Two races for seats on the Sequoia Healthcare District board

Oct. 10, 2022

By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer

Four candidates are facing off to fill two seats on the Sequoia Healthcare District’s Board, where two challengers are taking on a longtime incumbent and an appointed incumbent.

However, unlike previous times the district’s incumbents have filed in clear slates, for and against the district, the current challengers are interested in keeping the district around and improv-ing the programs the district already offers.

District sold Sequoia Hospital

The district was formed in 1946 to fund Sequoia Hospital with property taxes. In 1996, the hospital was sold to Catholic Healthcare West, now Dignity Health, so the district gives the $9 million in taxes to health care nonprofits in southern San Mateo County. The district spans from part of Foster City to near St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. Until a few years ago, slates, typically led by former board member Jack Hickey, would run against the establishment slates, and advocate to dissolve the district and give the taxes the district collects either back to residents or to other agencies.

In 2018, the district switched to being elected by-district. There are three seats up for grabs, but there are only competitive races in three of the district’s zones. No one filed to run against incumbent Aaron Nayfack in Zone C.

Zone A consists of Belmont east of El Camino Real, Redwood Shores, a pocket of Foster City, and San Carlos east of San Carlos.

Running for that seat is Michael Garb, who was appointed in July after longtime board member Art Faro resigned. Competing against Garb is pharmacist William Fong.

Garb has served on the district’s grants committee for seven years and has served on multiple nonprofit boards. He was on the Belmont-Redwood Shores School Board from 1983-1991 and later became the CEO of StarVista, a nonprofit that provides mental health services for youth in San Mateo County, operating the Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Dental services

Garb says his top priority if elected is to “explore areas” where there “continue to be road blocks to good health.” He wants to focus on decreasing waiting lists for dental services and increasing mental health services. He says he would push to use some of the district’s reserves to address those issues.

Fong is a retired pharmacist and attorney. He’s been endorsed by the San Mateo County Labor Council.

Fong’s top priorities include making sure people who are uninsured can access quality healthcare, increasing mental health evaluations and treatments for all age groups and “vigilant monitoring and timely management of new infectious outbreaks such as monkeypox.”

He says the district can improve by working with other healthcare systems in order to expand its am bulatory care programs.

Second race for the board

Zone E covers most of the western half of the district, covering Belmont west of El Cam ino Real, a portion of Emerald Hills, San Carlos and Woodside and all of Portola Valley.

Jerry Shefren has been on the district’s board since 2010. He’s a retired physician and healthcare executive. His endorsements include Supervisor Don Horsley and Garb.

Shefren says the most important of the district is to improve the health of district residents with an emphasis of providing funds for projects, nonprofits and healthcare organizations that don’t have the necessary resources.

Shefren is focused on dental care in the district, getting dental care to people who have MediCal and can’t find a dentist who will take their insurance or if someone is uninsured. “Dental health is dram atically underfunded and is a source of significant short-term and long-term health problems,” Shefren said.

Shefren says the district spends $4 million of its budget on school districts, including programs to deal with stress and depression. Another highlight is when the district partnered with Sequoia Hospital to provide additional Covid vaccination sites near North Fair Oaks residents who couldn’t get to other sites.

Shefren is running against Belmont resident Ken Loo, a fire captain who works in Contra Costa County. He says his first exposure to the health care board was when he found one of the automatic defibrillators the district had funded to have throughout south county.

However, the AED was in a locked building, defeating the purpose of someone being able to easily assist if someone experienced cardiac arrest. Loo says he believes the district has the best intentions, he wants to make sure the district’s funds are spent in a transparent and responsible manner. He’d like to clearly publish the district’s annual budget on its website.

Loo’s top priorities if elected include funding additional programs that encourage school-age children to have active lifestyles, and to fund programs to get senior residents in the district outside.

Loo also would want to create a program that would get thousands of San Mateo County residents trained in CPR.