[nathanaldensr]

How about this false dichotomy:

> "My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police, or it aggressively puts up taxes on businesses to cover the shortfall and drives them out of the city," he said.

It's always "we'll have to slash spending on basic city functions!" or "we'll have to raise your taxes!" but never "we'll have to cut all these unsustainable social policies!"

[diogenescynic]

SF spends literally hundreds of millions on the 7,000-8,000 homeless. If they need to cut programs, that should be the first. It's not only excessive spending, but it's totally unaccountable. They could just buy the homeless RVs in Bakersfield for less than they spend to leave a bunch of junkies on the street and still have overdoses that exceed COVID deaths.

[daenz]

>My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police

I don't want this to turn into an ideological battle, but my understanding was that in SF, that is not an unpopular stance. Is this not the case?

[viraptor]

It normally comes with "and fund mental health, social care, non-lethal first response, etc." so it's not necessarily a short term saving.

[abxytg]

Name an unsustainable social policy to end

[ironmagma]

Corrupt DPW that accomplishes fuck-all, for one. Subsidizing car ownership and driving in general. Rent control is arguably unsustainable as well. Don’t forget paying people to be homeless and shoot up in the BART station. Allowing people to get on BART without paying. Anyone else who has lived in the area could probably think of half a dozen more.

[jeffbee]

"Allowing people to get on BART without paying" is probably San Francisco's least important problem, as compliance with BART fares is > 99% among BART riders, which puts it above the federal income tax (~85%) and far ahead of parking meters (< 50%). If you want to use armed police to end some policy of perceived subsidization then the people you want to taser are parking scofflaws.

Also FYI BART is not a city agency and it has its own police force.

[ironmagma]

> BART says that fare evaders are costing the agency as much as $25 million a year

https://www.kron4.com/news/thousands-cited-for-evading-bart-...

To say that it’s the least important problem ignores a pretty wide swath of ostensibly less significant problems (cigarette misuse near buildings, litter, speeding, unlicensed drivers, unlicensed panhandlers, take your pick). I’m going to need a citation on that claim.

[jeffbee]

BART collected half a billion dollars in fares in 2019 so again, it has way higher compliance with the user fee scheme than other competing services like street parking and bridge tolls and vehicle license fees.

[ironmagma]

So they lost 5% of the fares they collected that year then. How does that work with the citationless “> 99%” number?

[abxytg]

Yea good luck getting a DA to move the needle on any of those state or federal policies you named. Clown show of a recall. Clown show of a city.