Popular vote doesn’t count

Dear ER:

From 9 a.m. to noon on Friday, December 6, the Beach Cities Health District hosted a strategic planning workshop. Remarkably, BCHD interpreted the $30 million bond Measure BC failure in the November 5 election by nearly 20 points (it required two-thirds to pass and received 47%) as an endorsement of building an allcove building and also demolishing the former South Bay Hospital building and preparing the campus for private development. BCHD spent $580,567 of resident-taxpayer funds on Measure BCs rejection, yet somehow BCHD interpreted the loss as an endorsement of the projects that BCHD sought to fund in Measure BC? How can that be?

BCHD asked for $9 million to cover the allcove building. The allcove service and building require 30 years of unfunded operation for a 91% non-resident service area based on the contract that BCHD signed with the State. BCHD also asked for $21 million to tear down the former hospital and prepare the campus for developer PMB’s gargantuan, private senior living facility, which will service 80% non-resident tenants. BCHDs board and executives are disinterested in what the majority of the electorate had to say, and that’s been the same experience that surrounding neighborhoods have had from BCHD for years now.

Mark Nelson

Redondo Beach