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FRHD board extends escrow on sale of hospital to Aug. 31

The Fallbrook Regional Health District (FRHD) board, by a 4-0 vote Aug. 9, elected to extend escrow on the sale of the Fallbrook Hospital building to Crestwood Behavioral Health, Inc. to Aug. 31. Director Howard Salmon was not in attendance due to business in Sacramento.

The action, necessary due to unresolved issues with the county of San Diego regarding the property at 624 East Elder Street, was taken during the board's regular meeting – a meeting attended by less than a handful of Fallbrook residents.

The three previous board meetings ¬– regular meetings June 14 and July 12 and a special meeting July 28 – had attracted standing-room-only crowds that were often animated as people voiced their opinions regarding the sale, and the lack of a public vote on the sale.

No public comments were made at the Aug. 9 meeting, which featured an audience that consisted of a few officials from Crestwood, an FRHD intern, and three Fallbrook residents.

The FRHD board ratified the sale of the hospital to Crestwood at the special meeting July 28 and escrow was scheduled to close July 31. It didn't.

"There are two things going on," explained FRHD attorney Blaise Jackson following the meeting. "First, there's a lot line adjustment that's necessary, and the second thing has to do with a 1989 agreement (with the county) that was discovered."

The lot line adjustment involves the driveway that runs between the hospital parking lot and Brandon Rd..

"There's a small corner of it that is attached to 138 Brandon (the address of FRHD offices)," said Jackson. "There's no reason for us to maintain that little corner of the property. So, you have to go through a land use process to adjust the boundary lines, and we've got local engineering surveyors working on that right now. So that's in process."

The 1989 agreement between the county and the health district required the district to make some street improvements on Elder Street in exchange for the county allowing the district to expand the size of its campus to accommodate a wellness center.

"The county granted a major use permit," said Jackson. "Well, the quid pro quo for that was you're going to do some street improvements on Elder."

The agreement was news to the current board, which found out there was a lien enacted and recorded in 1989.

"We found out that the county, in 1989, required the district to do some street improvements on Elder," said board president Gordon Tinker. "They were never done. This is a district responsibility and we need to clean it up and get something done that we should have done 25 years ago.

"What I'm proposing the board to approve tonight is establishment of an escrow account in the amount satisfactory to San Diego so they know we put the money away – that it can't be spent on anything else – and an approval of an RFP (request for proposal) for design and construction management for the required street improvements," concluded Tinker.

Tinker's motion was passed with a 4-0 vote.

The board also approved by a 4-0 vote a 2017-2018 budget covering July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018, with the district's bookkeeper pointing out that the district will save approximately $20,000 a month in management and maintenance costs once the sale of the hospital is completed.

In other news, Tinker, during his government/public relations/community relations committee report, said that the committee had agreed to make public affairs specialist Erica Holloway a full-time member of the committee. Holloway, founder of Galvanized Strategies, has been assisting the district in public relations.

"We had a discussion about what worked and what didn't work in the community outreach for the sale of the hospital, and I think we're absolutely sure that we need to do more community outreach, specifically now," said Tinker. "Everybody is asking me, 'how are you going to spend the money from the sale.' So, that's one of the key issues to look at the advisory committee for input on."

 

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