by
Mark Prado, Marin Independent Journal reporter
Friday, February 25, 2005 —
After more than two hours of emotional testimony in which parents,
partners and friends described how their loved ones committed suicide
from the Golden Gate Bridge, a committee yesterday recommended pursuing
a suicide barrier on the span.
Although aesthetics have been cited most often as the reason not
to erect a barrier - which would cost $15 million to $25 million -
one mother who spoke at the hearing found fault in that argument.
"I'm an artist and aesthetics are important to me, but beauty
that takes lives becomes ugliness," said Mary Zablotny of San
Francisco, whose son Jonathan, a high school
student, jumped from the bridge Feb 1.
More than a dozen people spoke yesterday to the district's Building
and Operating Committee, including several whose loved ones had jumped
from the bridge. There is new momentum to erect a barrier on the bridge
after a filmmaker recently said he filmed 19 suicides last year, and
as health care professionals ask bridge officials to re-examine the
issue.
San Francisco physician Phil Holstin, 33, jumped to his death Oct.
26, 2004. His partner, Sarah Cherny, said yesterday she believes a
barrier would have prevented his death.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Phil's decision to jump on
Oct. 26 was an impulse, a terrible impulse," she told the committee,
her voice breaking. "There is no doubt whatsoever that if a
barrier had been there that day I would have seen him that evening
after work like every other day before it, and not on a metal gurney
after his autopsy the following day."
Services will be held in Salinas today for Jennifer Oxford, 26, of
San Jose, who jumped to her death a week ago today.
"I don't want one more family to go through this pain," her
mother, Terry Oxford, told the committee, her words bringing tears
from board members Cynthia Murray of Marin and Janet Reilly of San
Francisco. "I'm so disturbed to know that this has been on
the table for so long. I beg of you make this happen right away,
get something up temporarily, put up an electrical cattle guard,
I don't care, but do something."
After the hearing, the committee unanimously agreed to support
a "suicide
deterrent system" and directed bridge staff to develop a plan
to fund the $2 million in studies that would
be needed to get the project moving. The Board of Directors still
has to approve the plan when it meets March 11.
"As a director I feel personally responsible," said Murray,
a Marin supervisor. "We can either have an icon of beauty or
an icon of death."
It could be four years before a suicide barrier is erected on the
span, with two years of study and up to another two years for construction.
There is no money to develop a plan, and the district could have
to delete up to $2 million in its capital projects budget or find
other funding from outside sources, district officials said. A public/private
partnership was discussed yesterday.
About 20 people jump from the span every year. About 1,300 people
have jumped to their deaths since the bridge opened in 1937.
Discussion of a barrier began in the 1950s, and the most recent
talk was in 1999 when a 100-foot prototype fence was unveiled. It
was 11 feet high with horizontal, stainless-steel strands fastened
four inches apart with thin, vertical "z-clips."
The clips were to prevent people from separating the wires and sliding
through. The higher wires were looser and folded back on a person
attempting to climb over. Officials determined that the design was
not foolproof and was a bad aesthetic fit for the span, and it was
abandoned.
With the district projecting a $108 million deficit over the next
five years, funding the barrier could be an issue, said committee
member Maureen Middlebrook of Sonoma County.
"You have moved us and we are heading in a new direction," she
told those who testified. "But we have serious financial issues."
Committee member Reilly said she believed money could be raised from
outside sources to help fund a barrier.
"You would not give a loaded gun to a person in crisis, and
this region has a loaded gun - this bridge," Reilly said.
