An Open Letter To Michela Alioto-Pier

Dear Ms. Alioto-Pier,

As a resident of District 2, you are my representative at City Hall. It has come to my attention that San Francisco is going to end the 2005-2006 fiscal year with a surplus of $137 million. According to a recent article in the Examiner, the surplus is due to better than expected revenues, departmental savings, and unspent money during the current fiscal year.

Ms. Alioto-Pier, this is a perfect opportunity to show some real-world, level headed fiscal stewardship of taxpayer money! There has been a rush among your fellow supervisors to "earmark" this money for specific projects, including low income housing, infrastructure improvements, art programs and city employee pay raises. As a tax paying resident of San Francisco, I have a list of my own:

1. Return the money to the taxpayers.

Now, before you start laughing too hard, please realize that I know you and your fellow supervisors don't live under the same financial laws the rest of us "private sector" folks do. So, with that in mind, I'll propose another list - one that takes into account the world you live in:

1. Earmark the money toward the 2006 - 2007 budget, which is tentatively projected to already be $35 million overbudgeted (somebody please explain to me how the hell that happens??)
2. Infrastructure improvements. Fill the potholes, plant some trees, clean the streets. These expenses will help the city for years, or at least until there is another surplus. San Francisco needs to stop floating bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements when these type of expenses should come out of the normal operating budget.
3. Fix BART, which caught on fire today. By the way, the coverage on CNN has been excellent.

Whatever you do, do not increase pay for city workers. A pay increase this year means pay levels remain raised for future years. Who's going to pay for this? Are Tom Ammiano and Jake McGoldrich assuming budget surplusses every year?? This is the kind of irresponsible fiscal thinking that makes my skin crawl, and is a perfect example of why I started this blog in the first place.

Regards,

HelpSFO