SF Weekly
Letter to the Editor
January 29, 2011

Dear Editor:

Supervisor Sean Elsbern says that he has "no doubt" there are there inefficiencies in the application of the City's little-known premium pay add-ons to inflated City employee salaries ("Premium pay nets city workers millions..."). So, what's he going to do about it? Without an action plan, the supervisor's comment reads as just more of the same union-influenced politics. Nor does it surprise me to learn that near the top of the list in premium pay are police officers earning $15.5 million during 2009. That's about 5% of the entire police department budget of some $380 million. In view of our City's continuing disastrous deficit, I think it's high time to shrink the overpaid police department and put that money to better purposes. Turn the never-implemented SFPD "community policing" effort over to the privately-paid Patrol Special Police. Have city agencies like MUNI and the library where the homeless have apparently taken over, contract with this effective neighborhood patrol force. Why have expensive SFPD officers check bus tickets or politely refer the homeless to shelters and needed programs? Patrol Specials know how to do it right. They come promptly when called and don't consider crime prevention or compassionate policing to be baby sitting as some public police officers do. I guess that just makes too much sense for San Francisco.

Ann Grogan, J.D.
Glen Park resident for 31 years