Beverly Hills Looks Into Creating Its Own Health Department

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills City Council explored the possibility of forming an independent city health department, which it promised to do last week after passing a resolution opposing Los Angeles County Health Department’s ban on outdoor dining.

In a Tuesday study session, the Council reviewed a 130-page staff report providing preliminary examinations of the potential costs of starting an agency, the responsibilities of that agency, whether the city could join forces with others to create a joint health department, and whether the city could pick and choose which of the extensive list of services offered by LA County Health it would like to use.

Most of these questions remained unanswered or only partially answered by the end of the meeting.

According to the staff report, an independent health department would encompass a vast bureaucracy, and be responsible for everything from providing public health statistics, preventing communicable diseases, lab testing, and more.

In California, only Pasadena, Long Beach, Berkeley, and Vernon have their own health departments. While Vernon is a primarily industrial city with a negligible population whose health department specializes in industrial-related issues, Pasadena, Long Beach, and Berkeley all have at least three times the population of Beverly Hills.

Pasadena, with a population of 141,029, pays $15,558,000 a year for its department that employs 98 personnel. It has also recently made news for retaining outdoor dining, which its independent department made it able to do. Long Beach, with a population of 462,628, pays $157,332,435 and employs 440 personnel. If the city decides to move forward, it would need to adopt a resolution by March 1, and would not be able to begin services until July 1 - likely after the worst of pandemic-based restrictions have passed.

Even though no official estimate of what a department would cost Beverly Hills, councilmembers estimated it would cost at least $7 million, and wondered whether such a significant investment would be worth the expense. Councilmember John Mirisch said he feels the city is too small to be able to support a department.

Mirisch also expressed concern about a potential “balkanization” of health departments, with different departments offering a patchwork of regulations that could undermine overall public health. He also expressed reservations about the potential politicization of the health director role, and asked if the city would inclined to fire a director if it did not approve of their decisions.

Mirisch, who supports the council’s resolution against the County Health Department, advocated supporting a solution proposed by the South Bay Cities Council of Governments, which on Dec. 1 sent a letter to the Department of Public Health requesting that health policies be tailored to individual regions of the county.

“In our County, the largest populated County in the United States, we believe that a ‘one size fits all policy’ is ill-suited for the vast size of our County,” wrote SBCCOG Chair Olivia Valentine. “The County has designated eight districts of our diverse County Health Department into the Service Planning Area (SPA) model whereby the County would have the ability to adopt local restrictions correlating to each specific region.”

“That makes a lot more sense than this overreaction, knee-jerk sort of, they made a decision we don’t like and we’re gonna create our own department for a city of 35,000 - it’s from my perspective a little megalomaniacal,” Mirisch said, also noting that the other California cities have had their health departments since at the 19th century.

Vice Mayor Robert Wunderlich was also lukewarm on the prospect of an independent health department, and was one of several councilmembers to ask if a city health department could share responsibilities with the county department, a question on which staff remained uncertain. Wunderlich expressed doubts that Beverly Hills would have the bandwidth to take on all of LADPH’s responsibilities, and said it would be dangerous to sacrifice the amount of expertise offered by its 5,206 employees.

“This is an area in which significant expertise is needed, and it could be changing expertise at different points in time, and so you need a certain scale to have the people who would have that range of expertise,” Wunderlich said. “LA County is large enough to have that range of expertise - I question whether we are large enough to have that scope of expertise...I think we would be better off spending our resources, time, expertise, building specific things that promote health around the city rather than building the bureaucracy of a public health department.”

Wunderlich also questioned the wisdom of joining forces with other cities, noting they could also make decisions with which Beverly Hills is unhappy.

Councilmember Lili Bosse, who initiated the city’s course of action against LACDPH, was the most enthusiastic about the prospect, noting that Beverly Hills has its own schools, police, and fire departments, and a public health department has the potential to transform the city into one of the “healthiest cities in the world.”

“We always prioritize health, and I think we need to take it to the next step,” she said, pointing out the city’s proximity to UCLA and Cedars-Sinai hospitals. “We want to be among one of the healthiest cities in the world, so I feel it’s a tremendous priority, so I think we not only need to explore this but find a way to make it happen.”

Bosse asked Yap to research what public health authorities Beverly Hills had in place before it contracted with the county health department about 60 years ago. She also asked if the city would be locked into a contract with LACDPH for another five years should it renew its General Service Agreement next year, the legality of sharing responsibilities with LACDPH, and whether neighboring cities could form a joint health department. All answers required more verification.

She also asked Yap to look into the possibility of collaborating with other cities on matters of public health, even if that doesn’t mean a joint health department.

“Is there a way to form something that makes, whether contracting with other cities, working with other cities, or just finding a way for not one size fits all,” Bosse asked. “I think we’re all aware of the cost factor and that we can’t do what LA can do.”

Councilmember Julian Gold, who also said that a city department could present exciting opportunities for Beverly Hills to reassess its own health needs, expressed reservations at joining forces with neighboring cities, noting that they have different demographics and agendas. Gold also wanted to know the cost of creating an independent health department, whether a single health officer would be required for the new department, a more thorough description of county services and which, if any, a Beverly Hills Health Department could complete by itself.

“This is the kind of thing that could cost a ton of money and resources and staff, and if we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna want to do it well,” he said. “I’d be curious to see who else has thought about creating a public health service, and if other cities have done it, how have they done it, and what did it cost.”

Mayor Lester Friedman said the council is exploring this “giant leap” because they were unhappy with the lack of verifiable data supporting the justification for an outdoor dining ban. Friedman said that there is no question that the city cannot assume all the duties and expenses of the county health department, but asked for more information regarding splitting duties with the county while still receiving some of its services, whether the city could employ the current health officer of another city like Pasadena or Berkeley, and what input, if any, the city currently has with LACDPH.

“I think we all need to realize this was a very high-level overview,” he said. “Creating another bureaucracy on the scale of creating this type of bureaucracy would be a giant, giant leap for us - having said that, I don’t think we were unhappy with the decision that County Health made, I think we were unhappy with the way they got to that decision...so if this is a wake-up call for them, so be it.””