2 on Hospital Board Are Targets of Recall : Lancaster: The election is sought after disputes arise between the medical center’s administrator and its newest directors.

A group of employees at Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center in Lancaster have launched a campaign to recall the two newest members of its governing board in an election that could cost the public hospital about $240,000.

The employees group has published a formal list of complaints against Steve Fox and Anne Brouillette, who were elected in November to the board of the Antelope Valley Hospital District. The public district runs the 301-bed medical center, the largest in the area.

The campaign follows a series of conflicts in recent months between longtime hospital Administrator Jack Evans and the new board members, who have criticized him at times. Leaders of the recall campaign said they strongly support Evans.

The recall group, calling itself Friends of the Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, must gather the signatures of 14,339 registered voters on a recall petition within a 160-day period to force an election. The group has hired political consultant Mark Siegel to help with the campaign.

Rick Mallyon, chairman of the recall group and an emergency room nurse at the hospital, said recall proponents will not be deterred by the $240,000 that county officials estimate that it will cost the hospital district to hold a special election.

Mallyon said the loss to the hospital could be greater in the long run if Fox and Brouillette remain. He accused them of being incompetent, favoring their own agendas over the good of the hospital, and fostering “a spirit of antagonism” toward the hospital’s administrators.

But Fox, a San Fernando Valley junior high school teacher, said the campaign is the result of his questioning hospital practices and expenditures, including more than $5,000 of public funds that Evans spent on a party for two departing board members, and a large pending pay raise for Evans.

Brouillette, a nurse who works for a cardiology clinic separate from the hospital, said the employees backing the recall “feel they’re on a mission to save Jack Evans.” She added, “If voters had wanted things as is, they would have left the prior incumbents on the board.”