In July 2008, Mistermayor got married in Montana. And instead of springing for a diamond-encrusted meat thermometer, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi offered up a different kind of probe: he demanded to know how much it had cost The City for two police officers to drive to Montana and provide security detail for the mayor. Met with a resounding “Whatever, dude ... that’s classified” from both the Mayor’s Office and the Police Department, Mirkarimi was never able to get to the bottom of his request.
By February, Mistermayor’s campaign to be the captain of the Titanic (read: governor of California) was in full swing, so Mirkarimi requested the price of security for gubernatorial campaign events in locations such as Donner Pass Road in Truckee. Once again, the answer was no, accompanied by an eye roll.
Undeterred, Mirkarimi introduced legislation in August aimed at making sure elected officials who campaign for themselves or others outside San Francisco while employing “dignitary security” provided by taxpayers disclose and pay back the cost of providing that detail. (PDF of ordinance here: Download Security Reimbursement.)
Once you recover from the giggles that inevitably ensue when one imagines the word “dignitary” being connected to any city elected official, please note that the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will consider this proposed law at 10 a.m. today.
Of course, now that Mistermayor has ceased his statewide campaign, this law looks a lot less necessary. But Mirkarimi maintains that the law is still important because, while “Mayor Newsom’s practices certainly highlighted the need for reform,” the issue is one of transparency and saving taxpayer money. “There have got to be some larger strategies [to deal with The City’s constant deficit],” Mirkarimi said, “but it doesn’t mean we should ignore the smaller ones.”
Indeed, the immediate savings for taxpayers is likely to be very, very small. District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is provided security in her capacity as The City’s top prosecutor and is campaigning to be the next California attorney general, is the only local official to whom this law may currently apply. Harris’ office could not be reached for comment. (Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier is running for state insurance commissioner, but is not entitled to a security detail.)
One person who’s not happy with the proposal is President Gary Delagnes of the San Francisco Police Officer’s Association. “This is just politics as usual in San Francisco,” he told me. “If Mirkarimi and the mayor want to play their stupid games, fine. But leave my people out of it.”
If this law passes, future city officials campaigning outside San Francisco probably will.
Figure 11/78 was the 9/11 for SFPD security changes--Feinstein even quit carrying a handgun in her purse because she was now surrounded by armed bodyguards--it should be easy to see why they don't want to give out security-related info, especially to the BoS.
The guy that shot George Wallace had stalked Richard Nixon's campaign first but couldn't get close enough due to the security so moved to a secondary target.
And Willie Brown noted that Chris Daly "acted like a stalker" in that 2003 PUC fracas when Brown was kind enough to let Daly be acting mayor.
Posted by: kwk | December 05, 2009 at 11:03