SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday expressed concern and frustration over potential patient discharges happening once again at the Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in light of an agreed-upon grace period coming to a close on Friday.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Laguna Honda interim CEO Roland Pickens laid out the hospital’s progress in reaching federal and state recertification, two days before the hospital may have to begin discharging its patients once again.

The discussion comes after federal and state regulators cited safety concerns at Laguna Honda last April, stripped it of its Medicare and Medicaid provider agreements and required the hospital to move all 700 patients out of the facility by September. Among the concerns were drug paraphernalia in the facility, a lack of infection prevention and control, and missed doses of medication.

Thanks to a settlement agreement initiated by City Attorney David Chiu in the summerthe US Department of Health and Human Services allowed the hospital to postpone patient discharges until February, and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) agreed to keep funding Laguna Honda, so long as they worked to find solutions to the cited issues .

Days before the no-eviction window closes, city supervisors and health leaders are once again concerned about the dangers of quickly discharging and transferring patients, many of whom have complex medical conditions.

The hospital alleges that of the 57 residents who were transferred into other facilities last summer, at least 12 died within three months.

In response, CMS has issued a dozen citations against Laguna Honda for the deaths, though Pickens alleges that the regulators were partially responsible because of their pressurizing, expedited timeline and lack of guidance.

“We maintain to this day that the best place for those residents [who died] was Laguna, and the best place for the residents at Laguna now is Laguna, which is why we are doing everything we can to ensure that we do not have to resume transfers,” said Pickens.

The organization California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform alleges that Laguna Honda evicted extremely sick patients “known to be at high risk for transfer trauma” to nursing homes outside of the city with “poor track records,” some even being sent to homeless shelters.

CANHR said the series of $3,000 fines were “a mere slap on the wrist for repeated and lethal acts of elder abuse.” They added that federal and state regulators played a “lead role” in the deaths by forcing Laguna Honda to evict patients quickly, without safety in mind.

Patricia McGinnis, CANHR’s executive director, called on the Legislature to investigate the leadership of the California Department of Public Health.

“CDPH must not be allowed to whitewash the deaths of these vulnerable residents and its own role in them,” McGinnis said.

dr Grant Colfax, head of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said the department has issued a letter to CMS seeking out another pause in transfers, and CMS promised to respond before Friday. Concurrently, Laguna Honda is continuing to make improvements to become recertified, Colfax said.

“While we’ve made great progress over the last six months, and while there is more work ahead, I am confident in our direction,” said Colfax. “As we go through this process, we are again unwavering in our dedication to our residents and their families. The health, safety and well-being of our residents remains our top priority.”

Pickens said the hospital has worked closely with quality improvement experts to identify eight key issues that led to Laguna Honda’s decertification based on regulatory surveys from the past 18 months and developed an action plan to address all the concerns.

Some of the actions Laguna Honda plans to make to achieve the 300-plus milestones needed to reach recertification include creating better individualized care plans for its residents, especially those with mental health and substance abuse issues, creating better infrastructure to prevent residents from bringing illicit materials into the facility, and switching to in-person emergency preparedness drills rather than training their staff via online modules.

Laguna Honda has until May 13 to demonstrate progress toward meeting regulatory requirements before it resubmits its certification application.

“We are hopeful that when CMS comes back for their second monitoring survey, that they will see improvements and that the results will be better than they were for the first survey,” Pickens said.

Supervisor Dean Preston said he felt CMS was acting in bad faith for not responding to a request for an extension on the transfer pause.

“I cannot believe after a dozen people are dead as a result of how this has gone down to date, that CMS is not being more responsive and working with us around an extension,” said Preston at Tuesday’s meeting.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said he was “struck” by how much harm the oversight agencies have allegedly caused, and called their leadership “unaccountable” and “disconnected.”

“I’m sure they think they’re just following the rules they’re supposed to follow, but the real-life, on-the-ground impacts of the way in which they are proceeding is causing huge distress and stress, and in 12 cases, deaths,” Mandelman said.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen said CMS’s requests are “truly cruel and unbelievable.” She thanked Laguna Honda staff for “trying to accomplish the impossible” in meeting the regulators’ guidelines without much help.

