Sequoia Healthcare District shell game

With the close of candidate filing on August 11, 2010, San Mateo County voters can begin taking a look at the full roster of candidates, all 98 of them, seeking one of 64 available seats in local office from water boards to county supervisor.

Some races are already over such as in the South San Francisco Unified School District where three candidates filed to run for three seats--election over.

But others are surprisingly competitive.

This includes the seven candidates vying for three seats on the Sequoia Healthcare District Board of Directors.

Two incumbents are attempting to return to office including Arthur J. Faro, the retired CEO of Sequoia Hospital, who is seeking his fourth term in office. Faro was first elected in 1998, two years after the hospital ceased to be run by the taxpayer supported district and was transferred to the Sequoia Health Services (SHS) which is managed by the private healthcare concern Catholic Healthcare West (CHW)

The other incumbent is local political gadfly and anti-tax crusader Jack Hickey who is seeking his third term in office fresh off a third place finish in his bid for a seat on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in the June 2010 Primary Election.

Hickey originally ran for the district board on the basis that the district, while it still collects local property taxes, no longer runs a district hospital but instead supports a variety of healthcare initiatives through a grants making program that in the 2010-2011 budget cycle doled out well over a million and a half dollars to 36 local agencies and programs ranging from meals on wheels to funding a part-time school nurse at the Portola Valley School District.

Oddly, Hickey’s unsuccessful Supervisorial run was against fellow healthcare district board member Don Horsley, the former San Mateo County Sheriff. Horsley placed first out of five candidates in the Supervisor election in June but did not garner enough votes to avoid a runoff. Horsley is vacating his current seat on the Sequoia Healthcare District Board after a single term to run for Supervisor.

But Hickey will be joined by another candidate from his June Primary Election in that of Michael Stogner, another budding political gadfly who is often a loud critic of county government.

Stogner placed well out of the money in June in the Supervisorial election but it took him only weeks to file for another local office.

Three new-comers are also testing their luck including Ruth West-Gorrin, a Clinical Services Coordinator for the Mental Health Association of San Mateo County–a nonprofit organization that works with the mentally ill. West-Gorrin’s organization actually received a $20,000 grant from the Sequoia Healthcare District in the 2010-2011 grants cycle.

In addition, local business owner Alpio Barbara who is involved in the Redwood City community and retired engineer Frederick Graham.

Lastly, a former district board member is seeking to make a comeback after many years of absence. Jerry Shefren was elected to a two-year term in 2000 with no opposition. Shefren, who described himself as an Obstetrician/Gynecologist when he ran for a full term in 2002, did not complete his term in office.

According to newspaper accounts, Shefren resigned his post in April of 2003 “…citing time constraints of a new position at Stanford Medical Center” according to statements made at that time. Shefren’s seat was then filled via appoint by the district board on a 3-1 vote with Hickey, who had been elected months earlier with Shefren. The board appointed another local physician Ed Katz. But Katz resigned from his seat in June 2004 which set up another special election to fill the remaining two years of that term originally won by Shefren.

The district board again appointed yet another replacement, Jack Oblak, the former President of Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont on August 4, 2004. Oblak was then encouraged to file for the two-year seat to fill out the rest of the term but Oblak made a boo-boo and filed for a four-year term against two of the incumbents who appointed him to the seat.

This caused two problems. Firstly, Oblak was compelled to go to court to have his name removed from the ballot with some personal embarrassment. This also left vacant the two-year term on the ballot as no one else applied, forcing the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to legally make an appointment following the non-election.

Oblak was appointed to the temporary vacancy by the district board–again–in October of 2004 and then to the two-year term by the Board of Supervisors on November 9, 2004.

Ironically, Oblak went on to lose the seat in 2006.

Any way you cut it, the Sequoia Healthcare District does not fail to disappoint in electoral comedy.

So, welcome back Dr. Shefren.

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