137,123 / 73.10% Yes votes ...... 50,351 / 26.80% No votes

See Also: Index of all Measures

Many of Laguna Honda Hospital's current facilities were built between 1926 and 1940. The hospital was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Many of its building systems, including fire safety and electrical, are in need of repair or replacement. In addition, the hospital has large open wards that do not meet Federal and State regulations for patient privacy.

Because of legal settlements with tobacco companies to recover money spent on public health costs associated with smoking, the City expects to receive $347 million over the next 25 years.

The principal and interest on general obligation bonds are paid out of property tax revenues.

THE PROPOSAL: Proposition A would authorize the City to borrow $299 million by issuing general obligation bonds to acquire, construct or reconstruct a health care, assisted living, and/or other type of continuing care facility or facilities to replace Laguna Honda Hospital. Proposition A would require an increase in the property tax to pay for the bonds.

Proposition A also provides that all tobacco settlement monies received by the City, after $1 million is set aside each year for smoking education and prevention programs, would be used to pay for some construction and to offset the cost to property owners of repaying the bonds.

A two-thirds majority vote is required for passage of Proposition A.

Bond Redemption	$299,000,000
Bond Interest	$230,526,000
Debt Service Requirement	$529,526,000

Based on a single bond sale, the average annual debt requirement for twenty (20) years at the current six (6) percent interest rate would be approximately $26,476,300 which is equivalent to four and eleven hundredths cents ($0.0411) per $100 of assessed valuation in the current tax rate. The increase in annual property taxes for the owner of a home with an assessed value of $300,000 would amount to approximately $120.36 if all bonds were sold at the same time. It should be noted, however, that the City does not plan to issue all authorized bonds at one time; if these bonds are issued over several years, the actual effect on the tax rate would be less than the maximum amount shown above. Also, to the extent revenues that are expected to be available from a settlement with certain tobacco companies are used for debt service, the impact on future years' tax rates would be substantially less.

Meaning of Voting Yes/No

A YES vote of this measure means:

If you vote yes, you want the City to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $299 million to acquire, construct or reconstruct a health care, assisted living, and/or other type of continuing care facility or facilities to replace Laguna Honda Hospital.

A NO vote of this measure means:

If you vote no, you do not want the City to issue bonds for these purposes.

League of Women Voters

• Voters Guide on SF Measures

San Francisco Chronicle

• Laguna Honda Outpaces Other Measures in Fund Raising 10/23/99
• ELECTION '99

• Q&As on the Ballot Measures

Thousands of San Francisco families have depended on Laguna Honda Hospital to provide compassionate medical care for elderly or disabled family members whose needs cannot be met at home. All San Franciscans are welcome at Laguna Honda, regardless of their ability to pay. As San Francisco's elderly population increases, the need for Laguna Honda will be even greater.

While the majority of Laguna Honda residents are elderly, many are people of all ages - born with disabilities, survivors of debilitating illnesses or severely injured in accidents. Any of us is just a car crash or accident away from needing the hospital's services. Laguna Honda has provided end-of-life care for more AIDS patients than any other hospital or hospice.

Laguna Honda's buildings were damaged in the 1989 earthquake. Most utility and safety systems need long-overdue repair or replacement. The large open wards do not meet government requirements for patient privacy. For these reasons, the federal government has threatened to end funding, which would force Laguna Honda to close.

If Laguna Honda closed, with San Francisco's severe shortage of nursing home beds, many patients would fail at home, requiring them to seek expensive emergency room treatment and acute care in hospitals such as San Francisco General.

Extensive studies by medical experts, architects, financial analysts and patient advocates show conclusively that rebuilding Laguna Honda at its current location is the most cost-effective and humane solution.

Proposition A combines compassion, state of the art healthcare and fiscal responsibility. Vote YES on A.

Board of Supervisors

San Francisco needs a new, much smaller Laguna Honda for those people with disabilities, including the elderly, who can be treated only in skilled nursing facilities.

Many current and future residents of Laguna Honda can obtain the services and care they need in places other than a large institution. They can receive that care in a friendly, humane environment at home or in home-like settings in their own neighborhoods, with more privacy and a better quality of life.

And their care can cost less than if they are 'warehoused' in a large institution. San Francisco currently has a variety of options for long term care services. We should expand this network of options and increase the number of people served. The resulting 'continuum of care' would stretch from one's own home to visiting nurses to adult day care centers to assisted living facilities to nursing homes like Laguna Honda.

Vote NO on this proposition. Tell the Mayor and Board of Supervisors not to waste our money on 'old' solutions. Tell them to work on new ways to provide the care San Franciscans deserve.

Abby Kovalsky
Board President
Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco

The total costs of rebuilding Laguna Honda, construction costs and interest, will be $609,000,000. This amounts to about Half a Million Dollars per bed.

