The city council in Redwood City, California, a town in the Bay Area, will have the final vote next month to determine if a new Planned Parenthood abortion business can open that doesn’t have the required parking spaces.
Redwood City officials have already signed off on the new center, but the city’s planning department sent a letter in July saying it has amended the permit issued allowing it to open the abortion business at 2890 El Camino Real. Planned Parenthood had initially obtained an agreement from the Enterprise Rent-A-Car company across the street for it to provide the center with the additional parking necessary to meet city requirements as the location only has 18 of the 27 spaces the city requires for the facility.
However, Enterprise is backing down thanks to a local protest organized by pro-life advocate Ross Foti, who says he and other pro-life residents informed Enterprise they would picket the company if it provided the spaces to Planned Parenthood.
Now, the Redwood City city council will become the final arbiter of whether or not the abortion facility opens when it holds its next meeting on September 12 or 19.
Zoning Administrator Blake Lyon told the Redwood City Patch newspaper that he gave conditional approval in May for the abortion business to open because of its promise that it would obtain enough parking spaces for a building of its size under city requirements. Now, he says the city council will have to determine whether it will be able to open.
“The City Council has to decide if they’re comfortable moving forward without a [parking] resolution,” Lyon said.
Planned Parenthood spokesperson Lupe Rodriguez told the newspaper that it is happy that Lyon is not putting up further obstacles and will allow the city council to make the final decision and his recommendation.
“We’re very excited that the city is allowing us to move forward with the hearing,” she said, and blaming pro-life advocates for protesting the center, which she failed to mention will do abortions. “There’s nothing to protest. We’re providing primary health care for children and families, men and women. It’s very unfortunate that people want to harass patients while they’re getting care.”
If the city council votes down the opening of the abortion business, Rodriguez promised Planned Parenthood would open elsewhere: “We’d find a way,” she said.
The newspaper indicates Planned Parenthood, which obtained an agreement from Enterprise for parking space only to see that dissolve, says it has renewed the agreement with Enterprise for the parking spaces. However, it hasn’t yet provided any further details to city officials in advance of the city council meeting.
The new center will not do surgical abortions but will do abortions with the dangerous abortion drug that has killed dozens of women worldwide, 14 in the United States (including one woman in San Francisco), and has injured at least 2,200 women in the United Sates alone as of April 2011 FDA figures. Pro-life advocates in the Bay Area area are working to stop the Planned Parenthood abortion business from opening up a new center and a dispute over parking is working so far.
The opening of the new center would follow the closing of a San Francisco area chain of abortion centers that lost its Planned Parenthood affiliation after the disclosure of massive financial problems.
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate was dropped as an affiliate of the national abortion business following allegedly massive financial mismanagement. Responding to the decision, the California abortion business changed its name to Golden Gate Community Health and fired CEO Dian Harrison.
Harrison filed a lawsuit for more than $180,000 in severance in December which came as the abortion business was struggling to stay open.
Satellite centers in San Rafael, Oakland, Hayward and San Mateo closed as well as San Francisco locations.
Golden Gate Community Health had been in operating since 1923 and did thousands of abortions annually until, in 2008-2009, it lost more than $2.8 million and lost $536,000 in 2010.
The problems were so pervasive at GGCH that it faces an audit from the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service. The New York Times released a new report in September detailing how an unnamed former employee interviewed with the Oakland field office of the IRS.
ACTION: Contact Enteprise in Redwood City at (650) 261-9308 and tell them to not allow Planned Parenthood to use its parking spaces. Also, contact the city council at https://www.redwoodcity.org and urge a no vote.
