Audit would address conflict between hospital, district board
It is obvious that a great conflict exists between Camino Healthcare and the hospital district board. The most fundamental element missing in this relationship is trust.
The facts are simple. Camino Healthcare has been deceitful and exclusionary of any kind of financial accounting. After several years, this attitude has developed into distrust and a sense of wrongful behavior for community members and the district board. This is not an issue of turning back clocks or returning to previous systems. It is an issue of accountability.
Since 1992, Camino Healthcare agreed to give an accounting of finances every six months. However, years passed and Camino Healthcare refused to furnish details of its financial claims, even though it was asked repeatedly by the district board and the community.
The result was an overall feeling of unrest and mistrust. Thus, with the start of another year and no financial accounting for the claim of millions of dollars in losses, it makes sense that a lawsuit was finally initiated. The constant battle for an open, honest working relationship had failed.
Now, of course, Camino Healthcare is posturing itself as the innocent victim, willing to mediate and resolve the conflicts in an amiable sort of way. It is questioning the district board's ethics for filing a lawsuit and wasting valuable time and money. Why has the valuable time been thwarted over the past several years? Where did those valuable millions in dollars go? Its response yields nothing but deceit and rhetoric.
Direct action and auditing is the only approach.
N. Acker
Fremont Avenue
Accident victim seeks her rescuer
I'm looking for a woman who helped me from becoming totally unconscious as I was driving a small Justy Subaru that was hit by an oversize van. The van's driver went through a red light, hitting me while I had the green light.
Of course, I want to thank her, but I don't know her name. She told the police she was a "caregiver."
The accident happened on Feb. 23 at Old San Francisco Road and Fair Oaks Avenue. I was taken to El Camino Hospital. Please help me find her and the gentleman that kept me from falling on the pavement. (Please contact The Sun.) Thank you.
Isabel Goodart
East Washington
If we don't act now, Moffett Field will be another Ford Ord
As Moffett Field is reborn into federally sponsored emerging blight, the Sunnyvale City Council, guided by the philosophy of the cargo cult of the Solomon Islands, offers nothing.
It has been at least two years since the U.S. Navy declared it was moving out. It is about time city governments close to Moffett and others get together and act to insure Moffett is turned into a thriving facility providing more than federal "jobs."
The City Council's opposition to San Jose's moves toward Moffett is presented on page 4 of Sunnyvale's quarterly report. There is a clear impression that the mayor and councilmembers have no intention of getting off the dime and facing the reality that the federal government (or NASA) has no intention of pouring money into maintaining Moffett in more than caretaker status. Instead of proposing to unite with San Jose and other communities in a real discussion, there is this negative "not in my back yard" posturing and some fantasy that NASA will discover gold on Mars and spend it all on creating jobs that don't dirty the place and maintain an airport where airplanes will be few and quiet.
The City Council's letter to San Jose rejecting any encroachment on Moffett offers the typical litany presented to any of those businesses who foolishly attempt to locate in California. It is this kind of job-killing bureaucratic gauntlet that is responsible for California being at the bottom of the list when it comes to job creation in this country. Is this the city of Sunnyvale's best shot in attracting business to locate here and turn Moffett into a viable industrial park?
It seems the City Council is using a double standard when it comes to the use of Moffett. Did the council and mayor insist on a comprehensive evaluation and discussion of all potential impacts associated with each and every federal agency that has relocated to Moffett? Has the impact of relocating each of these agencies undergone an analysis that included each of the aspects listed in the Sunnyvale quarterly report?
If an air freight operation requests use of Moffett, will it be required to undergo the evaluation and analysis proposed in the quarterly report? Would not an air freight operation at Moffett be similar to those already at San Jose? Are San Jose International Airport's air freight operations contrary to the National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act? What is it that makes private business so unattractive to the City Council when it comes to using Moffett's airport facilities?
Expecting NASA to maintain Moffett, in the condition that U.S. Navy supported, is wishful thinking. NASA does not have the budget, much less the motivation. The extensive public relations and lobbying NASA must go through every year speaks loud and clear on how desperate the situation is in maintaining the agency's programs.
What happened to Hamilton Field and is now happening to the Presidio and Fort Ord is prelude to Moffett's future under the federal government. It is not likely that we will see any roof repair or painting scaffolds adorning the airship hangars any time soon.
It seems it would be of great benefit to Sunnyvale and other local municipalities to join in an effort with the private sector to utilize Moffett to its highest potential. This community and its neighbors reside on the Pacific Rim along with countries that are now the fastest-growing economies in the world. There is no reason why only the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose airports should be the beneficiaries of the coming growth that trade with these economies portend. To insist on remaining a bedroom community when jobs are being located farther away, via ever-more-crowded freeways, makes no sense at all. As taxpayers, we have a huge investment in Moffett, and we should make a real effort toward reaping the benefit represented by the potential of developing this base for shared government and private use.
Turning this airbase into a National Guard storage yard and weekend campground is not good enough. There should be a debate or at least a discussion and recognition of the pros and cons of some possibilities. For example: air cargo terminals, aircraft maintenance facilities, a privately endowed Air Museum, a free-trade zone with manufacture and assembly plants, a mall and duty-free shops, selected international flights departing from Moffett, or private technical education facilities.
Turning Moffett into an asset rather than a money pit is a demonstrated possibility. Unless this community wakes up and grasps the opportunity it has before it, the alternative will be another Hamilton Field or Fort Ord in our midst. To simply stand by as the Moffett hangar rusts away is not what should come to pass.
Armand Petri
Blackhawk Drive
Buchanan stance on wages is inconsistent with his platform
Through his fiery campaigning during the Republican presidential primary, Pat Buchanan has gained a reputation as a populist, a crusader for blue-collar workers.
He has raised issues, such as corporate downsizing, which the other candidates were too afraid or too out of touch to recognize, and he has stood up to big businesses, making them face their responsibilities to their workers.
I was surprised and disappointed, therefore, to hear Buchanan say in the South Carolina primary debate that he does not support a raise in the minimum wage. This is inconsistent with his stance as a pro-worker, pro-family politician. Can I have misheard him?
He will be in the area this week, and I hope to hear from him in person that he does indeed support the livable wage--a clearcut way to strengthen the American worker and the American family.
Pat, if you're for us, you have to be for the livable wage.
Frank Bosche
San Tomas Aquino Road
Campbell
Bring back police blotter
I've been watching for a while, looking for the police blotter (Public Safety) to reappear in The Sun.
Apparently, that information has been discontinued. In the past, it was not in each weekly issue, but it was there often.
This is to let you know that our household misses the blotter and would like to see it reinstated. Such information is news concerning Sunnyvale and is useful when analyzed for trends and patterns in certain areas of the city.
D.F. McClure
Cloverdale Court
The Public Safety column has been omitted in recent weeks for lack of staff resources to generate it. We plan to revive the column in April when assistant editor Anne Gelhaus joins our staff. Gelhaus, a veteran Metro Newspapers reporter, currently compiles the police blotter published by the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.--Editor
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 27, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.