Torrance Municipal Code § 23.1 General Provisions and Definitions

This Chapter may be cited as the City of Torrance Health Facility Revenue Bond Law.

The City Council hereby finds and declares that it is necessary, essential, a public purpose and a municipal affair for the City to be authorized to provide financing to health institutions within the City that provide essential services to residents of the City in order to aid such health institutions in containing costs and thereby to enable such health institutions to establish lower rates and charges than would otherwise prevail and to provide better service at such rates and charges. Unless the City intervenes to provide such financing, such rates and charges may increase at an ever accelerated pace because such health institutions cannot obtain financing at equivalent cost from private sources.

Unless the context otherwise requires, the terms defined in this Chapter shall have the following meanings:

a) Bond means any bonds, notes, certificates, debentures or other obligations issued or entered into by the City pursuant to this Chapter and payable exclusively from revenues as in this Chapter defined and from any other funds specified in this Chapter upon which such obligations may be made a charge and from which they are made payable.

b) City means the City of Torrance.

c) Cost means the total of all costs incurred by or on behalf of a participating health institution necessary or incident to the acquisition, construction, rehabilitation or improvement of a health facility, or the refunding or refinancing of obligations incurred to finance such acquisition, construction, rehabilitation or improvements as are approved by the City as reasonable and necessary for carrying out all works and undertakings necessary or incident to acquisition, construction, financing or refinancing of a health facility.

d) Council means the City Council of the City of Torrance.

e) Health facility means any facility, place or building within the City which is maintained and operated for the diagnosis, care, prevention and treatment of human illness, physical or mental, including convalescence, rehabilitation and care during and after pregnancy or for any one or more of these services, and which provides and will continue providing to residents of the City essential health care services designated as such in an agreement between the City and the participating health institution providing or operating such facility, place or building.

Health facility includes a portion of one of the above types of facilities and includes the following facilities if operated in conjunction with one of the above types of facilities: a laboratory, a laundry, a nurses’ or interns’ residence, a housing facility for patients, staff or employees and the families of any of them, an administration building, an office building, a research, maintenance, storage, utility or parking facility and all structures or facilities related to any of the foregoing or required or useful for the operation of a health facility.

Health facility shall not include any facility or building used or to be used primarily for sectarian instruction or study or as a place for devotional activities or religious worship.

f) Participating health institution means a private nonprofit corporation or association authorized by the laws of the State to provide or operate a health facility as defined in this Chapter and which, pursuant to the provisions of this Chapter, undertakes the financing of the acquisition and construction of a health facility or undertakes the refunding or refinancing of obligations incurred to finance the acquisition and construction of a health facility.

g) Revenues means amounts received by the City as repayment of principal, interest, and all other charges with respect to a loan under this Chapter, any proceeds received by the City from mortgage, hazard or other insurance on or with respect to such a loan, all other rents, charges, fees, income and receipts derived by the City from the financing or refinancing of a health facility under this Chapter, any amounts received by the City as investment earnings on moneys deposited in a reserve fund or any similar fund securing bonds, and such other moneys as the Council may, in its discretion lawfully designate as revenues.