by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Deputy public defender Ricardo López, Supervisor and candidate for judge Gerardo Sandoval, an unidentified woman activist, and Salomon Rizzo, protest the Mayor’s budget. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

Amidst strong protest from the city’s largest labor union, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved a $6.4 million budget for the coming year by a 10 – 1 vote. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), concerned about layoffs and service cuts, voiced their opposition outside the meeting at City Hall. The budget is the largest ever for the city, and managed to avoid laying off over 1000 workers by slashing funds for a variety of city services.

In an effort to address a deficit of approximately $338 million, the budget makes significant cuts to city programs, hiking fees for many existing services and creating new ones for recreation programs, ambulance services, and health inspections. Unlike the federal budget, the city’s budget must be balanced by law.

“We put together a budget that reflects the collective compassion that is San Francisco,” Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, chair of the board’s Budget and Finance Committee, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “None of us got everything, a lot of us got something,”

Despite the cuts, some officials are already estimating that next year’s budget will be another $250 million short, a figure which could rise higher if state or federal lawmakers take more dollars away from San Francisco than city leaders are estimating. In November, city voters will decide several measures that also will impact the number.

Supervisors rejected Mayor Newsom’s plan to hire private security guards instead of city-employed ones at San Francisco General and Laguna Honda hospitals, perhaps because of the pressure by labor unions. To make up for the $5 million Newsom ‘s security guard plan would have saved, the is likely to eliminate funding for other programs rather than dip into the pool of money reserved for emergencies.

“The money is there to fund these services,” opined Ed Kinchley, a board member of the SEIU Local 1021 that represents about 12,000 workers. “But the Mayor and the Budget Committee prefer to spend it on another 55 six-fi gure salaried executives instead.”

Approximately 140 full time positions were eliminated, but many of them were vacant. Only about 30 people would actually lose their jobs, according to the city’s human resources department.

Robert Haaland, the political coordinator for SEIU 1021, told the San Francisco Chonicle he thinks there will be a signifi cant number of employees retiring this year and that layoffs will be unnecessary.

The biggest budget beneficiary, the Department of Public Health, is to get more than $1.5 billion. Almost $2.4 billion goes toward public works, transportation and commerce service departments, including the Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco International Airport and the Public Utilities Commission. Public safety services such as police, fire and courts will get more than $1 billion.

Supervisor Chris Daly was the dissenting voice in last week’s vote, which will go back to the Board for another fi nal approval in the coming week. Daly criticized the process in general, saying that the mayor’s office is at odds with the board regarding many of the budget policies.

photo by Marvin J. Ramirez

Environmantal and social justice organization members show their support for the San Francisco Clean Energy Act, a measure that will be at the November 2008 ballot.

The Act, they claim, will enable San Francisco to take community control of its energy future and adopt clean electricity mandates for the City of 51 percent by 2017, 75 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040.

­The march took place at City Hall of San Francisco.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Hugo Chávéz

Moscow, Jul 22 – Upon his arrival in Russia Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called for a multipolar world order, where countries have full rights to freedom.

Chávez told Prensa Latina being free is a hard task, but “it is our choice, an international order based on polycentrism, as Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says.”

The president recalled Simón Bolivar as saying nearly 200 years ago that only a balanced universe will allow for peace and respect for the peoples” independence.

“That is the way we are paving,” he added.

Referring to the importance of his sixth visit to Moscow since 2001, the Venezuelan leader highlighted it is the first since Medvedev was elected chief of State.

“We are going to get to know each other better,” he said.

That is one of the prospects of this new trip to the Russian Federation, Chávez remarked, and noted he is also looking forward to the meeting with now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The president sustained they support ever increasing strategic alliance in fields such as energy, due to the current world crisis, and added that agreements in oil, gas, petrochemistry, science, and technology will be signed.

Dmitri Medvedev

Mexican Senate ends oil debate

Mexico, Jul 22 – The inter-party difference over the future of the Mexican oil is the most evident re3sult of senatorial debates that conclude Tuesday in this country, after having focused political attention since May.

