de la ciudad redactara una política de bonificaciones para los policías recién contratados que competiría con otras agencias policiales en el norte de California. El 16 de enero, Breed y el jefe de policía, Bill Scott, emitieron un comunicado de prensa conjunto promocionando sus éxitos. El comunicado anunció que en febrero y mayo se graduaron tres clases de la academia de policía con un total de 60 reclutas. El logro se debió a un salario inicial más alto y procesos de prueba y contratación simplificadas, según el comunicado. No se mencionó ninguna bonificación de contratación.

Mientras todo eso, supuestamente hay miedo en Departamento del Sheriff que las bonificaciones para firmar en otras agencias podrían atraer aun más diputados, incluyendo un bono de firma ampliamente publicitado de $75,000 del Departamento de Policía de Alameda para nuevos reclutas o contrataciones laterales de otros departamentos de policía.

Sylvie Sturm informó esta historia mientras participaba en la beca de datos 2023 del Centro Annenberg de Periodismo de Salud de la USC, que brindó capacitación, tutoría y financiación para apoyar este proyecto.

The post Proveedores de Servicios Exigen Acceso a Reclusos Latinos appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Some people recite a prayer of gratitude for the time they spent in San Francisco County Jail. Among them is a Bay Area resident we’ll call Carlos to respect his request for anonymity.

“Thank God,” said Carlos, 29. “I sought a better life because I got close to good people who guided me. I got close to people who really wanted to see me succeed in life.”

Those people were Spanish-language county jail reentry program providers. Carlos came to San Francisco from Honduras, pursuing promised work that never materialized. Instead, he sold drugs.

That all changed nearly four years ago when he was booked into San Francisco County Jail on drug violations. Once incarcerated, he met Spanish-speaking staff from the ReSET Justice Collaborative — one of myriad community organizations that work with the jail’s program director to provide vocational training, educational courses, substance use disorder treatment, anger management counseling, cultural activities, English classes and religious observances.

“They went to visit me in jail, and from there they signed me up to the places where they could help me,” Carlos said. “Because of how much they taught me, after I left, they helped me get a job that I still have. I have been working in this job here for two years. I never went back to being involved with drug dealing again. I have not gone into the Tenderloin again, and it has helped me a lot because it has brought more peace of mind to my family.”

But Spanish-language programming at San Francisco’s County Jail has since become virtually nonexistent as routine lockdowns caused by staff shortages have made it practically impossible to hold classes. Even while deputies work mandatory 16-hour shifts, there aren’t enough of them to escort people who administer rehabilitation sessions and other training programs into the jails. On Feb. 2, numerous social service providers for the Latinx incarcerated population implored the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board at its monthly meeting to help them gain access to the jail.

It appeared that jail leadership responded to the public call-out the following week by announcing a new Spanish-language substance use recovery program and art therapy class, however a jail spokesperson said the classes had been in the works since last October. Nevertheless, some longtime jail workers expressed doubt that the programs would last for more than a few weeks.

The lack of Spanish-language programming is an increasingly dire problem since Latinx incarcerations have been on the rise since last June’s launch of a police crackdown on drugs in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.

According to Sheriff’s Department data, from June 1 to Nov. 10, 2023 (the most recent available), 42% of people booked in San Francisco County Jail on drug-related charges were Latinx compared with 30% who were Black and 28% who were white. And as Carlos witnessed years ago, some people desperately need to communicate their need for help.

“There are people there who have mental problems, mental problems that they cannot deal with, and how are they going to tell that to someone who knows only English and doesn’t understand?” Carlos said.

Last year’s police crackdown also targeted people for simple drug use as a means of encouraging them into substance use disorder treatment, according to city and law enforcement officials. Yet since then the jail’s treatment program, Road to Recovery, has been available only in English, despite an expressed interest in treatment from the Latinx population.

According to city Department of Public Health data, during the 12 months that ended in September 2023, Jail Health Services assessed 380 incarcerated Latinx patients as having an opioid use disorder. Of them, 209 sought treatments through medications such as buprenorphine or methadone.

It’s unclear how many of them lost out on treatment programming because they were monolingual Spanish speakers, since the data don’t track language preference. But in one instance last October, service provider Joanna Hernandez of the Latino Task Force, a San Francisco-based association of more than three dozen community-based organizations, said she witnessed a “pod” — a group of men assigned to a small congregation of cells — attending Road to Recovery at County Jail No. 3 in San Bruno. Hernandez said of the 46 men attending, 20 were Spanish speakers and could barely understand the curriculum.

