3 New Members Elected to Board in South Bay Hospital District Upset : Winners opposed a proposal to spend $15 million updating the 31-year-old facility in Redondo Beach.

Following an upset victory, a new majority will control the board of the South Bay Hospital District and decide if millions of dollars of district funds should be pumped into renovating the 208-bed facility in Redondo Beach.

Voters on Tuesday chose three new board members who have opposed a controversial proposal to modernize the small community hospital. The three winners, who ran as a slate, garnered more votes than candidates who favored funding improvements for the hospital.

“I think the voters wanted to put people on the board who will be independent and cautious with respect to that proposal,” said Dick Fruin, who along with Dr. Gerald L. Looney and Aviva Kamin won the seats after an unexpectedly fierce nine-person race.

Both winners and losers voiced some surprise at the election’s outcome, in which two long-time Redondo Beach officials--former planning director Harlan J. Curwick and former Councilman Archie Snow--failed to win spots on the five-seat board.

“I’d say it’s an upset, said Curwick, who speculated that voters may have favored Looney, a physician, and Kamin, a psychologist, because of their ties to the medical field.

Final unofficial results show that Looney won 19.7% of the vote and Kamin got 15.4%, making them the top vote-getters in the race. Fruin captured 12.6%, narrowly edging out Lori A. Herold, who got 12.3%.

Curwick, who favors aiding the hospital, expressed some concern about the future of the district, which encompasses Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach.

“I hope that the new board coming in, the three new ones, look into that hospital and do what should be done there to get the doctors back and make it a successful operation,” he said. “What happens if it goes downhill any more than it is now?”

A centerpiece of the election campaign has been the economic welfare of the 31-year-old hospital, which is owned by the hospital district, a public agency, but leased and operated by American Medical International Inc., a for-profit medical chain based in Dallas. The district gives interest from the lease proceeds to community-health programs in the beach cities.

AMI early this summer asked the district to channel up to $15 million over five years into the hospital to modernize the building and help pay for medical care for patients lacking insurance.

Fruin, Looney and Kamin questioned what effect that plan would have on the district’s support of community health efforts.

Three other candidates, who won the backing of several hospital leaders, underscored what they called the importance of helping AMI and making the hospital more competitive.

Those candidates--Curwick, Snow and incumbent James M. Riewer--gathered support in the campaign’s final days from a new group organized by Dick Fitzgerald, who recently stepped down as chairman of the board that actually runs the hospital.

Some candidates warned that South Bay Hospital had to upgrade its facilities to win back the loyalty of patients and physicians.

The hospital is less popular than two larger nearby hospitals, according to 1991 state figures that list its bed-occupancy rate at 29.5%, compared to 74.7% at Little Company of Mary Hospital and 60.9% at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, both in Torrance.

Two other candidates, Herold and Mark Bourgeois, also supported helping AMI, while the ninth candidate, Ray E. Thomas, wanted more information about the plan.

The new board members will not take their seats until the first meeting in December, replacing members Virginia Fischer, Riewer and Eva Snow, who is Archie Snow’s wife.

Meanwhile, the current board may get a closed-door briefing a week from today from its consultant about a possible counteroffer to the AMI proposal, said Board President Ken Johnson. He said any counteroffer would be reviewed at a public hearing and would probably be decided by the new board.

The new members have criticized the old board for what they call closed-door deliberations.

“No one really knows what’s been in the back rooms, because they have not brought it to the public,” Kamin said. “Now, I guess, we’re going to find out.”