If they want to make a donation to the city with a stipulation that it goes towards a new officer being hired that's fine. It becomes unsettling if they begin being able to dictate what that public official is supposed to do
It's a very fuzzy line though. One moment they can be making regular donations to the city, and at another moment they can say "oh you know those donations we've been making, we'd probably have to stop because we can't afford them anymore... Unless of course law X gets passed, wink wink"
Or even more subtly, "You know that cop whose salary we are basically paying? We were just thinking, it would be really nice if he did X more often and Y less often. Don't you agree?"
