District Threatens to Take Over Hospital : Camarillo: Health care board wants to give residents a say in Pleasant Valley’s proposed merger with an Oxnard center.

Buckling to public pressure, members of the Camarillo Health Care District board on Wednesday issued an ultimatum to Pleasant Valley Hospital: Agree to rejoin the district within a week or face legal action.

Board members said they made the move in an effort to allow public participation in merger negotiations between Pleasant Valley Hospital and St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard so that current services would remain available to Camarillo residents.

“The people of Camarillo gave birth to Pleasant Valley Hospital and the people of Camarillo should have the opportunity to decide what the fate of the hospital is,” said board member Gerald Karpman, who made the motion.

The 4-0 vote represents the first time the five-member board has backed up its requests to be more involved in the merger with the threat of seizing control of Pleasant Valley Hospital by eminent domain.

The board will meet Sept. 30 to discuss what legal steps would be appropriate, as well as the financial ramifications or liabilities involved with taking over the hospital.

Board member Richard Culbert said he abstained from voting because he believed the board should have waited until after Oct. 2, when a committee of district and hospital officials is scheduled to meet to discuss the proposed merger.

At past meetings, the board has declined to vote on the condemnation issue, instead asking Pleasant Valley to consider rejoining the district and to discuss the merger agreement with the district board before finalizing the deal. The Pleasant Valley Hospital board has not responded to the district’s requests.

Karpman, one of eight candidates running for two seats on the district board, said his intent is not to block the merger, which is expected to be finalized next year. He said he believes residents should have a say in the future of their community’s only hospital because it was built almost 20 years ago with their tax dollars.

The district opened and ran the hospital until 1983, when officials felt a private nonprofit corporation could do a better job managing the facility.

Robert A. Vos, who is nursing director at Pleasant Valley Hospital and a health care district board candidate, said in a telephone interview that he opposed the district board’s action.

“I think what inevitably will happen is that the hospital will probably become some part of a large health care system, and in the meantime, Camarillo Health Care District, which has very limited funds, is going to be spending a lot of money on legal action,” Vos said.

Hospital officials have said the future of the medical center would not change if the district were at the helm. Revenues would continue to decline as the number of patients shrinks and the number of patients who use Medicare grows, they have said.

Since March, some residents and physicians have voiced opposition to the merger because they fear St. John’s would eventually close Pleasant Valley Hospital. They also have expressed skepticism about hospital officials’ claims that Pleasant Valley has been losing money and needs to merge with St. John’s to survive.

A district-sponsored audit of the hospital’s books showed that the hospital could operate independently for four to eight more years. The audit said a merger eventually would be necessary but saw no rush to find a partner.

Urged by district board candidate James Jeffers, a Camarillo attorney who worked for the district when it managed the hospital, a group of opponents recently formed the group Save Our Hospital to try to block the merger.

Jeffers is one of four of the eight candidates who are running for two seats on the board who have said they would try to stop the merger if they were elected in the Nov. 3 election.