LOCAL ELECTIONS / PALOMAR-POMERADO : Candidates Blast Board’s Spending : Politics: Challengers say directors have a combative attitude and waste money.

In a campaign that revolves around charges of wasteful spending, maternity-room hot tubs and anti-abortion spies, nine candidates are competing for three seats on the Palomar-Pomerado Health System’s board of directors.

As campaigns heat up, two themes are emerging: money management of the 710-bed health system and the combativeness of the current board.

Challengers say the directors bicker, freeze out the public and spend money frivolously.

“We’ve got a CEO who makes more than the President of the United States,” candidate Loren Belker said. “They should have a tight-ship mentality instead of a palace-on-the-hill mentality.”

Aside from the issues of running a hospital district, allegations of anti-abortion spying have been woven into the race. Abortion-rights forces accuse candidate Karen Kirchoff of masquerading as one of their own during 1989 and 1990 to spy on them for anti-abortion activists. And Kirchoff, who has been endorsed by the California Pro-Life Council, denies it.

True or not, the story’s theme of imposture has a familiar ring for voters. In 1990 they elected Nancy Scofield, an Operation Rescue anti-abortion activist who claimed to be a nurse during her campaign and refused to relinquish her seat when it came to light that she was not.

Among those competing for one of seven seats on the state’s largest public hospital system are Kirchoff, 48, an unemployed “wellness consultant”; John Gamble Jr., 35, who says he became a law student after the health system drove his nursing registry service out of business, and Beverly Eastland (who doesn’t disclose her age), retired owner of a secretarial service who has monitored the board’s meetings for nine years from a front-row seat.

Also running are Ellen Gallego, 49, a speech pathology manager at Palomar Medical Center who would become her bosses’ boss if elected; firefighter-paramedic Charles Gabbard, 32; retired life insurance executive Loren Belker, 66, who has a long record of service on public health boards in Nevada, and self-employed fund-raiser Martin Davis, 52, who has held administrative posts with the American Lung Assn. and the American Diabetes Assn.

Fending them off are incumbents Evelyn Madison and Bill Hutchings. Hutchings, 63, has been on the board for 24 years and is running again despite recent open-heart surgery. Madison, 53, is running even though, she says, she has been ostracized by fellow board members for regularly accusing hospital executives of wasteful spending.

Although Madison has been an obvious thorn in the side of the board and staff, some of the other candidates--even though they could end up unseating her--applaud her performance and hope to take a seat alongside her. The third open seat belongs to board member Bruce Jaques, who is not seeking reelection.

The winners of the race will join a board that controls a $200-million operation including Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, Pomerado Hospital in Poway, a blood bank, two nursing homes, North County’s only trauma center and other programs. The system has more beds than any other public health system in the state and gets about 2 1/2% of its income from tax money.

The new directors also might have a unique chance to influence national health care reforms, experts say. Because some form of health care reform is widely predicted, the large hospital district, with its membership in several state associations, is in a strong lobbying position to affect what shape that reform will take.

“They probably have to be more vigilant and knowledgeable than ever to be effective,” said Sue Maddox, spokeswoman for the Hospital Council of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “It is probably the most difficult time for health care, but probably the best opportunity for innovation and creativity.”

So far, however, challengers have focused more on the board’s spending practices than on the complexities of such reform.

They criticize the board’s recent 5% room-rate increase when the system had a $13-million budget carry-over this year, pay raises for executives that nearly coincided with layoffs of hospital middle-managers, and the 13 VCRs and 13 hot tubs recently purchased for Pomerado Hospital’s maternity rooms.

“Who watches TV when they are having a baby?” Eastland asked. She said she would prefer to see money spent on improving geriatric services.

But above all, the challengers have slammed new CEO Andrew Deems’ $327,000 annual pay package. Deems replaced Bob Edwards, who was making $150,700 when he retired in January.

While attacking the status quo, the challengers have largely avoided criticizing the incumbents, both of whom have voted repeatedly against unpopular spending decisions, including Deems’ pay and the higher room rates.

Still, board attitudes are taking their hits. Davis called the group “a reclusive bunch--out of touch and aloof.” Gallego described the board meetings as “an environment where people are afraid to voice their ideas because of who they are.”

As an example, contenders cite one ugly scene last winter: In a board meeting, Madison asked executives to explain why they spent nearly $10,000 in public funds on a private retirement party and European vacation for former CEO Edwards.

Hutchings yelled at Madison, telling her not to discuss the party in public. Director Howard Brown told Madison he didn’t understand the “purpose” of her inquiry. Madison was furious.

Ire flared anew in June when administrators chartered a small airplane, at the hospital system’s expense, to fly Director Bruce Jaques to a crucial board meeting.

Jaques flew in from a business engagement in Orange County and cast the tie-breaking vote to adopt the controversial budget that raised room rates. Madison, Hutchings and member Sue Reeves cast dissenting votes.

Then Jaques flew away. A hospital vehicle drove him to and from the airport. Observers and a few board members were outraged.

Voters, meanwhile, are choosing their favorites with care, saying they still feel burned by the conduct of Scofield, the bogus nurse, during the 1990 elections.

“We are casting a wary eye,” said Helen Polatchek, vice president of the League of Women Voters of Escondido. “Last time we didn’t know enough about the candidates. . . . I am still angry about it.”

Feeling duped after the last elections, voters and nurses wrote scorching letters about Scofield to the local newspaper. The other board members publicly demanded her resignation, and the district attorney’s office launched a criminal investigation. The health system spent thousands in legal fees trying to block her ascent to its board.

But Scofield stayed, and so did voter concern.

At a recent forum, candidates were asked if they were claiming to have health care backgrounds when they really didn’t.

Meanwhile, Davis and Kirchoff are deflecting rumors that they are one-issue “stealth candidates” because they received endorsements from the Southern California Christian Times and the California Pro-Life Council.

Davis said he is befuddled by the group’s endorsement. He said he never answered questionnaires, is “probably pro-choice,” and belongs to no church or religious group.

Kirchoff, meanwhile, is fending off accusations that she spied on the National Organization for Women for the anti-abortion movement and that she is running only because of her stance on abortion.

Contradictory to her recent endorsements, the Poway mother of five was a local board member in 1990 for NOW, a pro-choice feminist group.

NOW member Ann Russell said Kirchoff asked to be the group’s liaison to the California Abortion Rights Action League, often discussed strategies for protecting abortion rights, volunteered to spy on an anti-abortion picnic and volunteered her home for NOW’s library of pro-choice tapes and books.

“Karen is a stealth candidate and she shouldn’t try to weasel out of it,” Russell said. “Now she is running for public office, and I think voters have a right to know that she is willing to lie.”

Kirchoff said she joined NOW because she liked the idea of “equal rights for women” but wasn’t aware of the group’s pro-abortion-rights thrust.

“I am not pro-choice. I am not certain how I feel. I am pro-life,” she said. “I don’t want to be called a stealth candidate. Everybody wants to corner you into some little box.”

But Kirchoff conceded that she has donated clothing and supplies to a pregnancy counseling center in Poway run by anti-abortion activists including Scofield.