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Hospital Parking Plan Stymied by Single Vote

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Times Staff Writer

By her single vote, a San Gabriel councilwoman has blocked a move by the nonprofit San Gabriel Valley Medical Center to use the power of eminent domain to acquire property on Las Tunas Drive for a parking lot and a new entrance.

Councilwoman Janis K. Cohen said that allowing a nonprofit agency to invoke eminent domain, a power usually reserved for government agencies, would “set a poor precedent.”

“I don’t disagree that the hospital needs the parking space,” she said, but she insisted that the hospital and property owners should negotiate further, perhaps with the help of city mediation, before the City Council authorizes a forced sale.

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One Advised to Abstain

Cohen’s vote last week was decisive because City Atty. Graham Ritchie ruled that approval required four votes of the five-member City Council, and he advised Councilman Michael Falabrino to abstain because Falabrino serves on the hospital board and was involved in property negotiations. Mayor Jeanne E. Parrish and the two other council members, Edward T. Lara and Sabino M. Cici, voted to authorize the hospital to proceed with eminent domain.

Obtaining city approval would have been the first step for the hospital, leading to a state Department of Health Services hearing before an administrative law judge to determine the need for the acquisition. Then, with city and state approval, a condemnation suit could have been initiated in Superior Court to have a jury establish the purchase price.

Hospital attorney Barrett W. McInerney said the use of eminent domain was proposed reluctantly, only after intensive efforts to acquire the property through negotiation had failed.

The property consists of a two-story lighting store, which is going out of business, and two adjoining houses on 15,583 square feet at the corner of Las Tunas Drive and DeAnza Street. The hospital would clear the land to provide parking for 35 cars.

Five-Story Addition

The hospital is in the midst of a $38-million expansion program that includes construction of a five-story building that will contain 140 of the hospital’s 215 beds, including a new maternity department. McInerney said the hospital, which is on Santa Anita Street half a block south of Las Tunas, had long planned to acquire an entrance from Las Tunas to relieve traffic congestion and provide better parking for its new emergency center, next to the five-story addition.

McInerney said hospital representatives had talked with Warren Rappelje for several years about acquiring his lighting store and the adjoining houses he owned, but he died before formal negotiations could begin this year.

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The hospital obtained an appraisal of $500,000 for the property and has offered to pay $600,000, McInerney said, but the owners, Rappelje’s widow, Carolyn, and his sister, Nada McPhearson, have refused to take less than $950,000 and have listed their property for sale with a Newport Beach broker at $1,495,000.

“We’re fully prepared to pay the last dime the property is worth,” McInerney told the City Council, but he said the medical center is a nonprofit organization and cannot pay the higher asking price without penalizing patients with increased costs.

‘Financial Blackmail’

“The issue is one of straight financial blackmail,” McInerney said. The property owners know they hold the only piece of land that can meet the hospital’s parking needs, he said. The only other suitable property on Las Tunas is occupied by Julie’s Bakery, which has a long-term lease at such favorable terms that it would be financially prohibitive to move the business, McInerney said.

Attorney Roger M. Sullivan, who represents the property owners, told council members that McInerney had opened himself to a slander suit by raising the “blackmail” charge.

Sullivan said the problem is that the hospital designed and spent millions on its building expansion without obtaining property for a proper entrance to the new buildings. Now, he said, the hospital is asking the city to solve its problem.

“It’s a bad precedent for a city to authorize a nonprofit agency to use eminent domain,” he said, noting that nonprofit hospitals are frequently converted into profit-making companies. Sullivan submitted petitions signed by 500 residents protesting the proposed use of eminent domain.

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Sellers Accused of Greed

Sullivan said his clients have no objection to selling their property to the hospital if they are offered suitable terms. But, he said, hospital representatives have accused his clients of bad faith and greed, and threatened eminent domain proceedings instead of making an acceptable offer.

McInerney said he hopes that the city will become involved in negotiations and that, if those efforts fail, the hospital will renew its request for eminent domain authorization.

Councilwoman Cohen suggested that the city obtain an independent appraisal and help resolve the dispute through mediation or arbitration, but City Atty. Ritchie said it would be unwise for the city to spend public funds for an appraisal, since the city is not the buyer or seller.

City Administrator Robert Clute said he has no plans to involve the city in the negotiations and said it is up to the property owners and hospital to try to reach an agreement.

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