Guarded police-security costs create riff

SAN FRANCISCO — Police refused to release details of the cost for security personnel that shadow Mayor Gavin Newsom on trips around the country, despite a request from supervisors who are looking to cut the Police Department’s budget.

Newsom, who is regularly flanked by San Francisco officers assigned to protect him, has traveled the state extensively, including for his campaign to be California governor. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi raised doubts that those trips were always mayoral business.

Mirkarimi pushed the department for answers about the security spending Thursday during a hearing to discuss the police budget. Newsom and the Board of Supervisors are battling about spending priorities in the mayor’s proposed $6.6 billion budget.

Mirkarimi said he has requested the information through the legislative process, but to no avail. Records requests from news agencies, including The Examiner, have also gone unanswered.

Police cannot give out the costs because they would publicize the secret security plans of the mayoral detail, Assistant Chief Jim Lynch told a clearly frustrated Mirkarimi. Lynch alluded to the assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone inside City Hall in 1978.

“I hate to point out that there was a tragic situation that did occur in this building, and it did impact both sides of the building,” he said. “We don’t want to see that repeat.”

Mirkarimi responded, “Let’s not invoke scenes that have just been torturous to San Francisco’s past. We get that. I just want to know, can we just get some dollar allocation?”

Asked whether the costs of the mayor’s security really is sensitive enough to keep confidential, Deputy City Attorney Cheryl Adams said police should be able to give the information to Mirkarimi outside of a public hearing.

“There’s nothing to prevent a one-on-one briefing from the department,” she said.

bbegin@sfexaminer.com