Last week, Mayor Newsom submitted his budget to the Board of Supervisors and kicked off the annual month long debate on the city’s budget priorities. The Budget Committee has been chaired by Supervisor Chris Daly nearly every year since Chris has been on the Board. While some have criticized Daly, few have criticized his masterful handling of the budget. In truth, Daly shows his wonkish side during this process and has a clear grasp of how to make sure the numbers add up where they should. His leadership in this committee has in the past drawn strong praise from Vice-Chair of the Budget Committee Supervisor Bevan Dufty, and even Supervisor Sean Elsbernd.
At the end of the day, Board President Supervisor Aaron Peskin deserves much praise for appointing someone to run this committee who is willing to do the hard work to make sure progressive priorities are met.
To those who watch the process closely over the years, it should come as no surprise then that Supervisor Daly would be unhappy to see that the Mayor’s budget perpetuates some cuts in AIDs funding and also contracts out psych beds from SF General. Nor would it surprise many that Daly, with co-sponsorship from Budget Committee Member Tom Ammiano, would restore that funding by making a motion to amend the budget, and that’s exactly what Daly and Ammiano did today at the Board of Supervisors.
Apparently, the Mayor’s office sent out a semi-hysterical press release after they introduced the amendment:
*** STATEMENT***
MAYOR NEWSOM’S STATEMENT ON THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MOTION TO AMEND THE MAYOR’S 2007-2008 BUDGETThis is one of the most transparent political moves in recent San Francisco history. It is the worst kind of election-year politics and terrible public policy. Chris Daly may want to jump off this cliff. We hope no other members of the Board of Supervisors will follow him.
Well, since Tom co-authored the amendment, he has already “jumped off this cliff” and props to him for doing so. I suspect others may follow.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:13 am
I’m confused. I thought that Newsom has discretionary power over the budget — even in spite of a veto-proof majority of the Supervisors demanding funding for these projects. How is Chris going to strong-arm the mayor in this situation.
Also, there is nothing more annoying that Newsom’s (or Newsom’s staff, I should say), blaring the usual Orwellian phrases whenever somebody even thinks to disagree with or challenge him. Especially be alert to the phrase “playing politics”. And what does this have to do with “election-year politics”? Chris isn’t running for anything.
June 6th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I think that the “election year politics” that Newsom’s office is referring to is the mayor’s race. And why you never can be sure of anything in this world, I think that you can be very sure that Daly will not be endorsing Newsom for his re-election campaign for mayor and will probably be working hard for another candidate to unseat Newsom.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I just got this from “The ActLocallySF Team ”
Dear Friends,
Supervisor Chris Daly is trying to kill our Community Justice Center by cutting all funding.
We need your help right now to save the Community Justice Center.
Supervisor Daly introduced legislation yesterday to stop the Community Justice Center and to cut funds for more police, funds to fix our roads and sidewalks, funds to upgrade the successful new 311 Call Center, funds for new trees, funds to help rebuild public housing, funds to help small businesses and many other vital services.
Forward to a FriendSupervisor Daly is directing nearly all of the funds needed for the Community Justice Center, new police officers, street repair and other vital services to benefit the priorities of his chief political backers. Daly is cutting funds for the Community Justice Center, police and needed services to serve special interests and further his own political ends.
We need the Community Justice Center to keep making progress on the homeless crisis. The court is a proven way to direct those who commit quality-of-life crimes like aggressive panhandling into social services. In a time of rising homicide rates, we need the new police officers Daly wants to cut to keep our streets safe. We need the funds Daly wants to cut to repair our roads and infrastructure after decades of neglect.
And we need to stop Daly’s raw political power grab – he is playing politics at our expense. Daly’s efforts to find a candidate to run for mayor have collapsed – so now he is moving his political fight to our city budget.
Please call or email these supervisors right now and let them know you want Daly to restore the mayor’s budget:
Bevan Dufty — 554-6968
Tom Ammiano — 554-5144
Ross Mirkarimi — 554-7630
Aaron Peskin — 554-7450
We need to act now to stand up to Chris Daly. Please spread the word by forwarding this email. And please ask all of your friends to sign our Community Court Petition so we can save this vital program to help address homelessness.
Thank you.
The ActLocallySF Team
info@actlocallysf.org | (415) 351-0359 | Campaign HQ: 1320 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 | Mailing Address: 4104 24th Street #766, San Francisco, CA 94114
June 6th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Also, they are trying to cut funding for the SRO Collaboratives as well. And Act Locally has got to be stopped before they can do any real damamge. They are also using the success of the real community courts that have been in existence for over 5 years now to push their latest version which is nothing more than a way to get the homeless off the street. As a formerly homeless person, I can tell you how difficult it is to get to a proscribed community service job when one is living in the streets. So what will happen? They will then have to go to jail, they will be off the streets, and Project Homeless Connect will be deemed a success!!!!!!! Hooray!!!
June 6th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
“also contracts out psych beds from SF General…”
I haven’t seen the budget myself, but my understanding is that psych beds at SF General are being CUT, not contracted out.
Mental health services provided by the Progress Foundation are not a substitute for psychiatric inpatient beds. It’s an entirely different level of care.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
San Francisco has gone from $38 million in Ryan White CARE funding to $27 million at the beginning of 2007, a 29% reduction. While we were expecting another huge cut this year, no one was prepared for the drastic $9 million we just got hit with to leave us at $18 million in this fiscal year. We have lost over 50% of our CARE funding.
This comes on top of the dreaded new 75/25 rule that forces us to cap spending on needed supportive services at 25% of the award. We’ve been fighting an attempt to put a 24 month lifetime cap on CARE funded housing assistance. Just today I was informed that they are now disallowing us to use CARE funds for residential substance abuse treatment services.
Meanwhile there AIDS housing crisis continues to burn unabated with 2500 homeless people with HIV/AIDS.
There comes a time to play politics and then there’s a time to deal with reality.
Brian Basinger