Squabbles Beset Hospital District’s Evolution to Grantsmanship

Since last summer, the South Bay Hospital District has been transforming itself from the operator of a community hospital into a foundation capable of providing nearly $1 million a year for public health programs in Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach.

The evolution has been hampered, however, by an undertow of political squabbling since the election of a new board member last November changed the majority on the district’s governing body.

Some directors say the bickering has crippled the agency, prevented it from getting on with the business of giving grants for public health programs and shortchanged residents of the three beach cities who elect the five-member board and pay about $350,000 in district taxes each year.

And even with the firing last month of the district’s first executive director--a victim of politics, according to some--board members say the political situation is going to be hard to mend.

“Politics changed the board,” said Virginia D. Fischer, a board member since 1972. “The board has been rather impotent in bringing about new programs simply because of underlying issues of leadership and who likes whom.”

“We have been hampered by the political situation,” said board member Jean G. McMillan, who was first elected in 1980. She said the board has made only two minor grants since it initiated a five-year program more than a year ago, to increase the number of nurses and health aides and provide health education at four South Bay school districts. The board recently voted $286,000 for the second year of the program.

The newly elected board member, Eva Snow, said the people of the three cities that make up the district “have been shortchanged. It should not be taking us this long to give grants.”

The divisiveness affecting the board is seldom reflected in its votes, which more often than not are unanimous. And during the past year, most of the board’s time has been spent in winding up hospital business, litigation and listening to reports from the staff.

The board is considering six grant applications seeking a total of $181,000. Recommendations for approval or disapproval are expected to be given to the full board Thursday by a grants committee made up of Fischer and Snow. At one time, the board had planned to fund programs by July 1.

A feud pitting Snow against Fischer and McMillan appears to lie at the heart of the board’s problems.

“Since Eva came on the board, no one is able to function,” said McMillan. “She has not learned one thing about the duties of a public official or about the district and its role.”

Fischer said Snow came to the board with “preconceived notions” and delayed meeting with her on the grants proposals until Fischer made an issue of it at a board meeting.

“It is the obligation of all elected officials to work with the people they are elected with,” she said.

But Snow contends that she is not the problem. Instead, she said, Fischer and McMillan resent the fact that she defeated one-term board member Richard L. Fruin Jr. in November and broke up the old board majority.

“They still think they’re the old hospital board,” Snow said. The board operated the South Bay Hospital until it leased it to a private company last year.

Fischer and McMillan deny that they and Fruin dominated the board to the exclusion of others. “We discussed issues until we had unanimity,” McMillan said.

McMillan said she is afraid that Snow’s husband, Redondo Beach City Councilman Archie Snow, may try to use his wife’s position to dominate the board for political purposes. Calling Snow “the sixth member of the board,” she said he “controls the Redondo Beach City Council and wants to use the hospital district to feather his own political nest.”

Although Archie Snow denied playing a role in hospital affairs, he noted that McMillan and Fischer supported his opponent, Redondo Beach city school board member Val Dombrowski, in last May’s city election.

“That did not make me feel lovingly,” Snow said. “What goes around comes around. If they’d leave me alone, I’d leave them alone.”

Eva Snow said her husband does not “butt into” her activities on the hospital board.

Contending that political turmoil is being exaggerated, board President Gerald R. Witt said there was political “dissension at the beginning” but “things are now being straightened out and it is not affecting the functioning of the board.”

He said that in its transition from a board running a hospital to a grant-giving foundation, the district “has been trying to go slow and do things the right way. Things may not have gone as fast as the public anticipated, but that was for a reason.”

Leaders in the beach communities appear to be patient about the district’s progress. “I expected them to take time getting organized, and then I’m looking forward to expanded health care in the area,” said Manhattan Beach City Councilman Russell Lesser.

In Hermosa Beach, Mayor Jack Wood said the political bickering doesn’t surprise him: “People who run for office have big egos and strong opinions and they fight among themselves, quite often ignoring the true desire of the community they serve.”

