A contentious meeting of the Del Puerto Health Care District board ended with some optimism Monday, Dec. 7, as board members agreed to meet with city officials in hopes of finding a solution to the broiling health center controversy.

Barbs were volleyed between the board and Mayor Becky Campo throughout most of the 90-minute special meeting, at which the City Council was blamed for the apparent possibility that the Del Puerto Health Center could be without a home when its lease expires March 31. The center’s proposed move to the Keystone Pacific Business Park was derailed by a zoning snafu and is the subject of an initiative that — the city attorney recently revealed — will not go to ballot until June.

The meeting’s end result, though, at least offered the possibility of productivity. City Manager Cleve Morris — who also attended the meeting — and the mayor were scheduled to meet this week with Keystone representatives and health care board members and district officials, with the ultimate goal being a zoning amendment that would make the health center an allowed use in the business park.

That could still be a time-consuming ordeal — possibly requiring some environmental studies to be done — but it could be quicker and hold less uncertainty than the initiative, which must hold up to a taxpayer-funded legal challenge of its constitutionality by the before even going before voters.

“I think there’s a way to get this done,” Morris told the health care board. “And pointing fingers is not going to get it done.”

The board’s fingers — primarily those of Evan Schut and President Ed Maring — were pointed squarely at Campo, the only council member present.

Maring said the council’s actions — which included granting the appeal of the previously approved move by the center’s current landlord, John Ramos; reimbursing Ramos for legal fees he incurred during the appeal; and challenging the initiative in court and requesting a study of it that would push the vote to June — showed its members were siding with a powerful developer over the citizens they represent.

“City Hall reeks of cronyism and corruption,” Maring said. “There’s obviously more to this than just zoning.”

Campo denied Maring’s allegations, using the city’s past cooperation with Keystone as proof that neither side was being given preferential treatment.

“We’ve done nothing but bend over backward for Keystone,” Campo said. “(Ramos) is a citizen who brought a concern to the council, and he was proved right.”

Schut said the health center’s move to a larger, newer facility in Keystone — which would allow the hiring of more specialists and the addition of services — was the next step in an ongoing quest to bring a hospital to the West Side.

He lamented that the years of work spent trying to expand the health center might go to waste should the center be forced to shut down. An extension on the current lease might not be granted, district CEO Margo Arnold said, and finding a temporary location until June could be logistically impossible given the short timeframe involved.

“We figured out where we’re moving, and now it’s being taken away from us,” Schut said. “I don’t understand the fight against this health care district.”

Campo said she supports the health care district but is opposed to and will not support the initiative, which she said is designed to benefit Keystone by making the business park zoning more flexible.

Maring and other board members said the council never appeared willing to work with the health district after granting Ramos’ appeal of the move. He said council members should have been proactive in helping the district find a way to get the health center into the business park.

Because they did not, he said, the health center itself is in danger.

“I will not take your responsibility on my shoulders,” Campo said. “You had a chance to do a zoning amendment long before all this.”

If the city and health care district are able to work out their differences, that might be the final outcome after all.

• Contact James Leonard at 892-6187 or james@pattersonirrigator.com.