cpmc and are taught not staff was in san francisco when i needed them. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thank you for this opportunity to speak and -- in support of the rebuilding project for the california pacific medical center. my name is maxine. i'm representing a businesswoman -- i have been a business woman in san francisco for over 40 years. i am currently president of the national coalition of over 100 black women, the san francisco chapter. we have had a partnership with cpmc for seven years. we are joining them in the continued fight against breast cancer with their no cost african-american breast health program. so that uninsured african-

american women continue to receive no cost screening and treatment for breast cancer. cpmc is the annual sponsor of our luncheon that recognizes and encourages outstanding women in business, literary, community work. in 2012, our major agenda will be to work with cpmc to bring men and women from our community to cpmc for better health and access to better health care. cpmc's project is important for the future of health in san francisco. the new proposed hospital would provide access for all set for assistance, regardless of income levels. we support a new health care facility that will include a state of the art and modern equipment for all san franciscans. it is the stronghold of our community that this board will vote in favor of the cpmc rebuild. thank you. president fong: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> thank you, president pham and commissioners for your time. my name is natalie. i have been a resident of san francisco for 11.5 years. i support rebuilding cpmc. in 2008, i started working as a camp for cpmc. i was eventually hired by a general contractor to work on the project. without these projects, i may have never maintained employment brought the economic crisis. i have children that were born at st. luke's. as a member of that community, i was fortunate to have access to health care in close proximity to where i live. i as well as many residents and patience, would be pleased to see this hospital get a much- needed to upgrade. campus neighborhoods surrounding will benefit from the new facilities.

all the while, cpmc has promised to continue providing exceptional health care to all its patients. the construction of these projects are critical because they will benefit the work force, families, the local economy, and our future generations to come. voting yes assures people will have jobs and a safe place to go when they are in need of medical care. i thank you for your time and i ask that you please vote yes today. thank you. president fong: thank you. >> thank you, president long and commissioners, for the opportunity to speak with you again today. my name is michael and i am the executive director of compassionate care. we are a hospice that has been in said for cisco and has served more than 1000 san franciscans. the reason we are supportive of the cpmc expansion, i have heard

a lot of people talk about the lack of charity care that cpmc is providing that they feel is inadequate. i have no idea how those figures are calculated but i can tell you that my team would not have provided necker had it not been for cpmc. they sold us the building that we are and in 1995 at half its appraised value because people were dying on the streets and needed somewhere to go. we were able to provide that with their support. they have been general supporters since. i was here during the earthquake. i was in the marina. i experienced the fear, the paralysis of the city during that time. we got away lucky that time. we may not be as lucky the next. the importance of having adequate medical facilities that can care for san franciscans is really important. i look at the bay bridge.

it has been 23 years since the bay bridge had a collapse. it is still not rebuilt. please, let's not repeat that mistake. let's get a hospital mist -- a hospital bill that can prepare the city. an earthquake will come. it is just a matter of when. i would hate to see us caught short-handed. president fong: next speaker, please, if your name has been called. >> good afternoon. my name is leonard. i am a native of san francisco. i was an employee with cpmc's california campus for 16 years on march 26 of last month. what we do is provide patient care and safety. what you do see, you see the options in line, the nurse

calls, the vital monitors. that is what we maintain. behind the scenes, we maintain the power plants, the emergency generator, the critical equipment, nitrous oxide, air- conditioning, heating. on my campus, i have engineers that have been there for over 30 years. under our watch, for 24-7 for 30 + years, we have never had a patient been injured or worse under our watch. during the strike, we of been on strike for about 35 weeks now. our replacement is there. they have no clue the commitment that we maintain. for example, yesterday, we have a major flood.

