Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Transparency Expanded at SF Police Over Gifts to the Department

Who can say for certain on the record if my complaint from April 2013 over Chief of Police Greg Suhr's failure to fully and properly disclose a $100,000 gift and donation of 60 laptop computers from tech Big Boss Ron Conway, produced a change that I wanted, but this document was shared with me by the Office of Citizens Complaints in recent days and is great news:


This directive dated January 23 is important not just because it was created in a relatively short amount of time (for the SFPD), but because it also very clearly spells out departmental policies regarding offers of gifts, what officers are to do when offered any sort of compensation from outside the department and how said info is to be made transparent.

You may recall my efforts last year persuading the police to comply with all applicable state and local disclosure laws, by quickly and prominently posting details about any gifts on the department's web site, led to great improvement of this disclosure page. I'll continue to monitor the department about any gifts, from whom and how they are publicized by the department.

Someone has to lobby the police to comply with all sunshine laws, might as well be me and additional advocacy would be most welcome from other government watchdogs!

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