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Published on 01/18/1999 All articles from this issue

Ten candidates for seat on El Camino district board

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By Carol Tiegs

Special to the Town Crier

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian is conducting interviews to select the best of 10 candidates for a seat on the El Camino Hospital District Board of Directors.

The board of supervisors, based on Simitian's recommendation, will elect a board member to fill the seat left vacant when Dianna Adair chose not to run in the November election. No other candidates had stepped forward.

Simitian said he hoped to have a recommendation before the board of supervisors by the meeting next Tuesday, but because of the large pool of applicants, an early February recommendation is more likely. "I'm pleasantly surprised to receive 10 applicants," Simitian said, considering the lack of candidates last November.

The applicants include four Los Altos residents: Dick Hasenpflug, Dave Reeder, Jane Hall and Robert Summers. The others are: Rhonda Scherber, Terry Eberhardt, William Likens and Robert Capriles of Mountain View; Elinor Stetson of Sunnyvale; and Evelyn Preston of Palo Alto.

"I'm told (by Simitian's office) that they're very good candidates," said Richard Warren, El Camino's chief executive officer, at the hospital board's Jan. 13 meeting. "It's a real credit to the hospital that so many people chose to apply."

Noting that, under statute, the supervisors are currently required to fill such vacancies, Warren said, "We are in the process of getting the law changed" to allow the hospital district board to fill the vacancies itself.

Reports to the hospital board on Jan. 13 where positive.

According to Warren, the hospital is in good financial health, returning an average $1.2 million to the district per month in profit in 1999. Profits were higher the previous year, Warren said. "but we're putting more back into plant and equipment this year."

The hospital has reported steady declines over the year in code red hours, hours the emergency department is closed to ambulance traffic due to lack of appropriate beds or nursing staff. Code red hours peaked at more than 200 in June and December of 1997. In December 1998, they had fallen to zero.

"We've had a very solid census, holding between 200 and 250 (patients per day)," Warren said.

The hospital reported net income of $l.5 million in its sixth accounting period, Nov. 15-Dec. 12, 1998, and net income of $7.3 million for the year to date.

Patricia Briggs, a registered nurse at El Camino and president of PRN, the nurses' labor organization, told the board she has been asked to speak at universities and hospitals "on how labor and management can cooperate." She credited these requests to the success of the relationship between the nurses union and management under the new administration.