At the eleventh hour and through some backhanded political maneuvering during the Rules committee meeting on Monday, Supervisor Safai introduced a “poison-pill” amendment to Supervisor Dorsey’s charter amendment for police staffing that states that the SFPD staffing plan would ONLY be enacted if new taxes are added to cover the cost.
Let that sink in: Under the revised proposal, SF residents would need to pay NEW TAXES to fund this very basic government service.
The net amount needed to fund the ORIGINAL Dorsey Charter amendment is $20M annually. (The $300M for 5 years amount you’ll see quoted in the media is misleading as it doesn’t account for the savings from police overtime pay).
We are hard-pressed to believe that the money couldn’t be found in the city budget (maybe stop funding one ineffective non-profit?) AND Dorsey’s version allowed for private money to be raised to fund the difference.
The city budget has DOUBLED since 2017, and now Supervisors Safai and Walton are telling the working residents of San Francisco that taxes must be raised for the city to provide basic law enforcement services and address a public safety crisis that city leaders should have handled long ago.
This is unacceptable and outrageous.
After asking you all to support Matt Dorsey’s charter amendment, we must now ask you to immediately OPPOSE Safai’s amended charter amendment for police staffing. With the new “poison-pill” added, the best outcome now is for this charter amendment to be withdrawn.
Send a prewritten email to Supervisors Safai, Walton, and the entire Board of Supervisors telling them that you do not support this amendment to the SFPD staffing plan!