Despite the series of conferences presented in 20 forums to bury the hatchet, polarization continues among those who in the Legislature follow the Executive’s energy reform and those who reject it as privatization.

For Alejandro Frank Hoeflich, director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, exchanges in the Senate flagged due to the timid hierarchy of criteria from the scientific community.

Alberto Montoya, academic of the Ibero-American University, questioned the limited treatment of the issue of national security in the parliament agenda.

The government’s initiative aims to subordinate the Mexican energy policy to the interests of global companies and the needs of US crude oil, stated Montoya.

Legislators are expected to define in coming days the dates for the decision process and voting on reform of the state oil company PEMEX presented by the Executive.

Bolivia, US in tense talks

La Paz, Jul 22 – Talks between Bolivia and the United States restart Tuesday in this capital amid tension from the former’s accusations on plotting and interference in the country’s internal affairs.

According to diplomatic sources, the northern nation’s Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon will arrive today.

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca stated that the visitor could be welcomed at the Presidential Palace by the Head of State Evo Morales.

The meeting will take place after the Aymara statesman accused Washington and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of plotting against this country, and in a moment of tension between both nations.

Last month coca workers from Chapare, Cochabamba, expelled representatives of USAID on charges of subversion.

Morales and other Executive members have repeatedly denounced the destabilizing campaign developed by that entity on several fronts.

(Prensa Latina contributed to this report.)

by Alex Meneses Miyashita

Antonio Villaraigoza

Addressing hundreds of Hispanic activists July 8 during the 79th annual convention of the League multipolarityof United Latin American Citizens in Washington, D. C., Democratic presidential candidate Barack Okama promised to push to ensure that comprehensive immigration reform passes before the end of his first term as president.

He criticized presumptive Republican opponent John McCain once again for “abandoning” a comprehensive immigration bill that McCain had cosponsored with Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) two years ago.

Speaking in San Diego July 14 at the National Council of La Raza conference, McCain responded to Obama’s suggestive comments that “he turned his back on comprehensive reform out of political necessity.”

McCain recalled aiding Kennedy and also trying to get the bill passed.

“My campaign was written off as a lost cause. I did so, not just because I believed it was the right thing to do for Hispanic Americans. It was the right thing to do for all Americans,” McCain said.

At the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in the capital a week earlier, both candidates said that if elected they would make immigration reform a priority in their first 100 days in office. At NALEO, neither had specifically stated a time frame to pass a bill.

This was the second of three appearances by the two major presidential candidates before national Hispanic organizations this summer. Both candidates spoke this week at the NCLR conference, where Obama continued to emphasize that immigration reform will be a top priority in his first year in office.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who traveled to Washington, D.C to promote the Democratic candidate, pointed out that having the contenders speak before NALEO, LULAC and NCLR shows “that the Hispanic vote is key.’’

Unlike the Q&A format used at NALEO, the candidates limited their remarks to prepared speeches when addressing LULAC.

Members of the audience punctuated Obama’s presentation with loud cheers, bringing their voices in unison on occasion with chants of “¡SI se puede!”

McCain, who spoke four hours before Obama, was received with applause and some cheers.

Obama said the nation needs a president who “won’t walk away from comprehensive immigration reform when it becomes politically unpopular.”

He added it is time to bring the 12 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and put them on a path to citizenship after they pay a fine and go to the back of the naturalization wait line.

McCain stated it is necessary to show to the U.S. public that “we can secure the borders first.”

Then, he added, there are “economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well.”

Republicans claimed Obama has yet to show any leadership on the issue of comprehensive reform the way McCain has.

­Eric Rojo, national president of the Hispanic War Veterans of America, said McCain is the better choice for Hispanics because the GOP candidate knows the community well and shares its values.

Villaraigosa, who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary season but is now rallying Latino support for Obama, said McCain’s policies areas full of “division and distraction” as those of the Bush administration. He added that if McCain is elected it will lead to “four more years of economic stagnation.”

Obama wrapped up his speech calling for support from Hispanics, adding, “Now is the time to vote.”

A Gallup Poll in June showed him leading McCain among Hispanic registered voters, 59 percent-29 percent. Hispanic Link.