san francisco residents. more recently, i know one has thanked the whistle-blower, and perhaps somebody did, but i would like to thank the whistle- blower for pointing out the d.d.s. plans that has. it is one thing to look at all of the options, but it is another thing to do this deliberately, thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hello, i am -- a registered nurse at st. luke's. they have been talking about how much money as opposed to how many patients can be treated or how many lives can no longer be saved by this proposal.

as a bedside manners, i see greater need for inpatient psychiatric care and skilled nursing facilities. this proposal does not meet the current and future needs of san francisco. we nurses put our best effort to save lives and help the patients. this is the bare minimum for the community and the patients, especially considering their not-for-profit status. it should not be accepted in the field of health care because this is a matter of life. with many of the japanese hurt in the earthquake last year, i am terrified. traffic was completely halted. my brother was stranded for seven hours just to go a few hours. my father could not come home

due to no train running. many seniors lost their lives not because of the earthquake but because of the access to health care after. the residents of south of market. i believe we need a bigger st. luke's with a bigger hospital. there are needs now, in there will be greater need in the future. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hello, my name is -- i am a nurse, and i work the night shift at st. luke's. for the first time i have the pleasure to meet alioto-pier, a

mmiano, and some of the other commissioners, and they showed emotion. they were involved. they were looking to keep st. luke's a viable hospital. i know your emotions are not like theirs, no offense, but you do kind of show it every now and then, that -- but go back to them and see where they stood. basically, they were saying the same things you were saying, and i appreciated. i can remember their names, but i am very grateful to you guys, because for four or five years, the night shift, we have been hanging. half -- we have been hanging onto our jobs. ever since they came to us, they wanted to close, and please, do not allow them to keep that clause. i sit there and i think, ok, i

am going to tell them this time. you want to build 500 beds? ok, go ahead, but half will be for the rich, and half will be for the poor, because the beds that we get, the rich are not going to tolerate being in the same emergency room. they are not going to tolerate it. cpmc will be opening a big can of worms. i have seen the tapes. if they are going to have their way, please do this, because they do want to close eight weeks. thank you. -- they want to close st. luke's. president chiu: i know there is an overflow room, so if you want to speak, you can come in, and you will be accommodated. >> i am a retired professor

from you see san francisco, -- from uc san francisco. this is an area that is not congested with traffic, has plenty of parking, plenty of room for expansion. a -- they are now building a hospital that has women's and children's care and also oncology. this is a prime example of how you can distribute specialized services and have it work in the city. they will be asking physicians to travel. this is no bigger travel bans st. luke's and cathedral hill. they know it will work. they are building it. that belies the question as to why we need this, because they already drawn from all over

northern california, but that is another question. another question i want to speak to is what is along franklin. this has been ignored completely in the environmental impact. there are five churches there, five churches. that includes st. mary's, which is one block away. they see people all day long every day who are in pain, who need help. there are meditation classes. we take care of 100 kids from the tenderloin in the afternoon, as i said yesterday. they may have to move with the noise and congestion that this noise it -- that this is going to bring. that church as been there since 1889. that would be a crime if we had to move because of the congestion. i am also aware of the gas line pipe that the other man mentioned.

that is a potential disaster. bank. president chiu: thank you. >> i am trying to expand on the professor's point. the incompleteness of the eir hamstrings you in evaluating this. the failure of the eir to analyze the complete policy context and the actual impacts of the net new work force for affordable and market rate housing makes it impossible or extremely difficult for you to fairly evaluate the mitigation contemplated in the d.a. that will come before you later. it is indeed of the 1400 net new san francisco-based housing units in the eir, it requires

60% of affordable housing, the $29 million being proposed for new housing is laughably inadequate, but if it is only 17 low income, improbable, but it is only 17, $29 million is way too much. how do you evaluate without that critically important data? secondly, you have any least two housing policies that should be applied to this project, neither one of which more adequately discussed in the eir. the impacts of losing the housing, market-rate housing in the van ness corridor and the failure to mitigates the major employer, the full housing impact of its net new work force. because of the its inadequacies

-- of these inadequacies, you do not have the data to figure out whether in meet those objectives. thank you. president chiu: thank you. >> linda chapman. for the years that i was an organizer for nob hill, the van ness plant came out, and i am glad that supervisor wiener asked about it, because it has been called a visionary plan, and it is, to take an underutilized commercial corridor and transform it into housing, transit dense housing, may be affordable housing, and also trying to avoid more traffic impacts, said there can be no office buildings build any more on van ness. every building built there would have to be housing, and it could have a small amount of commercial space, maximum three to one commercial space.

