Supes delay vote on police reform measures

A pair of measures intended to ensure police accountability may be voted on by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors during a special meeting Thursday, Supervisors agreed Tuesday afternoon at their regular meeting.

After a contentious meeting over the measures last week, Supervisors Malia Cohen and David Campos returned with amended versions this week of their authored measures, which they hope to bring to voters this November.

Cohen’s measure would rename The City’s Office of Citizen Complaints to the Department of Police Accountability and expand its role to give it an independent budget and require it to conduct regular audits of the police department’s handling of claims of officer misconduct and uses of force.

Campos’ measure would create the Office of the Public Advocate, which would also investigate complaints regarding city services and programs including law enforcement services.

Last week, the board was divided when it came to voting on the measures, however, at today’s meeting, both Supervisors agreed to put amended versions of the measures forward at an early morning special meeting Thursday.

The newer version of Campos’ measure would put the proposed public advocate in charge of the police accountability department, but still allow it to have direct authority over it’s own budget.

Supervisor John Avalos said:

“These two measures complement each other but actually they don’t have to be in the same version and keeping them alive and being able to negotiate this agreement was a good thing to do.”

In reference to the police accountability department measure, Supervisor Jane Kim said:

“This is a thoughtful piece of legislation. It’ll provide more teeth to the former office of the OCC and allow them to set their own budget, to have staffing in relation to the number of police officers and I really hope that we start to see a greater transparency and greater accountability.”

Also during the meeting, supervisors unanimously passed a charter amendment transferring the responsibility of maintaining trees on city streets to The City, freeing homeowners and businesses from the task.

Supervisors also unanimously passed a charter amendment to allow non-citizen parents of children enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District schools to vote in school board elections.