HAGGERTY AGAIN ADMONISHES S.L. CITY COUNCIL
Alameda County Board of Supervisors Scott Haggerty again took a few hearty shots at the San Leandro City Council a day after slam dunking a letter in a garbage can that urged the board tokeep the city’s hospital open.

Haggerty again blamed the city’s council for failing to offer up a ballot measure keeping the hospital open. “I’m not sure why that kind of leadership is not being served by the San Leandro City Council,” said Haggerty. He cited a similar situation in Alameda that successfully passed and kept the hospital open. San Leandro, in the past, has had great difficulty in passing ballot measures needing a two-thirds majority.

 

“He should know it couldn’t pass in San Leandro,” said San Leandro City Councilman Jim Prola. Only one-third of the patients at the hospital are from San Leandro with the rest coming from Oakland and surrounding areas, according to Prola. Last year, the council failed to get a parcel tax measure to add more policeman to pass. That measure garnered 56 percent.

 

A game of political hot potato seems to be forming as to who will be blamed for one or both of the hospital closing. Haggerty’s concern is political blowback. He believes the San Leandro Hospital decision does not rest with the board while, opponents see the board as either the part of the problem or the only entity that can save the hospital.

 

“It’s akin to Russian Roulette,” said Haggerty, “We may not lose one, but two hospitals.” The unabashedly gruff Haggerty though was very candid, probably a bit too forthright.

 

At one point, he oddly seemed to inflame uncertainty rather than quell it when he twice mentioned Oakland’s Highland Hospital as the health care facility the county would close, if, indeed, it were planning to close one.

 

Most shocking of all, under the eyes of open government, Haggerty seemed to be offering officials from Sutter to lobby on their behalf assuring the them that two-thirds of the speakers supported the hospital and offered to personally speak to upper management.

One woman in the audience wondered aloud why Haggerty didn’t just display the piles of money Sutter must have given him to say that.

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