that would be like your lower floors. this is going to take out 1.5 blocks, who knows how many units, of the housing? maybe 1000. maybe more. looking at, say, the san francisco towers, and i do not see in the eir, maybe i missed it, the quantification. when i heard about how many units might be generated by the work force and how many are lost there, and then you think about how many can be paid for, miniscule is the millions that were mentioned. it could be 2000 net deficit that we are losing. and then the traffic. highway 1 201 as well as major transit routes, and transit routes all around there, and this will have 1227 parking spaces. in the legislative analyst's report, what did it say they do

in manhattan? they allow 100. why would we allow 1227 at the confluence at van ness? where could you find a place that could cause more problems? and what about the subway. the long-term goal is the subway. they are going to put a somewhat across the subway route. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> michael, the women's league. i urge you to uphold this appeal. i have lived there for 40 years, and i worked at san francisco general for 15 years. san francisco general needs a full-sized st. luke's. san francisco is on diversion at least 25% of the time. when i worked there, it was more like 30%, 33%. san francisco is being rebuilt with only a handful of bends more than the current consensus,

so this is not a plan for adequacy. this a new eir, even if it is in march, it will always be jammed if the number of inpatient beds are cut by two-thirds, because there is no where to put the emergency room patients upstairs to be able to clean out the emergency room, says san francisco general is going to be left high and dry. the community activists, they want 160 beds transferred from cathedral hill to st. luke's. this was option 3-8 in the environmental impact report, -- option 3-a. this was listed as being incompatible with their long- range plans, meeting fiscal plans. this out of hand rejection of the plan without serious consideration is sufficient reason -- sufficient reason to

reject the eir. this goal is overly narrow. supervisors, i understand that rejecting the eir may feel like you are standing at the edge of a cliff, and you look down, in you are dizzy, but rejecting the eir is not leaping off the cliff. the city health care master plan is a reasonable and logical way to be able to deal with this situation. you can start over and take all city's health needs as the basis for providing earthquake-safe access for all residents, so a poll the appeal and reject the eir. president chiu: thank you.

next speaker. >> i am with a neighbor and association here to ask you to uphold this appeal. we do not feel that a consolidation of medical services of this size does any positive benefits for the citizens of san francisco. we also feel that a project of this size has the capability of causing much, much inconvenience and damage to the cathedral hill neighborhood and the adjacent neighborhoods, specifically impacts on affordable housing, traffic, transit, and congestion. the van ness bus a rapid transit is happening now. highway 101. all of the other car trips coming into this hospital are going to overflow onto the neighborhood's streets with the possibility of causing havoc. the neighbors association supports all of the local neighborhood groups that never been fighting this fight.

please upfold this appeal. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i guess, good evening. i have been in arrears of 35 years working at the california medical center. nurses are respected as the most ethical of professions. we do not make backdoor deals or have backed or partnerships. the doctors bank us for taking care of the patients, and yet sutter -- i wonder why. so, to sutter, if you car, why not think us by giving us what we have earned and deserve? give us the right to work and

the new hospital prince acknowledged and nurses, those that never been an incredible model and boys and delivering health care in san francisco. give us the transfer rights we want. why not? thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good evening. once more i am before you attempting to ensure that st. luke's remains a viable a keep- care center. my name is -- and i am an emergency room nurse. incidently, my colleague, michael, the policy director at the california nurses association, was not able to attend as he is having dinner with the governor. first off, i want to think the board for their wisdom and resolution -- their wisdom regarding the resolution so eloquently stated by supervisor

campos earlier. thank you for that. in addition to the concerns that have been expressed during this battle is a concern about an access to care during the southern part of the city. the underserved will have an additional bonus with traffic and transit as they try to go across town to get care and at the cathedral hill. these challenges are not only physical but complicated by the fact that private transportation is not always an option. thus, that will burden an overly burdened transit system. i see this on a regular basis as a work and be a merchant's it apart. as far as the diversion status, when san francisco goes on diversion, st. luke's follows. this again makes it necessary

for st. luke's to remain. this is balanced on a tight rope rather than a safety net, so once more, i ask, now is the perfect time to negotiate a project that is just and fair for san francisco. we can use this opportunity for commitments for sustainable st. luke's that will best serve the needs of the community. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hello, i have spent over a decade with these issues, and this is what i do. they are requesting that this not been ill to environmental standards, and their argument is that it will improve healthcare access, but the crux of their argument really is that they stay consolidating services will

increase access in a way that should outweigh the negative impacts, and that is not true. it is not part of the literature at all. it is not. what is supported is that the geographic distribution of services does save lives. especially in a city like ours where traffic is outrageous, this matters. this is the difference between life and death. the impact of this proposal in my view, reading through it, will be the reduction of affordable services for two of our city's poorest neighborhoods. first, it will bankrupt st. francis. as it stands, they get a new loss, taking care of the tenderloin with some of the limited revenue they get from nonbill and some of the wealthier areas of polk street. secondly, of course sutter is

