Hospital Closure & LUE

The decision of MemorialCare to close Community Hospital is an excellent example of corporate greed.  One of your other writers stated the corporation realized over $1 billion in profit for the last year.  If this be true and I have no reason to suspect is it not, then that company should step up to the plate and give back to the community by forking over the dollars necessary to retrofit the structure. Many of your writers have described  the long waits they had had to deal with at Memorial and elsewhere. Unfortunately while corporate vermin have no trouble in sucking the life’s blood of a community, they have big trouble in giving back.

Now how does this relate the land use element?  Well, our hospitals and other services for public safety such as the police are already overburdened. We have too many people here and do not need any more. Unknown even 10 years ago, now one can see traffic jams on Long Beach Boulevard, Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Avenue, etc. at times other than those traditionally thought of as rush hour.  So increasing the density in this city will put even more demand on public safety services.  Closing Community Hospital will  only exacerbate the problem.

Unfortunately, our Planning Commission and City Council and their predecessors in interest all the way back to the 1970s have never met a developer or project they did not like. It appears they are now willing to start packing new residents into our city  just like sardines in a can.

The city should intervene by declaring Community Hospital a historical building and by petitioning the state of an extension of the deadline. Perhaps there are things they can do to make like unpleasant for MemorialCare until it changes its ways.  Of course, they should vote down the land use element presently approved by the Planning Commission.

Finally, I would urge those who made so much noise at the last meeting of the Planning Commission to organize to put forth an Initiative to amend the City Charter to forbid these ultra-dense multi-storage structures.   The nice thing about a charter amendment is the City Council’s power to change it is very limited.  Such an Initiative should be made retroactive to January 1, 2016.  Additionally, let’s vote out any councilperson who votes to approve the land use element.