El Camino to hear League's concerns El Camino to hear League's concerns (June 10, 2005)

Aim is to keep board's financial decisions in public eye

By Kathy Schrenk

Doctors and union members arrived by the dozens to an El Camino Hospital district meeting to show their support for the League of Women Voters and its request for more openness from the district.

A scheduling conflict at the June 1 meeting, however, meant the participants would have to wait another month for a full airing of their concerns.

The Los Altos-Mountain View Area League sent a letter to the hospital district's board of directors May 23 asking that the hospital and its board's actions "be conducted with at least the degree of openness and public access to information required of a 'local agency'" by the Brown Act and California Public Records Act.

Local League members are especially concerned with how the hospital will spend the $148 million in bond money voters authorized two years ago for construction of a new, seismically safe hospital campus, said Jane Turnbull, president of the Los Altos-Mountain View Area group. "The League of Women Voters has been a friend and continues to be a friend of El Camino Hospital," she said. "We championed the bond measure. ... Now there are concerns."

A member of the hospital employees' union executive board, Kary Lynch, spoke out in favor of the League and their requests.

"I'd like to know where the money goes," he said. "It certainly doesn't go to pay us a competitive salary, or guarantee us 100 percent medical coverage, or fill vacancies."

Originally, among its other requests, the group asked to have senior hospital managers meet with the League and the people who signed the letter -- including current and former El Camino doctors and others -- and for a discussion of the letter to be put on the agenda for the June 1 meeting.

However, two of the five hospital board members were absent from the meeting because they had previously made plans to be out of town, said Vice Chairperson Dr. Edward Bough. Because Mark O'Connor and Dominick Curatola were gone, the board decided to postpone an in-depth discussion of the League's letter and requests until their next monthly meeting on July 6.

"We will spend a significant portion of the July meeting" discussing the requests, Bough said.

E-mail Kathy Schrenk at kschrenk@mv-voice.com

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