Martin Halloran SFPOA President

As of this writing, the arbitrator has yet to rule on the MOU between the CCSF and the SFPOA that will take effect July 1, 2018. Although raises are forthcoming, all indications at this time reveal that Mayor Mark Farrell, DHR Director Micki Callahan, and some members of the Board of Supervisors believe that either our cops do not deserve or are entitled to comparable raises of our counterparts in Bay Area law enforcement agencies.

Or, they just don’t care.

For all the quality of life issues that are facing our city — and we know there are many — like chronic and excessive homelessness, troubled individuals who are not receiving proper mental health services, to the explosion of auto burglaries, to open handed blatant drug dealing, to the gangs, and the guns, and . . . . well, at times it feels like the list is almost endless.

If you live or work in, or have visited San Francisco since Proposition 47, AB 109, and Proposition 57 have been enacted, then you have either witnessed the decaying quality of life in our city, the surge in the chronic homeless problem, or may have even become a victim of crime in the city of Saint Francis. These problems are not unique to San Francisco. They are happening in all major metropolitan cities in our state, and they are also affecting smaller communities. The one thing for sure is that this has not sprung up overnight.

The POA is presently engaged in contract negotiation with the city. Bargaining with the city is at once a political, statistical, historical, fiscal and actuarial process, involving attorneys, accountants, researchers, and other miscellaneous experts. It also is quite expensive.

I would be lying if I said 2017 was a banner year at the POA, or for the SFPD rank and file. It was not. That said, there were some major accomplishments made this past year. So, here is a recap of 2017.

2017

A new Chief of Police, inflated command staff, and 272 recommendations from the DOJ/COPs review gave us a lot to deal with. As always, the POA and its Board of Directors addressed each issue head-on and without reservation:

The month of October has proven to be one of the most trying and difficult periods in recent history, both of the department and the POA. Early in the month, we were hit hard and to the core with the senseless death of Stacee Etcheber during the massacre in Las Vegas. Stacee and her husband, veteran officer Vinnie Etcheber, were at the concert when the shots rang out. Vinnie told Stacee to run while he immediately began to drag people to safety and render aid to those who were injured. Stacee did not survive. 

For the past few decades, the POA Journal has run a column called “Close Encounters.” This column was championed by retired SFPD Lieutenant/DPT Director/POA Secretary Steve Johnson who was, and still is, never short on words. Steve made sure that the daily heroic actions performed by our members did not get summarily dismissed or disregarded as “oh well, that’s their job.” The POA proudly still runs this column, and I encourage all of our readers to take a look at it each and every month (See below).

On August 9, 2017, the Department sent me a letter acknowledging that POA representatives who attempted to address a line-up at Central Station that same date were barred from doing so by Department representatives. The letter stated, in part, that: "We (SFPD) will not allow POA representatives to attend and disrupt official Department business during line ups."

Last week, an Oakland resident, who is an ISIS sympathizer, was charged in federal court with planning terrorist attacks in the Bay Area and supporting terrorism. This federal indictment came at the conclusion of a year-long intensive investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with agents assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). 

Policing San Francisco, as with most US metropolitans, has become increasingly difficult, for a variety of reasons; homeless populations on our streets have grown exponentially; District Attorney George Gascon's Prop 47 decriminalization of illegal narcotics has led to more and more addicts self-medicating; and helpless individuals who suffer from mild to major mental health issues who are not receiving or who are refusing services.