Budget Time: Transfer Police Budget to Services for the Workingclass

On June 7, 2020, around 3 p.m., a march of a few thousand young people was seen on Bay Street, coming from the Marina, turning onto Columbus and filled the entire length of Columbus to Stockton, where it turned for a block to Vallejo, the heart of the workingclass Chinese immigrant community, where they stood and chanted Black Lives Matter outside a police station.

Most of the businesses on Stockton Street, all of which serve the workingclass Chinese community, were open in the morning, but had shut down and covered their windows with plywood or steel shutters. One Chinese woman asked me, a white person, if they were going to ransack Walgreen’s, which is now covered with wooden boards. I assured her they were just picketing the police station and were not the type to ransack anything. For those who are ignorant of San Francisco history, the Chinese community knows the history of this City, and it is filled with anti-Chinese terrorism. One Chinese woman wanted to know why they did not go to Pacific Heights and picket the homes of millionaire, war profiteering Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein. It is, after all, the ruling capitalist class, the residents of Pacific Heights, along with their upper middle class minions, Democrats and Republicans, who tell the police what to do.

Meanwhile, it is budget time for the City and County of San Francisco, which faces a $1.7 billion deficit since it shut down the City for almost 3 months now for 43 COVID19 deaths, although it had enough hospital beds and Personal Protective Equipment by May 7 to cope with any hospital surge in our City of 883,000 people, which had more cancer and heart disease deaths in the same period. The police budget is $611 BILLION this year, 86% of which goes salaries and benefits. The police make at least $100,000 a year plus benefits. Bus fares will go up in November unless the police budget is transferred to the transportation budget. The homeless will continue to be homeless, the workingclass of Chinatown and everywhere else will continue to live in substandard housing called Single Room Occupancy Hotels (SROs), where the bathroom and kitchen are down the hall, and often filthy and the rooms are too small for anyone, unless the police budget is transferred to the housing budget so we can finally house the homeless and those living in SROs in the thousands of vacant units and hotel rooms, either by paying the rent for these units and hotel rooms or taking them over by eminent domain. The fiscal year ends June 30, 2020.

Please call or Email all 11 supervisors, all Democrats, who keep voting for the police budget and demand the entire police budget be transferred to transportation, affordable housing, healthcare, paving our streets, and everything else the workingclass needs. The police are not social workers; they are simply the armed thugs of the capitalist class whose sole purpose is to terrorize the workingclass. You can find the contact information at https://sfbos.org/roster-members and below.

Matt Haney
District 6
(415) 554-7970 - Voice
(415) 554-7974 - Fax
Matt.Haney [at] sfgov.org

Rafael Mandelman
District 8
(415) 554-6968 - Voice
(415) 554-6909 - Fax
MandelmanStaff [at] sfgov.org

Gordon Mar
District 4
(415) 554-7460 - Voice
(415) 554-7432 – Fax
Gordon.Mar [at] sfgov.org

Aaron Peskin
District 3
(415) 554-7450 - Voice
(415) 554-7454
Aaron.Peskin [at] sfgov.org

Dean Preston
District 5
(415) 554-7630 - Voice
(415) 554-7634 - Fax
Dean.Preston [at] sfgov.org

Sandra Lee Fewer
District 1
(415) 554-7410 - Voice
(415) 554-7415 - Fax
Sandra.Fewer [at] sfgov.org

Hillary Ronen
District 9
(415) 554-5144 - voice
(415) 554-6255 - fax
Hillary.Ronen [at] sfgov.org

Ahsha Safai
District 11
(415) 554-6975 - Voice
(415) 554-6979 - Fax
Ahsha.Safai [at] sfgov.org

Catherine Stefani
District 2
(415) 554-7752 - Voice
(415) 554-7843 - Fax
Catherine.Stefani [at] sfgov.org

Shamann Walton
District 10
(415) 554-7670 - Voice
(415) 554-7674 - Fax
Shamann.Walton [at] sfgov.org

Norman Yee
District 7
(415) 554-6516 - Voice
(415) 554-6546 - Fax
Norman.Yee [at] sfgov.org