Natividad staff reacts to measure's defeat
County Farm Bureau proposes quarter-cent tax hike, changes to Measure Q language
By JOE LIVERNOIS, Monterey Herald
Posted on Thu, Dec. 04, 2003

Dr. John Clark was working the emergency room at Natividad Medical Center late Tuesday when word arrived that Measure Q had failed to win enough votes to bail out the hospital.

"The mood was pretty grim," Clark said. "People are extremely sober about the problems still before us. Monterey County just became a meaner place to live."

The failure of Measure Q meant Clark and his colleagues at the hospital, along with a team of community activists, failed to persuade two-thirds of the residents in the county to accept a tax increase. They came close, landing more than 61 percent of the vote, but short of the 66.6 percent requirement.

Measure Q would have increased the county sales tax by one-half percent and the estimated $25 million in annual revenues would have been spent at Natividad.

The staff at the Salinas hospital is now preparing for the worst.

"We're lining up the Kool-Aid," Cherie Stock, a longtime spokeswoman at Natividad, said in a grim reference to mass suicide. Stock has seen the list of options for the immediate future of the hospital in a report that will not be made public until Friday.

"The scenarios discussed are pretty drastic," she said.

Supporters could possibly place another tax measure on the ballot that would be more palatable to business groups around the county that did not support Measure Q. For instance, groups like the Monterey County Farm Bureau and the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce say they believe a quarter-cent sales tax measure would meet Natividad's needs.

The Farm Bureau, in fact, issued a statement late Wednesday proposing a quarter-cent tax increase for Natividad. The group's board of directors also suggested changes in the tax measure's language to eliminate some of the Measure Q provisions that sparked criticism from the business community. It suggested a firm five-year sunset clause rather than the potentially open-ended phaseout included in the Measure Q language. The group also proposed that the tax revenues from a quarter-cent tax not be used to pay off the hospital's debt to the county.

"We said after voters reject Measure Q, we would be at the table to help craft a better alternative," said Farm Bureau President Bob Martin. "Farm Bureau directors voted today to start that discussion in the community.... We want a ballot measure that everyone can support. The smaller tax for a limited period would fill short-term budget needs instead of hospital expansion."

But if the Board of Supervisors wants to get such a measure on the ballot in time for the March 2 election, its window of opportunity is quickly closing. Friday is the deadline for placing measures on the March ballot.

"It would be impossible," said Supervisor Lou Calcagno.

Putting a sales-tax measure on the November 2004 ballot could prove politically problematic since county officials are already backing a measure then that would add a half-cent to the sales tax to finance road improvements.

On the Monterey side of the county Wednesday, Libertarian Lawrence Samuels dashed off a news release calling local politicians liars for telling voters during the campaign that Natividad will close if Measure Q was defeated. Samuels was among the leaders of the No on Q campaign.

The press release was written after Samuels read the Wednesday newspaper, in which Calcagno said county supervisors would try to keep the hospital open despite Measure Q's defeat.

"Enough people saw through this sham and defeat(ed) Measure Q, but this should show every citizen that nobody should trust the word of politicians and pro-tax advocates," said Samuels.

Clark, chief of staff at Natividad, said no one was saying the hospital would close immediately if the measure failed.

"It's not going to close today, if that's what they're thinking," said Clark. "But it's going to crumble from within. We're running at the bare minimum already because people are already leaving and it's going to be increasingly difficult to hire their replacements. People don't think there's any job security out here. We're going to see more services cut, more clinics cut, to the point that it will have a detrimental impact on the entire health-care system in the county."

"I'm afraid we will simply have to say 'no' to a lot of people," said Dr. Donald Pompan, an orthopedist at a Natividad clinic. "If it comes to that, where are those people going to go? I don't know what the plan is in the community to handle them.

"There are physicians in the community who are already doing a large amount of uncompensated care to patients and they should not be expected to shoulder the burden when Natividad starts closing doors. We're seeing 60 people in my clinic every day. If we're stripped of our resources and we can only see 30 people, those 30 other people will have to go somewhere else."

For the most part, employees at Natividad appeared frustrated with the outcome, especially with voters on the Monterey Peninsula. While getting more than 60 percent of the vote overall -- a good majority in most elections -- it still was not enough.

Support for Measure Q was strong in the Salinas Valley, but fewer voters said "yes" on the Monterey Peninsula, pulling the vote total below the two-thirds level.

"I think the rich and famous don't realize the backbone of this county is in the Salinas Valley," said Joe Ybarra, a Natividad engineer for 20 years.

"They put the prisons and the jails and the county facilities and the county hospital and the low-cost housing over here," Ybarra said. "But the reality is that what happens on the Peninsula is supported by a lot of people who can't afford medical insurance. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess."

Stock noted that opponents of Measure Q on the Monterey Peninsula opened champagne and sang a camp song after learning that the tax measure was defeated.

"I guess we're going to get situated around the campfire, open a bottle of Ripple," she said.

Ybarra said he had prepared himself for the worst, so he was not surprised by the outcome of the Measure Q vote.

"Tough times continue to come our way," he said. "But it's a strong group of people who work here. We're survivors. I don't think many of us are overwhelmed by the potential that we might lose our jobs. We're more overwhelmed by the thought that patients may not have a place to go."

Added Clark: "Just because Measure Q was defeated, it doesn't mean the problem is going away.

"The working poor and the uninsured still need quality health care. I'm just hoping we can look to those who led the opposition for a detailed and reasonable solution on how they think they can solve the problem."

Meanwhile, Monterey County Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo announced Wednesday his office must still count 7,805 late votes before the Measure Q election is official and final.

Those votes -- which arrived in his office or at the 26 drop-off sites throughout the county on Tuesday -- will not be enough to change the outcome.

The hospital's board of trustees will meet on Friday to hear various options for the hospital.

Joe Livernois can be reached at 753-6753.