it flooded over seven floors. the sentences, fire department had to arrive to turn off the main water supply. these are people that they replaced us with to maintain this critical equipment, patient care and safety. that is what cpmc regards our value and that the patients value. thank you. >> thank you, president fong and commissioners. my name is paula and i am a resident of san francisco and a volunteer at california pacific medical center. i support rebuild cpmc and i hope you will also. i volunteer as a way of giving back to my community. years ago, i was able to receive sliding scale services

from cpmc and those services saved my life. one of my jobs @ cpmc has been to greet and escort young adults from galileo high school to help academy. as a visit various departments within cpmc. i have been to at least 15 different departments with the students and to a person, i find the staff engaging, encouraging, and excited about their work, the work that they do there. i was going to say something about seismic safety, however, the seismic experts said it much better than i can. in conclusion, i want to ask you to support rebuild cpmc.

we need the facilities for the future and safety of all of our citizens and we need seismically up-to-date medical facilities. thank you very much and i encourage you to support this project. president fong: ok, elsie, javier, anna, robert. if i have called your name, come on up. maggie, nancy, don, april. hang on. one second. we have like 100 left. commissioner moore: they are not going to go away.

we need a break, i think. president fong: hold your thought. i appreciate it. we will take a 5-10 minute >> the planning commission is back in session. if i could have everyone's attention for just a moment. i am going to remind everyone to silence or turn off your cell phones because i know all of them -- all of you were on them during the break. also, we are still in public comment. we still have all of you and i believe there are a few more people downstairs who i would encourage to come upstairs at this point. we still have over one hour of public comment. then there has to be commissioned deliberation. for every one that can hear me that is here for the four- o'clock calendar, please note that the planning commission will not start that calendar

before 7:00 p.m. if you need to go away and come back, that is fine. you can go down and make yourselves comfortable until we start that hearing. we will not start that hearing before 7:00 p.m. if you are in the room and you get this message, if you could convey that to your clients or friends outside, that would be helpful. as the president calls your name, thank you for lining up on the far wall. if you could line up over there as opposed to by the door, we would appreciate that. president fong: ok. thank you. >> thank you, commissioners. good afternoon. my name is harvey heir. i am with the local 61. -- my name is javier. i am with the local 261.

i am here to speak in favor of this project. the last two or three years, we have been suffering, not enough work for our members. this is one of the best opportunities that we ever had, planning to have our members come back to work. as a business agent for my union, i am obligated not only to support a project that is going to provide work to our members, but also to represent them. this is the way our opinion, it is one of the best times to start new construction on a project. this project, it is going to benefit not only our members, it is clear to benefit all of the unions involved in construction.

i do not think there is not a single union that is going to get some kind of benefit by doing this project. you know, the -- one of the things that this project -- in our case, it is going to create problems -- i am sorry, create jobs for our members. at the same time, some of our members, i will say, out of my head, about 70% of our members, they use their services. it is something that we're looking forward for the community to approve. please vote yes on this project. thank you.

president fong: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my she says good morning, but i will address you this afternoon. good evening. thank you, honorable president chiu and supervisors for hearing this item and allowing us to address you this morning, this afternoon, evening. my name is lee. imf program counselor. we serve san francisco residents with low to moderate incomes who are job-seekers as well as employers looking to hire from our pool of sentry cisco presidents. i strongly support the cpmc plan to rebuild two new hospitals, one at st. luke's and one at van ness. these projects will not only provide the promise of jobs and world-renown health care, but will actually deliver on the promise for now and the future. a promise of jobs in the area of construction, medicine,

administration, and more. your legacies, the building of a strong center cisco economic future and the economic future of all future residents who will be employed. we ask that you see your role as voting yes as so important because it would not only help move us through the economic downturn that we find ourselves in the midst of, but actually passed that downturn and into an economic boom of jobs, income, and the ability to spend those salaries in our great city. in our work admission hiring hall, with san francisco residents, in order to help them become more job ready, we encourage them to let no opportunity go by, which could have made a major difference in their futures. i asked this of each of you. please consider this to be such a major opportunity to make such a difference in so many lives.

