Senior programs in Berkeley were expanding in the 1970s. However, advocates of the elderly community have still had to fight to maintain and create senior services. In 1982, the council proposed to eliminate the three directors of the North, South and West Berkeley centers, and to replace them with only one director. Union members, the Gray Panthers, and senior center employees joined senior citizens in protest of the budget proposal, that included 25 percent funding cuts for Berkeley senior centers. The group suggested that instead, the mayor cut his salary. Mayor Boggan agreed under the condition that other city employees were willing to do the same, pointing out that the funding problem arose from “[s]tate and federal cuts in social services”. At the time this photograph was taken (2003), each of the centers still has its own director, but the Commission on Aging, the Health and Human Services Department and one of its six divisions, Senior Programs, were struggling to find ways to accommodate recent budget cuts due to a reduction of statewide funding for social services.