SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco Mayor London Breed introduced a new ballot measure on Tuesday that would give police more power. Dubbed “Safer San Francisco,” the measure is intended to remove obstacles that make it more difficult for San Francisco Police Department officers to do their jobs, according to the mayor’s office.

“Safer San Francisco will put public safety first and put SFPD officers in position to better serve our communities,” according to a statement from Breed’s office. The measure would accomplish this by giving officers access to better technology and reducing paperwork so officers could spend more time on the streets.

The measure would also prevent the City’s Police Commission “from prioritizing ideology before community safety,” according to the mayor.

“We need to give our officers the tools necessary to keep our communities safe and not leave them stuck behind a desk when they can be out on the street helping people,” said Mayor London Breed. “There has been too much focus on adding bureaucracy to the work our officers do and putting up barriers to new technologies that can help improve policing in San Francisco. It’s time to change that. We can pass this measure, while still keeping important reforms in place, so that we put community safety at the forefront of our work.”    

Technology the measure would authorize police to utilize includes cameras and drones officers could use to investigate and solve crimes. The measure would also look to reduce the amount of administrative and paperwork officers were required to do and give them more leeway to pursue suspects involved in felonies and violent misdemeanors like retail theft, vehicle theft and auto burglaries, as long as the pursuit can be conducted safely.

Lastly, the measure would require the city’s police commission to engage with local merchants, neighborhood leaders and retired police officers in order to make changes. The mayor’s statement accuses the police commission of governing “by ideology, rather than putting the interests of public safety or policing best practices first.”

The mayor’s statement says that the police commission micromanages the police department and is “adversarial to policy solutions supported by community safety leaders.”

Mayor Breed intends to sign the measure onto the March, 2024 ballot, where it would need a simple majority in order to be passed into law.