San Francisco

Something else we would like
to get back in our city
San Francisco has limited Sheriff services as we used to have before we contracted with the Sheriff for full-time service.

The San Francisco Police Department provides general police service for the city and the Sheriff's Department handles judicial duties, staffs the jail, and provides security for city facilities such as San Francisco City Hall and San Francisco General Hospital. However, San Francisco Sheriff's deputies are still sworn peace officers and can back up the San Francisco Police as needed, as well as make arrests for any crimes they come across while performing their duties.

I mention this as San Francisco is the 12th or 13th largest city in the country and it has its own police department. Their police department just arrested a fugitive who used to live in Delray that had been booked into the Palm Beach County jail on several occasions since 2003 for all sorts of heinous acts.

There are millions of tales of how local police departments have arrested criminals. This is their job. They do it every day. This is just one tale from a city in budget constraints (although much larger than ours) along with thousands across America. San Francisco is faced with a budget deficit of $283.1 million for next fiscal year, and pension costs alone are expected to double to $800 million by 2014. Now some commissioners want residents to vote for over $248 million to repair city streets. All cities are facing run-away Union pension costs that are killing operating budgets.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner.