2006-05-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

County Supervisor Candidate Announces Results From First "Preparing our Young People for Jobs in the New Economy" Summit

(Alameda, California) On Thursday, April 27th, Alameda County Supervisor candidate Jim Price brought together representatives from healthcare, construction, and the Building and Trades unions, and representatives from local school districts as well as a representative from Assemblywoman Wilma Chan’s office to discuss creating programs that bring awareness and training to our young people for the many well paying, locally available jobs that employers today are reaching outside the county, the state and even the county to find qualified candidates.

The event identified several partnership opportunities and resulted in the formation of some new relationships between the participating unions and the Alameda Unified School district. “We came away with the realization that creating awareness is the key to helping our young people identify these well paying career opportunities,” Price said. “Some great ideas for creating this awareness came out of the meeting as well. Such as organizing large venue events hosted by unions, the private sector and the public schools which could serve as field trips for students to learn about careers in the fields of healthcare and the building and trades,” Price said

“What we now know is that while the demand in these fields is growing, there is only one new skilled construction worker for every four skilled construction workers who retire and the average age of a healthcare worker is 47 years old and here again we are not bringing in enough replacements,” Price said. “We also know that possessing basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills coupled with the desire to succeed, are the most important pre-requisites for getting started in these careers that can offer a person a real family wage,” Price said. Unfortunately representation from the San Leandro Unified School district was absent from the meeting. “At the time of the meeting San Leandro high school was in lock down following a race riot there. The occurrence followed several days of racial tension between students and resulted in 10 arrests. “This is just another unfortunate example of why we must do more to let our kids know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that the light is not a freight train coming at them,” Price said.

2006-03-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Three Steps Towards Creating a Viable and Comprehensive County Healthcare Systems

In the coming months and years, Alameda County will be faced by issues that it has never before had to deal with, and our County Supervisors will need to take the lead role in setting the polices that will help our communities flourish and overcome the obstacles that lay ahead. The task at hand will require our County government to work together with other local governments, with the business community, and with the people who actually live here. These partnerships will be crucial to creating new policies and fixing broken policies that if left in place will take a costly toll on all of us.

We are all aware of the concerns about the effect that our baby boomers will have on our country’s social security system. This is such a big issue that it has captured national attention. Just as important is the effect that baby boomers are going to have on our public and private healthcare systems? In the coming years millions upon millions of seniors will be in need of healthcare on an increasing basis as they age and need their health attended to. Our current healthcare system is not prepared to handle this. While others are arguing about the kind of healthcare system we should all have, our County leaders should be making sure that what we have now works.

A plan must be put in place so that we may successfully overcome the monumental challenges ahead. This plan must take into account that all levels of government will play a role in the success or failure of our healthcare system and that all levels of government must begin working together now in order to have any chance at success. There are three issues that are vital to the success of our County’s public hospitals. I have a plan that will protect and improve the quality of Alameda County’s healthcare system, and can be used as a guide to help pubic hospitals throughout our State.

Our state legislature recently passed a law mandating that all hospitals both public and private must meet new seismic standards by the year 2013. That is only 7 years form now. For many of the hospitals in our state, the cost of the retrofit is more than the cost to replace the existing structures.

This situation places our public healthcare system in a frightening predicament. Construction companies have become increasingly wary of bidding on County contracts. With private and public hospitals now competing for these contractors, work on our public hospitals is taking a back seat to private hospital. When projects in the public sector run into new costs, or require changes, a long drawn out process ensues and projects go through a new round of bidding. This causes delays and can mean a change in who’s doing the work. In the private sector this bureaucracy doesn’t exist. Projects go through risk assessments and contingency plans are adopted. New costs can be signed off on. It’s no surprise that construction companies are hesitant to bid on the public jobs. And it should be no surprise that our public hospitals are left in a situation where they are begging for a contractor.

My plan for creating a viable County healthcare system capable of serving our community and the masses of new patients call for establishing new guidelines that will encourage construction companies to bid on public jobs. We must remove the unnecessary obstacles if we are to get the mandated work done by the 2013 deadline, and at a reasonable cost to tax payers.

As our baby boom generation begins to use healthcare facilities with growing frequency, who will be there to provide the care? The average age of a health care worker is 47 years old. When we think about healthcare workers we may think of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists; we already know that we have a shortage of nurses. If we think a little harder we might think of x-ray technicians and nursing assistants. In fact, there are many other positions, all of them required in order to provide comprehensive healthcare. One example is a position called a Clinical Lab Scientist. In California alone there is a need for 700 new Clinical Lab Scientists each year. Yet our state is producing on average, only 70 people each year. These are good jobs that pay about 80 thousand dollars a year. So how are we filling the other 630 jobs? Well, we are bringing talent in from other areas. We need to do more to enable local residents to receive the training needed to become eligible for these jobs.

