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Police commission urges limited lateral hires to allow chief to appoint outside command staff
Summary
The San Francisco Police Commission adopted a resolution urging the Board of Supervisors and mayor to authorize the chief to appoint qualified sworn officers from outside the department to command staff under specified limits, including a five-year sunset and a cap of one outside appointment at a time.
The San Francisco Police Commission on Aug. 26 adopted a resolution urging the Board of Supervisors and the mayor to authorize the chief of police to appoint qualified sworn law-enforcement officers from outside the San Francisco Police Department to command staff, subject to “appropriate limitations.”
The resolution, read into the record by a department lieutenant, asks the city to amend the San Francisco Administrative Code, which currently restricts command-staff appointments to SFPD incumbents at the rank of lieutenant or above. The commission said it supports lateral hiring to attract candidates with supervisory experience from other local, state or federal agencies while continuing to value career advancement for existing SFPD officers.
Chief George Gascon described a compromise the department has proposed: limit outside appointments to one individual at a time and include a five-year sunset clause to allow the policy to be revisited. "We have also agreed to put a sunset clause in the ordinance that we'll have a 5 year sunset clause," the chief said, adding the clause would not necessarily limit an individual hire to five years but would require the policy to be revisited after that period.
Commissioners debated details and acknowledged that ordinance language is still being finalized. A motion to adopt the resolution was moved and seconded and then carried "without objection," according to the meeting record; no roll-call tally appears in the transcript.
During public comment before the vote, one speaker urged the commission to prefer promotions from within the department and criticized out-of-department hires, including a statement referencing a candidate's country of origin. Commissioners allowed the comment and proceeded to adopt the resolution.
Next steps in the process, as described at the meeting, are transmission of the commission's resolution to the Board of Supervisors and the mayor, where ordinance language will be drafted and considered.
Action: resolution adopted and will be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors and the mayor for consideration.
