Roberti Will Seek Funds to Revive Trauma Net

SACRAMENTO —  Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti said Tuesday that he hopes to rescue Los Angeles County’s financially struggling trauma center network by pressing for legislation containing a $20-million appropriation for trauma centers statewide.

“We would never get an override. We would like to see if we can get a bill passed,” Roberti told reporters, outlining a plan to revive an appropriation for trauma centers that was knocked out of the budget last week by Gov. George Deukmejian.

The appropriation would be divided by California’s counties but Los Angeles County, with the largest population and the most hospitals, would receive the largest share of the money. In the budget sent to the governor by the Legislature, amounts of $10 million to more than $13 million were set aside for Los Angeles trauma centers.

Called ‘Unconscionable’

Roberti called Deukmejian’s veto of the trauma center money “unconscionable.”

Since 1983, four hospitals have been forced to drop out of Los Angeles County’s original 23-hospital network of trauma centers, Roberti said. First to go was California Hospital Medical Center in 1985, then Pomona Valley Community Hospital in 1986. This year, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital announced that they had to drop out because of budget cuts.

In all, Deukmejian vetoed $663 million in proposed spending to pare the new state budget down to $40.5 billion.

Roberti said he plans to amend the trauma center appropriation into a health services bill carried by Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) that is awaiting a hearing in the Assembly Health Committee. Roberti said he thinks he has a better chance of getting Deukmejian’s signature on a bill than he would have in getting Republican votes to override the governor’s veto.

Veto overrides require the support of two-thirds of the lawmakers in both houses--27 votes in the Senate and 54 in the Assembly. In order to get that many votes, Democrats need Republican votes and so far they have not been able to get them to break ranks with the Republican governor.

Roberti and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), appearing in back-to-back news conferences at the Capitol, agreed that they have no chance of overriding any of the vetoes.

Even so, Roberti said, he will call for several override votes because of political considerations, in addition to the separate action on trauma centers. Roberti wants to force Republican lawmakers to vote on a $7-million cut that will force the dismantling of the state’s industrial worker safety program and another veto that will deny health benefits to Capitol elevator operators.

Calls Action ‘Mean’

The Senate leader called the health benefits cut “the pettiest of pettiness.” Roberti said elevator operators work part time and have no health benefits. He called the governor’s action “mean.”

As for pressing for an override vote on the worker safety cut, Roberti said that even though he thought it had no chance of success he considered it a good political move.

“We’re raising the flag and letting people know how we stand,” said Roberti, who represents the Hollywood and Los Feliz areas in the Senate.

The Assembly Speaker said he is not planning any similar moves. “There is no chance to override any of the vetoes,” Brown said at his own press conference.

Brown said lawmakers will forget about budget issues during the course of the summer recess, which begins Friday. “We’ll go away for a month and come back and most of us will have forgotten about the budget,” the Speaker said.

Issue Could Resurface

Brown said the issue of Deukmejian’s cuts in health and education programs “won’t resurface again until people start being laid off about the 1st of October and kids can’t get into classrooms and schools.”

Such a scenario, Brown said, might “be sufficient to stir some interest in new legislation for some appropriations. Maybe the governor will develop a streak of human kindness and offer some money to (urban school districts) and to trauma centers.”

In other comments, Roberti acknowledged that his abrupt dismissal of Coastal Commission member Gilbert Contreras last week before a key commission vote came about because he had learned that the commissioner was going to vote in favor of supporting Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s plans to sink exploratory wells in the Pacific Palisades.

Roberti called Contreras an “honorable man” but said he has no regrets about removing him during a commission meeting. “I certainly am not going to apologize for it,” Roberti said. “We had a fundamental disagreement over a major issue.”

‘Surprised’ by Action

Contreras, who said he was “surprised” by his sudden removal from the commission, sat on the coastal planning board “at the pleasure” of the Senate Rules Committee, controlled by Roberti.

Contreras was replaced by Rules Committee staff member Christine Minnehan. Despite Roberti’s efforts, the commission went ahead and approved the Occidental project on a 7-5 vote.

Roberti, known for hardball politics, said the decision was easy. “When I felt it was clear that Mr. Contreras was going to vote for the drilling, I had no option,” he said.

He added, “I don’t like hurting somebody in public but I think I would have felt a lot worse if I had to wake up the day after and find that an appointee of the Senate Rules Committee was the seventh vote to begin the drilling off the coast of California and, in effect, begin the denouement of the California coastline.”