“Sometimes they just sit and kind of understand some of the words but if not, they’ll just go to their cells,” Hernandez said. “And then I checked in with the staff, and he told me, ‘I don’t have Spanish-speaking staff and it sucks because they keep putting people who don’t speak the language in this program pod.’

“It’s something that happens a lot inside the jails. So, people are coming back to the same mess, back to the same behavior — if not coming back even worse, because they were confined and ripped from their family, their children, their religion, like everything.”

Ali Riker, director of programs for the Sheriff’s Department, said she was aware that Spanish speakers attended the English-language Road to Recovery program. She said she speculated that this happened because they had enough English proficiency to request access.

“We weren’t, like, barring people from participating who requested it,” Riker said. “I know it’s not ideal. We’re doing our best. Is it enough? You know, we need more. We definitely need more resources.”

Hernandez joined the other Latinx social service providers at the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board on Feb. 2. She said she’s experienced the chaos caused by short staffing.

“When you get there to facilitate your class, you’re told, ‘Sorry, we’re not at our minimum, program is cancelled,’” Hernandez said, adding that neglecting jail vocational and rehabilitation opportunities is counterproductive to the city’s stated goals. 

“I know that people want public safety,” she said. “And I know that people want drug sales to stop, their cars being robbed or bipped. But what are we doing locking people up and they’re not receiving any rehabilitation?”

Long-term negative effects are especially dismal for incarcerated youth. Latinx people aged 18 to 24 represented 10 times more drug-related bookings in San Francisco jail from June 1 to Nov. 10 than either their Black or white counterparts. And advocates say younger people especially need reentry programs since criminal records inhibit them from gaining work skills, career advancements and economic opportunities.

The community group representatives told the oversight commissioners that they and other program providers are best positioned to help turn these lives around.

“We are culturally competent,” said Bianca Sanchez, a case manager at Bay Area Community Resources. “We implement a healing-centered approach and have a trauma-informed lens, making us more equipped to provide services and support inside the jails. As trained professionals, we can provide the effective intervention, treatment and rehabilitation services to break the cycles of incarceration.”

Julie Soo, president of the oversight board, said the request was in keeping with decades-old city legislation enshrining the right to equal access to city services for all San Franciscans, including those with limited proficiency in English — legislation that she helped draft. But, she said, a “very conservative” Sheriff’s Department budget will require “setting up priorities.” 

New Programs Arriving but Doubts Remain

Less than a week after the oversight board meeting, a new Spanish-language version of a substance abuse recovery class called Living in Balance was launched as well as a Spanish-language art therapy class.

Riker said she’s optimistic that class scheduling will remain stable since the Sheriff’s Department has delivered programs uninterrupted from 9 to 11 a.m. in the jail annex — where a large number of Spanish-speaking inmates have recently been transferred — for a few months now.

Others are not as optimistic as Riker. Hernandez said the two hours a day compete with outdoor time, phone calls and lawyer visits, among other activities — and it’s a far cry from the six to seven hours a day of addiction treatment programming that inmates used to get. And a longtime jail worker speaking on condition of anonymity said they believe the new curriculum is just for show.

“They do stuff, you know, for the cameras, and then when it’s over with, when nobody’s looking, it goes back to how it was,” the worker said, adding, “I give it two weeks.”

Sylvie Pagan of NoVA, the No Violence Alliance Program, whose participants return to the community after serving time for a violent offense or multiple arrests, told the oversight board on Feb. 2 that her organization was also launching a Latino program in jail the next week. But, she said, “this is just a seed in a large bucket of many, many needs that we need for community.”

Riker said she’s eager to partner with more community organizations, and with the meager resources at her disposal, she’s imploring outside groups for even more help.

Riker encouraged any community-based organizations focused on providing volunteer services to the newcomer Spanish-speaking population to help by emailing William Cooper, rehabilitation services manager with the Sheriff’s Department, at william.cooper@sfgov.org.

Mayor’s Budget Prioritizes Police

Last year’s police crackdown on drugs caused the jail population to balloon from 800 people in June to more than 1,100 today. The situation exacerbated an already critical level of staff shortages at the sheriff’s office, which, according to the latest reports, needs to hire 207 people to fully staff its contingent of 920 positions.

Last year, civil rights attorney Yolanda Huang sued San Francisco on behalf of incarcerated people who claimed they suffered serious health problems from lack of sunlight after years of lockdowns. That issue is still being litigated, Huang said.

