2 supervisors challenge mayor over police talks
Two city supervisors — including mayoral candidate London Breed — and dozens of members of the public raised questions Wednesday about whether Mayor Mark Farrell has a conflict of interest in handling closed-door contract negotiations with the city’s police union.
Supervisor Malia Cohen blasted the mayor at a Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing that she had called, criticizing him for supporting Proposition H, the controversial police Taser measure on the June ballot, and his retention of police union spokesman Nathan Ballard as an adviser.
“I’m very concerned that Nate Ballard was a consultant to the Police Officers Association,” Cohen said. “Beyond this perceived conflict, I’m concerned about the mayor’s endorsement of the (union’s) Taser initiative. This action undermined our own police chief and citizens.”
Ballard has stepped away from his role with the police union temporarily while he serves as an adviser to Farrell, who denied any conflict of interest on Wednesday.
“I have full faith in the professionals of our Human Resources Department who are tasked with the confidential negotiations to perform their responsibilities of protecting the public safety of our residents and the economic health of our city,” the mayor said in an email. “Any suggestion to the contrary is election-year shenanigans.”
Ballard also defended himself, saying, “As a former deputy city attorney, and an adviser to several mayors, I have always made a practice of strictly following all conflict of interest laws.”
Breed also questioned whether Farrell is capable of impartially overseeing the negotiations due to his relationship with Ballard.
The Police Officers Association put Prop. H on the June ballot before the Police Commission voted last week on its own stun gun policy. If passed, the proposition would establish less restrictive guidelines for when police can deploy stun guns.
Police reform advocates have criticized the measure, saying it undermines the city and police chief ’s efforts to implement hundreds of reforms recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2016, after several controversial police killings in the city.
In the past, Farrell supported Prop. H, but said Wednesday in an email: “I have always said that I would support a (stun gun) policy that works best for the community and for our officers, and the plan approved by the Police Commission does exactly that. At this point Prop. H is unnecessary.”
Cohen said she called Wednesday’s meeting to bring more light to the negotiations between the city and the police union. She left midway through the public comment portion of the hearing.
The Department of Human Resources and the union have been working on a new agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, since October, and have until May to hammer out a deal to replace to 10-year-old police contract.
The talks have been overseen by three mayors, first by Mayor Ed Lee, who died of a heart attack in December, then by Breed as acting mayor, before progressives on the Board of Supervisors voted in Farrell, a moderate and longtime police union ally, as a caretaker mayor until the June election. Cohen did not vote for Farrell.
Representatives for the Police Officers Association didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting, but sent a letter to Cohen’s office, calling claims that they’ve been impeding the Justice Department reforms “codswallop.”
“With exception of the dispute of the manner in which the Police Commission implemented its Use of Force Policy in late 2016, the POA has not filed a single challenge, asserting a labor right or otherwise, to impede, delay or otherwise stand in the way of implementation of any DOJ recommendation,” the union’s negotiator, Gregg McLean Adam, wrote in the letter.
Wednesday’s hearing came one week after more than 30 police accountability groups, calling themselves the “No Justice, No Deal Coalition,” sent a letter to the mayor demanding that he cede direction of the Department of Human Resources to the Board of Supervisors for the “limited purpose of negotiating the police contract.”
The group, comprising the Asian Law Caucus, La Raza Centro Legal, the Coalition on Homelessness, the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and others, demanded that Farrell recuse himself from the talks.