However, one South Bay health-service provider, who asked for anonymity, expressed concern that politics is holding up programs: “It’s a hornet’s nest. They’ve got so much money, they could give some to everybody.”

The district on June 1, 1984, leased South Bay Hospital to American Medical International, Inc. for $3 million a year and switched to being a foundation utilizing interest on the income. Despite its new role, the district has spent much of its time clearing up financial obligations from the hospital, including construction loans, collection of bad debts, insurance and a pension fund.

A major point of contention on the district board was the performance of Kathleen A. Belkham, who served 10 months as executive director of the district. Belkham was fired from the $52,500-a-year job in August for what Witt described as unwillingness to get into the “community-involved activity” necessary to promote the district.

“Eva came onto the board in December and in February, she made it clear she wanted Kathleen out,” said McMillan. “Kathleen could have walked on water and it would not have pleased Mrs. Snow.”

Snow said she turned against Belkham “after I saw Kathleen could not meet her responsibilities. I wanted her out.” Snow contends that Belkham was “misinformed” about the job when she was hired by the board before the November election. Belkham thought she was directing a hospital board, not a foundation making grants, Snow said.

Snow complained that people in Redondo Beach did not accept Belkham because she was “snooty” and dressed as if she were “going to a tea.”

In response, Belkham said: “I am a professional, intelligent person. I dress the way I am comfortable and I couldn’t change for her.”

She added: “The board was so divided after the election it was impossible to come to a consensus on anything. I felt that Eva Snow wished to have me out and eventually she got her way.”

According to Belkham, the entire board eventually became “willing to go along with Eva to cut down on the divisiveness and make the board work again.” Belkham’s termination was approved unanimously by the board.

Belkham, who on Sept. 16 becomes Los Angeles County regional director of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California, said she never thought she was running a hospital while in the South Bay: “I always have been in health care management, managing people, committees and putting programs together, the same kind of thing this board wanted.”

Some board members said Belkham lacked the strength and expertise to guide the board in financial affairs and grantsmanship. Belkham said she recognized that the district needed consultants in these areas, but the board turned down her recommendations to hire them.

“The board felt it could handle this themselves,” said Fischer who, like McMillan, said she believes the board should have supported Belkham so she could do her job.

McMillan contended that the board “had no cause to remove” Belkham, who had eight months remaining on her contract, and the district “was fortunate she agreed to leave.”

But Witt said there were grounds to terminate Belkham, who received a $34,639 settlement when she left the district. “She could not fill the job the way we needed it filled,” he said.

Fischer said that solving the board’s political problems will be “real difficult.”

“It will take a lot of work and time and all of us have to get together and work out our problems.”

Witt said people “have to put personal conflict aside and get down to the job they were elected to do.

Several directors, including Snow, say the district needs a strong administrator.

Patricia Dreizler, community resources director in the city of Redondo Beach, is being openly pushed for the job by Snow and board member Mary Davis. Dreizler was ranked second among finalists last year when Belkham got the job.

Snow said Witt also supports Dreizler, but Witt would would say only, “If she’s still interested in the job, she’s probably the most qualified person in the area to do the job.”

Earlier, the board said it would conduct a search for a new executive director. However, Witt said last week that a selection could be made from the “five or six” resumes that have come in, and those on file from last year, including Dreizler’s. “We will discuss the process of hiring at the next board meeting” on Thursday, he said.

The job description for director, developed last year, calls for a master’s degree in the health care field and at least five years’ experience in health-care leadership.

“I don’t fit the current description, but I don’t see the district in the hospital business any more,” said Dreizler, who said her 26-year background with Redondo Beach is in community service programming, including drug abuse and alcoholism treatment and services to the elderly.

Witt said “it is not necessary to have the health requirement,” adding that the job description will be revised “to be less hospital-oriented and more community-oriented.” However, Fischer and McMillan, who want a director with a health care background, can be expected to oppose that.