Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center has now been on the market for four years. With its ground lease set to expire in February 2009, selling the hospital has taken on an urgency that has led Assemblyman Lloyd Levine and State Sen. Sheila Kuehl to introduce bills they hope will impel Tenet, the hospital’s parent company, and HCP Inc., the real estate investment trust that owns the land under the hospital, to reach an agreement that would allow for a purchase. “Hopefully we can put pressure on both Tenet and the REIT to come to a resolution,” Levine said. “We’ve had three hospitals close in the Valley in the last five years, not counting Children’s Community Mental Health Center. I don’t want to see this hospital close.” Amid rumors that HCP Inc. plans to turn the medical center into condominiums, Kuehl’s SB 1734 seeks to prevent REITs that own land occupied by a hospital from changing or terminating a lease or selling any interest in the real property if it were to result in a hospital closure or reduction of care. “I think it’s a critical situation when there’s a possibility that the real estate investment trust could turn the facility over to a non-hospital operator, and so that’s what got me to do the legislation,” Kuehl explained. “If there’s going to be a sell or lease it has to be approved by the Department of Public Health. And that approval would be impossible, if they were turning it to anything other than a health facility.” Kuehl’s bill also requires mediation between the REIT and the hospital operator in the event that they are unable to come to a resolution. Meanwhile, Levine’s AB 2715 would require the owner or operator of a for-profit general acute care hospital to provide patients with a level of care that equals or exceeds the care provided the previous year. In addition, Levine’s bill would prohibit hospital operators from decreasing the amount of expenditures by more than 10 percent from the previous year if it would adversely affect the level of care provided. The combined goal of the bills is to ensure that Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center continues to function as is and that Tenet and HCP reach an agreement. Since early 2004, the hospital has been on the market. It was one of 19 hospitals Tenet put up for sale because it couldn’t afford to make state-mandated seismic upgrades, a requirement that arose after Valley hospitals were damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Because neither the Encino campus, built in 1954, nor the Tarzana campus, built in 1973, was harmed during the quake, Tenet wasn’t eligible to receive Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance. It is likely that a new buyer would have to totally reconstruct the hospital because of the staggering cost of seismic upgrades. Kuehl said that the ongoing uncertainty about the hospital’s future has been difficult for the community. Levine is hopeful that the legislation he and Kuehl have proposed will ensure that the terms under which the hospital can be sold will make its future auspicious. “I’ve been working over the past several years with the hospital staff, doctors and nurses,” he said. “Our goal has been to keep the hospital open. We don’t want to see any beds close. We can’t afford to lose any more beds.” Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini called the legislators’ efforts noble, but he also stressed that he wished they would have waited to introduce the bills. “While we understand the desired effect and we appreciate their level of concern, we share their level of concern, and we need to work with the system to let the transition move forward without interference,” Campanini said. “We are very concerned about the potential interference of third parties that could destabilize the delicate balance that both Tenet and HCP have worked hard to achieve so far.” Campanini said that Tenet and HCP have recently reached a proposed settlement agreement, which he called the first step of the final phase to transition the hospital to a new operator. Campanini said that the proposed bills could jeopardize any pending transactions. “New operators come into a hospital to overcome the challenges that led to the divesture,” he said. “Dealing with proposed legislation could further destabilize a transition process.” Campanini added, however, that the bills might be irrelevant, as it is possible that the hospital could be sold before they are passed. Kuehl disagreed with him that the bills amounted to interference. “I guess if it hadn’t been going on for four years they could call it interference,” she said. “Unless we take an interest, it could roll on even longer.” Encino-Tarzana Regional Center Medical Center Chief of Staff Dr. Wayne Kleinman felt likewise, as did the hospital’a board of governors head Lee Alpert. Kleinman, for one, believes that negotiations over the sale price have been more of an issue than finding a qualified buyer. “We’ve been told there is a very interested, well-qualified, experienced and well-funded nonprofit hospital group in Los Angeles that wants to buy the hospital and continue it as an acute care hospital,” he said. “We’ve also been told the third party has come to an agreement with the REIT and with Tenet, so the only roadblock that remains is for Tenet and the REIT to come to an agreement. Tenet leases other facilities from this same REIT in other states. Tenet claims that the REIT is trying to use this situation to renegotiate the existing leases at other facilities at more favorable, more profitable rates to the REIT. If it was a single hospital transaction, it would have been a done deal by now.” Alpert said that, from reading the legislation, he doesn’t understand how Campanini considers it to be interference. “They have to understand we’re not trying to cause harm,” he said of Tenet executives. “Tenet says they’re going to sell the hospital, and, if the REIT is willing to sell the hospital, then just sell the darn thing, particularly if you have ready, willing buyers. We know they’re out there, so stop playing the numbers game and get this sale completed. There’s more to it than the bricks and mortar. We’re looking at human lives. “

