Petition Filed Over Tobacco Initiative

Lawyers for Community Memorial Hospital filed a court petition Friday saying the Ventura County Board of Supervisors failed to make the case that the tobacco initiative doesn’t belong on the November ballot.

In the petition, attorneys said the supervisors’ claim that the county will lapse into fiscal chaos if it doesn’t get the $260 million in tobacco money is untrue.

“The board has failed to make its case that the health of the state rests on the ability of the Board of Supervisors to control the use of tobacco settlement funds,” the petition said.

“But is the county government as we know it going to collapse if the voters of Ventura County direct how the tobacco settlement funds are to be expended?”

The petition comes in response to the county filing a lawsuit in Ventura County Superior Court last week. In it, the county contends it would be unconstitutional to put an initiative on the ballot that would let private entities wrest control of money intended for county coffers.

Community Memorial’s proposed initiative would let voters decide who controls the $260 million allotted to the county from a national tobacco settlement.

The hospital wants the money turned over to itself and six other private area hospitals to help cover the cost of care for the indigent and uninsured.

County supervisors say if the county gets to keep the money--which amounts to about $10 million a year for 25 years--it will use it exclusively for health care.

The case will be heard July 24 in Ventura County Superior Court.