“They don’t seem to take that into account on how much Laguna has bent over backwards to try to be helpful in resolving the crisis on our streets and with mental illness, that certainly the state and the feds don’t seem to provide any funding nor help,” Ronen said. “This whole thing is just mind-boggling.”

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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – Union leaders and members joined hundreds of San Francisco city workers in a march down Market Street on Wednesday, saying more needs to be done to fill the city’s staffing gaps.

Participants in the event called “Staff Up SF” insisted that the city is critically understaffed in so many areas. They pointed to more than 3,800 openings in positions across the city.

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Workers said the vacancies in areas like the Department of Public Works and the San Francisco International Airport are making it harder to do their jobs safely.

Mike Casey, the president of the San Francisco Labor Council, spoke at a rally outside City Hall.

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“This is not our building. This is the public’s building. And when they don’t staff up and when the staffing doesn’t happen, the services affect citizens across the city,” Casey said.

Heather Bollinger is a Registered Nurse and called on increased staffing at her hospital, saying the matter had reached critical levels.

“We can’t provide patient care without the resources to do it. It’s a really simple equation, when you come to the hospital, you need a nurse,” Bollinger said. “And they’re dropping like flies. It’s getting worse by the day in our departments.”

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KPIX 5 reached out to Mayor London Breed’s office for comment, but she is currently traveling in Europe to promote the city of San Francisco as a place for tourism and commerce.

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LIVERMORE (KPIX 5) – A power surge in Livermore early Tuesday fried thousands of appliances and likely caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, as it impacted 521 homes.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said it happened around midnight Monday night into Tuesday morning when a palm frond falling across a high voltage distribution line and a lower voltage transmission line at Elaine Avenue and Holmes Street in Livermore.

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It caused a power surge so powerful it blew the meters off houses and fried electronics.

“I had the TV on and I literally can see the smoke and sparks flying. It was like a big fire, poof, and then it was over. Completedarkness. It was scary,” said Christy Garcia, one of the impacted homeowners.

“Our dishwasher we just bought is like completely destroyed, coffee maker, Xbox, monitors are fried,” Garcia recalled.

Neighbors also said they lost solar panels, pool pumps, hot tubs, TVs, computers and other small electronics, garage door openers, kitchen appliances, HVAC systems, sprinkler controllers – basically anything that was plugged in when the surge hit.

“How do you have that much electricity going through your house at one time to cause that much damage?” Garcia wants to know.

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“We’re extremely busy right now. Non-stop calls,” said Tim Agront, is one of the project managers for Five or Free, a local Livermore electrical company.

Agront told KPIX 5 that they have worked on 36 houses Tuesday and 43 houses Wednesday.

“Cost of repairs that I’ve seen, probably on the high end, would be at least up to $40,000-$50,000 and that’s just in appliances alone,” he says.

PG&E said impacted homeowners can file a claim on their website but told KPIX 5 in a statement that “Although the palm tree was not in PG&Es right of way and we are not responsible for its maintenance, we will review and consider each claim.”

Agront said one way to prevent something like this from damaging electronics in your home is to have a whole house surge protector installed or ensure all electronics are plugged into strip surge protectors before they’re plugged into the wall.

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Claims with PG&E can be filed by calling the utility’s claims department at (415) 973-4548 or online at www.pge.com/claims. Each household can only file one claim per incident, so people need to make sure they check everything in their homes before filing the claim.

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SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Bay Area has the highest rates of commercially sexually exploited youth in the United States, according to the FBI, and about 98% identified were involved with the child welfare system.

Not only that, but according to a 2017 report, data from 22 agencies serving trafficking survivors in San Francisco, housing and shelter were among the top service gaps reported for youth ages 10-17.

And in fact, researchers have found that key barriers to housing include a lack of available beds, a lack of specialized support services at shelters and short-term residential care or group homes, restrictive policies that prohibit youth from returning to shelters, a lack of adults who are willing to care for older youth, and lack of adults who have the knowledge, training, and skills to support youth who have experienced complex trauma.

