Editorial: Coleman, Nagales for South City Council

South San Francisco is having some budget issues, as are many cities on the Peninsula. The reasons are manifold — a development slowdown, fewer office workers means less spending in its retail areas and visitors to its hotels, inflation and an overall reduction in taxes.

It isn’t a matter of profligate spending, though the city was the beneficiary of federal money to help with the impact of the pandemic so it may have seemed that way. During COVID, there was significant discussion on drawing down the city’s reserves to help residents get through it. However, those emergency funds largely stayed where they should be, in reserve. Now, the city is faced with the prospect of needing to use those reserves rather than make excessive cuts residents will feel. This is drawing out the budget and reserves as a significant council race topic. There should be more discussion on ways to keep cities’ budgets on course, and for that we applaud Vivian Ramos for challenging Mark Nagales in District 2 and Avin Sharma for taking on James Coleman in District 4.