Everyone knows that the city’s parks are in need of some help, and while cutting all the shrubs and finally chasing the live-in speed freaks out is a start, there are other issues afoot.

One Cole Valley Neighborhood NIMBY is angry, and getting no where with the folks ensconced in historic McLaren Lodge, he’s been reaching out to Board of Supes Prez Aaron Peskin at City Hall. In fact in a recent open letter, he claims that Peskin, is “Our Only Hope”, giving the nerdy Telegraph Hill dweller a rep more akin to the one Princess Leia heaved on Obie Wan Kenobi.

Perhaps such Sci-Fi dramatics are warranted when you spend hour upon unpaid hour voluntarily analyzing the topsy turvy alternate universe of the 2005-2006 Park & Rec expenditures, something the city doesn’t seem to have time to do. It’s a wacky world where one guy can turn a park patrol gig into a 6 figure feast & make more than 70% of his pay via overttime, and yer average staff gardener or debris truck drivers can literally rake in over $80,000 a year, yet basic services like public restrooms languish.

With the recent California Supreme Court decision that declares gov’ts must release public employee salary information…who knows, maybe something will finally come of this long running ten year fiasco.

After all, it was in a city employee audit in 1996 that this comment was made:
” By providing a culture of unfettered acceptance and opportunity for individuals to increase their salaries substantially over base levels, the City may be inadvertently encouraging its employees to overwork themselves and to manipulate the work scheduling system to achieve personal economic advantage.”

Huh? like G.W Bush said of the effects of Katrina, who could have ever imagined or foreseen such a thing occuring?

Not the folks in charge in McLaren Lodge anyhow… hmmm, maybe the guy in charge of the still fk’d up stables can get a job running FEMA?

The full letter to Peskin about SF tax dollars at work in the parks after the jump…

The citizen responsible for the analysis, a retired dentist who also spends a fair amount of time complaining about any and all noise emanating from Golden Gate Park, has been making some noise of his own. He’s been doing some research via the “Sunshine Ordinance” and found out some interesting things about Park & Rec’s budget, namely overtime pay. His main query in a recent open letter to Aaron Peskin concerns overtime pay for park patrol officers. The lead Park & Rec security officer for example apparently earns overtime pay well over 100% over his base salary, far exceeding anyone else in the department, and has therefore become one of the highest paid officials in the Park & Rec department. Originally slated to pull about $57,700 a year, this officer has managed to ride OT into the playoffs, and reaped a champs salary of over $134,000 per annum. That’s more than any of the park dept’s top landscape architects, managing project directors and also over twice what another head patrol officer with similar duties made including all his overt time.

According to Martin Macintyre, the SF Park & Rec’s

Head Patrol Officer who received $77,050 in overtime pay averaged approximately 33 hours a week in overtime, which, when added to his 40 hours of regular time, amounted to an average work week of 73 hours (assuming no vacation, a 12 hour work day and a six day work week, every week of the year). This seems beyond belief and demands a full investigation.

This overtime was and continues to be approved by Mr. Kern, Director for RPD Operations and by CA law has to be justified in writing. Where is the justification? WIll RPD release it?

Dear President Peskin,

I did an analysis of the overtime pay of the Rec and Park Dept. employees for 2005-2006. I know you have been given my report and promised to get the updated salary information and to hold hearings but I have to know when will you hold hearings. The Mayor can’t help, the Controller can’t help, RPD won’t help, the City Attorney won’t help, and the courts are out of the reach of normal citizens.

This was published on PROSF.ORG and sent to Supervisors on the Board. It shows that the supervising Park Patrol Officer had overtime pay of 134% of his base salary and way above any other employee and and other Park Patrol officer. He was the 4th highest paid employee in RPD. I quote from my report:

The Head Patrol Officer who received $77,050 in overtime pay averaged approximately 33 hours a week in overtime, which, when added to his 40 hours of regular time, amounted to an average work week of 73 hours (assuming no vacation, a 12 hour work days and a six day work week, every week of the year). This seems beyond belief and demands a full investigation.

This overtime was and continues to be approved by Mr. Kern, Director for RPD Operations and by CA law has to be justified in writing. Where is the justification? WIll RPD release it?

Nothing was done about this. RPD has refused to release the overtime records of their employees. They say only the Controller can do it and the Controller says they need permission from RPD. There is no excuse for RPD and no excuse for the BOS not doing something about this and no excuse for other citizens who read PROSF.ORG for not following up. The Controller said they are doing an overtime study but where is it and how can we tell if they have done the job properly without having the raw data? RPD is rife with corruption, pure and simple. The overtime is just a symptom, the tip of the iceberg. The RPD Audit by the BOS budget analyst didn’t uncover it so, even they must share responsibility for this failure in our governmental process.

You are the only hope. If you get the salary data as promised, that includes the overtime for all RPD employees for 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 and analyze it, you will be on the side of the citizens and good government. I would like to think that you aren’t like the rest of them. If you do, it won’t take long to find the obvious.

DO THE MATH and then DO THE RIGHT THING.

Sincerely,

Martin MacIntyre
San Francisco Citizen, Resident, and Voter.