By Nicholas Olczak
March 20, 2008
Supervisor Chris Daly accused the Mayor’s Office of failing to involve the Board of Supervisors in policy issues, speaking during a tense Budget and Finance Committee meeting yesterday.
Debating the re-appropriation of funds earmarked for the construction of an expensive ramp to more appropriate uses, Mayor’s liaison to the Board of Supervisors Christine DeBerry accused Supervisor Chris Daly of reducing the issue to an “either or” issue without consulting with the Mayor.
Christine DeBerry
Daly sought to clarify how the Mayor and Board function in “the consultative nature of the legislative” process, but was blocked in this examination by Newsom ally Supervisor Sean Elsbernd.
“Can we not do this ‘how a bill becomes a law?’” Elsbernd asked. “We’ve got a huge agenda.”
Supervisor Sean Elsbernd
Supervisor Daly explained that an examination is necessary because he said the Mayor’s office was choosing to “specifically exclude the legislative process” from budget issues.
“The Mayor’s office feels like it can run roughshod over the Board of Supervisors,” Daly said.
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Supervisor Chris Daly
Committee chair Supervisor Jake McGoldrick attempted to interject while Daly was expressing his dismay at the Mayor’s Office. Daly suggested McGoldrick was complicit in denying the Board of Supervisors the necessary involvement in deciding how the City’s budget should be appropriated and spent.
“He can’t just cut me off when I have the floor,” Daly responded to Fog City Journal inquiry.
Daly stressed the importance of understanding that it is the Board of Supervisors that appropriates the City’s $6.3 billion budget which the Mayor is obligated to spend as determined by the Board.
Newsom, however, has set a precedent of ignoring the Board’s mandates, refusing to spend appropriations authorized by the board including a $33 million supplemental appropriation earmarked in 2007 for affordable housing.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick (left)
Earlier in the meeting, Department of Public Health Director Doctor Mitch Katz was called upon to account for the cuts in funding.
Daly said the Department of Public Health and the Mayor’s Office were framing the situation as cutting health services to fund other health services. He said that he “does not subscribe to this” and it was necessary to “look across the city” when discussing the budget.
“There needs to be a collaborative discussion between the executive branch and the legislative branch of government on priorities across the city,” Daly said.
He said he was “amazed” at the lack of discussion between the Mayor and the Board.
He called for the Mayor’s Office to “at least have the common courtesy” to enter into discussions.
“If they’re not going to do that, then what I’m going to do is keep drafting supplemental appropriations all the way up to the 2nd of June,” Daly said.
The hearing also revealed that the Mayor’s Office on Disability, with the approval of Newsom, had continued spending money on the development of a ramp despite the Board’s wishes to examine the appropriateness of the costly expenditure.
“The Mayor made it clear that he does not want to see this delayed,” DeBerry said.
The initital $975,000 allocation for the ramp now stands at an estimated $760,000 with funds drawn for planning and off-site activities. In February the Board of Supervisors voted against the ramp’s construction citing exhorbitant construction costs.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who called into question Newsom’s public welcoming of lawsuits against the City he represents, echoed Daly’s concerns.
“There is a parallel effort going on, and we are being excluded from that effort,” Mirkarimi said.
The committe voted 3-2 to put the ramp construction funds on hold, to allow more time to examine less expensive ramp construction alternatives, and to allow the full board an opportunity Tuesday to discuss other uses of the funds.
The Hunger Site
March 21, 2008 at 7:06 am
Uh … well … hmm. I always knew that Ichabod was petty but he really outdoes himself with this extraordinary pissing contest. Does this mean that they are going to build a ramp that would cost about as much as a condominium in Palo Alto just all of a sudden while the Board of Supervisors are in the middle of a budget meeting or something? Like, a bunch of carpenters with saws and nails and hammers and everything?
March 20, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I have to give props where props due. When Daly was chair he rolled his sleeves up and got down to business and this city never fell short and everyone got a practical piece of the city budget pie with reserves.