It's one of the themes, I hear people grumbling on the campaign trail: When we have such a bad budget year, how is that the Mayor can ask departments to tighten their belts, while he takes funds from the Muni to hire his former campaign web site designer, boost the salaries of his inner circle, keep them ever ready in their new bullpen, and equip them with state of the art technology, including wi-fi and wide screen plasma televisions."People in this district are hurting. Our Muni service is some of the most unreliable in the city. Our main thoroughfare between Ocean, San Jose, Mission, Geneva and Balboa Park BART has some of the slowest rush hour traffic around. It's best to avoid it all together, that is unless you have some place to go.
At a recent community meeting in the OMI, folks gathered around to discuss the enormous gaps in children, youth and family services. For the same cost of the Mayoral staff's bonuses and the build out of the bullpen, the City could offset the state's cuts to the neighborhood's child care services, provide jobs for young people to beautify the neighborhood, have some great recreation programs when the new Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center finally opens (after a million delays), or provide more outreach services for families, seniors, etc.
When it comes to city budget and the services it provides, people want the Mayor to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
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Take a look at the bloated bureaucracy that the Transportation Authority skims off the transportation funds, before we ding the Mayor for far fewer staff. The TA has FAR more staff, and some LOVELY and FINELY APPOINTED offices, than are needed to perform their basic task, which is to allocate sales tax transit funds. The TA costs the MTA FAR MORE than the Mayor's office, and WHAT does the TA actually produce beyond planning documents? Nothing. Why the TA gets a free ride from the media is one of life's mysteries; at least the Controller cleaned their clock a few years back with an unprecedented negative audit on their scandalous financial practices.
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