FAQs about Paul Campo's Positions on Key Issues

By Paul V.L. Campo

A. I have 30 years of experience as an attorney, and over 20 years of experience as an elected or appointed government official. I currently serve on the TCHD board, and have since July of 2013 when I was appointed to fill an unexpired term. I am a former member of the Vista City Council and the Vista Planning Commission. I have also served on the board of the Tri-City Hospital Foundation. I received my B. A. from Stanford University, and my J. D. from UCLA Law School. I understand public and private finance. I know the importance of listening respectfully to the public and to my colleagues. I form opinions and make decisions with care. I am pleased that the TCHD medical staff has endorsed me (as well as the other four incumbent candidates).

B. My colleagues and I have already accomplished a great deal since my appointment. For example, we have corrected material misstatements intentionally created by the previous CEO and CFO in their original FY 2013 budget in order to allow us to pass our 2013 audit. We anticipate receiving a clean FY 2014 audit. In financial terms, we project a financial turnaround from a loss of $10 million in FY 2013 to an excess of revenue over expenses of $13 million in FY 2014.

We are restoring the trust of the public (and already have restored the trust of our medical staff) in the board by listening attentively and respectfully to others' points of view in order to work together cooperatively. In the future, my most important goal is to improve and modernize our ER/ED (i) to limit wait times and provide a more comfortable environment for friends and relatives while they wait for news of their loved one, and (ii) to improve the privacy of patients once they are admitted into the ER/ED.

2. Should Larry Anderson still be CEO of the district? NO. What do you think of his performance as CEO?

Larry's most positive contribution was working with our local assemblyman and state senator to allow TCHD many more years to satisfy state seismic safety requirements. Without this special exemption, the hospital may well have needed to close in 2018. Regrettably, during his tenure as CEO he became more focused on glorifying himself while avoiding his responsibilities as a Board employee. He consistently misled the Board. For example, Larry routinely began major litigation without Board permission, entered into contracts far in excess of his authority, and manipulated accounting data (together with his CFO) in order to show the hospital as profitable when it was actually losing money. One of his more amazing and deceitful actions is discussed in question number 3 below.

3. Was the district's 2010 deal with Medical Acquisition Company to develop a 60,000-square-foot medical office building on the Tri-City campus a bad idea from the start or a good idea with poor follow-through?

Medical Acquisition Company (MAC) is owned by Charlie Perez. Mr. Perez's business is a lien management and medical funding company. He brokers the sale of unpaid physicians' bills to third party creditors who then attempt to collect on the underlying debts. Mr. Perez's connection to Larry Anderson began when Larry agreed to allow Mr. Perez to market his brokerage services aggressively to the Hospital's ER/ED patients, until it appeared that this arrangement might have violated certain federal and state laws against self-dealing.

Larry chose Mr. Perez to lease the land for the 60,000-square-foot medical office building (MOB) on the Tri-City campus, and to construct the MOB. As mentioned above, Mr. Perez was a lien broker: he had (and has) no experience as a ground lessee/master landlord or as a general contractor. Portions of the original MOB ground lease dated as of December 29, 2010, between MAC and TCHD (Ground Lease) are unenforceable. For example, Section 2.6 (at page 14) allows MAC/Perez to terminate the Ground Lease in its first eight years if either Larry were terminated as CEO, or if 50% of the then-serving elected Board members left office.

4. New CEO Tim Moran is interested in possibly setting up collaborations with UC San Diego, Scripps Health, Sharp Health Care and Palomar Health to help inform Tri-City's long-term planning. What is your view of this possibility?

"Collaboration" or "affiliation" can mean different things to different people. The Board has requested that Tim provide us with some options regarding how an affiliation can work. I envision collaboration as possibly allowing the Hospital to treat patients who are in the networks of one or more of the other healthcare groups mentioned above. For example, a North County Scripps patient may balk at driving to Scripps' Green Clinic for monthly infusion treatments because of the distance. The Hospital offers infusion services, so the same patient can receive the same service without the long drive.

TCHD is a public healthcare district. I have no interest in pursuing an affiliation if it should mean merging TCHD (or selling or leasing all or substantially all of its assets, as Grossmont Healthcare District has done) into one of the healthcare groups mentioned above. The Hospital is a public hospital. It exists because of the foresight of community leaders over fifty years ago, and property tax revenue from district residents continue to support it. Despite comments to the contrary, the TCHD board cannot merge or sell the hospital in secret. Several public hearings must first be held, followed by the affirmative vote of a majority of the residents of the district in an election.

5. Should Tri-City commit to building a new main hospital if its finances and credit make that feasible?

TCHD must either retrofit its existing facilities or build new ones to satisfy state seismic safety requirements. Failure to do so would result in the eventual closure of the hospital. Based on some preliminary financial data, retrofitting would prove more costly than building one or more new facilities, such as a new main building. As discussed above, the hospital's finances continue to improve because of the attention the current board pays to them. We have also requested that Tim consider alternate forms of financing new facilities, such as obtaining low-cost loans from HUD available to hospitals that serve economically disadvantaged communities. TCHD would fall within that definition.

My least favorite alternative is to try once again to pass a bond measure. Given that TCHD has tried three times in the first decade of this century to do so and failed on each occasion, I doubt whether a fourth time would prove successful. I also do not believe that our community needs a "Taj Mahal" hospital: the money spent on architectural luxuries would be better spent on improving existing healthcare, or establishing new service lines, such as our proposed diabetes institute.