There is no more important issue for San Benito County residents than keeping Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital public with local control.
Our community cannot afford the massive, unnecessary risk proposed by the San Benito Health Care District—on the November ballot—to eventually sell Hazel Hawkins to a private company in Flint, Mich. We have no reason to hit the panic button, especially because the hospital is in a good financial position.
Hospital leaders pursued bankruptcy in 2023 but were rejected due to the district’s financial standing. We have since learned the district reported a fiscal year-end surplus of $15.5 million, cash flow of $18.6 million and 92.6 days of operating cash on hand. This financial performance ranks in the top quarter of all California hospitals.
So why sell our community cornerstone to a private entity motivated by profit? Why give up local control of our hospital?
There’s no logical explanation despite hospital administrators’ argument that the long-term fiscal outlook—which there is time to address—is concerning. If the hospital was in dire straits, why did the district board in January—claiming to need bankruptcy for short-term survival—give CEO Mary Casillas a 50% raise that took her salary to $450,000 while adding a $450,000 severance if she is terminated?
Casillas, a former San Benito Health Care District board member, resigned from that elected post in 2022. The board then appointed her as CEO without Casillas having CEO experience or basic qualifications to run a hospital. Casillas has led this bankruptcy maneuver and sale pursuit, and elected board members (her former colleagues) have rubber stamped her decisions.
We can’t trust this leadership group with so much at stake. Along with community organizers who rightfully call out this board’s dismissiveness toward the public, I am fighting to keep the hospital public.
In response to false political rhetoric already spreading: The county is not proposing to take over the hospital, take on immense liability or increase taxes. Recognizing the issue’s critical importance, the county hired an internationally renowned healthcare consultant to help the district develop a business plan and restructured governance model to address concerns.
That plan focuses on the following:
• Develop a much-needed physicians group
• Invest in capital upgrades with gradually growing profits
• Improve care and the hospital reputation through these investments
• Explore clinical partnerships with organizations like Stanford Healthcare
• Form a Joint Powers Authority (partnership) between the healthcare district and local agencies
• Develop an operating board comprised of professionals, including healthcare and business experts, to oversee hospital administration
Running a hospital is a complicated business. Electing board members without specific qualifications is the root cause of this hospital’s troubles. Board members who may not know what they’re doing often run unopposed, and we’re stuck with them to make critical decisions—like whether to sell our hospital or hire a CEO without adequate experience.
Voters must do their homework. With already present scare tactics from hospital sale proponents that a JPA would lead to more taxes, consider the following: There are no bonds or taxes forecasted. If by chance there’s a need for massive capital upgrades way down the road—due to state-required seismic upgrades—do you think a private company from Michigan would pay that bill?
You would have to be extraordinarily naive to believe a company looking to profit off an undervalued asset would write that check, and the proposed JPA couldn’t issue public debt because it wouldn’t own hospital assets necessary for it.
If you’re still uncertain, consider who has rallied against the district’s misguided direction, aside from a diverse group of reputable community members: Hospital nurses are united against the sale option, and Hazel Hawkins’ physicians voted 49-2 in favor of keeping the hospital public.
There is far too much at stake to take such an ill-advised risk. Vote against the eventual sale of the hospital. Keep Hazel Hawkins public.
Kollin Kosmicki, San Benito County Supervisor
Ah mon ami,
The late honorable Norman Y. Mineta said, in 1995 at the Institute at SJSU that now bears his name,
“The crucial question in transportation today is: What should government do, and what should it leave to others.”
Norm was right then, and it is still our crucial question. Do we build on the quicksand of socialism, or on the bedrock of capitalism?
At the very least, transit agencies directors ought to be elected to office, and not appointed as at present.
Only elected officials are subject to recall remedies in the State Constitution.
On the ground floor of the Capitol Building in Sacramento, there are windows for each County.
Where is VTA’s window? COG’s? TAMC? SCCRTC? Etc. Not in sight anywhere, but they govern as though they had lawful jurisdiction from the voters to do so.
San Jose Bus Lines, Inc., went insolvent, declared bankruptcy.
Today’s insolvent transit agencies crow “success,” and demand higher and higher gas & sales taxes to cover their losses, giving themselves and the public sector union employees who drive those empty buses huge wage increases, benefits and pensions.
So, is transit for transportation, or is it to defraud voters and reward the fraud, waste and abuse we see at VTA, COG, TAMC, SCCRTC, Etc.?
After the Wilson Administration nationalized the railroads during WWI, we denationalized them with the Transportation Act of 1920. Why? Government ownership and operation of the railroads was a fiascoe, like Amtrak today, only worse.
In 1970 during the debate on creation of the National Passenger Railroad Corporation (Amtrak), Congressmen stood on the floor of the House and proclaimed, “It will be self-sufficient in three years.” Yep, pigs fly. Not.
Haven’t we learned from the mistakes of the past? Apparently not.
The definition of insanity is repeating your mistakes and expecting a different outcome.
Our local leaders have us on the same route taken by the USSR, the Road to Serfdom. Why do we still believe their lies?
Caveat viator.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq., 408-848-5506;
Past-Chair, Legislation Committee. Transportation Lawyers Assn.;
Past-President 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Assn;
E-Mail: Tr******@Pa*****.Net
Ah mon ami,
Public or private? Build on quicksand of socialism, or on the bedrock of capitalism? If JPA (joint power authority) was the right way to go, then how do we explain the insolvency of JPA COG? How do you like all those empty bus seats being transported, for whose benefit? If we believe that we ought to give away rides, then the taxpayers would be much better off if the riders took Uber, Lyft, taxis, shuttles, rickshaws, skateboards and lunar escalators, than public-sector transit bankrupt boondoggles like COG. The fraud, waste and abuse at the transit agencies is concealed from the voters by using illegal accounting methods, what former Supervisor & COG Chairman Anthony Botelho told me at a COG meeting late one night, “Joe, it’s not GAAP (legal accounting everyone is required to use by IRS regs), its “government accounting.” So, they omit capital and fixed costs, to cover up the true level of their insolvency. Any other JPA will do the same fatal-to-taxpayers thing, regardless of where the socialists stick it in the community. Joseph P. Thompson, Esq., Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force; Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Rail Advisory Committee, Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn. 408-848-5506; E-Mail: Tr******@Pa*****.Net