Racking Up Resentment at Oceanside Hospital

When the (Oceanside) Blade-Tribune ran a series of critical articles about the finances of Tri-City Medical Center, administrators at the hospital were quick to register their protest at what they thought was sensationalism.

They canceled the hospital’s three subscriptions to the paper and shelved plans to run any further advertising. That’s not an unusual response in the newspaper business, and Publisher Thomas Missett gave it little mind.

What did strike Missett as strange was when the Blade-Tribune’s coin-operated rack disappeared from outside the hospital.

He talked to the hospital marketing director and mentioned the possibility of filing a police report. Wonder of wonders, the rack reappeared.

“The box was removed by one zealous employee,” a hospital spokeswoman said. “As soon as we found it was missing, we returned it.”

Smooth Sailing at Last

In days of yore, it was pirates who preyed on the great sailing schooners.

Nowadays an even more treacherous foe often awaits those who try to restore a schooner to glory: bankruptcy court.

Just ask Todd Schwede, marine surveyor, commodore of the Kona Kai Yacht Club and a man who is passionate about the 1924 racing schooner Bagheera. After spending $210,000 to restore the 72-foot schooner, including rebuilding 60% of the hull, Schwede nearly lost both his boat and his investment.

He discovered the Bagheera several years ago, sad and sinking in San Diego, a wreck with noble lineage.

Designed by the legendary John Alden (the Ferrari of sailing) and built at the Rice

Brothers Yard in East Boothbay, Maine, the Bagheera had terrorized East Coast and Great Lake sailing competitions for decades under several owners.

For years she sailed out of the Chicago Yacht Club and later did a charter stint in the Caribbean, and made two trips to the Galapagos Islands. But, like a beautiful mistress, she suffered progressively harsher treatment with age.

Enter Schwede, whose rescue efforts were hailed in 1986 by the Save Our Heritage Organisation. Soon, however, the enterprise hit the shoals of Chapter 13.

“You never know how many sharks are out there until you enter bankruptcy,” Schwede said. “Everyone wants to buy you out for 10 cents on the dollar. It’s a draining, draining experience, a nightmare.”

On the night before the Bagheera was set to be sold at auction, Schwede and his partners found a buyer--Encinitas businessman Tom Gay, who provides computer demographics for Fortune 500 companies. Creditors were paid, and a managing contract was arranged.

The Bagheera (named for a black panther in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”) is now available for charter out of H&M; Landing in Point Loma, where the newly formed Bagheera Sailing Adventures has signed a two-year lease.

“She represents a kind of elegance and splendor that just isn’t seen anymore,” Schwede said.

As Brief as They Come

Just how grim is the San Diego city budget for next year?

Every year the Citizens’ Assistance & Information Department publishes a Budget in Brief to explain the facts behind the figures to the press, the public and the bureaucracy. About 12,000 copies of the tabloid are distributed.

This year the Budget in Brief was set to explain why the city manager says the new budget is the tightest since Proposition 13 and why there’s not enough money for all sorts of things.

Then the Financial Management Department canceled this year’s Budget in Brief. The budget’s too tight.