ANTELOPE VALLEY: PUBLIC FORUM : ELECTED BOARD NEEDS PUSH TO BUILD PALMDALE HOSPITAL.

Now that Antelope Valley Hospital appears to be on a sound financial footing and our local economy seems promising, the time has come to build a hospital in the southern part of the valley.

It is time to give the southern part a medical facility. These residents have been neglected too long.

It is the duty of the elected directors of the public hospital district to provide hospital care for people throughout the Antelope Valley, including the southern part.

A hospital is a costly project and could well take several years to complete. It took five years to plan Antelope Valley Hospital, which opened in October 1955, but with the district in place and financing available from several sources, let's get started on a south Antelope Valley facility.

So, how to start? First, with the five directors. Let's put their feet to the fire - maybe through letters or phone calls and, of course, in the media. Let's make sure they get it on their agenda.

I don't believe any of the directors is opposed to a south valley facility, but I don't believe there has been enough groundswell for the board to prioritize it.

It is ridiculous that Palmdale, a city of more than 100,000 people, doesn't have a hospital. I wonder if there is another city in the United States of comparable size that has that problem?

So let's go after the directors. When can we schedule the ground breaking?

A.G. ``Mark'' Marquardi

Lancaster

Delay on hospital unfairly costs city

PALMDALE - Why is the city of Palmdale giving the county $20,000 to set up an emergency room on Palmdale Boulevard and 15th Street East?

The southern part of the Antelope Valley is in the Antelope Valley Hospital District. We all voted to establish the district in 1955 and were taxed to buy the land and build the hospital facility.

When the first site was purchased at Avenue J and 15th Street West, a second site was to be purchased in the south end of the district to construct a second facility in the Palmdale-Littlerock area when the population grew.

As a matter of fact, the hospital district did purchase and now owns property in the southeast part of Palmdale.

Now is the time to build and operate a hospital in Palmdale. The Lancaster facility is worth some $152 million - a net asset of more than $80 million, with almost $7 million in excess revenues this year.

Hospital district officials are planning to spend more than $1 million to enlarge the Lancaster emergency room. That money should be spent in Palmdale and the southern part of our district.

Art Wallace

Palmdale

Proposal to move fairgrounds is silly

LANCASTER - Some of us predicted from the outset that the Lancaster Factory Stores would sooner or later end up as a commercial ghetto.

It has happened sooner rather than later. It might be wise to recall the mayor and his two like-voting members of the City Council before they get us into a similar real-estate boondoggle, with losses to the taxpayers, through the proposed moving of the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds.

Bill Baer

Lancaster