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 direction their search is taking. (Applications for the job are
being accepted through mid-April; the commission will present a short
list of nominees to the mayor, who makes the final choice.) The troubled
police department has undergone multiple reviews and studies in recent
years, and commissioners say they're looking for someone to make
good on recommended changes.
"There's a few things right off the bat that we're looking for," Onek
said. "One is someone who is a reformer." The eight studies the
department has undergone, he said, "list over 300 total
recommendations for changes to the department... Chief Fong has done a wonderful job of getting these
studies done, working with the commission and the entities that did the
studies. We have a blueprint for real reform now, and we need
somebody who can come in and implement that blueprint... whether that
person is somebody who is currently in the department, or somebody
outside the department, we're completely open to either one."
Outside the department. That means Condi is still in the running, right?
