Deal on County Hospitals Ends a Long Political Feud

Moving to end one of Los Angeles County’s longest-running political feuds, state legislators early Friday agreed to help build a new public hospital in the San Gabriel Valley, allowing the county to downsize County-USC Medical Center.

Under the deal, the historic County-USC facility in Boyle Heights will be rebuilt with the 600-bed capacity the county wanted, rather than the 750 beds Eastside lawmakers desired. In exchange, the county will build an 80-bed public hospital in Baldwin Park, the first such facility in the vast San Gabriel Valley. County supervisors also will consider expanding County-USC in the future.

Finally, legislators will release millions in construction funds they have withheld from the county since 1998 and pay for 20 of the beds in Baldwin Park.

“It really is great . . . after [more than] three years to see what appears to be a fair resolution of these issues,” County Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, who has battled against her colleagues for a larger Eastside hospital, said: “It’s a good compromise. I didn’t get it exactly the way I would have appreciated . . . [but] I can live with it and they can live with it.”

Although other supervisors who have fought to keep County-USC smaller said they, too, could live with the deal, Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he was never informed of the last-minute negotiations and blasted the project as irresponsible, given a possible $500-million deficit in the Health Services Department in three years.

“What we’ve done is take a step backward rather than a step forward,” Antonovich said.

Although a few key details remain unresolved and there is always the potential for the deal to fall apart, the accord means an end is in sight to an almost four-year fracas that poisoned relationships between Los Angeles and Sacramento and highlighted the political pressures at work in the county’s vast public health system.

“This whole episode is a very good reason why the health department should be insulated from the political leadership on the eighth floor,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, referring to the floor in the county Hall of Administration where he and his four colleagues sit. “The health department is so tied to the eighth floor that important medical decisions are made for political reasons.”

Still, Yaroslavsky--perhaps the most visible opponent of a larger hospital--praised the deal as “better late than never.”

It was politics that brought about the final deal--brokered, participants said, by Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) with the help of Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) and aides to Gov. Gray Davis, all of whom wanted the bitter feud to end.

“This was threatening to turn into some health policy version of ‘Bleak House,’ ” said one county official, referring to the Charles Dickens novel about a decades-long lawsuit that has become an international legal metaphor for wasteful strife.

Hertzberg, in an interview Friday, was ebullient over closure of the deal, which had been the subject of almost daily meetings since he became speaker earlier this year.

“It needed to be resolved,” he said. “The indigent need the services; let’s get on with it.”

The supervisors are slated to endorse the deal at their Tuesday meeting and move toward purchasing the land once occupied by Baldwin Park Community Hospital, the closure of which last year made the compromise possible.

The state will have to come up with enough money to fund one-quarter of the hospital beds in the new facility or the board can back out of much of the agreement.

Indeed, there are still numerous opportunities for the deal to fall apart, and key county sources Friday--some of whom were not told of the negotiations--were wondering whether it would hold.

“This is one of those things that’s been going on so long,” said one county official close to the debate, “the notion that everyone would agree about anything is completely unacceptable.”

In 1997, four of the five county supervisors voted to rebuild earthquake-damaged County-USC with 600 beds, after the county flirted with bankruptcy in large part because of its exploding hospital costs. The federal government stepped in to help, but required the county to focus on cheaper outpatient clinics rather than pricey hospitals.

But Molina, whose district the County-USC facility serves, fought furiously to rebuild the hospital at the 750 beds county health officials recommended. She was joined by a number of medical experts and Eastside legislators, who warned that a smaller hospital could have devastating consequences for the large uninsured population it would serve.

Baldwin Park Proposal Emerged Last Year

The Legislature held up hundreds of millions of dollars in county funds and threatened to take over the Coliseum in an effort to force the board to reconsider its stand. The battle soured relations between Molina and her colleagues, and she at one point publicly accused them of racism toward Latinos--a charge for which she swiftly apologized.

Last year, supervisors broached a compromise proposal that Molina had first suggested: Build a satellite facility in Baldwin Park to serve people in eastern Los Angeles County who currently must travel as far as 30 miles to County-USC. All sides hoped the end of the fight was near.

The board majority proposed 60 beds in the new facility. Legislators and Molina pushed for 125. Supervisors said they would accept 80 beds, if the extra 20 were funded upfront by the state. No deal was cut, and the fighting continued.

This week’s deal, officials said, was the product of last-minute negotiations facilitated by Wesson, a former top aide to Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

County negotiators flew to Sacramento and huddled with top legislators in Hertzberg’s conference room just off the Assembly floor. Negotiations ran into the night Wednesday and through the dinner hour Thursday, the final day of the legislative session.

“Everyone has finally come together,” Burke said Thursday night, after all parties signed off on the bill.

Just around midnight--the slow-ticking Assembly clock indicated it had moments to spare although other timepieces showed it minutes past--the Assembly passed the bill, the last measure taken before the legal midnight deadline. An aide literally ran the paper across the packed hall to the Senate floor, where it was swiftly approved.

The details of the bill are similar to those of the proposal from the board last year, with two exceptions. The state will not provide the financing for the 20 beds upfront. And a state-county study will be undertaken to determine whether the 600-bed hospital needs to be expanded by refurbishing the adjacent Women’s and Children’s Hospital, also damaged by quake.

“Not everybody will be happy but it’s got to come to closure,” state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) said. “This is a compromise.”

Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said Friday that despite his past insistence on 750 beds, the new arrangement is a good deal. “It’s a victory for the county of Los Angeles--I don’t mean the county government; I mean the people of the county,” Cedillo said.

Supervisor Don Knabe was on vacation but released a statement backing the deal in principle. However, he said, “Until I see the particulars, I’m not ready to sign off.”

Some of the bitterness of the long battle lingered Friday.

Yaroslavsky complained that time and money had been wasted during the long, acrimonious battle. “This is an example of how not to do things,” he said. “To argue and finger-point for three years and to racialize, there’s nothing good that can be said about that process except that it’s over.”

Molina said she believes Friday’s deal protects her constituents’ health far better than the 600-bed version. But she responded sharply to comments by Yaroslavsky, blaming him for politicizing the debate.

“Health care, unfortunately, has become a very political issue,” Molina said. “I would love to stay out of the decision. But it goes both ways. He has to stay out too.”

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Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this story.