script, save in those enlightened, post-democratic nations -- such as
Russia, Haiti or Uzbekistan -- that have figured out how to tame the
snarling beast of representative government. San Francisco's Tenderloin
neighborhood, while it bears more than passing similarity to these
locales in some respects, is no such place. This much could be seen at a
community forum last night on the selection of the next San Francisco
police chief.
The forum, organized by the Community Leadership Alliance, a
neighborhood activist group, featured Police Commission President
Theresa Sparks and Police Commissioner David Onek, and was moderated by
your correspondent. The ostensible point was for commissioners to hear from Tenderloin residents on what
qualities they'd like to see in the next SFPD chief, who will replace
outgoing chief Heather Fong. But it quickly became clear that many of
the audience members in attendance had showed up for an
entirely different reason: To court support for the Pink Diamonds, an
embattled Tenderloin strip club that has come under scrutiny for a
series of violent crimes outside its entrance.
Oh well. A few in the crowd offered some topical suggestions: One man
urged more vigorous responses to citizen complaints about individual
cops, while another asked for a chief who would lobby actively for
a no-loitering policy in the Tenderloin from the Board of Supervisors.
One gentleman asked that San Francisco's next top cop be a black woman,
and requested that the commission get in touch with Condoleezza Rice,
if only for advice. Let us state for the record that we support any
political development that puts Bush's former secretary of state in the
same room as Chris Daly.
The 5,115 participants -- 52 percent of whom were black; 55 percent were women -- were drawn from pools of 18-to-30-year-olds in the 1980s hailing from Oakland, Birmingham, Chicago, and Minneapolis.
The study also indirectly proved that it's nearly impossible to write anything flip or funny about research involving young black people dying of heart attacks.
Photo | Andrew Petro
For the last two weeks -- in what is, depending upon whom you believe, either a theatrical thumbing of his nose at Mayor Gavin Newsom, a staffing necessity, or, perhaps a little of both -- San Francisco's public defender has been personally handling cases at the new CJC, a pet project of the mayor's. He's also doing this while engaging in a running feud with the mayor by refusing to trim his department's budget by 25 percent.
Adachi said that, on most days, around one defendant of the five or so charged will show up -- though, yesterday, six of 18 did so (it was a big day). "Right now the crime of the hour seems to be shoplifting at Sephora. So, we are keeping the streets safe from perfume."
The public defender said he was confused by some of the cases he's overseen -- "Some involve unprovable charges ... like a theft case where the person didn't leave the store. These are cases that probably wouldn't see the light of day at the Hall of Justice. So people either don't show up or, when they do, the case is thrown out."
Countering a rumor ricocheting around the Internet, Adachi said his personal appearances do not cost the CJC -- or the city -- more than if he sent a less experienced, lower-paid attorney. "I am not 'billing' the CJC for my time," he added. In fact, he claims, he's doing the work of three attorneys -- his own job plus that of the two he says Newsom promised him to run the CJC.