Over $200,000,000 of the $609,000,000 total cost of rebuilding Laguna Honda are slated to come from the Tobacco Settlement Funds. In May, the Mayor's Office stated San Francisco would receive $585,000,000 in Tobacco settlement monies over the next 25 years.

In July, the Mayor's Office stated that figure had shrunk to $347,000,000.

So, if there is not enough tobacco money to offset the cost of rebuilding Laguna Honda, the taxpayers will be forced to make up the difference.

There are more compassionate and less costly ways to address longterm care for seniors. First, we can utilize the excellent community-based long-term care providers that are available in San Francisco. Second, the City can partner with private providers to convert existing surplus acute care beds into longterm care beds. Third, we should use part of the tobacco settlement funds for the annual cost of caring for our elderly indigent population. The remainder of the tobacco funds should go to its intended purpose - to care for people with tobacco-related illnesses and educational programs to prevent teenage smoking.

The San Francisco Republican Party urges every San Franciscan to say "No" to City Hall's latest expensive and outdated plan. This will force the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors to consider contemporary, diversified, and compassionate care for our aging population.

Vote No on Proposition A.

Donald A. Casper, Chairman, San Francisco Republican Party.

Yes, rebuilding Laguna Honda is expensive, but other alternatives serving the same number of people would be far more costly. Talk of utilizing "community-based longterm care providers" is irresponsible, since San Francisco already faces a severe shortage of long-term care beds. The situation will only get worse as San Francisco's Baby Boomer population ages. Laguna Honda provides extensive 24 hour, 7 day a week care unavailable in community settings.

Dispersing Laguna Honda's population to smaller public facilities would require wasteful duplication of costly medical equipment. And where would these facilities be located?

Sadly, most efforts to establish healthcare facilities in residential neighborhoods generate opposition. Commercial areas are inappropriate as the home for frail elderly and disabled San Franciscans.

Rebuilding Laguna Honda can begin almost immediately. Developing alternatives would take years. Further delay would result in higher costs.

Meanwhile, people needing long-term care wouldn't receive it. Many Laguna Honda residents have smoking-related illnesses and cancer. Thus, Proposition A would use tobacco settlement funds exactly as Laguna Honda opponents say we should. Plus, $1,000,000 a year of these funds would go toward preventing teenage smoking.

Let's stop playing politics with our most vulnerable citizens.

Vote YES on Proposition A.

Supervisors Tom Ammiano
Alicia Becerril
Sue Bierman
Amos Brown
Leslie Katz
Mark Leno
Mabel Teng
Michael Yaki
Leland Yee

Be it ordained by the People of the City and County of San Francisco:

Section 1. A special election is hereby called and ordered to be held in the City and County of San Francisco on Tuesday, the 2nd day of November, 1999, for the purpose of submitting to the electors of the City and County a proposition to incur bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or undertake lease financing by or for the City and County of San Francisco for the Project hereinafter described in the amount and for the purposes stated in Section 7 hereof.

The special election hereby called and ordered shall be referred to herein as the "Bond Special Election."

Section 2. For purposes of this ordinance and the proposition to be voted upon set forth in Section 7 hereof, the following terms shall have the meanings set forth below:

"Available tobacco settlement revenues" is defined as the total payments the City and County receives under the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (the "Agreement") over the term of any lease financing, bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness authorized hereby that the City and County may use for the Project under applicable law, less $1,000,000 of the amount the City and County receives each year under the Agreement during the term of any obligations authorized hereby, which amount the City and County will use for tobacco education, prevention and control purposes.

"Project" is defined to include, without limitation, all works, property and structures necessary or convenient for the acquisition, improvement, construction and/or reconstruction of a new health care, assisted living and/or other type of continuing care facility or facilities to replace Laguna Honda Hospital, including, without limitation, infrastructure or other improvements in the areas appurtenant to, or which provide access to, such new facility or facilities.

Section 3. The first $100,000,000 of available tobacco settlement revenues and/or any state and/or federal funds or grants received by the City and County that are required to be used to fund the Project shall first be applied to finance the costs of acquisition, construction and/or reconstruction of the Project. Any additional amounts from such sources received by the City and County shall be applied to reduce the amount of the outstanding obligations authorized hereby.

Section 4. The estimated costs of the Project to be financed with the obligations authorized hereby were fixed by the Board of Supervisors by the following resolution and in the principal amount specified below:

General Obligation Bonds, Resolution No. 57799, $299,000,000.

Such resolution was passed by two-thirds or more of the Board of Supervisors and approved by the Mayor. In such resolution it was recited and found that the estimated cost of said Project is and will be too great to be paid out of the ordinary annual income and revenue of the City and County in addition to the other annual expenses of the City and County and will require expenditures greater than the amount allowed therefor by the annual tax levy and will require lease financing and/or the issuance or incurrence of bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness by or for the City and County not exceeding the principal amount specified.

