Lack of oversight of SF park patrol raises questions
By: Tamara Barak Aparton
Examiner Staff Writer
July 16, 2009
 |
| Allegations of park ranger misbehavior are investigated in-house by the Rec and Park Department, which prompts critics to suggest that complaints may not be addressed objectively. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner) |
SAN FRANCISCO — On an August evening in 2008, Dr. Cynthia Smith gathered her two elderly German shepherds and headed for a stroll in Golden Gate Park. She was not expecting a confrontation, especially not with a San Francisco park ranger.
Smith, a 59-year-old podiatrist who lives across the street from the park, was recovering from abdominal surgery. Her dog, 11-year-old Hildie, was suffering from cancer and would rest after walking every 100 feet or so. Isolde, 9, also poked along, refusing to leave Hildie’s side.
Smith had her pets off-leash behind the grandstand — an area of contention among regular dog walkers. In 2006, The City’s now-defunct Dog Advisory Committee recommended the area, which is protected from traffic and equipped with a doggie drinking fountain, as off-leash.
However, The City’s parks chief at the time nixed the idea, and Smith was breaking the park code.
When she spotted a ranger on patrol, she says she quickly leashed her dogs. The ranger walked up to Smith and her dogs, and she says an argument ensued.
The ranger wrote Smith a ticket. Smith claims the ticket falsely stated her location as the nearby playing fields. She says she refused to sign and the confrontation quickly spiraled out of control.
“He got right up in my face. I told him to get away from me,” Smith says. That’s when the ranger shoved her in her stomach, Smith claims.
She said she became frightened.
“I kept saying, ‘I want SFPD called. I want SFPD,” she claims. “He kept saying, ‘I am SFPD,’ and I knew he wasn’t.”
Smith says she filed a police report, a claim with the City Attorney’s Office and a complaint against the ranger.
The City’s Attorney’s Office confirmed that Smith filed a claim Sept. 15, 2008, in connection with the Aug. 23 incident. The claim was denied Nov. 26.
Smith says she did not want to sink the money into a lawsuit for an incident in which she wasn’t seriously hurt. San Francisco police told her that since there were no witnesses to the alleged shoving, it was “basically a case of he-said, she-said,” Smith recalled.
Her complaint filed with the Recreation and Park Department against the ranger was found to have no merit, according to department officials. However, complaints filed against rangers are not independently vetted, as with complaints filed by other members of The City’s various public safety agencies.
San Francisco’s park rangers have been their own special security unit since being established in 1874 by William Hammond Hall, The City’s first Superintendent of Parks. They were known as the Park Guard for years, and as Park Patrol until recently.
The 18 park rangers are part of the Recreation and Park Department, and the $2 million budget needed to sustain them is a part of the department’s annual budget.
The rangers are tasked with enforcing the park code at The City’s 230 Recreation and Park facilities, which make up 3,400 acres. They focus heavily on Golden Gate and McLaren parks, monitoring public safety hazards, issuing citations for unleashed dogs and alcohol consumption, and responding to burglar alarms. Though they can make citizens arrests, they are not sworn officers and do not carry guns.
But unlike other city departments and agencies tasked with law enforcement, complaints against park rangers are investigated confidentially and internally by Rec and Park.
Citizens may file a complaint against rangers with the Recreation and Park Commission, which oversees the parks department, but ultimately, the commission is not the body that investigates. That’s done by Rec and Park staff, raising questions about their ability to be
objective.
Because the Recreation and Park Department keeps complaints against employees confidential, it’s impossible to know for sure if complaints against rangers have grown along with their ranks. Rec and Park receives about 10 ranger complaints per year from citizens, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Seitz Gruwell.
However, lack of independent review could change, said Rec and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg, who took over the department last week.
“Frankly, I’m open to the process of independently reviewing citizen complaints. I think it’s in the best interest of the people and of the rangers,” Ginsburg said. “People need to feel like their complaints have been heard and evaluated fairly and in a timely manner. I think public trust is vital.”
If the number of complaints against the rangers remains small, as park officials claim, the complaining citizens are eager to step forward.
Earlier this summer, San Francisco Lindy Hop, which has danced weekly for years in Golden Gate Park, was told to disperse when members couldn’t produce a permit. They were issued a historical use permit by park officials after subsequent negative publicity.
In local blogs, dog walkers at Huntington Park in Nob Hill cited for leash law violations have complained about the aggressive demeanor of some of the rangers.
Elena Ionov, who uses the park to walk her two small dogs, says her experience with rangers has made her feel anything but safe.
In a recent letter to city officials, Ionov complained about a ranger becoming aggressive even after she agreed to leash her dogs. Ionov said she explained to the ranger that she feared taking her dogs to the designated off-leash area because a homeless man in the area had exposed himself to her two days earlier. The ranger told her she was making excuses, she said.
“He said I would have to go to the designated area or he would give me a citation if I did not cooperate with him. He was very aggressive.
This kind of negligent statement ... made me feel forced to go to the area that is potentially
dangerous for me, other women and children,” Ionov wrote.
Rangers’ overtime has grown rapidly
While a crippling deficit has shrunk most city departments, the number of park rangers has ballooned in recent years — and so has their overtime pay.
In 2006, five part time rangers cracked down on litter, unleashed dogs and other violations of the park code in The City’s 220 parks. The department ran on a $506,437 budget.
A year later, fed up with homeless encampments in Golden Gate Park, Mayor Gavin Newsom tripled the number of rangers,
specifically to enforce park code.
Today, 18 rangers patrol the parks and the budget has quadrupled to more than $2 million. But despite the increase in staff, overtime has also skyrocketed.
According to the City Controller’s Office, Head Park Patrol Officer Marcus Santiago, who has worked the parks for nine years, earned $144,606 last year, about half, $76,015, was in overtime pay. Jose Antonio Mitra, another head park patrol officer, took home $105,765. Overtime accounted for more than $40,000.
While the overtime numbers are high, most of the money isn’t coming out of The City’s coffers, according to Recreation and Park spokeswoman Lisa Seitz Gruwell.
For years, organizers of special events from war protests to concerts paid fees to cover police overtime hours. But thanks to a clause added in 2004, they must also pay for park ranger overtime. Gruwell said she wasn’t aware who added the clause, or why it was added.
Outside Lands, a three-day music and arts festival to be held in Golden Gate Park next month, will foot the bill for park rangers as well as police, Gruwell said.
“Outside Lands is paying for Park Patrol to be there and that will all be overtime,” Gruwell said.
Mike Horan, a former New York City cop and San Francisco Park Patrol officer, says event security by both police officers and rangers is wasteful and redundant, serving only to line the pockets of park rangers. Horan is currently suing the Recreation and Park Department over employment matters.
However, Gruwell defended the need for park rangers at events to enforce ordinances such as sound restrictions and littering. She acknowledged that police officers are also authorized to enforce the same laws.
“Technically, the police could, but they’re usually not focused on those kind of infractions; they’re focused on safety issues,” Gruwell said.
“The goal there was to make sure our parks were left in good condition when the events were over. It actually ends up saving us a lot of money in maintenance costs.”
Idea to arm park officers circulated
Several San Francisco park rangers are urging city officials to allow them to carry guns — or at the very least, to become sworn peace
officers.
Rangers currently carry pepper spray, batons and handcuffs, Rec and Park spokeswoman Lisa Seitz Gruwell said.
The idea to arm rangers is supported by Head Ranger Marcus Santiago, but opposed by the Recreation and Park Department.
Though they can make citizen’s arrests, rangers are instructed to call the police if they spot a dangerous situation or one in which an arrest is necessary.
In an internal Rec and Park memo obtained by The Examiner, Ranger Ramon Jayme proposes a plan to establish sworn peace officer status for rangers. Jayme describes threats that would justify carrying lethal weapons, including drug and alcohol-related violence, gang problems, sexual assaults in park restrooms and belligerent dog owners.
“The police cannot always be relied on to respond to assist our park rangers in actual emergencies or egregious crimes,” Jayme wrote.
The Recreation and Park Department does not support the bid to arm the rangers, Gruwell said.
“They’re not police officers. They haven’t been trained to do that, and they’re mostly dealing with infractions,” Gruwell said.
Jim Lazarus, president of the Recreation and Park Commission, said the idea has been discussed, but has never formally made it to
commissioners. However, Lazarus said he was interested in park rangers becoming sworn peace officers.
The training, which would be funded by the state, may or may not lead to rangers being armed in the future, but would be beneficial as far as “bringing up their professionalism,” Lazarus said.
How to tell a San Francisco police officer from a park ranger
The park rangers patrol the parks, but they are not police officers. Here is how you can tell them apart:
Police
Formed: 1849
Vehicles: Black-and-white patrol cars with blue SFPD star on door
Job: Enforce laws, investigate crime, make arrests
Uniforms: Navy blue clothing
Oversight: San Francisco Police Commission
Weapons carried: Guns, nonlethal weapons
Park Rangers
Formed: 1874
Vehicles: White sedans with gold, seven-pointed star on door
Job: Patrol parks, perform security checks, issue citations, aid police
Oversight: Recreation and Parks Department — no citizen oversight
Weapons carried: Nonlethal weapons
Source: SFPD, Recreation and Park Department
tbarak@sfexaminer.com