“The solution is, if the mayor wants to put people in jail — and I’m not talking about whether or not it should or should not happen — then she has to pay for it,” Huang said. “She has to fully staff the jail. And if she’s not going to fully staff the jail, then they need to not put these people in jail. It’s real simple. If you’re going to house them and control them, then you have to do it right. And they’re not.”

And it’s not just jails that are suffering. Gaps in duties normally assigned to sheriff’s deputies led the San Francisco Public Defender’s office to sue San Francisco County Superior Court over trial backlogs, claiming it infringed their clients’ right to a speedy trial. The court said trial delays were due to the sheriff’s office being overextended at the jails and the Hall of Justice.

Nevertheless, Mayor London Breed slashed the sheriff’s budget by $8 million for 2023-24 giving the department an annual total of $292 million. She did, however, increase the San Francisco Police Department’s budget by $61 million for 2023-24 and another $11 million the following fiscal year for a total of $786 million. That funding will go toward hiring 500 more officers, overtime and higher salaries negotiated under a new union contract.

Also, last June, city supervisors endorsed a resolution by Supervisor Matt Dorsey requesting that the city Human Resources Department draft a policy of hiring bonuses for police department recruits that would compete with other law enforcement agencies in Northern California.

On Jan. 16, Breed and Police Chief Bill Scott issued a joint press release touting their successes. The release announced that three police academy classes totaling 60 recruits were scheduled to graduate in February and May. The achievement was thanks to a higher starting pay and streamlined testing and hiring processes, the release stated. There was no mention of hiring bonuses.

Meanwhile, there are reportedly fears at the Sheriff’s Department that signing bonuses at other agencies could entice away even more deputies — like a widely publicized signing bonus of $75,000 from the Alameda Police Department for new recruits or lateral hires from other police departments.

UPDATED 2/14/2024: The story was updated with additional information from a jail spokesperson who said that jail leadership last October began organizing the Spanish-language programming that was recently announced.

Sylvie Sturm reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 Data Fellowship, which provided training, mentoring and funding to support this project.

The post Service Providers Demand Access to Latinx Jail Inmates appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

As of September 2023, San Francisco employed 1,578 “full-duty sworn” police officers paid from the city’s general fund. A recent staffing analysis from the Police Department recommended that the city employ 2,182 full-time police officers. The city charter does not set a minimum number of police officers.

Proposition B, a proposed amendment to the city charter, would set permanent staffing levels for the Police Department and would require that new positions be paid for by new taxes or other revenue allocated from outside the general fund.

If it passes, the measure would go into effect only if voters approved an unspecified new tax source in a future election.

Under Proposition B, minimum police staffing would rise from 1,700 in the first year to 2,074 in the fifth year. If the new tax source, once approved, failed to fund the increased staffing in any given year, the city would be required to maintain the voter-mandated staffing level with money from the general fund.

Current staffing for the department is determined every two years by the Police Commission, which drafts the Police Department’s budget with recommendations from the chief of police. The budget then goes to the Board of Supervisors and the mayor, who may amend it further.

Under Proposition B, the chief of police would set staffing level recommendations every five years instead of every two years.

This charter amendment was proposed by Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a former Police Department public information officer, to increase police staffing over the next five years using money from the general fund. That plan was amended in committee by Supervisor Aisha Safaí to include the new tax funding requirement. The Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 5 to put the modified measure before the voters.

Those opposing Proposition B, including its original architect, Dorsey, say the current measure “aims to fool voters” by making them think a yes vote will increase police staffing and recruitment, while its proponents are “obstructing desperately needed progress.”

City Controller Ben Rosenfield in his analysis of Proposition B noted that it would “establish a binding required appropriation” of up to $200 million over the first five years from an unspecified, new tax source and would “reduce General Fund dollars that could otherwise be allocated by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors in the annual budget” if the new taxes failed to cover the cost of the additional officers.

Proposition B supporters include Safaí, who said the measure is “fiscally responsible” and doesn’t pit police officer recruitment against 911 call operators, nurses, paramedics, firefighters and sheriffs because it seeks funding from new sources. 

Proposition B supporters have raised $605,000 as of publication, Ethics Commission records show. All of these funds were linked to three organized labor groups: SEIU Local 1021, IFPTE 21 and the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. Opponents have raised nearly $538,000, including over $377,000 from Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy and $50,000 from Michael Moritz, venture capitalist and backer of The San Francisco Standard.

Proposition B requires more than 50% affirmative votes to pass. 

