By Kate Day
The El Camino Hospital District settled a legal dispute April 25 with Saratoga lawyer Aaron Katz for $200,000, according to hospital Communications Manager Judy Twitchell.
Katz’s suit challenged the $148 million hospital bond measure approved by voters in November 2003 to fund rebuilding in conformity with state seismic regulations.
Katz, who owns property in Mountain View but lives in Saratoga, sought a change in the election laws such that only those who own land in the pertinent district, regardless of where those landowners live, would be eligible to vote on taxpayer-supported bond measures.
Hospital construction could not proceed until the lawsuit was settled. Jon Friedenberg, president of the El Camino Hospital Foundation, said a formal groundbreaking ceremony is now expected in early June.
A confidentiality clause in the agreement prevents either party from commenting on the settlement.
Friedenberg said previously that the hospital believes the lawsuit has no merit and described the prospect of settling the case as “odious.”
“There’s what you’d like to do and then there’s what you need to do,” Friedenberg told the Town Crier last month.
The reconstruction is estimated at $480 million, nearly $200 million more than originally predicted. The settlement comes just before the May 10 deadline, when the hospital would have needed to rebid the publicly funded parts of the project, further escalating costs.
Under reconstruction plans, a new five-story building northeast of the present facility will replace the existing hospital tower. The 450,000-square-foot building will include 300 licensed beds and 16 operating theaters.
The West Valley-Mission Community College District settled its share of the Katz lawsuit for $60,000 last December. The remaining section of the lawsuit, against Campbell Union High School District, is scheduled for oral argument this week before the California Courts of Appeal, Sixth District San Jose.
“My attack against the basic wrong is still very much alive,” Katz said.
