Lolita Harper
It was the shot heard 'round City Hall.
Proof of an embattled City Council campaign season was evident
Monday night as Westside candidate Allan Mansoor opened fire,
publicly accusing Mayor Linda Dixon of keeping information from
residents about a proposed health clinic at Rea Elementary School.
During the general comment portion of the City Council meeting,
Mansoor asked Dixon to explain why at the previous council meeting
she told audience members she had no knowledge of a proposed free
health center being planned for the Westside.
At a Newport-Mesa Unified School District board meeting July 23,
trustees Jim Ferryman and Dana Black said they had broached the
subject with the mayor.
Dixon said Monday that clarification was needed but adamantly
denied trying to hide anything from her constituents.
"I do not read minds," Dixon said about school district's plans to
add a clinic to the school grounds. "I did not know about it. It was
not on an agenda."
Dixon, who serves with Councilwoman Karen Robinson as the City
Council liaisons to the Newport-Mesa school board, said trustees
never discussed the possibility of a free clinic at Rea Elementary
School during formal meetings designed to increase communication and
collaboration between the two governing bodies.
Dixon said she did not recall a conversation with Ferryman. If the
subject had been broached at all, it was in a hurried and vague
conversation with Black in which the trustee merely mentioned "a
clinic, " Dixon said. The mayor said she assumed Black was referring
to another health facility.
Black said Tuesday that her conversation with Dixon was rushed but
stood by the fact that she was trying to give the mayor a heads-up
about the proposed facility. Black said she had no formal information
to share with Dixon but wanted to at least make a call.
"We were on cell phones, and I started to tell her and she cut me
off, saying she knew all about it," Black said.
Ferryman could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Westside residents, including Mansoor, have voiced loud opposition
to a partnership between the Children's Hospital of Orange County and
the school board to bring an affordable medical clinic to the
elementary school campus. The center calls for a 4,800-square-foot
building to replace the existing Healthy Start facility next to the
school.
As planned, the center would handle about 9,000 doctor visits
annually by its third year. CHOC would lease the building from the
