Hospital, Shopping Malls Pour Cash Into Ballot Issues

Community Memorial Hospital has poured more than $125,000 into its campaign to stop the neighboring Ventura County Medical Center from building a new outpatient clinic, according to campaign finance statements filed Wednesday.

And in a shopping mall war with its retail rival, the owners of The Esplanade mall in Oxnard have spent $39,705 to put a measure on Ventura’s March ballot aimed at derailing the planned expansion of the Buenaventura Mall. So far, The Esplanade owners have contributed 99.5% of the money to stop the project.

Buenaventura Mall owners have not stood idle, dumping $58,218 into the campaign against Measure S, which would block the kind of tax-sharing plans proposed for the mall expansion.

In the campaign over the county hospital project, a group sponsored by Community Memorial Hospital reported raising a total of $134,500 by the end of December, spending all but $7,400, according to campaign finance statements.

The bulk of the money raised by Taxpayers for Quality Health Care was used to pay for consulting services and professional signature gatherers to help round up support for a countywide referendum on the county’s proposed $51-million ambulatory care clinic.

Community Memorial officials want to stop the project, arguing that it is not needed and that county taxpayers could be stuck with the bill if federal money dries up for construction costs. The nonprofit, private hospital fears that the county clinic would be used to compete for privately insured patients.

“Community Memorial feels bad that it has to spend any money on this campaign,” said Laura Dahlgren, a registered nurse at Community Memorial and spokeswoman for the campaign. “But we feel it is a very small amount of money compared to the $51-million liability we will save taxpayers.”

Dahlgren criticized the county for attempting to block the referendum with an unsuccessful legal challenge. “Taxpayers should know that they used tax dollars to sue us over our right to vote on this issue,” she said.

In a counter campaign, a citizens group backing construction of the county project reported raising $15,600 for its cause. Nearly all of the money came from physicians who work at the county hospital.

County hospital officials argue that the new outpatient clinic is needed to deliver health care more efficiently to the poor and uninsured. More than half of the money is expected to come from federal grant money, with the rest to be paid for with hospital revenues.

County officials said the walk-in care clinic is not an expansion as Community Memorial alleges, but a consolidation of outpatient facilities now housed in rented buildings considered outdated and unsafe. Officials say the new clinic would save the county about $1 million a year on rent alone.

A member of the citizens group called SMART--Saving Money as Responsible Taxpayers--said she was not surprised by Community Memorial’s well-financed campaign.

“There is so much at stake for this hospital because it is so poorly run,” Madge Schaefer, a former county supervisor, said of Community Memorial. “They have failed to make good business decisions and now they’re trying to save themselves by doing what they should have been doing all along.”

Schaefer said that Community Memorial, which did not obtain a Medi-Cal license until two years ago, is now aggressively seeking outpatients with government-subsidized insurance whom the county is mandated to serve.

Schaefer also chided Community Memorial, which is tax-exempt because of its nonprofit status, for spending tens of thousands of dollars to stop the county hospital project.

“They’re getting about $2.5 million in tax breaks as a nonprofit, and now they want taxpayers to subsidize them again,” Schaefer said.

Meanwhile, owners of rival shopping malls in Oxnard and Ventura have funneled $97,870 into competing campaigns over Measure S, a March ballot initiative that targets a tax-sharing plan at the heart of the Buenaventura Mall expansion.

A group called Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway collected the signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the Ventura city ballot, using professional signature gatherers paid for by Esplanade owners to the tune of $31,588, finance statements showed.

The Esplanade owners also paid $2,202 for unspecified legal services and consulting fees.

Meanwhile, the group opposed to Measure S raised $58,218--all but $50 of which came from the owners of the Buenaventura Mall, according to finance reports.

Venturans United for Economic Security treasurer Ken Schmitz said the Ventura mall owners were guarding their investment by fighting the measure.

“It shouldn’t be a big surprise,” he said. “The Buenaventura Mall is in a defense mode. They are protecting their investment.”

This week, the Ventura City Council approved the expansion of the Buenaventura Mall in a $50-million project that will add a second level of shops and two department stores.

The improvements will make the Buenaventura Mall the largest shopping center in Ventura County.

But the project will strip the rival Esplanade mall in Oxnard of its two anchor stores, Sears and Robinsons-May, which have agreed to relocate in the improved Ventura shopping center.

Schmitz said the Esplanade’s contribution was a clear sign that the mall’s owners are trying to salvage their own investment.

“I think it is a pretty good indication of what they feel they stand to lose,” he said. “Now, they are scrambling to try to prevent it.”

Esplanade owners could not be reached for comment. But Lary Reid, co-chairman of the committee backed by the Oxnard mall, said the owners’ interests should be obvious.

“They supported our issue,” Reid said. “I can’t speak for them, but originally we were given a very short length of time to gather enough signatures for Measure S.

“We were looking for a place to get money and the idea came up to ask The Esplanade,” Reid said. “The money was available, we took it and ran with it.”

If approved, Measure S would prohibit the city from offering tax rebates or other incentives to developers.

The law would tie the city’s hands, officials argue, stripping Ventura of financial powers routinely used by other cities.

City officials said the fight over Measure S illustrates how fierce the retail market has become in western Ventura County.

“I think it just shows how competitive cities are now,” Councilman Jim Friedman said.

Because the council has already approved the project, Measure S will not stop the Buenaventura Mall’s tax-sharing plan from going forward. But opponents of the expansion are collecting signatures for a referendum to overturn the council’s action.

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