Hundreds pack City Hall to protest S.F. budget cuts

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Hundreds of protesters lined up along San Francisco City Hall’s hallways today to push back against Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed budget cuts, saying the mayor is starving food banks, language-access programs, legal aid, housing and other services in need of funding. 

The mayor’s budget includes $200 million in nonprofit funding cuts over two years. It maintains funding for the police, sheriff’s and probation departments, including for a jail annex in San Bruno that was intended to be temporary. 

The mayor has also sliced away 1,400 city jobs, only 470 of which would immediately save the city money, Mission Local found.

The proposed budget has been contentiously received in San Francisco: 1,000 people protested the cuts on the steps of City Hall earlier this month. 

Lurie has until the end of the month next week to finalize the budget and close San Francisco’s $800 million deficit. The Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee will deliberate this week and negotiate with the mayor as his budget deadline races to a close next Monday. 

Organizers whose funding has been cut are scrambling to put pressure on the mayor before the budget deadline on June 30. 

Standing behind a velvet rope that snaked up and down the hallway, about 300 people lined up outside the legislative chambers for public comment that, as of 1:45 p.m., had lasted about three and a half hours. The supervisors were expecting a long day, and had cancelled their lunch break.

Inside, supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Matt Dorsey, Joel Engardio, Rafael Mandelman and Shamann Walton sat for hours of comments and drifted out of the chambers for brief breaks. 

“Today, you see all the lines of people here demanding a fair and democratic budget. They are not asking for handouts, they are not asking for charity,” said Jose Luis Pavon, a care manager at San Francisco nonprofit HOMEY, at a press conference organized by the People’s Budget Coalition, an organization of nonprofits and unions impacted by the cuts. “We’re asking for our fair share of the budget. All of us work, all of us contribute to the tax base here.” 

Several nonprofits are in danger of closing if proposed cuts are not reversed, organizers said.

Project Homeless Connect, which was founded in 2004 by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to provide drop-in services and street outreach to San Francisco’s homeless population, is in danger of losing 93 percent of its funding, effectively closing the organization. 

“This isn’t just a budget cut; it’s a severing of frontline care,” said Pamela G. H., executive director of Project Homeless Connect, in a statement to Mission Local.

“We are a cost-effective, trauma-informed access point that prevents crises before they escalate,” G.H. said. “Eliminating PHC would leave thousands without a lifeline.”

“The city charter grants an excessive amount of budget authority to the mayor,” Joe Wilson, the executive director of Hospitality House, said during the press conference. This year, Lurie controls about $2.3 billion, or 15 percent, of the total $15.9 billion budget. The supervisors control tens of millions — orders of magnitude less.

“By the time the budget gets to the Board of Supervisors,” Wilson said, “we’re dealing with pennies, not dollars.”

At one point, Janelle Coronado, a development coordinator at Open Door Legal and a survivor of domestic violence who has previously received legal aid, took out a pair of shears and cut off her hair in protest.

“I hope this is the only chop we have to make,” she said, as the Board of Supervisors looked on, frozen in apparent shock.

Several protesters dropped homemade banners from the third-floor balcony, revealing three messages: “Stop cuts,” “¡No mas recortes!” and “New jail steals $$ from crucial services.”

Two organizers from the People’s Budget Coalition revealed banners reading “Tenants’ rights” and “Immigrants’ rights” on the rotunda’s steps. Chants of “Whose budget? Our budget,” echoed through the building. 

Two hours into public comments, representatives from the People’s Budget Coalition lined the second and third floor balconies of City Hall’s rotunda. They held yellow posters reading, “No new jail! No cuts!” referring to the continued funding for the jail annex in San Bruno. 

Officers from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office confiscated the banners about five minutes after they dropped. The protests died down shortly after, but the long line for comment remained. 

Adrian Tirtanadi, the executive director of Open Door Legal, a legal aid nonprofit that stands to lose 60 percent of its funding for civil legal services, waited for hours outside the hearing room, leaning on a cane out of exhaustion. Tirtanadi is on Day 13 of a hunger strike protesting cuts to civil legal aid. 

Public comment ended at 6:47 p.m. Several people said that they had waited seven hours to address the supervisors, and had just one minute to speak. 

“I appreciate all of you coming out today. You are all here to hold all of us accountable,” said Supervisor Connie Chan, chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee at the conclusion of the nearly nine-hour meeting. 

“Whatever we do, we do have to make some reduction in the next 48 hours. How we restore some of the cuts — I’m not sure where we are heading just yet,” Chan said.

The Budget and Appropriations Committee will meet again on Wednesday before the mayor finalizes the budget by the deadline next Monday.