Newsom looking to expand background checks on potential city employees

On Tuesday KCBS radio reported on Mayor Gavin Newsom looking to expand background checks on potential city employees. This was brought on by the case of former city engineer Terry Childs, who took San Francisco’s computer system hostage for weeks back in 2008.

Childs had felony convictions in Kansas for robbery and burglary, information that was left out because San Francisco only goes as far as California for background checks.

Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker said: “This legislation will give us a greater ability to weed those kind of folks out, so nobody falls through the cracks like Terry Childs.”

Criminal history doesn’t automatically cut out an applicant, but it provides a better way to match the said applicant to the right position, according to the KCBS report.