As a City, we are facing an unprecedented public safety crisis that demands immediate action and a zero-tolerance approach to crime. Public safety has always been my top priority – both when I was Mayor and when I ran the Budget Committee in City Hall for four years. Starting on Day One, I will aggressively address the police staffing crisis and improve public safety across every neighborhood in San Francisco.
- Restore and improve the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP), allowing hundreds of experienced officers to return to our neighborhoods on patrol and walking the beat without affecting their pensions.
- Retain experienced officers and redirect them to policing and mentoring new officers.
- Commit to fully funding five police academies a year through the City budget to grow our police force back more quickly to the size it needs to be vs. the three the City has been averaging per year.
- As Mayor in 2018, I averaged five new police academy classes a year with an average of over 50 recruits per class, and I will do it again.
- Immediately outsource the officer background check process to trusted third parties, as other major cities have successfully done.
- It is estimated that over 500 police recruits are stuck in the bureaucratic maze of the City’s background check process.
- Create new and reduced hours at public parks with clear public safety issues from sunset to dawn to deter unsafe and illegal behavior.
- Expand and make permanent citywide illegal vending bans, with targeted enforcement in UN Plaza, Civic Center, the Tenderloin, and along Market Street to increase street cleanliness and decrease police calls.
Fentanyl Crisis
Over the past five years, our streets have disintegrated into a free-for-all of tents, homelessness, and drug abuse and dealing. San Francisco has never been immune from challenging street conditions, but there is no Mayor in history who has overseen a steeper decline. While we work to address the causes of the disorder on our streets (mental health, drug addiction, and homelessness), we must have zero tolerance for dirty streets and unsafe street behavior.
- Shift and rebalance from an overreliance on harm-reduction to providing more recovery and abstinence-based options.
- Update the City’s overdose prevention plan within my first year in office.
- Immediately audit the sprawling community health and welfare budget and find where we can redirect resources to rapidly expand access to treatment.
- Create a new sober housing plan that provides recovery opportunities inside and outside of San Francisco.
- We will mandate treatment-focused detention and a connection to services for individuals who are revived with Narcan.
- Launch a 24/7 centralized intake center to connect people to shelter and treatment.
- Massively increase our police staffing levels to serve as a deterrent to drug dealing and public drug use.
