City Postpones Talks on Mobile Home Park : Judge Rules With City in Ambulance Lawsuit

Nearly 100 elderly residents of the beleaguered Oasis Mobile Home Park left Tuesday night’s City Council meeting more frustrated than ever after city officials postponed discussion of the park’s acquisition until a special meeting next week.

Hoping to state their case against the park’s acquisition publicly, the residents were instead turned away when council members, acting as the redevelopment agency, continued an agenda item that would have given the city manager authority to negotiate purchase agreements.

The redevelopment agency is negotiating with coach owners and the landowner to purchase the seniors-only park to make way for a proposed entertainment complex known as E-Street. The park will ultimately be demolished to make room for the 14-acre theater and restaurant center proposed for Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.

The special meeting and public hearing on the project was rescheduled to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Community Meeting Center, 11300 Stanford Ave.

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A Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the city can run its own emergency ambulance service without seeking competitive bids from private providers.

But city attorneys will be back in court next month for hearings on whether the city breached its contract with Medix Ambulance Service Inc. when it took over all emergency services from two private companies in August 1995.

“This is definitely a victory for the city,” said Asst. City Atty. Wayne Winthers.

Judge Ronald L. Bauer did not agree with Medix attorneys, who argued that the city’s own ordinance regulating ambulance service requires a competitive bidding process, Winthers said.

Michael J. Dimas, president of Medix, said the decision Wednesday was “disappointing but not discouraging.”

He said Medix will appeal the decision and will pursue its lawsuit. Medix is losing $60,000 a month, he said, since its service was canceled.

“We’ll be back in court on Jan. 17,” Dimas said. “The judge basically said [the city] has the right to do the wrong thing.”

City attorneys had argued that the section of the ordinance detailing the bidding process was only intended for use if the city decided not to provide its own service.

More than a year ago, David L. Rudat, who was then fire chief and now is city manager, asserted that his department could cut response time and raise revenue by running its own ambulances.

After the city took the ambulance service in-house, Medix and another ambulance provider, CareLine California, filed lawsuits.