NEW YORK — HBO said Sunday that Entertainment President Carolyn Strauss was leaving her post at the premium cable channel, where she helped develop programs such as “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under” and foster an environment that attracted top-notch creative talent. The HBO veteran is in discussions about taking on a new role with the network, probably in the form of a producing deal, a person familiar with the talks said. Her departure was first reported on the blog Deadline Hollywood Daily. Colleagues who talked to Strauss over the weekend said she didn’t elaborate on the reasons for making the move. In the last few years, HBO has struggled to maintain its standing as a top purveyor of culturally resonant hits with the conclusion of popular fare including “Deadwood” and “Sex and the City.” For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-hbo17mar17,1,5013994.story

I propose a new best seller for our bookstores: “The Dummies Guide on How to Start a Recession.” The paperback will be retitled “Recession Recipes for Today.” First, we need an economy that is running smoothly and with almost everyone working. Then we need to get the Feds, the owners of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and a few network news anchormen in one room. We add a few self-serving politicians to create a little spice. Then mix in a rise in interest rates and sprinkle in several “talking heads” talking about runaway inflation and suggesting that we should have another meeting to raise rates. We continue to mix this awhile, increase interest rates 17 times and make sure the media is all pumped up to warn us that a recession is soon to pop out of the oven. Add a few celebrities to the news to continue to keep the public’s attention, and most importantly, continue to fill the news with warnings of the slowing economy and predicting how retailers will be struggling in the coming months. Now the public is preparing for the worst; individuals are reducing their purchases and businesses are delaying capital improvements and reconsidering expansion plans. Yes, the media is right: a recession is coming. The economy is slowing down and businesses are laying off five to 10 percent of their labor force to survive. The media continues to promote the coming recession, and with continued higher interest rates, people are now losing their homes. Who should we blame for all this? What new regulations can we add to make it more difficult for businesses in the future? Our elected officials will, of course, point their collective fingers at real estate lenders and brokers for letting first-time home buyers purchase homes that they could not remotely afford. They should have disclosed that the home buyer’s income might not keep up with the doubling and tripling of their mortgage payments. Will the government come to the rescue by changing the rules to allow the unqualified home buyers to sit back and enjoy their new luxuries? Yes, the government will be here to save all these unfortunate opportunists who just wanted the American Dream before they collected their Social Security. The government will fix everything after they punish the lenders, the brokers and Wall Street for letting unqualified home buyers purchase homes they never should have bought. The good news is that with our government’s cure to this problem, we all get to share in paying for these unqualified homebuyer’s mistakes. We will pay in higher interest rates and fees, we will pay in depressed real estate values, and we will pay in higher taxes. Now, for those 95 percent of us who are fortunate enough to have kept our jobs and homes during the media-hyped recession, let’s talk about our own Los Angeles home front. We can continue to listen to the local politicians who want more affordable housing while at the same time causing developers years of delays, concocting all kinds of new and extra fees, and burdening them with burdensome and time-consuming paperwork. Our elected representatives never seem to realize that the unnecessary delays necessitate additional interest expense, require the hiring of ex-government employees turned consultants, and that adding all kinds of specialists will add significant costs to a project. Our local officials just want to strut in and wave their magic wand of new taxes and fees, raising false hopes that milking developers will correct financial problems, many of them of their own making. They want to add a new fee on to each parcel to fight crime. They add a fee to keep our trauma centers open while they are still closing them. Now they want us to be responsible for replacing or repairing the sidewalks in front of our homes when we sell them. (This is after already being levied a hefty transfer tax fee of thousands of dollars.) It’s nice that they want to move another governmental responsibility onto the already over-burdened homeowner. If you review your property tax bills, you will be amazed at how many voter-approved fees and taxes have been added on, with services promised and (possibly) forthcoming. If our political leaders spent more time making the system more efficient and less wasteful, they would not have to create new fees to solve their excessive spending. They would be amazed at the results. No matter the rate of inflation, our government looks for a way to increase spending at a higher level. What many of our elected officials are really cooking us is a recipe for disaster our city’s financial disaster. Rickey M. Gelb is managing general partner of Gelb Enterprises, a real estate development and property management company.

