Bay Area Mayors Ask Obama For Stimulus Cash

The details of when, and how much, federal stimulus money may be coming to San Francisco will become clearer in the weeks ahead, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom said Friday.

Newsom was one of more than 80 mayors to meet with President Obama in Washington, D.C., Friday, as jurisdictions begin to jockey for a piece of the $887-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act package signed by Obama on Tuesday.

Obama told the mayors that as federal monies are doled out, "What I will need from all of you, is unprecedented responsibility and accountability on all of our parts."

The American people "expect to see the money that they've earned, that they've worked so hard to earn, spent in its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud," said Obama.

After pledging to halt any new federal projects that he deems wasteful, Obama said, "I want everybody here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them on it and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."

Newsom spokesman Joe Arellano said today that the details of the federal stimulus money that could be coming to San Francisco were "still pretty preliminary."

"We anticipate that we should get a good chunk of change for the San Francisco Bay Area," Arellano said.

Cities are now in competition for the money, and are preparing applications, but the guidelines and rules are still being set at the federal level, he said. In addition, some programs require the money to be filtered through state and county government.

"We may know more in about a week or two," he said.

According to Arellano, Newsom has indicated his priorities are to secure federal money for transportation and infrastructure projects.

"The mayor's made it pretty clear that he wants stimulus funds for transportation, specifically the high-speed rail," Arellano said.

He added that money to help rebuild the Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge was also a priority.

The meeting came as more than 230 San Francisco city workers had their last day at work today, part of Newsom's December announcement of mid-year layoffs intended to shrink an estimated $576 million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year.

More than 400 city employees were let go in total in the mid-year cuts -- about 100 will have their last day in April, according to the city's Human Resources department.

Most of the losses came in the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the largest city department, but the mayor's office said in December that most of the cuts would not result in direct reductions to services.

Among the public health layoffs were clerks, nurses and nursing assistants, social workers and therapists.

According to Arellano, the layoffs and additional revenue measures will save the city about $118 million, making the "true deficit" closer to $460 million, he said.

That number is expected to shift up or down based on new revenue projections, the recent passage of the state budget, and the arrival of federal stimulus money, Arellano said.