GavinTV airing on a computer near you

Now that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided to unveil his latest State of the City address on YouTube, perhaps it is time to suggest the next natural progression: his own reality show. (Courtesy photo)

Now that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided to unveil his latest State of the City address on YouTube, perhaps it is time to suggest the next natural progression: his own reality show.

Based on the premise that anyone might spend nearly eight hours watching the mayor pontificate about his views on The City, it might be the only reality check we get in the next few months.

I realize that Newsom wants to put new controls on media access, given the little “speech that got away’’ that was used to promote the ads for the state proposition banning same-sex marriage, but this latest high-tech turn may be a tad over-the-top. Tina Fey on YouTube makes sense. Newsom on the Department of Public Health does not.

Still, the mayor was kind enough to put out the message that his new channel on the video Web site will allow the public to “submit your own ideas for improving city government.” And never one to back down from an opportunity to make San Francisco a better city, let me offer one suggestion: new leadership for the Police Department.

For years now, people have been all but shouting about the need for new management at the department, citing desperately low morale, curious personnel decisions and The City’s staggering homicide rate. And Newsom has responded by digging his heels in ever deeper in support of Police Chief Heather Fong, a decision that has puzzled both his closest advisers and biggest detractors.

Every few months, a new round of rumors erupts about Fong’s imminent departure, an activity that again coursed through City Hall just last week. It’s gotten to the point where people in the loop no longer take it seriously because all the speculation has just led to more of the same.

Most recently, the word was that there would be no change at the top till the findings of a long-awaited assessment of the department were out, so Fong could initiate some long-needed reforms at the agency. But the report came out more than a month ago, and it appears its key findings will likely be shelved along with all the other many recommended changes to the department made before it.

The reason isn’t because there isn’t a will to do it, it’s that right now there isn’t a way.

Some of the findings grabbed headlines — such as reorganizing the 10 police districts and realigning staff within the investigations bureau — but two things in the $400,000 study stand out above the rest: The major “reform” would come through the hiring of hundreds of new officers and civilians, and the word “morale’’ is mentioned once in the 313-page report, though not in a negative context.

I don’t know what planet many of our elected officials live on, but the last time I looked in my neck of the woods, San Francisco was running a $200 million-plus deficit and there was a citywide hiring freeze. That doesn’t seem to jibe with a finding that the best way to make the Police Department more efficient is to hire 318 people, at the low end, or up to 730 if it really wants to transform the organization.

This, for an agency that finds it difficult to get officers computers so they can file timely police reports.

I never worked for a company that didn’t reach the conclusion that the best way to make the operation run more swimmingly was to throw more bodies into the mix. Never mind if they don’t get the right bodies. The magic is in the numbers.

I hate to interrupt the mayor’s video conference, but the biggest problem with the San Francisco Police Department is that the vast majority of the people who work there have no confidence in the chief and are begging for change at the top. This is not news — Newsom has been told this countless times from scores of people. He just doesn’t like to hear it.

That doesn’t alter the reality that Fong has reshaped the entire command staff to weed out perceived threats to her position while weakening the overall competency of the agency.

You won’t find that in the study.

“We had meetings with the guy who was doing the performance evaluation that lasted for hours and the word ‘morale’ was never mentioned,” one high-ranking department member told me Monday. “It’s like the big elephant in the room and no one talked about it. It was unbelievable.”

Somehow, I doubt you’ll hear mention of it on YouTube this week, but it’s comforting to know that we’ll now have new channels for communication with our ambitious chief executive.

Too bad the message is the same.