In an eventful day at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the board voted 10-1 to pass Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget for the next two fiscal years as a crowd of nearly 100 members of the public looked on.
“The agreement before us today may not be something we all can fully celebrate, but we must acknowledge how we have come together despite our differences,” said Supervisor Connie Chan, who served as budget chair and shepherded much of the process.
She thanked Mayor Daniel Lurie and said sides had “come together” to strengthen the city’s fiscal standing, in part by putting $400 million in reserves to protect against possible federal cuts, reversing some of Lurie’s planned cuts to city workers, and restoring some program funding.
The haggling, however, represented a de minimis portion of the budget — 0.1 percent — that was under the supervisors’ control. Most of it was largely unchanged.
District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder was the only dissenting vote.
“Parts of this budget are indefensible,” Fielder said. “In a deficit year, SFPD and the sheriff’s department got a $50 million increase while programs serving immigrant families and BIPOC were gutted.”
A handful of audience members broke their silence to clap and cheer before being reminded to show their support silently.
The vote officially ends months of wrangling over how to plug an $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s $15.9 billion budget. Nonprofits contracted with the city have faced massive cuts, and approximately 40 city workers are slated to lose their jobs.
The police department, the sheriff’s department, the district attorney’s office, and all other city agencies devoted to “public safety” saw no cuts. The police department, in fact, received $27 million in additional funds.
Two more items on the agenda also faced some contention.
Lurie has proposed changes to Proposition C that would redirect approximately $34 million in the Our City, Our Home fund from permanent homeless housing to temporary shelter.
Changing those funds, which were generated from a 2018 ballot measure tax on business that make over $50 million in gross receipts, has been controversial because it gives Lurie powers that weren’t set out in the measure. The city attorney’s office has warned that approving these changes opens the city up to lawsuits.
As the vote approached, about 20 people stood silently in the back of the room, holding signs that read “Protect the Integrity of Prop. C.”
Supervisor Shamann Walton spoke out against those changes, going so far as to compare the proposal to the whims of a tyrant.
“Every dictator states they just want additional authority once,” Walton said. “‘No Kings’ applies to San Francisco as well.” In an 8-3 vote, Fielder’s attempt to stop Lurie’s proposed changes failed; Walton, Fielder, and District 11’s Chyanne Chen voted against Lurie.
Board President Rafael Mandelman said he was “completely comfortable giving the mayor and his team the ability to propose any additional funds subject to a majority vote. If those come in, we will be back here.”
Also Tuesday, the mayor’s proposed ban on RV parking for more than two hours was passed 9-2, with Fielder and Walton voting no. Lurie, in a statement, said the ban mixed “compassion and accountability” by sending out teams to offer housing, while enforcing a 2-hour ban on large vehicle parking citywide.
RV dwellers have felt squeezed by the city, saying it is effectively destroying one of the last sources of affordable housing here.
Both of those items passed today were a blow to homeless advocates. As the changes to Prop. C and the two-hour restriction on RV parking passed, audible hisses were heard from the crowd.
The mayor’s office on homelessness, health, and family services has promised transitional housing vouchers for permanent supportive housing to the approximately 1,400 vehicularly homeless San Franciscans. But so far, there isn’t enough housing to go around, even for people who don’t have cars to live in.
“More RVs than shelter beds equals an impossible plan,” said Walton. “There is a need to do something, but it’s not this.”
Thank goodness for the RV provision. It is unbelievable that they let the problem around Lake Merced get as bad as it did, and unbelievable that there are still defenders of the status quo.
Nowhere else in America can you park an RV on a public right of way and expect to stay there for years, indefinitely, without paying a dime. In fact the RV dwellers want more than that, they expect the city to clean up for them and receive a panoply of services and handouts on top of it.
Someone explain to me how Rec and Park can have a $12 million deficit that supposedly requires adding parking meters to the park. I have not heard any media organization or reporter explain why there is a such large deficit. I want facts.
Adding parking meters is a travesty that will affect all volunteers who give their free time to park institutions, and also a problem for park employees who will now have to pay to go to their jobs.
Is this article saying Walton and Chen voted with the mayor? Why did they do that?
So all five SF YIMBY endorsed supervisors—Sauter, Engardio, Mahmood, Dorsey, and Melgar—voted to take $34 to $53 million away from building permanent affordable housing, at the same time as they voted to ban RVs from all city streets.
This is no way to solve a housing crisis. It’s time for urbanists to realize that the SF YIMBY strategy of treating tenant unions and progressive organizers as the enemy, while making electoral coalitions with “tough-on-crime” conservatives (all of the above except Melgar were the more right-leaning major candidate in their races), doesn’t work. Conservatives will never support urbanist goals like abundant housing at all income levels and socioeconomically integrated neighborhoods.
ScottF lives in a fantasy world with no tradeoffs where if you say Big Business Baddy 3 times in a row, you suddenly get infinite money to spend on $1m new construction “social housing” apartments for crackheads.
Thank you, scottf! So well said. One day common sense will prevail over real estate/privileged greed and our city (every city, in fact) will become a sane democratic municipality, which is actually better for everyone (even yimbys). One day, and I applaud Jackie Fielder for keeping the faith, doing the hard work, staying with truth and integrity, and doing all she can to make that “one day” closer to this day, today.
“The police department, in fact, received $27 million in additional funds.”
Any safeguards to prevent approve-your-own-overtime or collecting sick pay to work private security?
People don’t necessarily want abundant housing at all income levels and they specifically don’t want socioeconomically integrated neighborhoods.
Primarily, they want the homeless off the streets and sidewalks. Where they are moved to is less of a concern.
Given the behavior of our homeless, I don’t blame them!