County Weighs Options After Clinic’s Defeat

With the proposed $56-million outpatient center spurned by county voters, Ventura County officials on Wednesday began to reassess their options for refurbishing dilapidated medical facilities that threaten the hospital’s state permit.

Meanwhile, officials from rival Community Memorial Hospital hoped to extinguish some of the smoldering animosity left from their aggressive campaign to defeat the project. “We are extending the olive branch in hope for peace and unity and that we will all work together,” a spokeswoman said.

Disappointed by their loss at the polls, county officials said they must determine a way to replace the Ventura County Medical Center’s kitchen and laboratory. Both facilities are so outdated and structurally unsound that the hospital could lose its state accreditation if not replaced, officials said.

But given that voters rejected the public financing plan for these repairs and the outpatient center, officials are uncertain where the money will come from.

“We need to do something because our lab and kitchen are not in compliance” with state regulations, said Pierre Durand, director of the county Health Care Agency. He hopes to meet with supervisors soon to brainstorm on their options.

The needed renovations were lost in the political debate dominated by Community Memorial’s assertions that the proposed $51-million public financing was for an unneeded public hospital expansion in an area already glutted with hospital beds.

But, in fact, the project would have added no beds. Instead, it would have consolidated several condemned clinic buildings and other facilities, including the kitchen and lab, under one roof. The hospital now rents clinic space nearby.

“They were making people afraid that we were going to raise their taxes and drive other hospitals out of business,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said. “They really played on people’s fears.”

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Kildee and other supervisors said they realize the need to work together with Community Memorial officials, but said it’s going to take time to heal from the bare-knuckled tactics used in the campaign.

“I would like to be a real Pollyanna about it and say, ‘Gosh it’s over, let’s be friends now,’ ” Supervisor Judy Mikels said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

In the thick of the campaign, Community Memorial lawyers served notice to supervisors and other county officials that they would be held personally liable if they made comments that could be construed as campaigning for the proposed outpatient center.

Supervisor John Flynn said he approached Community Memorial Director Michael Bakst at election headquarters after the polls closed Tuesday night.

“I did shake Bakst’s hand to see if he was really a human being,” Flynn said. “But I’m not sure about that guy. He just isn’t the kind of person I’d want to hang around with.”

Bakst could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The lingering resentment goes far beyond county supervisors and other public officials directly involved with the county hospital project.

Dozens of public officials and local opinion makers gave Community Memorial a public scolding this week when the hospital falsely listed their names as supporters of its No on Measure X campaign in double-page newspaper ads the day before the election.

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Community Memorial officials issued a public apology for misuse of the names in what they described as an accident involving the merging of two computerized lists.

“It was not a good-enough apology,” said Carmen Ramirez, executive director of the Channel Counties Legal Services Assn. She vowed Wednesday that Community Memorial has not heard the end of what she believes was an intentional effort to mislead voters.

Ramirez said she is exploring legal avenues, such as a complaint to the state Fair Political Practices Commission or filing a libel suit in Superior Court.

“There needs to be some sort of investigation,” Ramirez said. “As far as I know, there may even be criminal charges.”

Community Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Laura Dahlgren said she regretted some of the lasting ill-will and bruised feelings, but that county officials started the fight by refusing to conduct a joint health-care study two years ago and pushing forward with their project.

“The overwhelming rejection sends a clear message that mortgaging the county’s financial future for questionable hospital projects is not acceptable to the voters,” she said.

“I think that everybody in Ventura has been hurt by this. But none of this had to happen.”