Such estimate of cost as set forth in such resolution is hereby adopted and determined to represent a portion of the estimated cost of such improvements and financing.

Section 5. The Bond Special Election shall be held and conducted and the votes thereat received and canvassed, and the returns thereof made and the results thereof ascertained, determined and declared as herein provided and in all particulars not herein recited such election shall be held according to the laws of the State of California, Municipal Elections Code, and the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco providing for and governing elections in the City and County of San Francisco, and the polls for such election shall be and remain open during the time required by such laws.

Section 6. The Bond Special Election is hereby consolidated with the Consolidated General Election scheduled to be held in the City and County of San Francisco on Tuesday, November 2, 1999. The voting precincts, polling places and officers of election for the November 2, 1999 Consolidated General Election are hereby adopted, established, designated and named, respectively, as the voting precincts, polling places and officers of election for the Bond Special Election hereby called, and reference is hereby made to the notice of election setting forth the voting precincts, polling places and officers of election for the November 2, 1999 Consolidated General Election by the Director of Elections to be published in the official newspaper of the City and County on the date required under the laws of the State of California.

Section 7. The ballots to be used at the Bond Special Election shall be the ballots to be used at the November 2, 1999 Consolidated General Election. The word limit for the ballot proposition imposed by San Francisco Municipal Elections Code Section 510 is hereby waived. On the ballots to be used at the Bond Special Election, in addition to any other matter required by law to be printed thereon, shall appear the following proposition:

"LAGUNA HONDA HOSPITAL, 1999. Shall the City and County incur bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or undertake lease financing, in an aggregate principal amount not exceeding $299,000,000, for the acquisition, improvement, construction and/or reconstruction of a new health care, assisted living and/or other type of continuing care facility or facilities to replace Laguna Honda Hospital, and reduce the property tax impact by requiring the application of available tobacco settlement revenues received by the City and County, and any state and/or federal grants or funds received by the City and County that are required to be used to fund these facilities, (a) to finance the acquisition, improvement, construction and/or reconstruction costs of such facilities, and (b) to pay the principal and redemption price of, interest on, reserve fund deposits, if any, and/or financing costs for the obligations authorized hereby?"

Each voter to vote in favor of the issuance of the foregoing proposition shall punch the ballot card in the hole after the word "YES" to the right of the proposition, and to vote against the proposition shall punch the ballot card in the hole after the word "NO" to the right of the proposition. If a numerical or other system is used at such special election, each voter to vote in favor of the proposition shall mark the ballot card or equivalent device after the number or in the location corresponding to a "YES" vote for the proposition and to vote against the proposition shall mark the ballot card or equivalent device after the number or in the location corresponding to a "NO" vote for the proposition.

Section 8. If the Director of Elections shall certify to the Board of Supervisors that two-thirds of all the voters voting on such proposition voted in favor of and authorized the incurring of bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or lease financing for the purposes set forth in such proposition, then such proposition shall have been accepted by the electors, and bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or lease financing authorized thereby shall be issued or incurred upon the order of the Board of Supervisors. Such bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or lease financing shall bear interest at a rate not to exceed twelve percent (12%) per annum.

Section 9. In anticipation of the issuance or incurrence of bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness and/or lease financing, the City and County may issue commercial paper notes, bond anticipation notes or other shortterm evidences of indebtedness to finance and refinance the costs of the Project, provided that the aggregate principal amount thereof outstanding at any time shall not exceed the authorized but unissued amount of obligations authorized hereby.

Section 10. For the purpose of paying the principal of and interest on any general obligation bonds or other evidences of indebtedness (excluding any lease financing), the Board of Supervisors shall, at the time of fixing the gen eral tax levy and in the manner for such general tax levy provided, levy and collect annually each year until such bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness are paid, or until there are sufficient sums set apart for that purpose to meet all sums coming due for the principal of and interest on such bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness, a tax sufficient to pay the annual interest on such bonded debt and/or other evidences of indebtedness as the same becomes due and also such part of the principal thereof as shall become due before the proceeds of a tax levied at the time for making the next general tax levy can be made available for the payment of such principal.

Section 11. The Board of Supervisors hereby acknowledges receipt of findings by the City and County Planning Department that the Bond Special Election is in conformity with the priority policies of Section 101.1(b) of the City and County Planning Code and with the City and County's General Plan, as set forth in a letter dated April 27, 1999 on file with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors in File No. 990921.

Section 12. This ordinance shall be published once a day for at least seven (7) days in the official newspaper of the City and County and such publication shall constitute notice of the election and no other notice of the election hereby called need be given.

Section 13. The appropriate officers, employees, representatives and agents of the City and County of San Francisco are hereby authorized and directed to do everything necessary or desirable to accomplish the calling and holding of the Bond Special Election, and to otherwise carry out the provisions of this ordinance.