SF News Muni Forever Campaign Provides Action Plan For Voicing Feedback On Service Cuts By April 1 About 250 people showed up to last week’s Muni rally, and while the board made a preliminary vote in favor of service cuts, the public's involvement has motivated Muni to reduce the severity of proposed cuts while also gaining support from local politicians.
SF News Transit Groups To Rally Against Muni Service Cuts At City Hall On Tuesday Local community groups will be rallying in front of City Hall next Tuesday morning prior to SFMTA’s board meeting in the afternoon when the board will make its final decision on Muni service cuts.
SF News Oakland City Council Votes to Reopen Those Fire Stations They Closed Over the Budget Deficit With three Oakland fire stations closed because of the city’s $130 million budget deficit, the Oakland City Council somehow found enough money in the couch cushions to order those stations reopened sometime in the coming months.
SF News Federal Cuts End Year-Round Conservation on the Farallon Islands Budget constraints will reduce research on the Farallon Islands to a seasonal program. The loss of year-round monitoring puts seabirds, seals, and other wildlife at risk, with fewer resources to prevent human disturbances.
SF News Oakland Firefighters Sound the Alarm Over Oakland Fire Station Closures in the Wake of LA Fires You might say Oakland firefighters have their hair on fire over the recent closures of two city fire stations, with four more closures potentially looming, as response times have more than doubled, and the risk of SoCal-style wildfire outbreaks has ballooned.
SF Politics Lurie Announces City Hall Hiring Freeze on First Full Day in Office, Fentanyl Emergency Order Coming by Tuesday New SF Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a City Hall hiring freeze (but not for cops or firefighters) on Day One of his administration that faces a $876 million deficit, and he says he’ll have his fentanyl crackdown plan ready to pass on Tuesday.
SF News Now Gavin Newsom Claims California Has Eliminated Its Budget Deficit, Is Back in Surplus Times Governor Gavin Newsom says last year’s $68 million budget deficit is now completely erased, and he claims the state is running a surplus again, though he won’t say how much of a surplus.
SF News Oakland, Facing a Budget Crisis, Will Temporarily Close Two Fire Stations Oakland will be temporarily closing two fire stations for the next six months, a move that is part of the city's broader plan to address a looming $129 million dollar budget deficit.
SF Politics Oakland City Council Approves Slashing Police, Fire, and Arts Departments to Trim $130 Million Deficit With the City of Oakland drowning in about $129 million in red ink, Oakland City Council voted to approve a plan to cut police overtime, close a few fire stations, and eliminate some arts programs in hopes of closing the deficit.
SF Politics Mayor Breed Leaving an $876 Million Deficit on Her Way Out the Door, and It Could Top $1 Billion Mayor London Breed’s final fiscal update of her tenure in office shows a budget deficit that’s nearly $100 million higher than it was projected to be just four months ago, and the Trump administration seems likely to yank some already-promised federal funding.
SF News Good News for Newsom, as California Deficit Slashed From $68 Billion to Just $2 Billion What a difference a year makes, as the state’s Legislative Analyst Office said early last December that California had a $68 billion budget deficit, but now that deficit is down to just $2 billion.
SF News Mayor Breed’s Budget Cuts Leave Alemany Flea Market on the Chopping Block, Vendors Revolt The City of San Francisco’s $800 million budget deficit is leaving many programs under the scalpel, and Portola neighborhood vendors are furious that the Alemany Flea Market may be one of them.
SF News Supervisors Up In Arms Over Breed’s Massive Budget Cuts to Community Ambassador Program Those bright neon yellow- and green-jacketed street ambassadors are on the chopping block in Mayor Breed’s new proposed budget, as she’s calling to phase them out by 2026 to save a few dollars, but supervisors are furious because they think that program really works.
SF News San Francisco Budget Cuts Trash Plans for City's New Fancy, Expensive Trash Cans The Department of Public Works has already spent more than half a million dollars on this project to customize and prototype new trash cans, but they said Friday it's on pause amid the city's budget deficit.
SF News State of California Now Running a Record $68 Billion Deficit Those extended tax deadlines are having a big unintended consequence for the state of California’s budget, as miscalculations over how much tax revenue was coming have led to a much larger deficit than than the state thought it was running, now an all-time high of $68 billion.
SF News BART’s Answer to Its Financial Woes Is Putting More Police on Trains and Giving Officers Major Raises A new agreement for BART police officers gives them substantial pay bumps of 20% and mandates at least half of the transit police department's officers patrol trains, amid the transit system's fiscal deficit.
SF News Some Analysts Wonder If California Economy Is Barreling Into Recession A combination of inflation, high interest rates, and tech layoffs have some economists worried that a nasty California recession is brewing, though the downturn may be limited to commercial real estate landlords and people who made bank during the pandemic.
SF News Berkeley Poised to Close Famed Anthropology Library, Angry Students In Full ‘Occupy’ Mode UC Berkeley’s 67-year-old George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library is one of only three university anthropology libraries in the U.S., but the school wants to shut it down, prompting an Occupy-style student protest.
SF Politics Deficit Times Again? Mayor Breed Says SF Looking At $728 Million Budget Shortfall SF has gone from a $650 million deficit, to a $108 million surplus, and now back to a $728 million deficit, all in less than two years, and Mayor Breed is ordering department heads to slash their budgets ASAP.
SF News Bay Area Transit Planners Fret Over ’Doomsday Scenario’ of Service Cuts Amidst Plummeting Ridership The possibility of “No weekend BART, bus lines cancelled” looms for BART, Muni, Caltrain and the ferries, according to a new report detailing these transit agencies’ plans for dealing with the “death spiral” of a looming fiscal cliff.
SF Politics Supervisors Pass Budget That Will Supposedly Eliminate $1.5 Billion Deficit The supes pretty much gave Mayor Breed what she wanted in a near-unanimous vote, the only difference being that the Board dips into the rainy day fund to give city employees raises.
SF Politics Breed’s New Budget Defunds Police by $120 Million to Cut $1.5 Billion Deficit SFPD and the sheriff’s department get defunded by the tune of $120 million in Mayor Breed’s just-announced, $26 billion two-year budget.
SF News Is Jerry Going to Kill Off Redevelopment to Save Education? No doubt, Jerry Brown's got big problems to work out in Sacramento to deal with the state's $28 billion dollar deficit. But word on the street is that he's contemplating ending redevelopment, the
SF News Muni to Reinstate 61 Percent of Previous Service Cuts Your super crowded and sporadic bus line just might get closer to the way it was before those nasty service cuts took place in May. (Unless the whole line was cut, of course.