please give that opportunity to those who are fighting so hard to improve their lives. please use your abilities to afford them those opportunities to get jobs they need and deserve. thank you very much for your time and especially your consideration. please support cpmc's project. thank you. president fong: thank you. >> hello. my name is prior -- is brian and i volunteer organizer. unfortunately, nancy was not able to stay. she was the only endocrinologist south of market for many years. practicing as a loose for 36 years, 35 of them in the same office. sutter has refused to allow our to lease and office space that she can afford. they are charging her for five years, back increasing for

charges of living, even though they were cashing her checks all along. she led a fight to support rate hikes on doctors that were going to drive some out of practice. in fact, one pediatric gent -- one pediatric dentist, one of only five who used to treat people on the peninsula, has retired because of those rate hikes. we want to know how they're going to increase charity care when they are driving out the doctors who have provided the most charity care in their system. we are also concerned about the situation at san leandro. they are announcing that will shut down the hospital within 90 days. they used a similar clause to the 1% klaus over at east bay, where they said if san leandro loses money for two years, they can take it over, after they did

do after a lengthy legal battle. now they are announcing that they want to close it. we have a lot of other concerns in terms of mental health. we have doctors and some others at s.f. general and their union is on diversion. it has to do with how the state defines acutely mentally ill. they are using their standards for what is not acute as an excuse not to pay. this is >> in terms of charity care, there was two university doctors training medical and nursing students at st. luke's for free providing excellent, excellent charity care and sutter health basically cancelled the program, drove those doctors and students away. a lot of people in that neighborhood now do not have access to great freehandon care and they said they would bring in dartmouth students.

that's not in fact evidence at the st. luke's campus. we are all for living wage jobs. if they build these hospitals correctly, they can do it every bit as well with living wage job for the community, thank you. please look at revoking their tax breaks. >> thank you, president fong and members of the planning commission. my name is anna and this is the second time i come to speak to you in support of cpmc. i am a project engineer, the contractor hired to build cpmc and i'm also a graduate of the mission hiring hall construction admission training program as well as a san francisco resident. i lost my job back in 2009 and i spent 18 months unemployed. i had a lot to find out about mission hiring hall and the programs they offer.

i met katherine carroll through the training program. they offered me a paid internship for three months. right after, they offered me full time employment and a career opportunity. i am now having the opportunity to give bang to my community by working for the workforce development department. in the last 12 months, we have worked closely with the san francisco office of economics and workforce development as well as some community-based organizations such as mission hiring hall. i strongly feel that we are not only helping people but changing lives. we want to create more work opportunities for those who so desperately need them, just like i did. i am happy to say today that i feel lucky to have a job and i'm looking forward to a successful career in the construction industry. however, we need to put politics aside and start working towards creating jobs for so many people. i understand that some people don't agree with the cpmc

project. however, cpmc will provide so many benefits for our community. cpmc will continue to provide exceptional health care to san franciscans with seismic safe buildings, will bring revenues to the city which we desperately need and will continue to create jobs for so many san francisco residents in the years to come. vote yes today and allow us to rebuild cpmc. thank you. good afternoon commission and president. i work at st. luke's campus in the food service department. i would like to say that i do support the rebuild because it shows dedication to the future and i also feel that a new building will provide a greater level of patient care and patient satisfaction. i encourage your support in order to help ensure a better future for san francisco health

care. >> ladies and gentlemen of the commission, i am father don fox, an episcopal preach who has served here in san francisco for 36 years. i urge you to please not enable sutter health to proceed with its plan for st. luke's unless and until it restores psychiatric services including inpatient beds. i do not envy your task in dealing with sutter health. sutter health is a highly funded powerful and slick organization. it's perhaps too inflammatory to call sutter health a liar, but it is no exaggeration to say that it is does not honor all of its promises. it has claimed today and you have heard it, that it will

