Charlie Ridgell said...

Both the Tribune and the Daily Dirt are missing the big point, namely that, when it comes to Measure A and ACMC, the Board of Supervisors misled, and continue to mislead, the voters of Alameda County!

Alert observers will recall that, at the time the Board of Supervisors put Measure A on the ballot, there was controversy about its provisions. As a result of the controversy, Local 250, the largest union of health care workers in the county and one of the original proponents of Measure A, refused to support Measure A in the form the Supervisors placed it on the ballot because, as it was written by the Board of Supervisors, it failed to guarantee that the Board would not use the new funding stream as an excuse to reduce its support of the Medical Center through some other means.

In typical politician fashion, it was only after the voters approved Measure A that our Board of Supervisors raised their outrageous demand that the County's medical center "repay" the County almost $200 million for the County's past support of the County's Medical Center.

The County bureaucrats refer to these funds as "loans", but nobody has produced any loan contracts or documents with any signatures by anyone in authority at the Medical Center promising to pay anything back as a condition of receiving the money.

The Board of Supervisors' actions since the passage of Measure A and right up to the present validate Local 250's (now the UHW) criticism.

If it weren't for this so-called "debt" there would be no deficit at ACMC! For the hard of hearing, I repeat:

IF IT WEREN'T FOR THIS SO-CALLED "DEBT" THERE WOULD BE NO DEFICIT AT ACMC!

The questions for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors are:

"Why did you lie to the voters?"

and:

"When will you tell the truth and admit what you did with Measure A was dishonest?"

The question for the ACMC Trustees is:

"When will you find the courage to live up to your fiduciary obligation to ACMC and repudiate the bogus 'debt' so that the Medical Center can deliver what was promised to the voters?"

By the way, two members of the Board of Supervisors are up for re-election. Let's connect the dots, people!