San Francisco Mayor Breed unveils $14.6B budget, vows fight for changes to status quo
SAN FRANCISCO -- Mayor London Breed officially unveiled her $14.6 billion budget plan Wednesday ahead of what's expected to be a long negotiation with the Board of Supervisors. Judging by the mayor's comments, she's ready for a fight.
"We're changing the Department of Public Health," said Breed. "We're not gonna keep doing the same thing. We need people to have the ability to get treatment on demand, easier."
Whether it was moving funds towards diversified treatment options, or using the police to break up drug activity, Breed didn't talk much about the numbers in her budget remarks. She repeatedly returned to the idea of doing things differently.
"But we're not just gonna keep doing the same thing," she told a crowd at City Hall. "We have got to change it. We have got to get aggressive."
One move generating pushback is a plan to change the way Prop C homeless funding is allocated. The mayor says she wants to shift it between programs in order to use it more quickly.
"We just don't think it's equitable then to, in order to continue shelter beds she takes money away from housing that was intended for transitional aged homeless youth and homeless families," explained Jennifer Friedenbach with the Coalition on Homelessness.
"Of course, not everyone is going to be happy about the decisions that I made to take resources that are not being used and spend them on people that we know need help and support now," the mayor said of the criticism. "And I don't really care."
This is a mayor facing serious challenges in the city's core and plenty of exasperated residents
"I think that's the only reason she started doing more stuff is because everybody's tired of it," Tenderloin District resident Kirk Gordon said recently. "Really super tired."
Breed already faces at least one challenger in the upcoming election in Supervisor Ahsha Safai. More challenges are expected, and while the city is also doing well in many neighborhoods, as Breed recently pointed out in Noe Valley, the various crises loom large, politically and financially.
"And the ability to pay for all this comes from somewhere," Breed said of the city's business struggles. "It comes from taxes."
The process is a partnership. The mayor's budget now heads over to the Board of Supervisors. Work on a final product will stretch into the summer.
"And I know some of these decisions are not gonna be popular, but again, I don't care," Breed said Wednesday. "I didn't become mayor to be afraid to do this job the way it needs to be done."
In 2024, San Francisco will have a new consolidated election for mayor and the Board of Supervisors for Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. San Francisco government is largely up for grabs next year, amid this very intense debate over what is happening in the city. So the intensity of the politics is only going to increase, the $14.6 billion budget is just one part of that conversation.