King City Rustler

Lindley addresses King City Chamber: Talk focuses on hospital and General Plan

King City Rustler
Posted on March 8, 2006

BY MARC LEBLANC

Following his speech to the King City Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture last Thursday, Monterey County Supervisor Butch Lindley, left, greets Junior Nuno of Nuno Iron and Manufacturing Company in King City.

Butch Lindley, the county supervisor representing South County, spoke to members of the Chamber of Commerce last Thursday at their monthly luncheon. Held at Pozzi's Stampede, the dining hall was crowded with business owners and interested residents.

"There is probably about five and a half hours of things to talk about uninterrupted in county government," Lindley said as he began his speech.
A key topic for Lindley was the financial state of the Natividad Hospital in Salinas.

"It (the hospital) rapidly started to erode about six months ago primarily from a lot of changes on the state and federal level with funding for county hospitals and for people who have no other place to go," said Lindley. "I do not think that Monterey County can run that hospital, they're never going to break even," he added.

"It's running about $2 million a month in the red, say that real fast and it doesn't sound like a lot of money, but I can't speak that fast," he said, noting that he didn't think anything was going to change that and that the county budget was unable to support the operation.

Lindley also took time to speak regarding the debated General Plan Initiative.
Earlier in the week in a 3-2 vote, the Board of Supervisors denied the proposed slow-growth initiative from being placed on the June ballot, stating the measure had defects and was flawed. Lindley was part of the majority rejecting the measure.

"In this same room, how many years ago, three or so, I talked about the General Plan," he said. "The current General Plan that's been working its way through the county for six years, in my opinion, is pretty good."

Lindley mentioned that the geographic center of the county is between King City and Greenfield, yet the bulk of the county's population doesn't consider those in the valley when thinking about the general plan.

"How can you have one general plan that works in Pebble Beach and Parkfield? That's what we're trying to do. If you haven't been to those places, let me assure you, they're different," Lindley said jokingly.

"There is a very small vocal minority of individuals, some who don't even live in this county, who have decided that they know better and what they want is correct," he said, referring to the non-profit organization LandWatch that proposed the initiative.

"They're there everyday, at every meeting, whining and carrying on about the same things, and I'll tell you, there's a small group of them, and they got a lot of money, and a lot of lawyers, and I'm not very popular with that group, you can bet," Lindley said.

Late Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Lindley and two other supervisors refused to put the initiative on the ballot, initiative backers filed a lawsuit stating the supervisors had violated state law. In addition, there is a second pending lawsuit from three Latino county residents stating that the initiative supporters violated the federal Voting Rights Act by failing to make petition materials available in Spanish.

"They got 15,000 people to sign their petition, and it was probably done incorrectly. The court's going to decide that," Lindley said.

"So we're going to work our way through this and there is going to be a lot of gnashing of teeth and screaming and yelling and whining and bitching and all the other things that go on," he added.

Butch Lindley has been on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors since 2002. He announced earlier this month that he would not be seeking another term.