news story / By Ryan Burns

The Body Politic

Fear and loathing in the SoHum health care district race

(Oct. 16, 2008)  With less than three weeks remaining before election day, it’s time for democracy to get nasty. Or “nastier,” as the case may be. As the politicking gloves come off and the verbal blows gravitate southward, it seems appropriate somehow that what may be the nastiest, most pugnacious political melee in the county is going on down in SoHum, where five candidates are duking it out for two seats on the board of the Southern Humboldt Community Healthcare District (SHCHD).

It’s a battle divided into two familiar factions — one touting experience, the other demanding change. And the accusations have been flying: back-stabbing, criminal negligence, lies, self-promotion — a juicy medley of political epithets. At the center of it all stands current board member/folk singer/activist Darryl Cherney, who, with characteristic hyperbole, described the race as “trench warfare in the streets of Garberville.”

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Here’s how it stacks up: In one corner you have a pair of seasoned veterans: Realtor and former board member David Kirby and incumbent Nancy Wilson. Their party line? Ever since Cherney joined the board in 2006, they say, he’s been stirring up unnecessary controversy — sticking his nose into personnel matters, dredging up the distant past and making dangerous allegations.

In the other corner stand the self-proclaimed agents of change: Judith Gonzales, who was forced to quit her own janitorial business after falling from a ladder onto a 500-pound fountain, and Ed Smith, a retired globe-trotting project manager for the U.S. Agency for International Development. These are Cherney’s candidates, recruited by him and the hospital’s beloved Dr. Mark Phelps in an attempt to overhaul what Cherney calls “the do-nothing board, the rubber stamp for whoever the administrator is.”

(The fifth candidate, longtime Garberville resident Chloe Bear, supports Kirby and Wilson. “I don’t even know if I’ll vote for myself,” she told the Journal.)

The rural south-county medical district — which consists of a small hospital, a skilled nursing facility, a lab and a clinic — is no stranger to controversy and hardship. The past 10 years have largely been spent recovering from bankruptcy after the district’s chief financial officer proved to be a fraud who’d falsified her résumé and grossly mismanaged district finances. (The FBI investigated and found fishy activities, but ultimately decided they had bigger fishies to fry.) And, earlier this year, the SHCHD commissioned a report from Trinidad consulting firm Bonser Bishop and Associates to address the significant decline in patient visits to the clinic (down 25 percent since 2000), as well as increasing reports of community dissatisfaction.

Despite these troubles, the SHCHD has managed to stay in the black for the past four years, thanks mostly to a voter-approved parcel tax, which generates more than $1 million annually.

Cherney contends that the board of directors, despite his efforts to shake things up, is a lame duck and says the senior administration is unfair to the staff and blind to the needs of the district. While awaiting his turn outside a local barbershop, Cherney unloaded his list of complaints.

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