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Cutting revenue As the Bay Guardian went to press last week, with our cover package on how San Francisco stood to lose tens of millions of dollars because the city was being overwhelmed by commercial property-tax assessment appeals (see "Assessing Blame" and "Assessed Out"), Mayor Gavin Newsom's budget analysts sent an e-mail to the Assessor's Office asking for "administrative" budget cuts of 20 percent and $2 million in additional cuts or revenue increases.

Assessor Mabel Teng had asked for a budget increase of $300,000, arguing that improved staffing and resources would allow her to increase city revenues by up to $35 million in the next fiscal year by collecting more property taxes from downtown corporations, many of which backed Newsom in his bid to become mayor.

After her office received cuts for the last two years, Teng said only positions that generate income or meet state mandates remain in her budget, which includes $9.2 million from the General Fund and $2.8 million from fees and grants.

"I'm furious. This is the time when the city needs money, and we should be focusing on the things you reported in your article," Teng told us. "We bring in funds for the best things in the city, and he wants us to cut $2 million out of $10 million."

Asked about the dispute as he left an April 8 press conference on his creation of new homeless outreach teams, Newsom told us, "We met with Mabel Teng yesterday and are working through those issues." At press time the impasse remained.

"We're not asking her to cut positions," Newsom spokesperson Darlene Chiu told us April 12. "We're just asking her to be creative and find savings."

Sup. Chris Daly is trying to mediate the dispute, telling us, "I'm worried that a measure done to save money will actually cost the city millions." Asked about the logic of an action that seems to help Newsom's corporate contributors more than city coffers, Daly said, "It's clear the perception is there, so if the mayor is smart, he'd be aware of that and make sure downtown has to pay." (Steven T. Jones)

IRV advances San Francisco appears ready to become the first U.S. city to use instant-runoff voting in local elections this November, thanks to an April 8 vote by the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel to conditionally certify the city's equipment to count IRV ballots.

The conditions included making the ballot design more user-friendly and the audit logs more detailed, which the city's voting-equipment vendor, Election Systems and Software, indicated it can easily comply with, according to Steven Hill, who has been monitoring the approval process for IRV's sponsor, the Center for Voting and Democracy.

The action comes two years after voters approved Proposition A, which required IRV (a system that allows voters to rank their choices of candidates) to be implemented for the November 2003 election at the latest. Officials failed to meet that deadline because of missteps by the Department of Elections and political pressure by allies of former mayor Willie Brown (see "Voting as Usual," 8/27/03).

But Hill is confident the long-awaited system will indeed be implemented for the fall elections. "This will be in place," he told the Bay Guardian.

Elections Commission president Alix Rosenthal also expressed confidence IRV will be in place this year. "It's a great sign that it got certified. We are many steps closer to implementing ranked-choice voting for November," Rosenthal told us.

The next challenge is to educate voters about the new system. The Department of Elections' plan for voter education has already been approved by the Elections Commission, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has allocated $1.6 million for education and outreach efforts, which include funding one community group in each supervisorial district to conduct voter education, as well as a citywide mailing, TV and radio announcements, and bus stop signs.

The new system could have a huge impact on the upcoming fall supervisorial elections, especially in District Five, where many progressive candidates will likely run (see "After Matt," 3/31/04). Hill said IRV will force candidates to support like-minded competitors instead of attacking them.

"This could change how people run campaigns," Hill said, "which I think will be very positive." (Lisa Wong Macabasco)