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In addition to the major cuts Newsom announced earlier this week (during a rare encounter with the Board of Supervisors, and speaking of rare encounters: Mayor Gavin Newsom is currently speaking over at an event where Alex Tourk is in charge, and, of boy, it must be tough for Tourk and Gavin to work together all the time and yet position themselves so they're not in the same photograph, so if you manage to get the former colleagues/buddies in the same shot, do send it our way), there will be another 12.5 percent snip, or $144.7 million, out of the budget next year. So, you know, say goodbye to things like public health, safety, and those things called libraries.
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For immediate release Press Contact:
December 8, 2008
Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness
415.346.3740 x306
GROUP HOLDS MOCK FUNERAL FOR LOSS OF CRITICAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
Media Advisory
When: Thursday December 11, 2008 12:30 pm
Where: Civic Center Plaza, Southwest Green
What: A broad coalition of community groups, labor, and concerned citizens hold mock funeral in protest of massive budget cuts to poor and working people’s programs. Following the service, the group will hold a procession up into the Mayor’s office to deliver a list of alternative cuts to waste and non-essential services.
San Francisco –San Francisco is facing massive budget cuts, yet programs serving an ever-growing population of poor people are being asked to shoulder the burden. So says a broad coalition of labor, community and activist groups that are holding a mock funeral procession for lost programs.
The Health Department in San Francisco is proposing $17 million in cuts to critical health programs. This is a large proportion of the $26 million the Mayor asked the Department of Public Health to come forward with. This is a third of the $75 million dollar deficit, caused by drops in real estate transfers, tourism and sales tax revenues.
However, many are critical of the small proportion of cuts being shouldered by the bureaucracy, and by non-critical services. For example, police collecting overtime to investigate pedestrian right-aways, firehouse chauffeurs, or expensive new Mayor’s office staff is all presumed to be excluded in the list of budget cuts to be released by Mayor Newsom in the middle of this week.
Mayor Newsom is utilizing his power to halt spending in a time of budget shortfall, choosing to exclude the budget priorities put forth by the Board of Supervisors this past summer. Community members are calling on the Mayor to slow down and take advantage of community planning, to avoid the cuts being made willy-nilly. “The Mayor must put on the brakes, before he runs over fragile community members with this mid-year budget cut.” According to James Chionsini of Planning for Elders in the Central City.
“The Health Commission needs to put politics last and people first. We are hoping this Mayor chooses not to balance this budget on the graves of poor and homeless people.”
The protest is being hosted by the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco and co-sponsored by SEIU, SRO Families United, Western Regional Advocacy Project, Planning for Elders in the Central City, Network Ministries, Poor Magazine, Seniors Organizing Seniors, Mission Resource Center, Community Housing Partnership, St. James Infirmary