So, the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women partnered with the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, Freedom Forward, Family Builders, Huckleberry Youth Programs, and West Coast Children’s Clinic to create a family-based foster care pilot for these children.

That’s why the program, called Family and Me, or FAM, is seeking foster care parents.

Interested caregivers can visit joinfam.org to learn more about the program.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF / BCN) – With San Francisco planning to upgrade the car-free route along John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, city officials said Wednesday they would ask city residents to contribute to these plans.

The city carlessed most of JFK Drive between Transverse and Kezar for the first time at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, to make way for social distancing for people who walk, jog and bike.

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Since then, the car-free route has become hugely popular, with San Francisco Recreation and Park officials seeing a 36 percent increase in recreational use along the road compared to pre-pandemic numbers. In addition, the car-free initiative has also reduced accidents with serious injuries on the road to zero – compared to more than 50 such collisions in the last five years.

Because of its success and in an effort to better serve residents, officials from Rec and Park and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency are now looking for ways to improve the route.

The agencies’ shared Golden Gate Park Access and Safety Program allows residents to provide feedback through an online open house, scheduled online office hours, virtual open house, pop-up information centers and tours of the park.

Specifically, the program is asking residents about options for JFK Drive and other parking streets, including permanently banning the current closures; Return to pre-pandemic configuration; or providing managed vehicle access to the restricted vehicle park on JKF between Eighth Avenue and Tansverse Drive for westbound traffic only.

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Proposed new services in the park to improve usability and accessibility include the establishment of parking spaces accessible under the American Disabilities Act; Establishment of taxi stands in the music hall; Creation of a drop-off zone in the station’s garage; Modernization of the existing parking shuttle service; Expansion of bike share and roller share services in the park; Allowing cycle rickshaw services; and modifying intersections to improve safety and traffic congestion.

“Public feedback is critical to determining the future of JFK Drive after the pandemic, and we look forward to your thoughts and experiences,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, in a statement. “The Golden Gate Park belongs to everyone, so neither security nor access can be neglected.”

“The Golden Gate Park car-free route was designed to provide a safe recreational space during COVID. It turned out to be a huge draw, bringing more people to the park, serving commuters between sunset and downtown, and creating safe space for kids to learn to drive, ”said Jeffrey Tumlin, SFMTA Traffic Director.

To find out about virtual information events, upcoming park tours and personal events, visit sfmta.com/accessggp or sfrecpark.accessggp. In addition, the virtual open house, which runs until November 25th, can be found on the storymaps website.

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San Francisco authorities are calling on the public to help identify a woman who allegedly fed wild coyotes around the city, an act that can cause the animals to lose their fear of humans.

San Francisco Animal Care & Control said in a statement Wednesday that it had received reports of feeding in multiple areas and shared a picture of a person the agency identified as “a particularly outrageous coyote feeder.”

The picture was taken with a camera on Bernal Hill and shows a woman with a platter of meat sitting on the floor while she feeds a coyote.

“The same person is reportedly feeding coyotes elsewhere in the city,” the agency said. “If anyone can identify this person, please call Animal Care & Control at 415-554-9400.”

San Francisco Animal Care & Control is appealing to the public for help in identifying a woman who allegedly fed a coyote on Bernal Hill in San Francisco. The picture was taken by a camera on the hill.

SF Animal Care & ControlSF Animal Care & Control

Coyotes are often spotted in San Francisco, where the animals shape the urban landscape, build caves and raise young in vegetation zones between the neighborhoods. Neighborhood groups next door are full of stories of coyotes killing cats, and Instagram is awash with pictures of coyotes strolling the streets of SF. Although the animals are nocturnal, photos often show them on the move in broad daylight.

Wild coyotes are naturally shy and shun people, but they can be comfortable around people if fed intentionally.

An aggressive coyote alerted several park visitors at Golden Gate Park last year, and authorities said there have been five reports of an animal attacking young children. According to an ongoing investigation, federal agencies captured and killed the animal.

