A proposal to bail out a flailing police district in Daly City was postponed by the San Mateo Board of Supervisors on Tuesday after the legislator pushing the measure realized he did not have the votes to pass it.
Supervisor David Canepa wants to allocate $750,000 of his own discretionary funds under San Mateo’s Measure K toward the Broadmoor Police Protection District. But his motion on Tuesday afternoon was met with silence from his three present colleagues.
The bailout would come after years of fiscal mismanagement and allegations of corruption within the small department, ranging from charges leveled at multiple chiefs of defrauding the state pension system to a conflict of interest involving the current police chief.
The department was on the brink of filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy this year, and has been discussing the possibility of dissolving in recent months.
Supervisor Warren Slocum made a counter-motion to reduce the funding to $250,000 and further hash out specific accountability measures for the department’s use of any injection of cash. Slocum is a sitting commissioner on the committee that has been examining Broadmoor’s many fiscal issues.
Instead, Canepa moved to continue the item to the Board’s next meeting on Nov. 7.
“Do I hate the position that I’m in? Absolutely,” Canepa said in an interview ahead of the vote, calling the department’s issues a “self-inflicted crisis.”
But, he said, he learned that residents of Broadmoor — his constituents — are attached to their independent police force, and he wants to help it survive. Broadmoor’s police department has, since 1948, served a few thousand people in a half-square-mile unincorporated area encircled by Daly City. The department’s recent budget estimated more than $3.3 million in costs for the next year, with funding for eight full-time officers.
In 2021, current chief Michael Connolly — formerly with the SFPD’s Professional Standards and Principled Policing Bureau — resigned over a conflict of interest when he, as a sitting commissioner, helped install himself as chief. Another former SFPD veteran, Patrick Tobin, took over the department — despite a history of violence and harassment.
Connolly was charged by San Mateo County Distict Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, served a year of probation, and was reinstated as chief earlier this year.
Also in 2021, three former Broadmoor chiefs and a former commander were accused of fraud by CalPERS; one of them, Art Stellini, also worked for the SFPD. Stellini allegedly cheated on an inspector exam while with the SFPD, and was accused of lying on the stand. Former chief Greg Love has been criminally charged with grand theft by the San Mateo County district attorney.
Compounding a messy situation, former chief Dave Parenti, who was also accused of pension fraud but avoided criminal prosecution by the DA due to a lapsed statute of limitations, is also one of the plaintiffs suing Broadmoor for retaliation and wrongful termination.
Funding for the department comes from residents’ property taxes and a parcel tax, which residents pay to support the independent police department. Broadmoor approved a five-percent increase in the parcel tax this summer, and is on track to ask voters in 2024 to further increase it beyond the annual five-percent maximum.
“We need our police department. We love our police,” said a longtime resident named Arthur, who was among several to call and write to the Board of Supervisors today. He added that the department served as northern buffer to the “insidious crime flowing in from San Francisco into the county.”
Not all residents are so pleased with the department, however.
Andrea Hall, whose family has lived in Broadmoor since the 1940s, said that times have changed, and the police department can no longer afford to operate as modern police departments should.
“I don’t think they can afford their pensions. I don’t think they can afford to comply with most of the laws on police departments,” Hall said. “And so I don’t think they should be able to continue to operate the police department.”
Hall said she noticed sponsored ads the department had taken out in recent weeks in support of today’s resolution, which she saw as the department using the little money it has to influence the public process. Hall said she began to realize ethical issues at the department beginning in 2015, when the department served an arrest warrant without a judge’s signature.
“I get it. You can want something, you can love something and you can feel nostalgic for it,” Hall said. “But if you can’t afford it, if you’re unwilling to bear the cost of that thing, then you can’t have it anymore, right?”
Another San Mateo County supervisor, Noelia Corzo, was also skeptical, and voted against Canepa’s motion to delay the bailout vote for another day.
“I don’t think that you incentivize accountability and transparency by continuing to bail out or to allow this kind of mismanagement to continue,” she said.
Canepa said Broadmoor would require more work beyond the one-time influx of cash, alluding to possible removal of the department’s chief, and upcoming elections that could see turnover within the long-sitting police commission.
He added that he intends to watch the department closely to ensure the funds are used for operations — not for the department’s extensive legal fees.
“Let me say this, and make no mistake about it, I’m not interested in any of that money being spent on lawsuits or insurance. What I’m interested in is that money being spent on staffing,” Canepa said. “These are taxpayer dollars, and that’s why I’m going to be watching really acutely, and that means board of directors, and that means the chief.”
Canepa said that, in addition to a Measure K oversight committee that monitors how funds are spent, he wants to create another layer of oversight with a three-member advisory board that would specifically oversee Broadmoor’s use of the $750,000, and check in with the department monthly.
That advisory board was not written into the resolution, and Canepa struggled to answer questions about it during today’s meeting. He said that he will prepare revisions to reassure his fellow board members before the Nov. 7 meeting.
Wouldn’t have happened under Chief Bill Noonan back in the day. Dealt with Connolly many times, sharp , smart, so-so personality. He did a good job at SFPD. Might as well change with the times and let DCPD which surrounds Broadmoor, patrol Broadmoor, not SM Sheriff.
I’ve worked for Connolly when I was an officer with SFPD. Not the nicest guy. But he is smart. Maybe too smart. That’s why he talked himself into the chief’s spot. And he most likely talked his way into be reinstated. Hiring him again he’s probably going to do it again. Probably bette to let SMCSD take over or better yet Daly City to take it over.