File under the We “Shall Overcome (someday) department: Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced legislation Tuesday which would require all city officials to publicly disclose security costs connected with out-of-city campaign-related travel, and reimburse the city for those costs.
This comes some weeks after Mirkarimi tried several times to get Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office to reveal how much the city is dishing out to pay for the cops who accompany Newsom everywhere: to Rhode Island, to Orange County, to long, lonely drives to weddings in exclusively disgustingly rich rural Montana.
While Newsom freely admits that police do accompany him wherever he goes — “Wherever I go, I am the mayor,” he has told reporters — Newsom has refused to reveal how much the city pays for privilege of keeping its chief executive safe and sound. During budget talks, Mirkarimi noted that both the Secret Service and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger make their bodyguard-detail costs public. So why not the Mayor?
Mirkarimi’s legislation would also require city officials to submit a full travel schedule to the SFPD and reimburse the SFPD within 30 days of said travel. We’re fairly positive Gavin is good for it, but you never know. We checked in with his press secretary and will post back if we receive a response.
UPDATE: And here it is: from the golden BlackBerry of Mayoral press secretary Nathan Ballard: “Mirkarimi’s legislation is a bad idea. Police officers should make decisions about the security of our elected officials, not politicians.”
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