provide "increased health care for low income and underserved san franciscans." its record is quite otherwise. it has one of the lowest records of providing such care. when sutter health took over st. luke's hospital from the episcopal church which founded it and operated it for 130 years, it promised to maintain the hospital's tradition of providing care for anybody, even if they had no money. the first thing sutter tried to do when it took over was to close down the hospital. it's failed at that. however, it did succeed in eliminating all of the psychiatric services. as you know, if you're a woman, you can't even have your baby at st. luke's now because that has been eliminated also. sutter health claims to be a nonprofit organization. i ask you, how many nonprofits

do you know who pay their c.e.o. $4 million a year? is that obscene or what? if sutter can pay an administrator $4 million a year, why can it not afford psychiatric doctors and nurses at st. luke's hospital. i'll tell you the answer. sutter health primary priority is not adequate care for as many people as possible. it's priority is making money. sutter cannot make money from poor people patients. however, it can make money by treating the insured and the after -- affluent. maybe the sutter steamroller is too hard to stop. it's armed with tons of money for political influence, deceptive propaganda and clever lawyers to defeat almost anyone who challenges them. but you commissioners have it

in your power to strongly urge the board of supervisors and the health department to force sutter health to provide at st. luke's at least the level of mental health and charity care that it used to provide. thank you. president fong: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, president fong and commissioners. my name is dr. johnson rause and i'm here on behalf of the physician's organizing committee. a have a psychiatrist in the emergency service where i had the pleasure of touring two of your commissioners moore and borden. i would be delighted to offer a firsthand site to any of you who would like to come by. i'm told that sutter argues here that their existing psychiatric beds are underutilized since they closed the 32 inpatient beds at st.

lukeas, they have accepted any of them from psych emergency. my colleague texted me and said they're telling the commission that 90% of the commission in p.e.s. are not acute and don't need to be there. i really hope he messed up that quote because i can't believe anybody would actually stand here and tell you that. to begin with, 65 to 75% of the people who are brought into p.e.s. are on a 5150 psych hold from the police. so they're there for sure. this morning at 11:00, psychiatric emergency was on condition red with 21 patients, eight of whom were slated as needing admission without any open beds at sfgh. you have just heard from one of the nurses at st. like's, they kind find psychiatric beds for their own patients who are on their medical units and need transfer to cpmc. i can promise you that p.e.s. staff is not wasting its time calling up cpmc asking them to take our patients.

sutter would like to pretend that they can open and run two general hospitals with a total of 635 beds without making any provision whatsoever for the severely and chronically mentally ill. this is both discriminatory against the mentally ill and impractical as it will leave more of their patients strapped down to gurneys in their medical emergency room hallways. sutter should be required to include an appropriate level of care for the severely and chronically mentally ill in their new hospitals including at the very least the restoration of 32 inpatient beds from st. luke's hospital and the support of approximately 100 supported housing case management slots. thank you very much for your attention and please urge the board of supervisors to that end. president fong: next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is shad and i'm a pastor of the metropolitan

baptist church in bayview hunters point. therefore when cpmc was purchasing st. luke, i was asked by cpmc to be alison person between them -- to be a leyson person between they will and the neighborhood. i attended many neighborhood town meetings and basically what i heard from the neighborhood was some of the same things you are hearing there, basically they wanted st. luke's hospital to remain the way it was and keep it the same amount of beds. so when i took this information back to cpmc, the c.e.o. informed me that there is no way they can do that. st. luke's hospital went under because of the way they were operating and if they followed

suit, they would go under, also. that made a lot of sense to me, so i began to do a survey of hospitals, not just in san francisco, but throughout the country. and i found out that cpmc was one of the few, and i mean very few hospitals in the country that operated in the black. so i am here to support it because of their skills and that sort of thing. some people may say they are slick, but i'm saying they know how to run a hospital. not only do they know how to run a hospital, but they have good medical skills as well. just last year, a year ago, easter i