Despite signs urging people not to feed coyotes, Animal Care & Control said that people were consistently and illegally feeding the coyotes so that they lost their natural fear of humans. The agency stated that feeding coyotes “creates dangerous situations when animals learn to approach people when they seek easy access”.

Feeding wildlife is illegal, and anyone caught in the act could face fines of up to $ 1,000 and / or jail time, the agency said.

“People need to stop feeding wild animals,” said Virginia Donohue, the agency’s executive director, in a statement. “If you continue to defy the law – and common sense – you will hurt a person and destroy an animal.”

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The British explorer Sir Francis Drake landed on a beach in what is now Point Reyes National Seashore in the spring of 1579 and claimed the land for England.

That was 28 years before an English colony was founded in the United States.

But some people in Marin County wish he had never stopped visiting, regardless of its historical significance.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum after the death of George Floyd, calls for the deletion of monuments and memorials to racist figures have multiplied in the United States

Drake was a slave trader. ABC7 reported that activists want its 10 meter high statue next to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal removed and renamed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Lauren Brown told a reporter that the statue “disgusted” her.

“This is about moving that tale of white supremacy,” she said.

As is to be expected, the sculptor disagrees.

“That was not a sculpture of him, but the event!” Dennis Patton from San Rafael told the broadcaster.

A petition to remove Drake statues in Plymouth and Tavistock, England has garnered 14.00 signatures, the Guardian reported.

Drake was the most famous captain of his day, a pirate hired by Queen Elizabeth to ambush and pillage the Spaniards, and a vice admiral in the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada, a turning point in English history.

But two decades before the naval battle, he made three trips to Guinea and Sierra Leone, during which 1,200 to 1,400 Africans were enslaved. Historians estimate that another 4,000 likely died in the process.

In addition to the statue and the boulevard, Drake’s name can be found throughout Marin County and the Bay Area, including San Anselmo High School and a famous hotel in Union Square, San Francisco.

MORE REFERENCE TO THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS:

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–

Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate

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SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) – Following a US Supreme Court ruling in favor of college athletes’ compensation, two major California lawmakers say they will introduce the state’s pioneering Fair Pay to Play Act in time for the 2021 college football season want.

State law that allows college and university athletes in California to make money using their name, picture, and likeness does not currently go into effect until January 1, 2023.

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Senators Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, say they plan to go into effect September 1st.

“California has taken state action to challenge the NCAA’s exploitation of college athletes, and today the Supreme Court essentially agreed to tell the NCAA that they could no longer act as monopoly“ price fixers, ”” Skinner said in a statement on Monday. “And with 18 states following California’s lead to give student athletes ownership of their name, image and likeness, student athletes are the winners.”

NIL laws in seven states – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Texas – will come into effect this year.

“Postponing the entry into force of the Fair Pay to Play Act is a sensible move to ensure that college student athletes, many of whom are people of color, are treated earlier with financial fairness and economic ownership,” said Bradford. “It also enables California higher education institutions to attract the best talent compared to schools in other states that would otherwise have a head start in attracting athletes by implementing similar guidelines earlier.”

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The September 1st implementation date makes the law an urgent measure, which means it requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the legislature. To date, it has received strong bipartisan support, has no opposition, and has not received “no” votes.

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the NCAA cannot enforce certain rules that limit the educational benefits – things like computers and graduate scholarships – that colleges offer athletes. But the case doesn’t determine whether student salaries can be paid.

Colleges harvest billions of student athletes but keep them from making a single dollar. It’s a bankrupt model.

I just signed the Fair Play to Pay Act with @KingJames – making CA the first state to allow student athletes to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness. pic.twitter.com/aWE9OL9r1v

– Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 30, 2019

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In a unanimous opinion, Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote: “The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are cutting the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in college revenue each year. These enormous sums of money seem to flow to everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, sporting directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives earn six- and seven-digit salaries. Colleges are building generous new facilities. But the student athletes who make the income, many of which are African American and low-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing. “

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Police are looking for several men who got out of a car at the Grand Hyatt at SFO and started shooting at people who were in valet parking near two parked cars on Monday night.