We must do a better job marketing the great opportunities in healthcare. We must do a better job, preparing people for these opportunities. My plan calls for helping Alameda County residents to qualify for these jobs. Accomplishing this will start in the High schools to create awareness and interest in healthcare as a career. My plan will bring the private and public sectors together, industry and education together, to develop the right strategies for creating awareness, providing the training needed for careers in healthcare, and for funding the effort. Career options that allow people to live a quality life in California are becoming more and more elusive. Good jobs in our healthcare industry can help. These jobs can help more Alameda County residents own their own home. These jobs can help Alameda County residents stay in California, living their California dream.

The Alameda County Medical Center is our County’s healthcare safety net. Tens of thousands of people each year depend on this organization of hospitals and clinics for their healthcare needs. Nearly 25% of the County’s yearly budget goes towards funding this pubic healthcare system. There are many caring and qualified individuals at the Medical Center who work hard everyday under very adverse conditions to provide quality healthcare to the public. There are administrators doing their best to grapple with the ever-present financial challenges that persist at the Medical Center. On top of it all is the Medical Center’s Board of Trustees, which governs the Medical Center.

This Board of Trustees was created in 1998 by our County’s Board of Supervisors. It was decided rightfully I might ad that the County’s healthcare system required more attention then the Supervisors were providing. While the creation of this board provided Supervisors a way to distance themselves from what many considered a failing healthcare system, it failed to create the authority and the accountability that is really needed.

The Board of Trustees consists of up to ten members, all volunteers, who are appointed by the County Board of Supervisors. These individuals come from many walks of life. Some are doctors, some are executives, some are consultants, and some are retired. All are well intentioned, giving what time they can spare to overseeing our County’s healthcare system. After observing this Board of Trustees in action for the past year, and cultivating relationships with the people on the ground doing the work at the Medical Center I am convinced that it lacks accountability and real authority. Unless this changes we are never going to lift the Medical Center up from the hole that it’s currently in.

Our County’s Sheriff’s Department has an operating budget of $239 million dollars and is overseen by the County Sheriff, an elected official accountable to the voters. The County’s District Attorneys office has an operating budget of about $48 million dollars and is overseen by the District Attorney, an elected official who is accountable to the voters. Why is it then that our County’s Medical Center, the overwhelming recipient of a public healthcare budget of $547.8 million dollars, is not overseen by anyone accountable to the voters?

Should the public be entrusting our healthcare safety net to a group of volunteers? Should the public be allowing this group of volunteers to decide how millions upon millions of public dollars are used? And while well intentioned, should we seriously expect individuals with other jobs and careers, to commit the time and energy needed to ensure our County’s healthcare system is viable and comprehensive?

I believe the answer to these questions is no. A better solution is to discontinue this huge bureaucracy that lacks accountability and implement a better model. The model that I have in mind is to create a five seat elected Board of Trustees, one seat for each Supervisory district, accountable to the voters. I have discussed this idea with County Sheriff Charles Plummer and he thinks it is an excellent idea. I have discussed this with Medical Center employees and union leaders and they think it is an excellent idea. And I have talked with other members of the community and they think it is an excellent idea.

We can give our County’s healthcare system a real chance to succeed. We can give voters the right that they deserve, to choose who is running this half billion-dollar a year organization. We can attract qualified individuals who are able to invest 100% of their time into improving efficiency, attending to operational infrastructure, fixing a billing system that is losing about $10 million a year in real revenue, making this a healthcare system and that works. We can create the accountability that the voters deserve and which is so desperately needed if we are to turn our County healthcare system around.

The alternative is to continue with the status quo, of huge deficits, taxpayer bailouts, mismanagement, a lack of trust between employees, and the current Board of Trustees, and the closing of more County hospitals and clinics.

If I am elected to be your County Supervisor, the status qou will not be on my healthcare agenda. I will be focusing on providing solutions to these important issues. I will make sure our public hospitals can compete with private hospitals in attracting contractors to do the work mandated by the state. I will make sure we are training more Californians for careers in healthcare in order to meet the growing demand. And, I will create accountability and authority where currently none exists, by giving voters the final say on who leads and who doesn’t.

Accomplishing these things will give our County’s healthcare system the chance it needs to succeed and to provide the high quality healthcare that everyone deserves.

2005-07-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Starting the Conversation

It is my opinion that in order to properly represent a community of people, that community must be allowed to express their views and know that they are being listened to.

Alameda County government has become very bureaucratic and inaccessible to the people of Alameda County. I believe that County services and government must become more responsive to the voices of the community. Our leaders have a responsibility to facilitate open and honest communication. We must bring transparency to our County government.

I have created this blog so that we can start this new era of transparency right here. This blog will be one of many tools that I will be using during my campaign to communicate with the community.

By visiting my website at http://www.votejimprice.org/, you will be able to read about County issues that I believe are very important and demand our attention. You will also find solutions that I am proposing.

I am eager to hear what issues are important to you, and why. I don't have all the answers, nor am I aware of every issue that might be affecting people in our community.

I will be checking this blog daily and hope that it becomes a useful tool for facilitating our conversation, and bringing more awareness of issues to our community. If you have questions or comments that you would like to make directly to me, please email me at jim@votejimprice.org.

Jim Price For Alameda County Supervisor