Petitions Sent Out for Initiative Support

Community Memorial Hospital has expanded its push for a November ballot initiative, sending mail over the weekend to thousands of Ventura County voters.

The mailers--which include a letter from the hospital’s executive director, a blank petition form and a self-addressed stamped envelope--encourage residents to support the hospital’s efforts to turn the county’s $260-million tobacco settlement over to private health care providers.

“Your signature is needed on the enclosed initiative to help us ensure that the tobacco settlement money is used for health care purposes instead of left for the politicians to dole out to their favorite programs,” said the letter signed by Michael Bakst.

The hospital campaign, known as the Citizens Committee to Safeguard the Tobacco Settlement for Healthcare, must gather roughly 21,000 valid signatures by June to place the measure on the November ballot. Professional signature gatherers have been stationed outside shopping centers throughout the county.

County leaders are opposing the initiative, because it would prevent the county and its public hospital, Ventura County Medical Center, from spending any of the settlement. The public hospital provides the bulk of indigent care countywide, although Bakst has said with money from the settlement, private hospitals could expand their care.

County officials are prohibited from spending public money on an anti-initiative campaign but will rely on private residents to organize that opposition.

“We don’t have the money to do things like that,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said of the mail piece. “They’re spending all kinds of money.”