Burgess gives hospital update
Progress on a new Tehachapi Hospital came to a "screeching halt" after the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District was served with a writ of mandate in November.
That was the word from hospital CEO Alan Burgess in a presentation to members of the Tehachapi Rotary Club at their Jan. 26 meeting updating the status of the new hospital.
"We were served with a Writ of Mandate, a type of lawsuit against a public agency that says that we hadn’t acted properly or followed the California Environmental Quality Act in filing our environment quality report," Burgess said. "As a result, everything came to a screeching halt and we’re in the process now of going through the lawsuit.
The complainants have 60 days in which to file their administrative report, that’s from Nov. 17 when that filed. That was done on Jan. 17. We have 30 days in which to file our response because we may not agree with the administrative record that they put together, and indeed we didn’t."
According to Burgess, the documents filed by the group that sued — known as the Tehachapi Area Critical Landuse Group — included copies of letters to the district previously sent by William Nelson.
Nelson is listed as a founder of the group in court documents. He has previously declined to name other members.
"The letters were loaded with [Nelson's] opinion without any basis in fact and without any documentation supporting his position," Burgess said. "So we’re disagreeing on the administrative level. That’s going to require a hearing."
He told Rotary members he doesn't know when the hearing will be held, noting that it may be in February.
"It will be before the administrative hearing judge," he said, "not before the one thats going to hear the CEQA case."
CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental review before projects such as the hospital construction can begin. Last year, the hospital board determined that what is called a "mitigated negative declaration," meaning that environmental impacts were identified but could be mitigated, was appropriate for the project.
However, the group sued in November, challenging the board's decision and stalling the construction project that had been slated for groundbreaking in late December.
Burgess said if the ALJ rules that the administrative record is adequate, the case will move to the hearing judge. If the hearing judge finds for the hospital district, the complainant can still appeal.
"Now that’s an expensive appeal, by the way," Burgess said. "That's not as easy as paying $1400 for the initial filing. I understand the next level is much more expensive. If they appeal the lower court decision, that decision will be taken in to account by the judge. He’s going to say, you have to show me really persuasive to make me reverse it. So their chances of winning on appeal go down significantly."
Length of delay
In answer to a question from a Rotary member, “Do you have a guesstimate as to when the legal mumbo jumbo will be behind us and do you have any idea what the motivation for this lawsuit is?” Burgess said it is hard to know.
“Time line is probably the harder of the two to answer," he said.
"Assuming that it stops after a decision is made at the administrative judge level, it would probably be in the neighborhood of five months, give or take. If there's an appeal it could easily go over a year."
It's an expensive proposition for the hospital district — and the fate of the existing hospital remains unknown.
"One of our board members said it is costing us between $250,000 and $300,000 for every month of delay," Burgess said.
"In terms of what their motivation is, I’ve read their entire complaint and I’ve read all of their arguments. I don’t think there much there that holds water other than they don’t like the site. The decision to build the hospital out at Capital Hills was made before I even moved to the district, but I agree that it makes a lot of sense. You already have the post office out there, you have a lot of open property, you have room to grow and expand if need be in the future. I think the board has acted reasonably, I think they acted wisely."
When asked he said his best guess is that the organization has three members.
Existing hospital
Tehachapi's existing hospital has been determined not to meet California's earthquake safety standards and is operating with a two-year extension that reportedly expires December 31, 2013. The district has not yet learned if the pending litigation will be sufficient reason to get an additional extension.
