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As Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, I am pleased that the $200 billion spending plan makes the right investments and reflects our community's values to address our state's homelessness crisis, invest in our youth and help lift families out of poverty. Plus, we're able to do all that while still setting aside sizable reserves, in case of an economic downturn.

In our district, which encompasses the Westside of San Francisco, along with the communities of Broadmoor, Colma and Daly City, the latest state budget includes funding for:

• Homeless Emergency Aid: As part of $500 million in matching grants going to our state's cities, San Francisco will receive $27 million for homeless services, including shelters and supporting housing. At least 5% of those funds must be spent on homeless youth. If we can arrest the cycle of homelessness when a person is younger, it is more likely that we can keep him or her housed long-term.
   
• Seawall Rehabilitation: The crumbling seawall that runs from Fisherman's Wharf to AT&T Park was built in 1879. This budget includes $5 million for renovations so it can better withstand an inevitable earthquake and the effects of sea level rise due to climate change.
   
• Diaper Program: San Francisco will receive $2.5 million to provide diapers to low-income families with infants or toddlers. In the fifth-largest economy in the world, no family should ever have to go without essentials like diapers.
   
• Education Infrastructure Improvement: San Francisco Unified School District will receive $4 million, and San Francisco City College will receive $2.4 million to upgrade aging infrastructure.
   
• New Community Center in the Richmond: $2 million will help finish a new community center in the Richmond District which will provide services for immigrant youth and parents, house several non-profits and host neighborhood meetings.
   
• Daly City's Doelger Senior Center and Pacelli Event Center: $1.5 million will fund the much-needed replacements of the roofs of the Doelger Senior Center and Pacelli Event Center in Daly City's Westlake Park, enabling these facilities to continue serving the community far into the future.
   
• SF LGBTQ Museum of History and Culture: The budget includes $250,000 to help jumpstart an important project combining the museum and archives of the GLBT Historical Society into one building. The museum's current space is far too small to mount more than a few small exhibits, and creating a new space for the Historical Society's archives will allow them to be accessible to even more researchers from around the world.

It’s a terrible dilemma: choose either a temporary halt to taxing grocery items or a permanent requirement mandating a two-thirds vote on local tax increases. Given the difficulty in reaching the 66% threshold and the importance of retaining flexibility to raise revenue for ever-growing local needs, we had no choice but to take the lesser of two evils. Without a way to meet the rising costs of critical services, necessities like public safety, education and transportation would surely suffer cuts. For instance, San Francisco’s Prop G, a parcel tax that funds pay raises for teachers, passed earlier this month with 60.76% of the vote. If the restrictive initiative bankrolled by billionaire corporations became law, Prop G would be invalidated even though the majority of voters agreed with it, resulting in more hardworking teachers leaving our expensive city. AB 1838/SB 872 is our only option for a viable future. But that doesn’t mean our work against diabetes, obesity and other negative effects from sugary drinks is over. We will continue to fight for a healthy California.