Examiner letters, May 11 (http://www.examiner.com/a-104905~Letters__May_11th__2006.html):
Boosting city work force
It is bizarre that after several years of city layoffs and hiring freezes, Mayor Newsom wants to begin another ill-fated hiring boom (“Newsom hangs up ‘Help Wanted’ sign,” May 9). San Francisco already has the highest employee-to-citizen ratio of any major U.S. city, and yet the potholes are still there, the streets are still dirty and many services are still sorely lacking.
Until Mayor Newsom, DHR and the Civil Service Commission get serious about civil service reform, more employees simply add to the inefficiencies in most city departments. When San Francisco had nearly 30,000 employees before, many services were still poor, so it is unlikely that manpower alone will improve them.
Mayor Newsom needs to do more than pay lip service to reform — he needs to understand how large and unwieldy the city bureaucracy has become. There is no good reason to hire for the sake of hiring until fundamental structural changes are made first.
David Latterman
The City