SACRAMENTO — — In a Capitol increasingly riven by partisan bickering and bitterness, one of the few steady hands lawmakers have counted on to rise above it all and bring clarity to policy issues is Elizabeth Hill. But on Thursday, she announced that she is calling it quits. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-analyst14mar14,1,4456510.story

A civil jury acquitted two doctors in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of actor John Ritter. Ritter, 54, died in 2003 on the set of his hit show “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.” In acquitting radiologist Matthew Lotysch and cardiologist Joseph Lee, the jurors found that Ritter’s death could have been prevented, the Los Angeles Times reported. The trial in Los Angeles Superior Court in Glendale centered on whether Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank should have recognized that Ritter had a tear in the largest blood vessel in the body when he sought treatment for chest pain that had begun earlier that day while he was on the set of his show, the Times reported. The family already has received more than $14 million in settlements, according to court records, including $9.4 million from Providence St. Joseph, the Times reported.

Olympic gold medalist and 20-time World Champion swimmer Michael Phelps will be featured in a national campaign for PowerBar, according to the company. With the tagline “Power to Push,” the campaign is designed to offer a window into athletes’ minds as they battle physical and emotional barriers to reach their goals, reported Glendale-based PowerBar, a division of Nestle USA Inc. The campaign will include television, print and online advertising as well as event marketing and consumer engagement opportunities. The 30-second Phelps television commercial debuted March 12 on the Discovery Channel. It features the world-famous swimmer in the water amongst sharks, a metaphor for his foray into the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The commercial will air on targeted sports programming through Fall 2008 including ESPN, TNT, and The Tour de France on Versus.

In mixed news for biotech giant Amgen Inc., a Food and Drug Administration panel recommended Thursday that doctors continue to prescribe the company’s lucrative anemia drugs for patients with cancer. But the panel suggested scaling back which patients should be treated based on their type of cancer and the severity of the disease. The recommendations could lead to further sales declines in the company’s blockbuster drug Aranesp. Thousand Oaks-based Amgen makes an identical product that is sold under the name Procrit by Johnson & Johnson. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amgen14mar14,1,3880329.story

A restructuring in operations helped Superior Industries International Inc. to post a positive net income for both the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year. In recent years the Van Nuys-based manufacturer of aluminum wheels for major car makers has closed domestic plants, sold it suspension component business and ramped up production at a new facility in Mexico. “The improvements in Superior’s financial performance for 2007 compared to 2006 indicate that our multi-year restructuring program is delivering the positive operating results we have been working hard to achieve,” said Chairman, President and CEO Steven Borick. Superior reported net income of $5.8 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, on revenues of $229.2 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31. For the same period in 2006, the company had a net loss of $5.3 million, or a loss of $0.20 per diluted share, on revenues of $212 million. For the 2007 fiscal year, the company reported net income of $10.3 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, on revenues of $956.9 million. For fiscal 2006, the company had a net loss of $11.6 million, or a loss of $0.43 per diluted share, on revenues of $789.9 million.

Southern California home prices are now 19% below their peak last year, and the surprisingly rapid decline is leading experts to predict that the housing slump will be worse than initially thought — surpassing the severe downturn of the 1990s. Home values also plunged 19% during the last real estate bust, but that was over a six-year period ending in 1997. Prices have now fallen just as much in less than a year. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-homes14mar14,1,1380779.story

Wachovia Corp., which continues to defend its $24 billion purchase of a California mortgage lender, said the downturn in the nation’s housing market is nowhere near over. Speaking to analysts on a Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. conference call, Chief Risk Officer Don Truslow said, “It feels like we have a ways to go.” Using a baseball analogy, Truslow said he didn’t know if the downturn was in the third, fourth or fifth inning. He added “we’re still before the seventh inning stretch.” Read the full story at