Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Safety topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board approves first-reading ordinance to require airport staffing plans, citing need for flexibility
Summary
The Board passed on first reading an ordinance directing the police chief and airport director to assess staffing needs at San Francisco International Airport and to create plans to redeploy sworn airport bureau personnel under certain circumstances.
The Board of Supervisors on April 17 approved on first reading an ordinance requiring the chief of police and the airport director to determine staffing needs at the airport, create a staffing plan to redeploy sworn Airport Bureau personnel under specified circumstances, and set reporting requirements.
Supervisor Mercarimi, who introduced the measure in the public-safety committee, framed it as a collaborative approach: “we're simply trying to make an inflexible bureaucracy more agile,” he said, adding that he intended the measure to give the Police Department and airport officials flexibility to redeploy personnel without imposing a single prescriptive staffing number.
Supervisor Ammiano joined as a co-sponsor and said the ordinance reflected ideas he raised previously about whether airport staffing levels could be reassigned to neighborhoods with high crime rates when appropriate. Other supervisors expressed caution: Supervisor Ellspern said he would vote for the measure “with honestly, very little expectation that anything is gonna come of it,” noting airport staffing had fallen from 77 officers to 55 since before 9/11 and warning the ordinance was not a “silver bullet.”
Supervisor Chu (identified in the transcript as "Chu") said she agreed with the intent but noted an existing memorandum of understanding sets a baseline of 55 officers and that the board lacked direct authority to force staffing changes; she said she would vote no for that reason. The recorded roll call shows the ordinance passed on first reading with 10 ayes and 1 no.
The ordinance, placed as Item 34 on the agenda, passed on first reading; implementing the ordinance requires coordination among the SFPD, the Airport Director and the Controller’s Office, and the law sets reporting and planning requirements rather than a fixed staffing quota.
The board recorded the vote and directed staff to follow the reporting steps embedded in the ordinance; the transcript does not set a specific timeline for the staffing plan deliverable beyond the reporting requirements in the ordinance text.