going to close st. luke's. if they do it from the plants that have been leaked, they will save about $450 million. smart business. just not good for our city. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> my name is linda harris, a nurse and an adjunct at sf. i urge you. i feel strongly that moving forward with the current plan is a public health disaster which will haunt our city for generations to come. i would be first in line to support this project if it were to be built in the southern half of our city, where we have a population with already underserved health care needs,

emergency rooms on diversion and shockingly high number of times, and a reduction of beds. instead, they want to build the hospital with plentiful beds and no real commitment to keeping st. luke's open. to be honest with our city. they want to build in an extremely busy north-south transportation artery and are requesting variances to a very well thought out van ness corridor plan based on a seriously flawed environmental impact report. this is an area in which an average rush-hour is severely impacted and claude. as a city which will have an earthquake of major proportions, we are inviting disaster with two, perhaps one hospital in the southern half of the city quickly reaching emergency room

diversion status and ambulances for some of the most honorable residents of the city unable to reach the site proposed. as a nurse and a public health advocates, i beg you to consider the impact of this enormous project which will affect health-care access in our city for decades to come. we cannot let cpmc's narrow needs to outweigh the needs of our citizenry. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good evening. i am carol. i have been and are in for years, working at one place for 25 years. i am here to remind you to be very careful and read behind the lines when dealing with them. whatever is proposed will end up being less, and there will be hit and ramifications. we have all recently experience to this. at another hospital, they

promised to invest in services with the intent of them breaking even, and then they would keep an open. of course, this never came to pass. if they did break even, no one could prove it because of their priority -- their proprietary reasons for not releasing the information and their secrecy with this information. at the new eden hospital in the valley, nursery will be in a downgrade, which will put some babies at risk, because they will need to be transported afterbirth as opposed to being able to be born at a place that can handle what they need at delivery. they may have to go to berkeley, and no one can stop them because they have free rein now. please be careful. when i'm looking to this idea of downsizing st. louis, i was thinking about katrina, and how can you allow downsizing in an area that is underserved with

low income folks and have a major earthquake in san francisco, and the people in one area will be ok, and the others will not. please keep my morning. you do not have to live this in san francisco. and we have also heard that they do not want this black spot on the record before you do this deal over here, so please rebuild it, but do it right. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good evening, supervisors. rebuild this the right way, and part of the right way is considering them part of a larger health care system, most notably in the central city. its impact on st. francis, that was overlooked and downplayed in eir, but it is actually a very profound environmental impact. to see st. francis go down, it

has an environmental impact on this neighborhood. these are the bread and butter impacts on real everyday san franciscans that our coalition has advocated for for 10 years. we have been dismissed by certain spokespeople as being some sort of stalinist plot to go after them. maybe he should stick to a convincing people and san francisco that tigers are just little cats when they run around the zoo. what we are for is the dignity of union workers, union workers to remain the union workers. we are for the dignity of low- income san franciscans to access the lifesaving health care no matter what their income may be. we are for dressing affordable housing impacts so year after year, we have to decry our families, our loved ones leaving

this city, and we want to make short that the diligence that supervisors like supervisors elsbernd and chiu is not eaten up by foolish impacts on the health system. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hello. i am -- i am a student of housing. i have faith that they will do the right thing in the end. i work at st. luke's, and i am seen amazing work that the nurses are doing and the doctors. jane is fabulous. she does an incredible job. i come from the public safety standpoint. i work at the united nations,

military operations in a war zone, and i know when things happen, you will need a lot of first responders. and unnecessary for san francisco specifically in an earthquake situation. it will be terrible for our community. i think cpmc will put into consideration that st. luke's is very important for people in district 9, district 10, and 11, so i come with a positive approach. i think cpmc will be able to negotiate this deal to be able to keep it vibrant sell our community can be saved in the end. thank you very much. >> good evening, supervisors. my name is steve. i am here representing the

tenderloin development, and we are also a member organization of -- we are here to support upholding the appeals. there are many deficiencies in the eir that we feel have been pointed out over the years, and others, like gloria, have pointed out earlier. there has been little analysis about the impact this project will have on housing. especially in the tenderloin. there has been a poor analysis of traffic impacts, again regarding our neighborhood in the tenderloin. also in our neighborhood that has not been evaluated is the impact on st. francis hospital, the idea that this hospital will be directly competing with that hospital, and in this eir, there is no analysis of what the impact will be when st. francis

goes out of business and there is a gigantic vacant building in our neighborhood, so all of these deficiencies in the eir have failed to be evaluated, and we feel over the past years, there has been a lot of effort on the part of the mayor's office and you all for the board of supervisors to negotiate some additions to these deficiencies in the eir, and it has been a long time that we have been coming here in front of you, bringing our residents from the tenderloin, speaking to these deficiencies, in a way we like to see them addressed, and to this date, we do not believe there have been significant steps forward in making that progress, and we believe that the appeal should be upheld today. we are ready to see you pull the trigger and uphold the appeal and not continue this any more and not continue this any more for our constituents state.