Councilman Richard Alarcon put on his boxing gloves and came out fighting against Providence Holy Cross Medical Center on Tuesday for depicting him as opposed to the hospital's expansion plans soon to reach his colleagues on the Los Angeles City Council.

Recent ads placed in local news media by Holy Cross Medical Center encourages readers to call Alarcon and tell him to support the $143-million hospital wing initially approved by the city's Planning Commission.

Alarcon said the hospital should do the responsible thing and conduct an environmental impact report on the Rinaldi Street project in the Northeast Valley where residents deserve all of the protections like other cities demand and get.

A retired Holy Cross surgeon, Timothy Germann and CARE, Community Advocates for Responsible Expansion at Providence Holy Cross, a local nonprofit coalition of civil rights, community, environmental and labor organizations, supported by Alarcon, filed appeals last month.

"I'm here to correct the record," Alarcon said at a news conference held in City Hall where about 50 coalition supporters attended. "Everybody that I've talked to in the northeastern San Fernando Valley supports the expansion with responsible environmental impact studies. This is a health-care organization that should support a good environment, and all we are asking in the north San Fernando Valley is that they do the responsible thing and conduct a full environmental impact report."

Alarcon said as a faith-based organization, Holy Cross is using a media savvy consultant to send inaccurate and false messages.

"We don't appreciate Holy Cross avoiding being environmentally responsible and shucking the responsibility to do an EIR. I will stand up to Holy Cross and inform my colleagues that Holy Cross needs to be environmentally responsible," he said. "I will stand up with the Neighborhood Councils, with LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy), I will stand up for the community for a full EIR."

The new, 97-foot-high wing at the Rinaldi Street and Indian Hills Road campus in Mission Hills includes 101 new beds, with the potential to add 35 more, along with a neonatal intensive-care center and a tower 7 feet from the curb versus the required 25 feet.

The city's planning commission unanimously approved the proposed four-story hospital wing on July 26. Commissioners said any impacts caused by the project could be corrected and that the hospital agreed to perform more mitigation measures than required.

Critics say if the hospital performed an environmental impact report when it started the project in 2005, it would have been completed by now and the expansion would have broken ground. Hospital officials say they follow the direction of the city's planning department.

Alarcon accused the hospital of being profit driven and not community driven, focused on its pocket book and building a wing that will not address the community's needs or address the high rate of diabetes, asthma and obesity. Hospital spokesman Dan Boyle said the hospital already has programs to battle those diseases at the medical center.

Holy Cross registered nurse Kelly Kurcz, director of emergency services and trauma care, spoke to the City Council after the news conference. "We are continually savings lives every day. Hospitals all over the city are closing. We are trying to expand," Kurcz said. "Let us build.We can't wait."

Hospital officials said conducting an environmental impact report will not only delay the project 18 months to 24 months, it will also cost up to $40 million that could otherwise be spent on needed health-care services.

But Fernando Rejon, leadership development director at Pacoima Beautiful, an environmental justice and health, community-based, nonprofit organization, said the hospital has fought tooth and nail against conducting an environmental impact report.

"We demand respect and are moving forward as a coalition. We support an EIR to make sure residents are heard and needs are protected like any other community," Rejon said. "We are mostly a community of color, of low income. Holy Cross should listen to the community and not be disrespectful. The Northeast Valley is tired of being ignored."

The medical center has performed a traffic and parking study, but critics say it's flawed.

Coalition members question why environmental impact reports were required for hospital expansions in higher-income communities such as Santa Monica, Santa Clarita and Beverly Hills, but aren't required in underserved communities of the Northeast Valley.

A mitigated negative declaration has been conducted on the project, but critics say it doesn't have the teeth a full environmental impact report would have conducted under the strict guidelines of the California Environmental Quality Act. Coalition member John Ulloth of San Fernando Valley Greens and a Mission Hills resident supports the expansion, but not without an environmental impact report.

"We know that a (mitigated negative declaration) won't give us the same level of protection or community participation that an EIR does. An EIR puts me and you on an equal level with the proposer or, in this case, the hospital," Ulloth said. "During an EIR, any environmental problem that can be mitigated must be mitigated. In contrast, Los Angeles city planning doesn't have enforcement and high standards the EIR provides."

Ulloth said an EIR gets the community to buy into the project and become "co-developers" of the project.

"An EIR is legally binding. Promises made, are not [legally binding]," he added.