Outdated facilities create difficult environment at SJ's Public Health Services

July 29--STOCKTON -- Using matter-of-fact language, the three-page report bluntly expressed a need that was emerging for San Joaquin County'sPublic Health Services department.

"One of the most critical issues that Public Health must address," the county report said, "is the inadequacy of its existing facilities."

The date of the report was Aug. 16, 1989. But nearly 29 years later, Public Health's 20,000-square-foot main facility at Wilson Way and Hazelton Street remains intact, though definitely showing its age.

Employees today have a range of complaints:

--Entryway sidewalks buckle because of overgrown tree roots.

--The building's heating and cooling systems are unreliable.

--The plumbing occasionally backs up and causes widespread, if shallow, indoor flooding.

--The 55-year-old building's electrical system is no match for the needs of 2018.

--The existence of multiple entry points from the street raise security concerns.

In 2002, a consultant for the county wrote, "The current mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure is inadequate for the current building and has outlived its useful life by about 20 years. It is difficult to improve, hard to maintain and not easily controlled. It is undersized to provide adequate service in terms of basic air conditioning, additional power outlets, etc."

Tammy Evans, the county's director of Public Health Services, said the outdated building creates a difficult work environment and sends a bad message to her agency's low-income clientele.

Evans said, "People come here and say, 'We don't have nice facilities here because we're poor.' "

The site serves many important functions. It's where you can go for birth and death certificates; a place to receive affordable primary care; a home to wellness-related classes on matters ranging from child-seat safety to nutrition; and a testing site for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

"STDs are at record-high rates," Evans said. "We don't want to have any barriers for people to come in and get treated."

Evans says she would like to see a new building soon, but financing and a multiplicity of demands on the county's dollars have stood in the way for years.

"The County will require Public Health to evaluate additional potential funding streams in order to fund any finalized project," said a written statement from San Joaquin County officials, who declined to answer questions. "Also, going forward a project will need to reflect changes in our community and offerings by the private sector in order to appropriately build a facility that will not only handle the services and needs of our community today, but into the future as well."

County documents from 1989 state that a new 75,000-square-foot facility built at the time would have cost $9.1 million, though if that building had been constructed, it also might have been nearing the end of its useful life by now. Today, a new 100,000-square-foot facility might cost $40 million.

As daunting as that number is, it's not completely unreachable -- thanks, ironically, to the unhealthy side effects of tobacco use.

In 1998, the four largest U.S. tobacco producers reached a financial settlement with attorney generals from coast-to-coast. This fiscal year, the county allocated $3.65 million in tobacco-settlement funds to health care facilities, including Public Health Services. Since 2010, the county says it has accumulated $37.4 million in tobacco funds to be used for health-care facilities.

Last Aug. 22, County Supervisors agreed to pay a Sacramento-based architectural firm more than $480,000 to create plans for new Public Health Services facilities at Hazelton and Wilson. According to a report from last August, the work by the architect -- Dreyfuss+Blackford -- was projected to take nine months.

Today, a two-paragraph synopsis of the project appears on the Dreyfuss+Blackford website. The proposed building, it says, would consolidate Public Health Services and the county's Health Care Services agency, and include a new health clinic and laboratory, along with a Biosafety Lab to test for tuberculosis, encephalitis, West Nile and other viruses.

The county's statement this week said it "is still actively looking at all of its options both from a fiscal and service perspective" regarding a new health facility.

Eleven-plus months since Dreyfuss+Blackford was awarded the county's contract, its plans have not yet been released publicly. But it's clear that, just as was the case in 1989, the county recognizes the need for new facilities on the Public Health campus -- two new buildings at Hazelton and Wilson.

Proof of the county's awareness is a report it released nearly a year ago. It said, "The Hazelton Avenue and Wilson Way buildings have outlived their useful life in their current as-is condition."

Contact reporter Roger Phillips at (209) 546-8299 or rphillips@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @rphillipsblog.

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