In Bellevue, thousands of residents pay taxes on a hospital they don’t use.

Dr. Jim Grossnickle is running for a spot on the Board of Commissioners for Valley Medical Center to fix that by removing Newport Hills, and other south Bellevue residents from Valley’s taxing district.

“I want to make sure that we’re heard and not just thought of as a bank machine,” he said.

In Newport Hills, Somerset, Lake Heights and Somerset, 2,880 homes will pay a total of $645,000 in 2011 to the hospital, which is nearly three miles further away than Overlake Hospital Medical Center, the most commonly used hospital in the area.

Grossnickle is one of three candidates vying for a seat on the board. Others are Paul Joss, an eye surgeon in Renton, and Mary Alice Heuschel, superintendent of the Renton School District.

Grossnickle’s stance echoes a strong Bellevue City Council position, in which councilmembers have supported removing the south Bellevue homes from the taxing district. In 2006, the council spoke again after a special election increased the tax rate for south Bellevue residents from 9 cents per thousand of assessed value, to 59 cents. That request was rejected by the Valley board.

Most recently, Bellevue’s council voted unanimously in favor of removing the area as part of the new alliance between Valley Medical and the University of Washington.

“It’s an unfair taxing situation,” Councilmember Grant Degginger said at a meeting in March.

Along with the Valley Medical district, some residents in the southern part of the city also fall within the Renton School District.

Grossnickle’s stance on the south Bellevue issue follows a general platform of serving the patients better.

Grossnickle, an engineer at Boeing and a former Renton School District candidate, was upset at money being spent on administrative salaries, at the expense of patient care.

“If we are going to keep the taxes as high as they are, we ought to be spending them on healthcare, not administration costs,” he said.

A Bellevue resident since 2002, Grossnickle has been involved in organizations such as the Parent Teacher Association, but if chosen this position would be his first elected office. He is also active in groups such as the Renton School District Budget Committee and Leadership Eastside.

He works as a contract engineer for Boeing and possess as Ph.D from the University of Washington in Plasma Physics.