February 22, 2024
The Costs Below Continue to Rise
Updated Costs to Rescure LHH Following Its April 2022 Decertification
You Gotta’ Laugh ... To Keep From Crying
by Patrick Monette-Shaw
I updated this table in mid-December, but haven't written another extended article on this yet. The data is accurate, supported by public records made available under CPRA and San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance records reequests.
I’ll try to write an extended about this soon ... but have been ill.
The mounting costs to San Francisco and San Franciscans are primarily due to the failure of San Francisco’s “governing body” — the Health Commission — as detailed in a new Westside Observe article by Dr. Derek Kerr and Dr. Maria Rivero published today on February 22, 2024. Their artilce is “must” reading.
I appreciate the shout-out the authors gave to me, but research and articles regarding the costs of the LHH fiasco long ago surpassed currently $30.6 million.
The July 14, 2023 Part 1 of my two-part series reported LHH’s mismanagement costs had reaches $64.1 million. By July 31, 2023 my Part 2 article revealed those costs had inched up to $64.9 million.
But my ongoing research has revealed that those costs had climbed to between $121.1 million to $129.3 million by September 15, 2023 shown in the updated chart below I posted today on-line on July 22, 2024. Although Kerr and Rivero reported on the $2.2 million settlement for the lawsuit brought by the Public Guardian’s Office and Public Conservator’s Office that the Board of Supervisors approved at the end of June, here it is now eight months later and the City Attorney’s Office continues to assert that it can’t release the time and expenses incurred by the City Attorney staff, apparently because the Plaintiff’s counsel have not returned signed “release forms” yet to officially close out that case (Superior Court Case # CGC-21-592296).
It’s not yet known if those lawyers haven’t return the signed release forms yet, because they are the same lawyers from the two or three law firms handling the Tommy Thompson et al. potential class action lawsuit (Superior Court Case # CPF-20-517064) first filed in Court four years ago on March 24, 2020. I predict that the City Attorney’s time and expenses in both lawsuits over the past four years will probably involve $2 million to $5 million more, even before we learn what the Court will award as a settlement to the Plaintiff’s in the Tommy Thompson et al. case, a settlement that will likely be at least $2 million, if not substantially higher.
This delayed justice is obviously no justice at all!
Monette-Shaw is a columnist for San Francisco’s Westside Observer newspaper, and a retired City employee. He received a James Madison Freedom of Information Award in the “Advocacy” category from the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter in 2012. He’s a member of the California First Amendment Coalition (FAC) and the ACLU. Contact him at monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.