Both the Board of Supervisors and officials at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science are tickled about the settlement they reached last week in the lawsuit Drew filed against the county for downsizing Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital two years ago and thus taking away the university’s neighbor and training facility. To say relations between Drew and the county have been bitter during the past couple of years is to say an elephant is heavy. In fact, the primary reason the Board of Supervisors — to a man and to a woman — despised Susan Kelly, the ousted Drew president and CEO, is because she sued the county over closing MLK. In their heart-of-hearts, the board members vowed not to lift a finger to help Drew with whatever problem came its way as long as Kelly ran the place. Kelly’s gone now and the new interim president, Dr. Keith C. Norris, working mainly with a new supervisor, Mark Ridley-Thomas, negotiated the settlement (the terms of which remain undisclosed) and restored love, peace and harmony between the two entities.

IMPEACHING THE GOVERNATOR — There’s a group of folk out there trying to impeach Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and they’re having a rally Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building at 3rd and Spring streets. Californians for Accountable Leadership is a coalition of youths, seniors, HIV/AIDS patients and working families, along with community groups, labor unions and social service agencies, calling for the impeachment of the governor for “negligent, incompetent handling of the state’s budget crisis.” Kathryn Icenhower, executive director of Shields for Families, one of the impeachment prime movers, accuses the governor of being unresponsive to the needs of Californians. “He abused his power and acted irresponsibly — making deals with legislators one day and breaking them the next. His behavior prolonged the budget crisis and deepened the suffering of millions of Californians who continue to lose their jobs and homes.” Icenhower, whose group is affiliated with Community Coalition, continued: “Californians cannot survive another day or another budget with this governor. We need to remove him, even if it is just for a few months during the impeachment trial, before he can cause any further irrevocable damage.”

RESOLVED: GOOD HEALTH FOR ALL — With a vote of 33-1 in the state Senate last week, the Legislature approved Assemblyman Dave Jones’ Assembly Concurrent Resolution 29 to reduce and eliminate health disparities among racial and ethnic populations. The state Assembly approved the resolution in April. The resolution calls on the California Health and Human Services Agency to focus on preventing, reducing and eliminating health disparities among racial and ethnic populations. The resolution points out that low-income populations and communities of color disproportionately experience worse health and safety outcomes than others, and noted that in the United States, health disparities are well documented in the African-American, Native American, Asian-American and Latino populations.

With that in mind, the Legislative Tri-Caucus presented a health disparities briefing at the State Capitol on Aug. 25 to define health care disparities issues in California, identify the current outreach efforts in under-served communities and to broaden and make those efforts more effective. The briefing was held under the joint sponsorship of the Legislative Black Caucus, Latino Legislative Caucus and the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus.

MONKEY, NO; BARBIE, YES — Remember that African-American monkey doll Costco’s was selling last month? Well, because of complaints from outraged consumers, the Costco Corp. pulled the dolls off its shelves and issued an apology for causing offense. Actually, the item in question was a doll set collection called “Cuddle With Me, Doll With Plush Monkey.” The collection also included a Doll With Plush Panda and the two of them came in six variations: a White monkey doll and panda doll, an Hispanic monkey doll and panda doll and a Black monkey doll and panda doll. “It was Costco’s intent in deciding to carry these items to offer doll sets that reflected ethnic diversity,” the Costco press release read. “Obviously, it would not further that intent to purposely carry an item that demonstrates racial or ethnic insensitivity. Once the company received complaints about the combination of an African-American doll in juxtaposition with the plush monkeys, the company apologized for any discomfort that the item caused and discontinued the item,” the release said.

In the meantime, Mattel just added a line of six beautiful Black dolls to its Barbie collection which are must-haves, especially for a doll-collecting fiend such as yours truly. These new dolls, which are numbers 2,387 through 2,393 in my collection, were designed by African-American Stacey McBride, who designed the fabulous AKA Centennial Barbie doll. They’re called “So In Style” Barbies and they look like young Black women — not White women painted Black. Their names are Grace, Kara and Trichelle and they each have a little Black sister named Courtney, Kianna and Janessa.

THIS AND THAT — The girls went back to St. Mary’s Academy last week and was welcomed by new Principal Yvonne McNeal, a member of St. Mary’s class of 1972 and the first lay principal in St. Mary’s 120-year history. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, which operate St. Mary’s, conducted a nationwide search for a non-nun to lead the academy and found McNeal, a successful alumna from Watts, who had worked as a counselor at Regina Coeli High School in Compton and was vice principal at Sacred Heart High School in Lincoln Heights, right there in the ’hood.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass appointed Glenn S. Brown of Fu-Gen Inc., a Wilshire Boulevard-based research and investigation firm, to the board of governors of CIGA, the California Insurance Guarantee Assn. CIGA was established 40 years ago to provide a mechanism for the payment of insurance claims when the insurance company has failed. CIGA is to insurance customers as FDIC is to bank depositors.

The African American Youth Leadership Program just ended a successful week-long conference in which it equipped 60 Black high school students for educational, vocational and personal success with a full schedule of meetings with community leaders and various workshops and seminars. The conference, hosted by the Research and Policy Institute of California, was held in Sacramento and featured a discussion with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The top five students in the program were awarded $1,000 scholarships. Applications for next year’s program will become available in January.

The California Department of Education issued a release last week stating that more 10th graders in the LAUSD are passing both portions of the dreaded California High School Exit Exam the first time they take the test than in the past, paving the way for a greater number of students to graduate with a high school diploma. This shows the high school retention programs former Superintendent David Brewer put in place before he was ousted are catching fire. And no, I’m not giving the present LAUSD administration credit for a thing — except for the return of George McKenna.

AND FINALLY — I’m delighted to have my running buddy, Kathy Williamson, back again. It feels like old times — nice and cozy and comfortable. ... I heard that Kenneth Miller left his editorial post at a local Black newspaper and accepted a position on Rep. Laura Richardson’s staff. May the Lord have mercy on both of them.