If you can’t get through to the mayor, try sending him a postcard.
This was the strategy of the People’s Budget Coalition — made up of various nonprofits and other city-funded groups impacted by budget cuts — which delivered over 1,500 postcards today to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office.
Each card was inscribed with an individual’s plea to keep the mayor’s budget cuts at bay. Those cuts have gutted many social programs, advocates say, including immigrant services and public health initiatives.
“People will die if these budget cuts move forward,” said Anya Worley-Ziegmann, coalition coordinator.
The postcards were tied together with string, and activists lined up to deliver them to Lurie’s office. Representatives from different community groups — among them seniors and people with disabilities, neighborhood residents, and others from the HIV Advocacy Network — spoke to a representative from the mayor’s office, who stood outside, listened to each person, and took notes.
Lurie’s office directed members of the press to the mayor’s remarks at a press conference earlier Tuesday morning. San Francisco is facing a $643 million deficit, and Lurie earlier this year instructed departments to cut programs, stop hiring, and review all contracts for potential savings.
“We have to make painful decisions,” Lurie said during that Q&A. “I want to set our city up on firm financial footing, I want to think long term about the city.”
Lurie has largely spared law enforcement from the cuts, however, and the city recently approved new police and firefighter contracts that would cost $100 million extra over two years.
The mayor only has “discretionary” control over some $3 billion — about 19 percent — of the city’s $16 billion budget. The rest is set in stone on account of “enterprise departments” like the airport and the port that operate mostly independently, and funds that have been pre-allocated for certain programs.
Still, the People’s Budget Coalition would like to put an end to the mayor’s recent cuts. Activists are calling on Lurie to find another way to address the deficit without cutting funds to programs such as those.
The coalition is not alone in this appeal. Budget chair and District 1 supervisor Connie Chan said Monday that the mayor’s cuts last year were “enough,” and that she would “find it very difficult” to support more. But Chan’s plan depends on finding money from a ballot measure that is not guaranteed to pass, and one-time reserves.
Nonetheless, members of the coalition echoed those same alternatives Tuesday.
“We have money that is set aside within our reserves that we could actually be using in order to fund the gap that is currently here,” said Jason Wyman, a member of the coalition. Around him in the hall, members of the coalition were chanting “si se puede.”
Wyman said that the city should focus on revenue, pointing to ballot measures which he said could “help” or “hurt” the city’s revenue.
Wyman was talking about Proposition D, which is known as the “Overpaid CEO Act,” which could increase the city’s revenue by $250 to $300 million per year and Proposition C, its counter measure, which could decrease revenue by $30 to $40 million.
“So maybe now is not the time to be hurting our revenue,” Wyman said.
Worley-Ziegmann agreed.
“Every time that [Lurie] says that tough choices have to be made, he’s ignoring the fact that he has already made the choice to make cuts and not raise revenue,” Worley-Ziegmann said. “We call on City Hall to make a tougher choice: raise revenue.”
Outside Lurie’s office, each round of testimonials saw another string of postcards delivered to Lurie’s staffers and brought inside.
Gabriel Medina, executive director of La Raza Community Resource Center, spoke on behalf of District 9 families.
“What happens to these families when they come here for sanctuary, but the people that give them sanctuary are cut? Who do they come to?” he said.
Maddie, a resident of a Chinatown single-room occupancy hotel, implored the mayor’s office to support SRO subsidies.
“It seems like the world has forgotten about us,” a translator said in English after Maddie spoke. She described the conditions living with her son, and the “extremely small and tiny space” they share.
“I’m not sure if you understand what kind of challenges we are going through, but I really hope that you can give us the help and support that we need to get through the day,” she said through the translator.
“We really need your help.”
