Initiative filed to move health center to Keystone
by James Leonard | Patterson Irrigator
Sep 15, 2009
A group of Patterson citizens have submitted a ballot initiative that would amend the city’s zoning laws to allow the Del Puerto Health Center to move to the Keystone Pacific Business Park.
The group — which includes former Patterson mayoral candidates Kathy Wright and Luis Molina, retired nurse Mary Pat Thompson and the heads of the business park and the Del Puerto Health Care District — submitted the initiative to City Hall around 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 14.
“This initiative will provide Patterson residents with local access to quality health care instead of having to travel to Modesto and beyond,” Wright said in a statement.
The initiative, if passed, would settle a controversy that began when the health care district announced the move and became fully enflamed when the health center’s landlord protested — and ultimately won.
The city attorney has until Sept. 29 to provide a title and summary of the initiative to go on the ballot, at which time the proponents can begin collecting signatures. If the group obtains signatures from at least 10 percent of the registered voters in Patterson —about 700 signatures in all — the City Council will have the option of either approving the initiative outright or sending it to ballot.
Because it’s too late to get the initiative onto this November’s ballot, that will likely mean a special election that could cost the city as much as $40,000, City Manager Cleve Morris said.
Councilwoman Annette Smith on Monday vehemently stated her opposition to the initiative and said the health care district should apply for a zoning amendment through the city rather than a taxpayer-funded special election.
“What Keystone is perpetrating on the city of Patterson, the taxpayers, is nothing less than armed robbery,” Smith said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the health care district expanding. There’s something horribly wrong with them not wanting to follow the same rules everyone else does. We told them to do an amendment, and that’s what they need to do. The law is the law, and it applies to everybody.”
Traffic study not required
Smith also accused Keystone and the health care district of trying to avoid complying with the California Environmental Quality Act, which could require a full environmental review of the project that would include a traffic study. Smith said with more than 100 patients traveling to and from the health center each day, there would be a major traffic impact on the neighboring residential neighborhoods along Baldwin Road.
City Attorney George Logan said as a general rule, ballot initiatives are not subject to CEQA review. He said Tuesday he hadn’t read the initiative yet but that simply changing the zoning law would not trigger such a review.
“They’re taking away the people’s right to have the project reviewed properly and to be ensured that any impacts of the project will be mitigated,” Smith said. “They need to look at the traffic impacts.”
The district is seeking more space than the 5,000 square feet it has at its 1108 Ward Ave. facility. It’s attempt to move to the business park — and into an 11,000-square-foot building, with plans to expand to 30,000 square feet — was thwarted when the City Council ruled the move would violate the city’s zoning laws, siding with landlord John Ramos’ appeal of an earlier approval by the Patterson Planning Commission.
“We are bursting at the seams in our current facility,” said Dr. Eric Ramos, the health center’s medical director, in a statement. “In order to meet the demand for health care services in Patterson and continue to provide the quality of medical care that this community deserves, we simply need a larger facility.”
The move would give the health center enough space to expand most of its services, including cardiology, radiology, neurology and minor surgery. It would also allow the addition of internal medicine services and orthopedics.
The expanded health center would offer urgent care, but it would not house an emergency room.
More jobs expected
The initiative would allow the move by implementing a new “flexible business park district” zone, which would cover most of the unused space from Baldwin Road to Park Center Drive, including the proposed health center site.
The group believes the new, more flexible zoning will make it easier for other businesses to come into the business park as well, eventually helping to create hundreds of jobs.
“This new initiative will help to clean up any problems that are in existence and speed up the decision-making process,” Wright said Monday. “Our hopes are to show support for the health care district to make its move.”
The group cited a phone survey conducted in July in which 72 percent of 300 voters polled said the zoning law should be amended “to allow for additional commercial, industrial and health care uses.”
The survey was part of an extensive campaign that also features a Web site, www.localhealthcarenow.org. Keystone is footing the bill for most of the campaign, according to Executive Vice President Keith Schneider.
Schneider said he wasn’t sure how much Keystone had spent on the campaign so far. But the health care district is expected to pay $4 million for the building and the first phase of expansions, so Keystone would stand to benefit greatly from the new zoning law.
“Obviously we have an interest in this, but it’s also good for Patterson,” Schneider said. “It’s a good investment for Keystone to invest in the health care future of the city of Patterson. We’ve always tried to be a good Patterson citizen, and we want to continue to be a good Patterson citizen.”
Margo Arnold, the health care district’s CEO, said she was grateful to Wright, Molina and Thompson for stepping up to push this forward.
“We’re very appreciative,” she said. “It takes a lot of time and effort to do something like this. For citizens to step forward, it means a lot. … It’s a wonderful thing.”
