Supervisors Question Community Memorial Phone Poll : Health care: Private hospital, continuing effort to halt new wing at County Medical Center, says survey is simply to gauge public support of proposed referendum.

Stepping up its campaign to stop the Ventura County Medical Center from building a new $51-million outpatient wing, neighboring Community Memorial Hospital has hired a big-name Sacramento consulting firm to poll local voters about the project.

Several county supervisors on Friday criticized the telephone survey conducted earlier this week by Russo Marsh and Raper Inc. as misleading and a blatant attempt to influence a key vote on financing for the new wing.

The Public Facilities Corp., whose five-member board is appointed by county supervisors, will decide next week whether to approve the sale of $51 million in bond-like certificates to pay for the new five-story facility.

The project is at the center of a continuing legal dispute. In a lawsuit against the county hospital, Community Memorial has charged that the ambulatory care center is part of a county plan to attract more private patients.

But county hospital officials said they are not competing for private patients, noting that more than 65% of the medical center’s caseload is made up of Medi-Cal or uninsured patients. The new wing will not add space to the hospital, they said, but will merely consolidate outpatient services now housed in leased and outdated facilities.

After a judge rejected Community Memorial’s lawsuit to block the construction, supervisors last week reaffirmed their support for the county hospital project.

But just days after the supervisors’ action, officials from the private hospital launched a petition drive to place a countywide referendum on the March ballot, in a new attempt to kill the project.

“They are trying to make their case with the public and in the press after they have lost in the courtroom and the boardroom,” Supervisor Judy Mikels said. “Certainly, [the referendum] will have an effect on the Public Facilities Corp. meeting.”

Community Memorial representatives deny that either the telephone survey or the threat of a referendum is an attempt to postpone the sale of the certificates for the project.

Instead, they will simply use the survey to gauge public support for the referendum, representatives said.

“[The supervisors] are taking a small private poll and blowing it up into a big public brouhaha,” said Cynthia Bryant, a vice president of the political consulting firm hired by the hospital.

Although Bryant would not disclose many details of the survey, she did reveal that callers had polled fewer than 500 voters across Ventura County earlier this week. Bryant said the survey included more than 25 questions about the two hospitals, the referendum and financing for the project.

Supervisor Maggie Kildee and several other supervisors said they received several calls from constituents who complained that questions about the new outpatient care wing asked during the half-hour survey were negative or misleading.

“The objection is that it doesn’t sound like an objective survey,” Kildee said. “It seems to be phrased in such a way to make sure that a document is created that says most people will support and sign the referendum.”

Bryant said the poll was “balanced” and asked various questions to determine ranges in voter opinions. But Bryant also said she understands why respondents found some questions misleading.

“There may be quasi-misstatements in the poll,” Bryant said. “We tested a lot of arguments. We did not always regard the veracity of the argument.”

The county hospital has already racked up more than $800,000 in legal fees fending off Community Memorial’s lawsuit. The private hospital will not disclose the amount it has spent in legal fees.

County leaders say they will not spend taxpayer dollars fighting a political battle with Community Memorial.

“It’s bad enough we have to spend taxpayer dollars to fight a legal battle,” Kildee said.

County Counsel James McBride said the two hospitals, located two blocks apart in Ventura, may again end up in court if Community Memorial manages to collect the 22,124 signatures needed to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

McBride said he believes the referendum will be blocked based on a technicality. A law requires Community Memorial to gather all its signatures within 30 days of the supervisors’ decision authorizing the sale of the financing certificates. The supervisors voted on that last December, McBride said, and merely reaffirmed their support last week.

“Community Memorial is really a year too late,” McBride said.

John Stodder, a Community Memorial spokesman, would not reveal the number of signatures that have been collected, but said “we will have the signatures we need.” Stodder dismissed McBride’s claim that the referendum does not have merit.

He said the Public Facilities Corp.’s vote on Tuesday to issue the bonds would not hamper the initiative campaign.