Rea clinic decision postponed by district

Deirdre Newman

School board members will not make a decision Tuesday on plans for

a proposed health center adjacent to Rea Elementary School, saying

they and representatives from Children’s Hospital of Orange County

want to work with community members who are critical of the proposal.

Five members of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board

voted on the proposal on July 16, resulting in a 3-1 vote, with

Martha Fluor abstaining because she sits on the CHOC Foundation for

Children. After the vote, Fluor called for the issue to be

reconsidered by the full board.

The plan calls for a 4,800-square-foot building to replace the

current Healthy Start facility next to the school campus. It would

provide free medical care to children up to age 17. CHOC officials

say there is a severe need for health care for children from indigent

families in this area.

Before the July vote was taken, however, a handful of vocal

Westside residents castigated the board for deciding to place the

center in their area without any input from their community.

In response, district and CHOC officials say it’s more important

to involve the community in its plans than to try to ramrod another

vote through the board while there is still dissension within the

Westside. They say they are willing to examine all facets of the

center, including its location, as long as the community is receptive

to working with them.

“We don’t know what the outcome will be,” said Supt. Robert

Barbot. “We’re not doing this to placate [the critics]. We’re doing

this to be positive.”

Whether the Westside critics are willing to work with the district

and CHOC remains to be seen.

Martin Millard, one of the opponents who spoke at the last

meeting, offered “no comment” when contacted by phone. Instead, he

e-mailed his suggestion for the district:

“If they want to open a clinic, they should put it at a school in

the Newport Beach part of the district instead of locating it in

Costa Mesa. Costa Mesa is not the city dump for Newport Beach, and

the Westside isn’t the city dump for Costa Mesa. The argument that

they want the clinic on the Westside because that is ‘where it’s

needed’ is hollow.... Actually putting a massive clinic, with sick

people coming and going, on a grade school campus anyplace is

absurd,” Millard wrote.

CHOC officials say they have never been broadsided with such

opposition to one of their clinics.

“We want to be welcomed,” said Janet Lansing, executive director

of communications for the hospital. “It’s a unique experience for us

[not to be].”

Community meetings are expected to start in the fall, Lansing

said.

While discussions about the plan are taking place, CHOC officials

say they will continue the use of their mobile-care van, which serves

the Westside at Whittier School twice a month, and may expand it to

other Costa Mesa schools as well.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].