A “yes” vote on Proposition B means you support amending the city charter to set permanent staffing levels for the Police Department and requiring that new positions be paid for by new taxes or other revenue allocated from outside the general fund.

A “no” vote on Proposition B means you do not support amending the city charter to set permanent staffing levels for the Police Department and requiring that new positions be paid for by new taxes or other revenue allocated from outside the general fund.

The post Proposition B — Police Officer Staffing Levels Conditioned on Future Tax Funding appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition E is a package of policy changes that would allow the San Francisco Police Department to engage in more high-speed chases, permit drone use in pursuits and grant the department the ability to install new security cameras in public spaces and test new surveillance technology on the public with less oversight from independent bodies. It would also allow police to file fewer reports documenting use of force against members of the public, permitting body-camera footage to be used in place of other documentation.

The city’s current car chase policy was developed in 2013 and limits pursuits to situations in which a person is suspected of committing a violent felony, or police reasonably believe the person must be immediately apprehended because they are a public safety risk. Police officials said in early January that the current policy is consistent with national best practices and state law, Mission Local reported.

Proposition E would lower the existing threshold, allowing police to pursue someone if they have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed or may be about to commit a felony or violent misdemeanor. It would also allow the use of drones that could include facial recognition technology during or in place of vehicle chases and during active investigations.

This measure would also transfer control of approving new public cameras from the Police Commission to the chief of police. If passed, police could install a camera in public without approval from the commission as long as they held a community meeting to discuss the camera and the chief believed it was “likely to improve public safety.” The measure specifies that cameras could include facial recognition technology.

The proposition would also allow the department to acquire and use new surveillance technology on the public without approval from the Board of Supervisors as long as the department submitted a set of policies governing its use within one year of acquiring or using the technology. This stands in contrast to the current policy, passed in 2019 to protect privacy, that requires approval from the Board of Supervisors in order to use new surveillance technology.

Proposition E would also change the threshold for filing use-of-force reports, allowing officers to skip paperwork and instead use body camera footage as evidence in certain instances. Current use-of-force reporting standards were amended in late 2022 to raise the threshold for filing paperwork. If the measure passes, officers would have to fill out a form only if a person was physically injured, if the officer believed the use of force was likely to cause injury, or if the officer used a firearm or pointed it at a person.

Finally, Proposition E would institute requirements for additional public meetings before the Police Commission could change department policies.

A “yes” vote means that you support changes to the Police Department’s car chase policy and use-of-force reporting requirements, as well as granting the police additional powers to use new surveillance technology. A “no” vote means you oppose these changes.

Proponents of the measure, including Mayor London Breed, say this change is meant to reduce the amount of time officers spend on administrative tasks, with a mandate that officers don’t spend more than 20% of their time on such activities. Officers do not currently track their time, as a matter of department policy, and the measure does not explain how they would do so.

“We need to give our officers the tools necessary to keep our communities safe and not leave them stuck behind a desk when they can be out on the street helping people,” Breed wrote in a statement. The proposition is also supported by Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Joel Engardio, Matt Dorsey and Rafael Mandelman, who wrote in a paid support statement that it would equip officers with 21st century technology to combat crime.

However, the ordinance is opposed by many groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bar Association of San Francisco, which say that it jeopardizes numerous directives from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding use-of-force policies. The DOJ recommended in a 2016 report that the city increase and improve its use-of-force documentation.

“This ordinance, should it remain on the ballot and succeed, will set all progress back, and subject this City to countless legal actions given all the ways in which it contravenes laws and regulations,” wrote Vidhya Prabhakaran, president of the Board of the Bar Association of San Francisco, in a letter opposing the measure.

Critics say also that it strips away important safeguards for police accountability and oversight, especially for people of color.

Police Department records showed that in the last quarter of 2022, police used force on Black people 25 times as often as on white people, a disparity that has continued along similar trend lines this year, and one that the department was unable to explain in a recent Police Commission hearing.

As of publication, supporters of Proposition E have raised more money for the measure than have campaigns for or against any other city proposition, nearly $1.26 million, Ethics Commission records show. Proponent Chris Larson, founder of Ripple Labs, a cryptocurrency firm, donated $250,000 to support the campaign. Mayoral candidate and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie has raised $635,000 to support of Proposition E, including $250,000 from his brother. The police union also gave $50,000 in support of the measure, according to The San Francisco Standard, though this donation does not appear in Ethics Commission records. The ACLU contributed $200,000 to fight the measure.

This proposition requires more than 50% affirmative votes to pass.

The post Proposition E — Police Department Policies and Procedures appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.