Mayor London Breed, who won her election largely on a promise to clean up the city, is stepping up efforts to scrub San Francisco’s streets, including playing a bit of cat and mouse with her own city department heads.

Breed has taken to making unannounced walks through hard-hit neighborhoods — at times with reporters in tow — but without giving the police or Public Works officials the usual heads-up that in the past allowed for the cleanups that usually precede a mayoral visit.

“I don’t want the areas to be clean if it’s not clean on a regular basis. I want to see what everybody else is seeing,” Breed tells us.

And when Breed spots a problem, she texts the department head.

The sight of human waste, discarded hypodermic needles, trash and general grime is nothing new to anyone walking in downtown, in the Mission District or in any of a number of other San Francisco neighborhoods these days.

And, as Breed notes, “We’re spending a lot of money to address this problem.”

No kidding.

San Francisco Public Works has a $72.5 million-a-year street cleaning budget — including spending $12 million a year on what essentially have become housekeeping services for homeless encampments.

The costs include $2.8 million for a Hot Spots crew to wash down the camps and remove any biohazards, $2.3 million for street steam cleaners, $3.1 million for the Pit Stop portable toilets, plus the new $830,977-a-year Poop Patrol to actively hunt down and clean up human waste.

(By the way, the poop patrolers earn $71,760 a year, which swells to $184,678 with mandated benefits.)

At the same time, the Department of Public Health has an additional $700,000 set aside for a 10-member, needle cleanup squad, complete with it’s own minivan. The $19-an-hour needle cleanup jobs were approved as part of the latest budget crafted largely by former Mayor Mark Farrell.

The new needle crew is on top of the $364,000 that the health department already was spending on a four-member needle team.

Breed is also leaning on Chief William Scott for more foot patrols.

“I’ve definitely had discussions with the chief and asked that beat officers be out there,” Breed said.

City officials say foot beats have nearly doubled in the past year, from 76 to 140 officers.

The problem, however, is that every time the cops arrest someone for a low-level, quality-of-life or petty street crime, the beat cops have to write up an incident report and transport the suspect to jail for booking, all of which takes them off the street.

Breed said she and the police are now looking into the possibility of using sheriff’s deputies to help transport prisoners, in turn allowing beat cops to stay on patrol.

The mayor, however, makes clear that the burden of solving all the city’s street problems doesn’t rest solely on City Hall.

“The responsibility is with everyone,” Breed said. “People shouldn’t be comfortable throwing their trash on the ground, and if people have recommendations on where they want trash cans, they can call 311.”

Picture this: The Oakland A’s have hired the cutting-edge Danish architectural firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), to lead the design process for a new ballpark and surrounding development.

The firm, which describes its design approach as “pragmatic utopian,” will oversee planning for two possible sites — the waterfront Howard Terminal and the 111-acre Coliseum property in east Oakland.

“We wanted a team that could look at the ballpark with a fresh perspective ... and this is really a game changer,” said A’s President Dave Kaval.

Back to Gallery Street housekeeping keeps SF Mayor Breed — and everyone... 3 1 of 3 Photo: Noah Berger / Special to The Chronicle 2 of 3 Photo: Alana Paterson / New York Times 3 of 3 Photo: Alana Paterson / New York Times





The global architectural firm Gensler, whose projects include the Golden State Warriors’ new Chase Center arena in San Francisco and the just-opened Bank of California soccer stadium in L.A.’s Exposition Park, has also signed on to work on the ballpark design.

For all the excitement over the prospect of glitzy designs, the fate of the A’s new ballpark in Oakland remains far from certain.

Mayor Libby Schaaf raised further questions about how such a deal might be financially structured in a private meeting with Oakland business leaders on Friday. According to sources, Schaaf told the group that the city doesn’t have the money to buy out Alameda County’s half-interest in the Oakland Coliseum site to help smooth the way for a possible A’s development there.

Schaaf told us Tuesday that the picture is actually “a little more complicated.”

“We are fully committed to buying out the county’s share of the Coliseum land, but we will not repeat mistakes of the past by being financially irresponsible when it comes to sports teams,” she said.

It was at Schaaf’s urging, back in May, that the Oakland City Council voted to give the A’s an exclusive nine-month purchase option on the Coliseum site while the team’s management also negotiated with the port about moving to Howard Terminal.

A’s President Kaval, who attended Friday’s meeting at the offices of Oakland developer Michael Ghielmetti, declined to comment on the mayor’s private remarks, saying only that the team stands behind the offer it first made in March to buy out the entire Coliseum site for $137 million.

“We are hoping that offer can be a catalyst to move a privately financed stadium offer forward for the A’s,” Kaval said.

City Hall and other sources tell us the A’s firmly favor building at Howard Terminal, but would still like to win the development rights to the Coliseum property, at the very least to help finance what’s increasingly looking like a very expensive waterfront ballpark.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross