By Anna Daniels
The following is the public testimony that I provided at the May 16 budget hearing before the San Diego city council.
Good Evening. My name is Anna Daniels and I am a resident of City Heights. I have attended close to a decade of budget hearings, always as an advocate for our library system.
But this year is different. I stand here before you as a person of conscience who has been witnessing first hand a burgeoning and permanent underclass of the dispossessed in City Heights and San Diego.
A growing population among us cannot find affordable places to live or jobs that pay a living wage. This is a crisis that we cannot ignore. Once people are reduced to living in the streets or their cars or a canyon the human and financial costs spiral out of control, becoming yet another crisis.
I do not support a budget that will continue to direct our resources to sweeps that confiscate the tents and belongings of homeless people during a winter rainstorm. I do not support those sweeps under any circumstances.
As a person of conscience, I do not support a budget that provides funding for rocks to be dumped in an area where homeless people congregate and find shelter. This was the most reprehensible, morally bankrupt act that I have seen committed by our city government in the over three decades that I have lived here.
I know that Mayor Faulconer is the force behind these shameful responses to the homeless. I don’t assume that all of you support them and know that many of you don’t.
But my question to you, as the legislative branch of our city government, as representatives of conscience, where and how will you take a stand on these issues?
Thank you.
Anna Daniels
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Anna, thank you for writing this. I agree with you completely! I didn’t know about the rock dumping, which seems to aptly demonstrate the city’s attitude toward the homeless. I hope this is egregious enough for policy makers to take notice.
Faulconer’s budget IS his “stand”- for low wages.
That’s the answer to your question: “…where and how will you take a stand on these issues?”
He insists on paying people LESS by vetoing a Minimum Wage increase, and forcing city workers to do overtime shifts, instead of filling vacancies. This OT is not calculated into an employee’s “pensionable” pay, so they don’t receive the benefits when they leave city employment.
They also don’t receive Social Security.
Bottom line: He vetoed the minimum wage and is accepting campaign money from frackers, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Wal-Mart… the list of conservative money supporting him is endless. THAT is the budget to keep an eye on.
Regarding the three-way mayoral contest, many “dems” are supporting Ed Harris just because Lori is an “independent.” Since the office of mayor is still officially non-partisan, don’t let that stand in your way of voting for Saldana on June 7. The old political saw is that you vote for practicality in the general election, but vote your conscience in the primary.
Saldana and Harris are actually in cahoots, anyway to take votes from “Mayor Kev” and force a November showdown. Either is way more preferable than the Faulconer we now have.
This should be an encore item for next week’s focus on the homeless!