By Steven T. Jones
As our followers on Twitter know, backroom negotiations between the Mayor’s Office and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors have delayed consideration of rejecting the Muni budget. The MTA seems to be basically letting the Mayor’s Office (through Sup. Carmen Chu) represent this supposedly independent agency.
For now, Sup. Sophie Maxwell seems to be standing firm with the six solid progressives for the seven votes they need to reject while Sup. Bevan Dufty is simply following Newsom. Maxwell has lots of Muni riders in her district and sources say she wants more from drivers in budget cuts that hit Muni rider by a 4-1 ratio (although she isn’t commenting).
Progressives also want a paring back of the budget’s $66 million raid by other departments and sources say there has been some progress there, but no deal yet. The board is in closed session now and most indications are there there will be action on this today, but you never know. If no deal is reached, progressive supes will have to decide whether to reject the budget or continue the item a week in the hopes of reaching a deal.
Stay tuned