SAN FRANCISCO: Brown’s Home Health Care Plan Lacks Votes

      "San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's controversial plan for the city to take over home health care services for AIDS patients and the poor does not have the number of votes needed at the Board of Supervisors to survive," the San Francisco Examiner reports. The plan needs six votes to pass the board, and as of Monday, "only five supervisors appeared ready to endorse the plan." Consideration of the plan, however, has been delayed for two weeks. The Examiner reports that if Brown appoints a new supervisor within that time "to fill the vacancy created when Susan Leal quits this month to become city treasurer," the vote may go his way. Already, the city's health department, under Brown's supervision, has "canceled three contracts with California Pacific Medical Center for home health care services and turned the job over to unionized city workers at a 40% higher cost to taxpayers." Nevertheless, the board has the option to remove these health care workers from the city's payroll and to instead reinstate the contracts (1/21).