SAN FRANCISCO — When Mattie Scott was a little girl, she knew the police in her neighborhood and they knew her. If she got into some kind of trouble, the officers might go straight to her mother.

And when Scott, 53, moved to San Francisco in 1965, “we knew everybody and everyone,” she said. Again, that included the police, who knew which people in the neighborhood were into drugs or which kids were not going to school.

But in the 1980s, she said, “it kind of dropped off. It seemed to drop off with each election year.”

Now, in her neighborhood, the Western Addition, the police are no longer a part of her community and “everybody’s afraid of each other. There’s a level of fear in the area at all parts,” she said.

Scott believes her neighborhood needs the personal contact with police that has been lost over the years. That’s why she supports Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s plan for a one-year foot patrol pilot project. That plan, proposed as an ordinance that has been bouncing around City Hall since June, could lead to more police walking the streets in her neighborhood.

And that would be just fine with Scott. “They can talk to the individuals,” she said. “The fear level drops. The intensity drops. Everything gets resolved more peacefully.”

Mirkarimi’s plan would create a law requiring two officers from each of the two police stations in his district to walk a beat every day. Those officers would be under instructions to interact with residents, encourage community participation in crime prevention, and even remove hiding places for criminals.

Police Chief Heather Fong has expressed opposition to the project while reiterating her department’s commitment to community policing and foot patrols.

“The question is, how do we get there?” she told the Board of Supervisors at a recent meeting. The department is concerned that it will not have adequate staffing to balance mandated foot patrols with the ability to respond to 911 calls with faster patrol cars.

But the idea is so popular that a second supervisor is pushing to expand the pilot program into other parts of San Francisco. Supervisor Chris Daly recently amended the legislation to include the Tenderloin, Mission, and Ingleside neighborhoods.

The rule would expire a year after adoption. The Police Department would be required to keep tabs on the program and submit a report on its effectiveness in reducing crime.

In the face of criticism that the Police Department doesn’t assign enough officers to foot beats, Chief Fong told the supervisors that her department staffed 700 foot beats over a recent two-week period.

But all those foot patrols are in areas that don’t necessarily need them, like the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood, said Mattie Scott. “I never see them in the Fillmore.”

Mirkarimi’s plan requires foot beats in specific areas that are severely affected by crime.

The plan will also help reintegrate police officers into communities, said Sharen Hewitt, director of the Community Leadership Academy Emergency Response, which assists families affected by violent crime.

But foot beats are just one part of what is needed to help crime-afflicted areas, Hewitt said. “The police can’t do their job because other public systems are failing. And the community bears the brunt of that,” she said.

One element of the government that may be failing is the Police Commission, said Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who opposes this project.

The ordinance is “beyond our role as members of the board to actually put in our code - to enact by law - where a particular police officer’s supposed to walk,” said Elsbernd.

A rule like this is more appropriate from the Police Commission but it hasn’t provided that kind of guidance, he said. As a result, he said, “at a certain point, the opposition I have falls away.”

Hewitt’s support remains unswayed. “First it needs to happen. Then it needs to expand,” she said.

“We’ll have the statistics in a year to prove that this will work city-wide,” said Michael O’Connor, who counseled patience for the program. O’Connor is co-owner of the music venue The Independent and a member of the city’s Small Business Commission which unanimously supported Mirkarimi’s plan.

“Small businesses are the first line of defense - or offense - on lots of different issues,” he said. He thinks the foot patrols will help merchants and communities.

O’Connor, who ran against Mirkarimi for District 5 supervisor, praised the supervisor for being thorough in planning the implementation of this pilot project.

But action can’t happen soon enough for Hewitt. “There’s no reason why people need to be dying in one of the most sophisticated cities on the planet,” she said.

“We need to step up our response,” she said. “This is our 9th Ward calling out.”