Assembly Health Committee chair Jim Wood (D, Santa Rosa) declined to take a Committee vote on AB 2591, a bill Assemblyman O'Donnell introduced at the City of LB's behest to seek an extension of the already-extended deadline for compliance with hospital seismic safety standards. Before Assemblyman O'Donnell spoke, chair Wood delivered a polite but firm statement [reported in Signal Tribune's April 20 edition], obtained by LBREPORT.com from the Committee staff, provided below and also visible on the VIDEO linked below.

[Scroll down for further.]

Assembly Health Committee Chair Wood: I am sympathetic to the fact that Long Beach Community Hospital will be closing, but the Assembly Health Committee has a long-standing record of only granting seismic extensions to hospitals that have seismic compliance plans in place...Hospitals have been planning for the upcoming 2020 seismic deadline for years, but this hospital has no such plan. Given that it sits on an active fault line, providing an extension would be irresponsible and a risk to public safety, and because of that, we will hold AB 2591 in this committee which will provide the City of Long Beach some time to submit a compliance plan.

Sponsor

Sponsor

It wasn't the worst case outcome for LB City Hall's efforts to preserve Community Hospital as an acute care facility; the Committee could have simply voted the bill down. Assemblyman O'Donnell and LB's Director of Government Affairs, Diana Tang, reiterated the City's narrative that it was caught by surprise by operator MemorialCare's fall 2017 announcement that it would close the hospital as unable to meet seismic standards. Ms. Tang acknowledged that the City knew the hospital sat on an earthquake fault...but said details of the fault and its active seismic status had only recently been confirmed. Ms. Tang stressed that the City is working to put a plan in place to meet the state's approaching seismic deadlines and thanked the Committee for allowing additional time. Also testifying in support of the bill was a representative of the CA Nurses Association and a long time nurse at Community Hospital.

Sponsor

Committee chair ended the item by empathizing with City Hall's position but stressed that the ball in now the City's court. The net result: as of now, there's no Sac'to legislative safety net advancing to preserve Community Hospital.

For on-demand VIDEO of Committee proceedings on AB 2591, click here and scroll to 3:40:30 into the hearing. The item runs for 3:53:25.

Sponsor

Sponsor

Councilman Daryl Supernaw's April 20 newsletter didn't mention what happened to the bill. His office stated: :

On Tuesday night [April 17], City Council approved my agenda item to allow the Fourth Council District to provide $150,000 for the City to hire a hospital architectural firm. This will enable the development of a seismic compliance plan that will be submitted to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD). It will also be submitted to the Assembly Health Committee to support the City's request to extend the seismic compliance deadline...

Supernaw's April 17 motion was "to increase appropriations in General Fund (GF) in the Development Services Department (DV) by $150,000, offset by the Fourth Council District one-time infrastructure funds transferred from the Capital Projects Fund (CP) in the Public Works Department (PW) to support the funding of a hospital architect to determine whether the City can meet OSHPD seismic compliance at Community Hospital."

Supernaw's agenda item didn't publicly disclose what 4th district infrastructure projects won't be undertaken and completed as planned as a result of the transfer. The item carried 7-0 (with Mungo and Uranga absent.)

[April 28 update] In his April 27 newsletter, Councilman Supernaw says no 4th district Public Works projects will be affected as a result of the transfer. "100% of the funding approved last week will be sourced through savings from CD4 office operations. There is no impact on Public Works projects in CD4 as no funds are coming from 4th district infrastructure projects."

Sponsor