“Gavin's Law” Could Cut City Expenses

When Gavin Newsom leaves San Francisco, which he does rather often, he's chauffeured in a three-ton SUV with a full security detail from the San Francisco Police Department.

It sounds expensive, and it probably is. One can imagine how many overtime hours were piled up when Newsom was driven all the way to Montana for his wedding, not to mention all the campaign trips to Southern California when he was running for governor.

But neither the mayor's office nor the SFPD have been willing to disclose how much the security detail costs, citing, well, security reasons.

So a few supervisors came up with a bill that would require city officials to pay for their own security detail when out of town, which the San Francisco Weekly has dubbed "Gavin's Law."

At a time when the city is facing another half-billion dollar budget deficit, and, appropriately enough, Newsom is out of town promoting business ties with India where presumably he was accompanied by the SFPD, it makes a lot of financial sense.

Enough financial sense to ensure the mayor won't veto it, or to attract enough supervisors to override any veto? That remains to be seen.

Jackson West still laughs about that time he was harassed by the nonexistent "San Francisco Secret Service."