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Health & Fitness

Healthcare District election: Bad form, Jack

Jack Hickey is running for the wrong reasons

 Jack Hickey is running for another seat on the Sequoia Healthcare District board.  Yes, he currently holds a seat on the board and is not up for re-election.  He wants a different seat that would extend his term on the board and would not require him to run for re-election when his current term is up.  But he says that is not why he is running.

 Jack’s agenda has always been to shut down the district as a receiver of taxpayer money.  He has supporting data from a grand jury that found that the district should not be in operation since the hospital it was meant to serve (Sequoia Hospital) now belongs to a private corporation.  The district receives a portion of property tax revenues to fund it’s operation, which is made up of giving grants to various local charitable agencies that are supposed to have something to do with health care in San Mateo County.  It is supposed to concentrate those funds within the district boundaries but often gives funds to entities outside of those borders.

 So there is an argument for shutting down the district.  How Jack is going about it is kind of weird.

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 Jack says the reason he is doing this is because if he can win this new seat, that essentially tells the district that the voters want the district dissolved.  That’s what he claims it is all about.  Most people, however, will look at the ballot, recognize his name and will vote without ever knowing what Jack’s master scheme is.  Some of the people that vote this way currently benefit from what the district doles out and they will not know they are screwing themselves over until their service gets cut.  Doesn’t matter to Jack.  All that matters to him is shutting down the district.

 Now I’m willing to discuss that idea, but only after we make sure that the funds that go through the district get redistributed within the confines of Redwood City.  Say to the schools, or youth programs, or anything else that our tax dollars should benefit.  I’m also willing to discuss holding the board accountable for giving out funds to organizations that only have something to do with health care if you stand in a certain angle to the sun.  But that is not what Jack is doing.

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 I respect what Jack has done on the board, and I have heard people in the organization say that he has made them more efficient.  In fact, Jack actually said in the Patch recently that more than 90 percent of the district budget goes to supporting organizations, which makes the district incredibly effective.  I give Jack credit for that effectiveness.

 However, this move by Jack to perform a pseudo-survey with an election is costing the district $160,000 with represents about 16 percent of it’s operating budget, so anything he has done to make the district fiscally responsible is negated.

 If Jack was running for re-election, I might actually vote for him.  But what he is doing makes me question whether he should continue on the board, much less give him more time on it.

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