Measure O Arguments

* Re “Taxpayers Group Backs Measure O,” Sept. 19.

It is surprising that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. is supporting Measure O. I thought that this association’s mission was to protect the taxpayer from paying higher taxes.

Doesn’t the association understand that if Measure O passes, Ventura County taxpayers would lose $261 million over the next 25 years? This money would need to be made up somewhere. Where else but from the pockets of taxpayers?

Furthermore, President Jon Coupal says that his organization is dedicated to supporting free enterprise. If this is the case, why are they endorsing an initiative that would use public money to bail out a poorly managed private hospital?

Measure O is corporate welfare at its most blatant. Is this the Jarvis Assn.’s definition of free enterprise? If so, they had better go back to school and take a basic class in economics.

JOY KOBAYASHI

Ventura

* Clearly, the tobacco settlement money needs to be used to support the hospitals in Ventura County that provide acute health care services to people but which aren’t paid for those services.

I ask the county to consider all the hospitals--government and otherwise--when considering how to spend the tobacco settlement money. It’s the logical and fair thing to do.

If the county maintains its stance of ignoring the private-sector hospitals in this important issue, we need to vote in support of Measure O. Let’s take the decision out of the county’s hands and mandate expenditure of the settlement money on health care only.

Otherwise the money could be wasted while county government continues to grow larger and larger with programs we don’t really need. That’s sad because the public sure could use an improved overall health care system.

JEANEE GRIST

Ventura

* Ventura County’s tobacco settlement allocation committee hearings are interesting but they are just political showcases. Anyone who reads the agenda can see that the supervisors are considering giving the settlement money to a wide variety of organizations--including unions and private organizations. Even the county’s own hospital gets short shrift in this spending plan, lumped in as one of many potential recipients of the tobacco money.

The agenda reads like a wish list for the pet organizations of each supervisor. This is unfortunate because the tobacco settlement money needs to go toward health care services and health care services alone. Period.

Measure O has provisions for a number of positive services: treatment for the elderly, nursing scholarships, childhood immunizations and more. It aims to reimburse our community hospitals for services provided without payment to the poor and needy, which makes sense because the county hospital uses millions of our taxpayer dollars to do the same thing.

But the bottom line is Measure O would mandate that the tobacco settlement money could be used only on health care services. Which is why I intend to vote for Measure O.

CHUCK GRAY

Oxnard

* I have been a Ventura County resident for 10 years and am utterly appalled that the Board of Supervisors has tried to block my right to vote on how the tobacco settlement funds should be spent.

I have read the facts provided by the citizens committee as well as the articles written by the press in their effort to damage Community Memorial Hospital’s effort to support this important ballot measure. The truth is that the supervisors have shown me that they are feverishly trying to solve their financial mismanagement with this windfall while at the same time patting themselves on the back and rewarding themselves with annual raises.

The tobacco settlement funds should be used for the obvious, which is to reimburse private providers for medical services rendered to those unable to pay, educate our future children about the dangers of smoking, assist with in-home health care for the uninsured and elderly and provide free childhood immunizations for those parents who cannot afford medical insurance.

How can anyone with good conscience deny those services to the uninsured children and elderly by not supporting Measure O? I am one of those 38,000 people who signed the petition and on Nov. 7 I will certainly vote yes on Measure O.

HELEN QUINN

Ventura