Several people called 911 to report the shooting at around 7:53 pm, and responding officers from the San Francisco Police Department arrived to find numerous cases of various caliber ammunition. A dark SUV that crashed into a vehicle parked at the hotel was found by police, leaving the woman inside with a gunshot wound that was not life threatening. She was rushed to hospital, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s detectives assigned to the San Francisco International Airport also responded and opened an investigation. Through the investigation, they learned that a white Acura SUV pulled up outside the Grand Hyatt and two to three people, described by witnesses as black male adults in their twenties, got out of the Acura and shot at people who were nearby two parked cars were in the hotel’s valet parking. The suspects then got back into the Acura and quickly drove away. The Acura has since been recovered as an unreported stolen vehicle. At least two other victims reported attempted carjacking by similar-looking men nearby and at the time of the incident, which the Sheriff’s Office said is also being investigated.

This shootout appears to be an isolated incident. The motive for the shooting and the suspects’ connection with the people they targeted are still under investigation, according to the sheriff’s office.

The detectives are investigating clues regarding the suspects’ identity, and anyone with information about the incident can call the anonymous tip line at the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office at (800) 547-2700.

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OAKLAND (BCN) – Oakland City Council leaders posted a letter to the Major League Baseball Friday chief that they were ready to work with the A’s baseball team to prevent them from leaving town.

Oakland recently lost both its National Football League franchise, the Oakland Raider’s, to Las Vegas and the Golden State Warriors to San Francisco.

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The letter comes just days after MLB told the Oakland A’s to look for another city to play while chasing an Oakland water park.

“The Oakland City Council is committed to negotiating in good faith about a strong future for the A’s in Oakland, and we invite the A and MLB to do the same by agreeing not to move while the A Completing the stadium in Charles P Howard Terminal) project process, ”the letter begins.

But Las Vegas officials announced on Twitter through Mayor Carolyn Goodman on Wednesday that they have been speaking to the A’s since 2019 and are excited.

City council chairmen said it was wrong “for the city council to delay or reject the A’s proposal,” at the Howard Terminal.

Rather, many, such as B. City officials, worked to bring the proposal to the council for possible approval.

But the A’s have been working on the project for almost five years, A’s President Dave Kaval said in February. Opposition to the Howard Terminal and in favor of a new stadium at the current location of the Oakland Coliseum has also increased.

The city council’s letter states that without adequate support, MLB has concluded that the Colosseum’s location is not viable. City council chairs in the letter asked about the materials MLB had examined to reach that conclusion.

The Council’s letter will be signed by Council Chairman Nikki Fortunato Bas, Vice Mayor and Councilor Rebecca Kaplan, and Councilor Carroll Fife, who represents Downtown and West Oakland.

The Howard Terminal is located near downtown and West Oakland.

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City council chairmen are ready to meet with MLB officials and the owners of the A, the letter says, “to move forward thoughtfully.”

The Presidents of the Council said the A leadership recently changed their demands.

“Instead of sending fully completed terms and conditions for review,” the A’s asked the Council to vote on summarizing terms and conditions.

“Council leadership agreed to look into this request and met with A staff and other stakeholders to see how best to move forward,” the letter said.

Council Chairs were in the process of planning a contract vote ahead of their summer break when MLB told the A’s to find a new home while they operate a waterfront ballpark in Oakland.

“This relocation announcement came without giving the council an opportunity to receive and vote on a proposal, and did not even wait for the time required for the vote,” the letter said.

“Since the request to vote was made by August, why should you give permission to investigate the move before the date of the requested vote if the request would have been sincere?” the letter said.

The council presidents asked the MLB to confirm their intentions.

“Can you definitely confirm that if the Council did such a vote on a term sheet on the A’s, you would prohibit any action to seek or continue moving during these next steps?”

Kaplan employees confirmed late Friday afternoon that a vote on the terms of the contract is planned before the break in August.

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