Incumbents Differ on Eden Health District’s Fate
The race between two Castro Valley board candidates may help decide the eventual fate of the Eden Health District, founded in 1948 to get the original Eden Hospital built.
Sutter Health now runs the rebuilt Eden Medical Center. San Leandro Hospital, which the district also once owned, is now part of the county’s Alameda Health System. The district now supports multiple smaller-scale ventures in community health.
Roxanne Lewis and Gordon Galvan are both board incumbents, who ended up living in the same board district when the district switched to district elections from at-large starting this year.
Lewis is a retired nuclear and ultrasound technologist at San Leandro Hospital who is seeking her third term on the board. She would like to keep the district mostly as is, no longer running hospitals but helping community clinics serve the area by giving them grants for services they could not afford on their own.
She points to the district’s recent success in early COVID efforts, when they were able to more quickly distribute protective gear to health providers than the county could, and also helped partners quickly set up testing centers. She would like to see more such partnerships.
Lewis said, “The district fills a big void. We’re out in the community, talking to people and seeing what needs to be done.”
The district is one of very few local government agencies that collect no taxes at all from its residents, Lewis said, relying on rents from two buildings it owns.
Galvan is a former San Leandro city council member and former president of the Davis Street Family Resource Center who has been on the Eden board since 2018.
He would like to explore other options for the district, including dissolving it and replacing it with a community-benefit corporation or perhaps a foundation. He believes it could likely accomplish more for the community if it were able to invest its assets with fewer restrictions than they face as a government agency.
“Eden District doesn’t just need ambassadors and good stewards, “Galvan said. “It needs to repurpose itself.”
Galvin also called for better business practices in the district. He said that the board could use more businesspeople on it, and fewer doctors and nurses.
Lewis disagrees and says the community should continue to elect its board, something not explicitly present in some of Galvan’s alternatives.
Galvan says, however, that any change in the district’s status would require further study, a vote by the legislature, and likely a vote by the people. In the meantime, he would like to see more community partnerships to directly provide care.
The current debate echoes one a decade ago when several area politicians tried to shut the district down. That would have moved its assets to Alameda County, then struggling to fund the Alameda Health System.
In 2016, the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) did a special study of Eden District and held public meetings to cast some light on the issue. It concluded in 2017 that the district provided a useful public service and need not be shut down.