This wasn’t the first councilor to make this suggestion. Councilor Janet Brekke, also an attorney and the first full-time city attorney, said they need a citizen’s ombudsman in the office to answer basic questions about property rights, etc. Personally, I think it is a great idea. The city attorney’s office works for us, we pay their wages and benefits and if we have a basic question about our legal rights as a citizen of this city, we should be able to get an answer. This in no way is expecting the city to represent a citizen in court, this is basically a Q & A service to citizens. I wouldn’t even be opposed to this person sitting on the staff of the HelpLine center with a dedicated line and funding from the city. This is important. There are so many slumlords in town and most people don’t know where to turn.
Barranco wants to add funding for this to this year’s budget and as he said in the budget hearing, he knows he has some work to do to win over his fellow councilors,
Also during this period in the meeting Chair Soehl ‘allowed’ other councilors to bring up their priorities with the budget, and that is what Barranco addressed. Lucy was rambling about something with the parks(?). Sorry, every time she talks I just tune out. Merkouris was talking about crime prevention funding, which I totally support, but then quickly went into the ‘kids’ which he brings up a lot. Hey, I’m with you man, but sometimes your priorities are whacked. Go serve on the school board already! This is all the things they address! The city’s responsibilities are simple; infrastructure, crime, fire. That’s it! If you want to help raise the kids of this community, sit on the respective board. It’s not the city council Rich. Curt’s priority was making sure we had ambulance funding in place in 2026 when the contract runs out. I would encourage the council to go a step further and put a plan together for a municipal ambulance service and compare that with a private service. Right now, we are getting screwed as taxpayers and patients! Basically the SFFD provides FREE EMT service and the private ambulance shows up as a taxi to the hospital and the city gets NO reimbursement for that service while the taxi service collects all the fees. With a muni service we hire a third party bill collector and we receive a commission on those rides, and if someone is unable to pay, it is a simple write-off by the city. This isn’t rocket science Curtis the Blurtist!