Ads Attacking Hospital Plan Denounced : Health: Community Memorial administrators never approved the advertisements against the proposed expansion of the county’s public facility.

Four full-page ads attacking the proposed expansion of Ventura County’s public hospital were officially sponsored by a taxpayer alliance but paid for by an Orange County consulting firm after a private Ventura hospital withdrew its joint sponsorship.

The $6,000 in ads, which described the county hospital project as “a $50 million boondoggle” cooked up by bureaucrats, were purchased by Costa Mesa-based Campaign Management Inc., the firm’s president confirmed Friday.

Political consultant Harvey A. Englander said Community Memorial Hospital hired him last summer to plan a campaign opposing expansion of the nearby public hospital, which the private hospital considers an emerging competitor for private patients.

But Community Memorial administrators never approved the four November ads, requested that they not be run, then recoiled in embarrassment when the strongly worded advertisements sparked controversy, Englander and hospital administrators said.

“It was just a tragic comedy of errors,” Englander said Friday. “And the only honorable thing for me to do was to eat the cost.”

The ads prompted a heated response. County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk contended that they were filled with lies. She demanded at a public meeting that H. Jere Robings--whose taxpayer alliance was identified as sponsor but which had too little money to pay for the ads--reveal who had picked up the tab.

Robings, now a candidate for VanderKolk’s supervisorial seat, would only say they were purchased by “people who supported the alliance.” And he refused comment again Friday.

In fact, Englander said he paid the full $5,958 bill to the Ventura Star-Free Press, because a member of his staff had mistakenly placed the ads too soon without either Community Memorial or Robings signing off on them.

Robings had reviewed the ads for accuracy and content and had never objected to the taxpayers’ alliance being identified as their sponsor, Englander said.

But Community Memorial administrators, who said they had reviewed a single ad for accuracy, contacted Englander when they were told the ads were scheduled to run, hospital Executive Director Michael D. Bakst said.

Bakst reached Englander at a charity golf tournament the Friday before the ads were to begin running on Sunday. But it was too late to pull them, Englander said.

“He said they were not his ads and he was not going to be responsible for them,” Englander said.

Bakst said he recalls Englander’s response: “He said, ‘Don’t worry about them, they’re not your ads.’ ”

But the resulting controversy embarrassed Community Memorial anyway, as county officials pointed fingers in its direction. Bakst now says he should never have been involved in the ad campaign and erred by not carefully monitoring its progress.

“That was a mistake, and I’ll accept responsibility,” Bakst said. Despite Englander’s apology and assurance that he would cover all ad costs, Community Memorial fired the consultant.

“We were trying to get the politicians’ attention by developing a grass-roots understanding of this issue,” Bakst said. “I was planning on going out and speaking to various groups, so they would, in turn, get in touch with their supervisors.”

Community Memorial officials have opposed construction of a new 100,000-square-foot outpatient wing at the county hospital, saying it’s not needed, it’s too costly and is part of an aggressive county plan to compete for private patients and not just treat the poor.

VanderKolk said Friday that Community Memorial is wrong on all counts, and that its connection to the November ads demonstrates an underhanded, behind-the-scenes approach to an important public issue.

“This shows a certain lack of character on their part and brings up some questions about what they’re trying to do,” VanderKolk said.

She said Community Memorial also hired a Sacramento legal research firm last year to gather thousands of pages of county documents and build a case against a $38-million hospital wing and parking garage. County supervisors have approved the project in concept but will not consider a funding package until 1995.

“Most of us had assumed that Community Memorial was involved in some way (with the ads), because they have had our staff scrambling for months to pull together tons of records,” VanderKolk said.

“This leads one to believe they are just trying to discredit us, instead of just being straightforward and honest,” she said. “They’re approaching this in a very backhanded kind of way.”

VanderKolk said Bakst had rejected requests by her and Supervisor Maggie Kildee--who comprise the board’s health care subcommittee--to meet with Community Memorial’s full board of directors.

“Right now there needs to be an open and honest debate,” she said.

Bakst said he never tried to keep supervisors from meeting with Community Memorial’s board and does not have that power. In fact, he said Kildee met with about 12 of his board’s 23 members in November to discuss the potential effects of President Clinton’s universal health plan on the county’s role in caring for the poor.

Bakst said officials have been less than forthright when explaining the need for new county projects and discussing county reasons for expanding its clinic and hospital system.

But, he said, “This is not the time for hospitals warring and getting acrimonious. We need somebody to sit down and say what is in the best interest of the entire community--maybe a third party to say what would be the best system of care in an ideal world.”