For those still following along with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors race knows that the candidates are busy making the rounds for their endorsements of various people and groups that can provide a little extra push. I wrote about the little oopsie moment in Beverly Johnson’s campaigning that was reported by the East Bay Citizen, but he has given more juicy details on how the the Tony Santos endorsement error went down:
The Johnson camp had reached out to Santos as early as Feb. 19 to secure his backing over the likes of Wilma Chan or even at time Lena Tam or Shelia Young. Johnson told The Citizen a colleague of Santos informed her of his endorsement just before Tuesday’s event. The next day, Santos responded quizzically to news of his endorsement for Johnson. It actually was something like this: “Whaaaat?!” Johnson said she spoke to Santos Wednesday and apologized for the misunderstanding and still hopes to secure his endorsement soon. For his part, Santos appears conflicted on whom to endorse, but mentioned his work with Johnson on various regional boards as a plus. “I am staying neutral for time being,” said Santos. “I must say I work with Bev on number of agencies, so I do need to stay on her good side. I know them both and like them both, so it is a real dilemma for me.”
Of course, the reason why Tony Santos’s endorsement is so important is that winning San Leandro is pretty important to winning the Supervisors race, and Beverly Johnson knows that between her and Wilma Chan, she probably won’t be collecting a large percentage of votes from significant Oakland districts like Chinatown, so she’s also pounced on a huge issue for San Leandro residents: the San Leandro Hospital. From the post:
Johnson, who lists 12 years as an elected official, says the struggle to keep San Leandro Hospital and its emergency room operating is similar to what Alamedans experienced eight years ago with their own local hospital. “If you lose your hospital, you lose your emergency room,” said Johnson. “If you have a disaster you don’t have the ability to provide for health care.”
She admits the situation in San Leandro is more complex than the set of problems at Alameda Hospital where the solution was to create a health care district to oversee the facility and residents of the island passed a parcel tax of nearly $400-a-year to fund the hospital.
And, as pointed out by a commenter:
Johnson doesn’t even know that the Alameda Hospital parcel tax is $298/year?
Um…yeah… If you are interested in San Leandro Hospital and what the candidates think on how to save the hospital, San Leandro Bytes has video and their comments from the Hayward Demos Democratic Club endorsement meeting. For those who choose not to click through:
…Chan said that she was already working on the issue and there are two viable options: “one would be if Sutter would release the lease and another provider would come in and buy…the other option is for the County to continue the lease, but to do a hybrid model” keeping the emergency room open. Johnson said that she helped lead the process to keep Alameda Hospital open and that the current process needs to be stopped and “take time and really look at this.” She sounded skeptical about Sutter’s claims that San Leandro Hospital operating at a loss and said that we need to “develop a long-term strategic plan for delivery of health care services throughout the county.”
Oakland blogger Becks, also commented on another issue of regional significance that both Wilma Chan and Beverly Johnson were asked about during the endorsement meeting for the National Women’s Political Caucus — no one received 60% of the vote to get an endorsement. The Oakland Airport Connector (for the background, JKW has the details) essentially it’s a big elevated train meant to connect BART to the Oakland airport at a cost of $12 roundtrip. That’s more than most BART fares to the Oakland airport — check it out for yourself — all of the end of the line destinations to the Airport Bart station is waaaayyyy less than the proposed cost of the connector portion. Anyway, Becks talks about while Wilma Chan dodged the issue, this is what Beverly Johnson had to say about it:
Beverly Johnson went on and on about how great the OAC is, which she had been convinced of because BART Director Carole Ward Allen came to her in tears and told her the project was needed and would be improved. Johnson also said it was a shame that we “lost” the $70 million stimulus funds and that we didn’t know where the funds would go to. That’s an outright lie, as Johnson is a member of ACTIA and full well knows that the funds were redistributed to the regional transit agencies.
Um…yeah…
And…on the Alameda endorsement front, Doug deHaan has opted to endorse Wilma Chan over Beverly Johnson. I guess he doesn’t feel the need to stay on her “good side” a la Tony Santos.
