Could the City's Westside Burn After an Earthquake?
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Glenn Rogers Quentin Kopp Taraval Station Report Is the Business Model at Uber and Lyft in Even Donald “Bone Spur” gets Quentin’s Get the low-down on crime straight from jeopardy? .......................................... 2 goat around the 4th of July ..................3 the Captain on the frontline ................10 Geoge Wooding Central Council Wildflowers Mayor Breed reminds George that the A Special Message from Outgoing If flowers are the “earth’s way of laughing” Willie era may not be over ..............5 Mayor Farrell and a Crime update ..... 3 and we need some of that .................... 9 Volume 31 • Number 6 Celebrating Our 31st Year www.westsideobserver.com July/August 2018 No Takers Yet: Laguna Honda’s Aid-In-Dying Program by Dr. Derek Kerr & Dr. Maria Rivero s reported in the June 2017 Westside Observer (WSO), Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH) Aapproved a medical aid-in-dying policy last May. Based on California’s 2016 End of Life Options Act, it allows terminally ill patients with decision-making capacity to self-administer prescribed lethal sedatives in the hospital. While awaiting LHH’s promised annual report on its aid-in-dying program, the WSO requested records showing the number of lethal prescriptions issued and the number of associated deaths. LHH’s response: “zero” and “zero”. Zero takers may seem surprising in a hospital that reported 181 deaths in 2017. However, few dying patients choose this option. For example, Oregon’s 20 year old “Death with Dignity” program accounted for just 144 deaths in 2017. Despite a steady rise in par- ticipants, that’s merely 0.4% of Oregon deaths. In Cali- fornia, data for the first 6 months of the End of Life Could the City’s Westside Burn After An Earthquake? Options program, June through December 2016, show by Nancy Wuerfel that 191 patients received lethal prescriptions. But only estside Burns After Earthquake could easily be the headline after a major earthquake hits the Bay Area, 111 (58%) took them. That accounts for 0.06% of Cali- since the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is now abandoning the brilliantly engineered fornia deaths during that period. Data for 2017 show Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) designed immediately after the 1906 fire so that this devastation that 577 prescriptions were issued and 374 (65%) of W would not happen again. Very simply, AWSS is a network of pipes and hydrants dedicated to producing high water those patients died as a result, amounting to just 0.14% pressures and high water volumes to fight fires with locally sourced, non-potable water including unlimited seawater. of California deaths That’s it! And, San Francisco is the only city in the United States with this system created to control conflagrations There are other reasons for LHH’s zero participation from becoming uncontrollable firestorms. OPTION 12 IS NOT THE ANSWER refilled after a quake in 24 hours from in the Richmond and Sunset Dis- the overwhelming majority who WATER! Unlimited amounts of Hetch Hetchy located 167 miles away, tricts, and tens of thousands more opted for aid-in-dying were over 65, water will put out fires. The SFPUC and that the volume of fires will not in 13 other neighborhoods reaching is ignoring this basic fact by deciding be greater than the amount of water from Seacliff to Parkmerced to the white, college-educated, insured cancer to limit Westside firefighting to only already stored, or that other fires will Bayview. At risk, are approximately patients living at home with Hospice the amount of drinking water stored not erupt until after the reservoir is 500,000 people living in these vul- services.” in the Sunset Reservoir. The SFPUC refilled. nerable neighborhoods without the refuses to expand the tried and true The potable water in the South AWSS extension. rate. In both Oregon and California, the overwhelm- AWSS system for fighting fires in Basin is earmarked for domestic water Option 12 allocates all 90 million ing majority who opted for aid-in-dying were over 65, favor of adopting Option 12 from a use, but that basin is not seismically gallons of our drinking water from white, college-educated, insured cancer patients living 2018 engineering report by AECOM. reinforced so it may not survive the the North Basin to protecting some at home with Hospice services. LHH serves a different They are now experimenting on how shaking. Also as part of earthquake portions of the Sunset and Richmond population, and many are cognitively impaired and thus to save lives and property with an preparedness plan, the city has a map districts. Yes, there are new cisterns ineligible for aid-in-dying. Since 1989, LHH’s Hospice unproven system based on a single showing city reservoirs marked with in the street with a one-time use of and Palliative Care Service has provided support for ter- source of potable water stored in the the path of water inundation into the water (not automatically refilled). minally ill patients, thereby reducing demand for life- North Basin of the Sunset Reservoir. surrounding neighborhoods should a Cisterns require 2 fire engines to use ending prescriptions. Also, patients may not be aware Though the project is called a Pota- reservoir fail. The South Basin flood- cistern water - one to pump water out of LHH’s program – and it’s awkward to inform patients ble Auxiliary Water Supply System ing would cover a large portion of and one to connect to the fire hoses to of a life-ending option while in the hospital. Lastly, the (PAWSS), the SFPUC is denying us the outer Sunset District down to the douse the fires within 1000 feet. There majority of LHH physicians and nurses declined to access to developing new, reliable aux- ocean. are 6 fire engines stationed in these participate. iliary water sources, such as pump- There are 43,000 wood frame two districts, so only 3 fires can be This May, a legal challenge by the Life Legal Defense ing seawater from the Pacific Ocean. structures currently unprotected fought simultaneously. High pressure Foundation temporarily suspended assisted dying state- Their hope is that the reservoir can be from post-earthquake conflagrations Cont. p. 4 wide. Despite pleas from Compassion & Choices, a group that supports assisted dying, a Riverside County Rezoning Public Land for Residential Housing: Follow the Money Superior Court judge invalidated California’s End of Life Options Act - on procedural rather than substan- Land Grab for Laguna Honda Hospital’s Campus tive grounds. In this Ahn v. Hestrin case, the judge ruled that the Act was wrongly passed in a special legislative by Patrick Monette-Shaw session geared to restore funding for Medi-Cal recipi- ews inadvertently surfaced about plans underway to place residential senior housing on Laguna ents. That maneuver was deemed unconstitutional as it Honda Hospital’s (LHH) property. Anyone who’s played the Monopoly board game knows you can’t place skirted the agenda of the special session. Special sessions Nhomes and hotels on utility and railroad spaces — because they are public infrastructure properties. also bypass committee reviews and potential opposi- D-7 Supervisor Norman Yee’s 250 Laguna Honda senior housing closure of St. Luke’s Hospital’s skilled tion. After 3 weeks of legal wrangling, Attorney General staff contacted MOHCD about plac- project. nursing and sub-acute units would Xavier Becerra’s motion to stay that ruling was granted ing “assisted living” and/or RCFE Yee’s rightly concerned about the have a detrimental impact on San by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal in June. However, (Residential Care Facilities for the lack of assisted living facilities and Franciscans’ healthcare, Supervisors arguments to overturn that decision will be heard this Elderly) units on LHH’s campus on RCFE units throughout San Fran- Hillary Ronen and Ahsha Safai intro- July. Given the strong public support for the Act, and the March 13, 2018 just six days after cisco. As the Westside Observer duced a request to hold a hearing on absence of reported abuses, the Legislature could sim- MOHCD pulled all funding from the reported in December 2017, after the the shortage of skilled nursing and ply reenact the bill in general session if the Court again San Francisco Health Com- sub-acute facilities in the City. blocks the Act. mission ruled September A week later, the Board of Super- Since the LHH’s medical aid-in-dying program was 5, 2017 CPMC’s planned visors held a hearing on September enthusiastically introduced to the Health Commission Cont. p. 8 last year, and since controversy abounds, the reasons for zero patient participation, the program’s prognosis, and As desperately as the City needs senior cost, should be disclosed this year. housing, this plan should be opposed because it Dr. Derek Kerr & Dr. Maria Rivero were a senior physi- rules out either “assisted living” or “residential cian at Laguna Honda Hospital, they are currently inves- care facilities,” both of which are in desperately- tigative reporters. Contact: watchdogs@westsideobserver. com needed short supply.” Page 2 July/August 2018 definition of a private contractor Is the Uber and Lyft Business Model in Jeopardy? “upside down.” Despite Dyna- n April 30, 2018 the California Supreme Court affirmed the Court mex’ petition to the Supreme of Appeal’s judgment, changing existing law determining how an Court of California to review Oindependent contractor can be identified. The case, Dynamex the Court of Appeal’s ruling, Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles,1 may completely Lee prevailed, leaving Uber and redefine what is and what is not an independent contractor. Lyft legal teams scrambling. Dynamex, which is a same day pick- were classified as employees, but Dyna- EXACTLY WHAT IS A PRIVATE up and delivery company, treated all mex has improperly failed to comply with CONTRACTOR? their workers as employees before 2004.