Honoring Those Who Died

This Memorial Day weekend, take a moment with your families to honor the memories of the men and women who gave up their lives in the service of our country.

Regardless of their faith, ethnic background or political affiliation, they fought and died in service of our country and for their comrades in arms.

There are two main celebrations in San Francisco.

• The annual service at Lands End honoring the sailors and Marines who died aboard the U.S.S. San Francisco during the Naval Night Battle at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands will be held at Lands End (48th Avenue and Clement Street) on Sunday, May 24, at 11:30 a.m.

The San Francisco helped stop the Japanese onslaught in Asia on Friday, Nov. 13, 1942. There were 100 sailors and Marines, including Admiral Daniel Callaghan and Captain Cassin Young, killed in action.

Please note: There is a fundraiser in-progress to raise $50,000 to restore the U.S.S. San Francisco Memorial. For more information, visit the nonprofit San Francisco Memorial Foundation’s website at usssanfrancisco.org or mail a check to: U.S.S. San Francisco Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 117481, Burlingame, CA 94011.

• A service will be held at the Presidio National Cemetery on Monday, May 25, at 10:30 a.m. It features a small military parade and comments from community and military leaders. Scouts from Troop 415 and around the Bay Area will plant an American Flag on 32,000 tombstones.

Selfless Bravery

The book “Stories from the Pacific” was written by a tough, hard-nosed Marine named Lawrence F. Kirby, who was on the front lines of three invasions of Pacific islands during World War II, including Guadalcanal.

Mr. Kirby, who passed away in 2023 at 97 years of age, wrote about fellow Marine medic Billy Hauger.

“One of the most courageous men I met was our Navy corpsman, Billy Hauger, a teenage boy who always put our well being ahead of his own. … On Iwo Jima, he risked his life time and time again to take care of his men. On his last rescue attempt he was badly wounded when a Japanese Nambu machine gun put a round through his thigh and another high in the right side of his chest. … He didn’t make it.

“Billy was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. … I loved Billy Hauger then and I will always love him. Billy Hauger was a homosexual. Every single man in our company would be proud to stand with him and call him friend and brother.”

The passage was read into the Congressional Record at the House of Representatives during a hearing on “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy on Oct. 6, 2009.

American heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

SFPUC’s Deceit, Incompetence Thwart Fire Protection

San Franciscans have voted three times to pass bonds to construct pipelines for a dedicated source of emergency firefighting water for the west side of the City, in 2010, 2014 and 2020. What were promised in those bonds was $312 million dedicated to build out a fire hydrant system capable of withstanding a major earthquake and delivering water to our first responders.

What followed the passage of three bond measures was pure sleight-of–hand, incompetence and gross indifference. Not a single foot of pipeline has been laid in the past 15 years and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) officials are still putting forth inadequate plans to protect San Franciscans.

The current plan from the SFPUC is to install a new fresh water pipe for planned housing growth, and to use it, if needed, as a dedicated firefighting line. That would require multiple valves to shut down ancillary water lines going to west side homes and businesses.

The water would come from our fresh water reservoirs and, possibly, from Lake Merced. Using valuable drinking water to fight fires is a bad idea.

The only adequate way to protect the west side, as well as 13 southern neighborhoods currently unprotected with an AWSS, is to construct a couple of pump stations at Ocean Beach. It wouldn’t take that many miles of pipeline to cover areas that are unprotected.

Unfortunately, we’ll probably get bloviated cost estimates and decades long construction timelines in an effort to not do the right thing.

Blind Leading the Blind

The man running the SFPUC since 2021 is General Manager Denis Herrera, our former city attorney. There are five political appointees serving on the SF Public Utilities Commission, which is responsible for overseeing operations.

It’s time to tell Herrera and the members of the Public Utilities Commission that it is not right to treat the residents of the west and south sides of the City as second-class citizens. We want what most of the people in the city already enjoy – dedicated pipelines that carry an unlimited supply of seawater so San Francisco firefighters can do their jobs to protect our lives and property.

San Francisco Civil Grand Juries have on two occasions investigated the issue (2003 and 2018) and concluded it was “urgent” to expand the AWSS to help keep us safe.

After the 1906 earthquake and fire, the city built an Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) with hardened, dedicated pipelines fed with unlimited amounts of seawater.

Currently, the city’s AWSS ends at 14th Avenue in the Richmond and 19th Avenue in the Sunset.

The SF Fire Department was originally responsible for creating a west side AWSS extension. But when the City faced a budget crunch in 2010, then-SF Mayor Gavin Newsom gave responsibility for an AWSS to the SFPUC. The SFPUC is an enterprise zone, which must spend the funds it raises from ratepayers and other sources within its jurisdiction.

It is obvious the SFPUC never wanted the responsibility, or expense, of building an emergency firefighting system. The SFPUC has come up with some of the most ridiculous plans over the years, such as having NERT volunteers drive flatbed trucks to distribute miles of plastic pipe throughout disaster zones, possibly in the dead dark of night.

Vote “No” on Prop. A

So how do we send the message to the SFPUC that might finally get through? By voting.

Proposition A on the June 2 ballot is a $535 million Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) bond measure. According to the City Controller Greg Wagner, the total cost to repay the bond will be approximately $933 million.

The SFPUC is proposing $130 million of the Prop. A bond money be used for the Westside Emergency Firefighting Water System. But, like previous bond plans for the AWSS, there are no concrete plans for what will get built or how the money will be spent.

And even more mind-boggling, Prop. A would provide up to $200 million to the SF Municipal Transportation Agency to upgrade its Potrero Hill Bus Maintenance Yard.

We’ve had enough arrogance from the SFPUC, and their blatant discrimination against west side residents.

Let’s send city leaders a message – go back to the drawing board and create a plan to build Ocean Beach pump stations and lay down a few miles of dedicated water mains with hydrants.

It’s time to get serious about protecting Richmond and Sunset district residents – vote “no” on Prop. A.

Paul Kozakiewicz is the former publisher and an editor with the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers.