City leaders Thursday got closer to bridging a $483 million deficit. The Board of Supervisors budget committee approved a plan that uses savings from across city departments to restore proposed cuts to health and human service programs. It also retains city workers whose jobs the mayor wanted to contract out.
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A homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. shut down this month, but will reopen sometime in 2012 as a homeless shelter for veterans. Swords to Plowshares, a nonprofit organization catering to homeless veterans, will run the facility. While homeless activists warn that the city will lose 59 beds, officials maintain they can fill the need because the shelters overall have about 100 vacancies a night.
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The developers of Treasure Island stand to earn a potential 20.6 percent return on their investments if the 18-year, phased construction plan and land sales proceed as they predict. That does not include possible future real estate sales.
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In the next six months, local officials and a consortium of private developers will begin to finalize legal papers for Treasure Island’s future as a high-density eco-city. Renderings of the gleaming towers, parks and gardens suggest harmony and community. Yet the promise of an urban Treasure Island, one of the most complex and risky redevelopments in San Francisco’s recent history, has for more than a decade been wrapped up in a process driven by power and influence. The mayor got neartotal control. Political friends got plum jobs and contracts. Critics were exiled. City and state conflict-of-interest laws were waived. Independent inquiries and the will of voters were nakedly rebuffed.
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The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to lease the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for 20 years to a music promotion company planning big renovations to create an improved concert venue. The agreement will bring the city $100,000 annually, but some workers are left wondering if they will be retained by the new building management.
The homeless and disabled are facing proposed cuts to a program that provides them with transportation to pick up prescriptions and obtain medical treatment. Mobile Assistance Patrol is facing a $300,000 reduction in funds for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which means that the transportation service will operate for shelter clients only at night.
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An overflow crowd at San Francisco City Hall testified into the early morning hours over proposed cuts in the public health budget. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2010-2011 budget would trim $6 million from mental health and substance abuse services in the city.
The University of California, San Francisco, is slated to begin several large new projects at the Mission Bay medical center, including buildings dedicated to cardiovascular and neuroscience research. UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who shared a new report on the impact the university has had on the city, said the university is the second biggest employer in the city.
San Francisco voters approved measures to retrofit schools and emergency services facilities Tuesday in an election in which five of seven local propositions passed. Twenty-three percent of voters showed up at San Francisco’s 590 precincts, passing propositions A, B, D, E and F. Proposition A, which will extend through 2030 a special property tax that was enacted in 1990, was approved by 69.9 percent of voters. Proposition B, the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond, was approved by 79.2 percent of voters.
Although one supervisor questioned whether allowing developers to delay paying some fees would spur building in the city, officials say the accommodation will create more jobs and spur the economy.
