The city of West Covina could get approval to create its own public health department by the end of the year, more than three years after the idea was first floated amid the covid pandemic and business community backlash against state and county mandates.
At stake is whether the city becomes one of only a handful of municipal health departments in the state, and potentially millions of dollars that would fund the new department.
At their March 19 meeting, the West Covina City Council voted 4-1 to approve a contract with the Long Beach Public Health Department to provide laboratory testing services, which would be among the first planks the city nails down as it attempts to build their new department from scratch.
The effort began in late 2020, as some residents called for more local control to circumvent state mandates in response to the pandemic that shuttered businesses and took students learning online. At that time — nearing the height of lockdown angst — West Covina was just one among more than a dozen cities in the state that began looking into operating their own public health departments.
Three years later, while most other cities have seen their interest drop off, found the move impractical, or taken a wait-and-see approach, the city of West Covina has added a public health director department and officer position to their municipal code, informed the county public health department that they won’t be needing their health officer services, and is working with the state public health department toward obtaining approval.
City officials said they expect the green light to come as early as the end of the year, which would make West Covina just the fourth city in the state to operate their own public health department, after Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon.
They hope with it will come more responsiveness to local needs, after the city’s experience with L.A. County Public Health Department through the pandemic.
“During the COVID pandemic, we had that issue here where we’re begging the county to give the resource to our West Covina residents,” Councilmember Letty Lopez-Viado said. “Obviously, they are so huge and they cater to, you know, the other cities. But we were begging.”
However West Covina Mayor Brian Tabatabai, the lone dissenter in the vote, is questioning the whole process — from the need, to the approach, and the budget — and trying to stop the already in-motion plan before it’s implemented.
Tabatabai said he believes the city hasn’t followed best practices in its process, describing the move as a “knee-jerk reaction” that has put them in a reactive position since.
When the city directed staff to move forward with creating the department in 2021, which he opposed, Tabatabai said it was done without first conducting a study on whether West Covina residents have a need or would be better served by a city-run public health department.
“I can’t imagine any municipality going forward without doing any work or background. It seems just like a non negotiable,” he said. “Before you’re going to create this whole new bureaucracy, you would have done some legwork. You would have done some study.”
According to Tabatabai, the city has also not shared any data on preliminary budget or staffing estimates, or comparisons with other cities, which was also a red flag for him.
However, West Covina Health Director Dr. Basil Vassantachart said on Tuesday that with the department, and even the state regulations surrounding it, still in flux, it would be irresponsible to bring any early estimates to the council.
“We do have some planning, we do have some staffing ratios, but we don’t want to release those data until we get the final regulation package,” Vassantachart said. “If we release those numbers at this time, it will potentially be mislabeled as misinformation to the city council and I just hate to do that.”
As it’s been decades since any city has applied to create their own public health department (the city of Vernon was the most recent, in the 1980s) the California Department of Public Health is updating its regulations, guidelines, and application process.
West Covina will have to wait until the proposed rules go through various state departments and a public comment period before the regulations are finalized — allowing the city to estimate costs and get their application approved. The county will continue to provide the city with public health services until West Covina’s new department is running.
As part of the steps toward creating the department, the city is conducting a community needs assessment to determine what services West Covina residents need most.
With the department’s makeup still being decided, the council also discussed the possibility of creating a public health department that could serve the region.
“I do feel that our L.A. County Health Department is just too big to take care of all of us,” Council member Rosario Diaz said. “If we had a health department in our city, I don’t believe that it would just take care of our constituents in our city, I believe that it would take care of the region, this area of the San Gabriel Valley.”
A report from the city of San Dimas provided by Tabatabai, estimated a new public health department would cost between $60 million and $90 million in startup costs, and around $10 million to $15 million per year in operations.
About 1% of West Covina property taxes are collected by the county for services it provides to the city, about one-third of which funds public health services. If West Covina’s public health department is approved, those will continue to be collected by the county.
Should the city be able to move forward with the new department, the city proposes administering services under two main categories: environmental health and medical services administration.
West Covina envisions building up the health department through a network of contracted services that would provide the necessary services required by the state. To that end, the city used nearly $1 million in American Rescue Plan funds to contract with Transtech and Constant Associates to set up the department, providing consultants, analysts, project managers, inspectors and staff members.
The environmental health component of the department is proposed to be funded through self-sustaining service fees.
One key, required component of operating a local public health department is having access to a public health lab, making this month’s agreement with the Long Beach Public Health Department critical in the process, since a city-owned lab would be impractical.
Proponents of the move, made up of the other four members of the city council, say the change – which would still need to be approved by the City Council – would make West Covina safer, more able to respond to local data, and give it more autonomy over public health decisions.
“This is very important for our future, everybody knows a new virus will attack us again,” said Council member Tony Wu, who first proposed the department. “How will we monitor our population, and make sure our children in the schools and senior population are safe?”
