The San Francisco Police Commission expects to send recommendations for the city’s new police chief to Mayor Ed Lee by Tuesday, the commission’s president said today.
The commission is tasked with submitting up to three recommendations to the mayor, who can choose one of them or reject them all and start the process anew.
Commissioners have been interviewing several candidates–from both inside and outside the department–in recent weeks, including some final interviews on Saturday, Commission President Thomas Mazzucco said.
The job opened up in January when George Gascon, who had held the post for 18 months, was named district attorney in January by outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Gascon replaced Kamala Harris, who is now California’s attorney general. The former assistant chief of operations and Gascon’s second-in-command, Jeff Godown, is currently serving as interim chief.
On Tuesday afternoon, the commission plans to hold a closed-session meeting where Mazzucco said a “strong possibility” exists that they will make their recommendations to the mayor.
“We’ve made some good progress,” he said. “It’s been a very thorough process” that included additional reconsideration of applicants’ packets this afternoon.
“We’ve been doing our homework,” he said.
Godown has expressed interest in remaining police chief, but Mazzucco declined to say who or how many finalists were still being considered.
He did say the commission is looking for “a strong leader who believes in community policing and continuing the changes” to the department set forth by Gascon.
“We want to keep the department moving forward in the right direction,” he said.
The closed-session meeting, which will be preceded by a brief public comment period, is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday at Room 421 at City Hall.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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