From a glass-paneled meeting room inside Lumina, a luxury condominium complex at Folsom and Main streets in the East Cut, District 6 supervisor Matt Dorsey made a familiar promise to some 45 constituents: He would keep pushing to fully staff San Francisco\u2019s police department, and specifically, the Southern Station, which is responsible for policing District 6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to give up on this,\u201d Dorsey said, \u201cassuming I get a second term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorsey\u2019s reference to his political future seemed to draw little reaction from the largely middle-aged, well-dressed group. He is running virtually unopposed<\/a>, and is all but certain to win re-election this November.\u00a0<\/p>\n The gathering was billed as a community meeting for residents of the Southern Station\u2019s district, but Dorsey acknowledged the political season directly, telling the room at the outset that police staffing was an issue he had \u201ccome here to campaign for.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the discussion began, Dorsey, who once worked in communications for the San Francisco Police Department, posed for photos with Southern Station Capt. Carla Hurley, who led the meeting.<\/p>\n Dorsey called Hurley a \u201cphenomenal ally.\u201d Hurley, meanwhile, spent much of the evening working to convince residents that the controversial reworking<\/a> of Southern Station\u2019s boundaries, which take effect Oct. 1, will better serve District 6 residents.<\/p>\n The new district will expand Southern Station north to Market Street and divide the district into eight patrol sectors instead of seven. The smaller patrol sectors are good, Hurley said, because they split some of Southern\u2019s busiest territory into smaller sectors that could help officers assigned to those sectors respond more quickly to calls.<\/p>\n But Southern Station\u2019s expansion also means that annual calls for service will rise from about 128,000 to 158,000, a 23 percent increase. The department\u2019s May staffing analysis said Southern Station would need 121 patrol officers under the new boundaries. It currently has 113.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s up from 94 in March,\u00a0 Hurley told the room. And, she added, maybe a transfer of seven officers expected later this month would be enough. Not everyone was convinced.<\/p>\n \u201cThe word \u2018maybe\u2019 is not very inspiring,\u201d said Shaun Aukland, a SoMa resident who has closely tracked the station\u2019s response times<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know for sure,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cI can\u2019t go into that. So that\u2019s why I said maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n Aukland recalled that police commissioners had approved redistricting<\/a> on the understanding that Southern Station would receive a staffing increase.<\/p>\n Dorsey did not press Hurley for a firmer commitment, directing his own criticism of police department staffing shortages to past City Hall decisions, saying that officials had failed to prepare for a wave of police retirements, and had focused on defunding the department when they should have been recruiting officers.<\/p>\n Concerns over more territory, more calls and long wait times<\/a> for Southern Station calls hit squarely on an issue Dorsey has emphasized in his campaign. <\/p>\n Nearly a year ago, in a November 2025 letter to the Police Commission, he asked for an \u201caction plan\u201d to scale up the station\u2019s staffing before redistricting took effect, warning that additional territory without additional resources could exacerbate the station\u2019s workload.<\/p>\n The discussion grew testy when Aukland pointed out that Park Station showed response times that were 20 to 30 percent faster than the citywide median. Perhaps, Aukland said, officers there should be transferred to busier districts, like Southern.<\/p>\n Hurley said the police union\u2019s labor agreement prevented the department from simply ordering officers to change stations.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want a guy from Park to come here,\u201d Hurley added. \u201cThe guy at Park wants to work at Park because it\u2019s slow, okay? No offense. He or she is working there for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n The setting underscored the contrasts within Dorsey\u2019s district. Lumina is a 656-unit high-rise with a heated lap pool, spa, fitness center and 24-hour concierge service; a three-bedroom unit was listed this week for $7 million. <\/p>\n Nearby, SoMa\u2019s Sixth Street corridor lies within one of San Francisco\u2019s poorest areas, where nearly a quarter of residents live below the poverty line, according to Census data.\u00a0<\/p>\n SoMa also recorded crime rates more than twice as high as those in any other San Francisco neighborhood in 2025, according to police incident data.<\/p>\n Under a modernist chandelier at Lumina, locals raised a range of concerns, including visible drug use near the Embarcadero Navigation Center at 555 Beale St., a need for nighttime security patrols by the East Cut<\/a> Community Benefit District, and better pedestrian safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the evening\u2019s longest exchanges began when a resident complained that the area was experiencing an epidemic of people riding electric bicycles and scooters on sidewalks, particularly on Main Street and the Embarcadero. <\/p>\n Others quickly jumped in to ask why, even when they saw police officers in the neighborhood, they did not appear to be stopping riders or issuing citations.<\/p>\n One resident argued that officers should not need to be dispatched to a scooter complaint to pull someone over for riding illegally on a sidewalk. Others questioned why pedestrian safety appeared to be taking a back seat to more urgent police calls.<\/p>\n \u201cSo do you want them going out to where someone\u2019s life is in danger or not? Or going after a guy on a scooter?\u201d Hurley asked.<\/p>\n Aukland called Hurley\u2019s question a \u201cfalse dichotomy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I only have so many officers, Shaun,\u201d Hurley replied. \u201cI\u2019d love to promise you that every call [would be answered] within five minutes. But I\u2019d be lying to you if I said that.\u201d<\/p>\n The relative calm around Lumina, said Lt. Adrian Payne, could give residents a misleading sense of officers\u2019 availability. <\/p>\n He contrasted the East Cut with the Sixth Street corridor, where Southern Station can get high-priority calls \u201cback to back to back.\u201d A recent attempted kidnapping on Sixth Street, he added, required all patrol officers on shift to respond.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he said, while officers might not look busy, they could be searching for suspects, or following up on an investigation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After Hurley and Payne left, Dorsey lingered to talk one-on-one with constituents.<\/p>\n \u201cI share their frustrations,\u201d Dorsey said of the residents. \u201cI always feel like I have to apologize for the city.\u201d He said he has watched the city \u201cset up departments for failure.\u201d<\/p>\n The longer-term solution to the complaints he hears from residents, Dorsey argued, requires recruiting more early- and mid-career officers, and finding ways to retain experienced officers nearing retirement.<\/p>\n Things had gotten better in the area, said Christopher Hussain, who said he\u2019d been an East Cut resident since 2013. Since Mayor Daniel Lurie took office, Hussain said, he\u2019d seen less visible street disorder. He said police use of cameras and other surveillance technology<\/a> in the area made him feel safer, not surveilled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Dorsey agreed. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough officers to go through the video footage anyway,\u201d he said with a laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n