New "Secret" Ad Hoc Hospital Committee Opposed

The City of Escondido formed a "Hospital Ad Hoc Committee" to work with the Palomar Pomerado Hospital District regarding the ERTC and downtown development agreements and the MOU. I believe the Ad Hoc Committee meetings should be open because PPH is a necessary party to the meetings, and because the ad hoc committee will be a standing committee having continuing subject matter jurisdiction. Under CA Govt Code 54952, the ad hoc hospital committee would be a "legislative body" subject to the open meeting requirements of the Brown Act.

First page of handout given to the City Council.
http://civics.robroy.cc/Handout020608adhoc1.pdf

The MOU does not require PPH to build anything downtown. Instead, it merely requires PPH to move its administrative headquarters to the downtown campus two years after the new hospital opens.
http://civics.robroy.cc/MOU-AdHoc.pdf

The final MOU is available at this link:
http://civics.robroy.cc/final-mou.pdf

Possible Small Hospital Planned for San Marcos

H.G. Fenton is proposing to build a University Office and Medical Park on Discovery Street in San Marcos. This is just west of CSU San Marcos.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20080202-9999-1mi2fenton.html

The plan includes a healthcare facility and/or smaller scale hospital. The "Initial Study" shows 80,000 square feet of hospital space, and 250,000 square feet of Medical Office/Hospital space. The total size of the Hospital, Medical Office, and Professional Office space in the project would be 1,070,000 square feet! (Initial Study, page 4)

The plan's Initial Study and EIR are available at:
http://www.ci.san-marcos.ca.us/departments.asp?id=5265

SB306 Extends Deadline For SPC-1 Buildings To 2020

OSPHD has recently posted information about SB306 on its website. http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/fdd/sb1953/index.html (Near the bottom of the page under "Legislative Changes.")

The legislation was approved by the Governor on 10/13/2007. The bill:
1. Permits a hospital owner to comply with seismic safety deadlines and requirements in current law by replacing all of its buildings subject to seismic retrofit by January 1, 2020, rather than retrofitting by 2013, and then replacing them by 2030, if the hospital owner meets all of the following conditions:
A. The hospital owner has requested an extension of the 2008 and 2013 seismic safety deadlines.
B. OSHPD certifies that the hospital owner lacks the financial capacity to meet seismic standards, providing the hospital owner provides specified financial information to OSHPD by January 1, 2009, including information filed annually with OSHPD that shows that the owner meets all of the following financial conditions: [Cannot afford to retrofit, and maintains Medi-Cal contract and a list of items. See the legislation for details.]
2. Permits OSHPD to approve extension of the deadlines for a hospital that is classified as a nonconforming Structural Performance Category (SPC)-1 building, and is owned by a county, city, or county and city, that has requested an extension of the July 1, 2008 deadline to file a declaration by June 30, 2009, if the owner files a declaration with the office that as of the date of that filing the owner lacks the financial capacity to meet the January 1, 2008 deadline for that building. Requires the declaration to set forth the commitment of the hospital to replace those buildings by 2020 with other buildings that meet SPC-5.

This appears to be the reason why the conditions for re-evaluation using the HAZUS software have changed! The re-evaluation to SPC-1E was not needed!

It just may be that the life of the McLeod tower at Palomar Medical Center was extended to 2020 by SB306! PPH is a public hospital district, and it may not fall under item 2, but it would be surprising if it did not fall under item 1.

The legislative history is available though: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html

The bill was first introduced 2/16/07 , and approved by the Governor on 10/13/07.

PPH was tracking the bill: http://www.pph.org/default.aspx?nd=1074.