Letters to the Editor

Hospital CEO got golden parachute
Editor: I guess if we were looking for the “final nail in the coffin” for the hospital, the hospital board was able to find it last week. In the board’s announcement of CEO Robert Kowal “stepping down,” they brought our nice little town into the big leagues of disgrace! Just like the CEOs of Home Depot, the New York Stock Exchange, and Enron, the boss manages to take his very golden parachute and leave the enterprise in ruins. I am sure Kowal’s past in Chicago and Baltimore justified the elegant compensation package he received here. (Editor’s note: Kowal will stay on as a consultant for a year at his current annual salary of $240,000, and he got $100,000 in final retirement funding, in addition to the $140,000 he had already received during his 3-year stint as CEO.) Once again, it is the board’s delusions of grandeur that got us into another mess. It is not surprising that we “need” a parcel tax and a giant bond issue if we are paying out gifts of this size. And we now still need to hire another CEO and pay another grand salary package.
Our hospital is not being managed well. The emergency room cost has been high for many years and insurance reimbursement has been a struggle for many years – these are not new “surprises.”
I believe the parcel tax will fail and the urban growth boundary expansion will fail because the hospital board is still dreaming grandiose dreams in our small town. While eminent domain was the rallying cry around Measure C, lots of folks also felt we didn’t need a 20-acre “campus” and a hospital costing more than $200 million over the life of the bond. Is it possible for our leadership to conceive of a small-town hospital like some of our California neighbors enjoy?
Disclosure: I am a Kaiser member, having been forced to go there after the collapse of the local medical group and the Health Plan of the Redwoods. I would like nothing better than to receive my basic care and emergency care without a one-hour drive on treacherous roads.
George Weiss Jr.

Hester Prynne
harangued, not hanged
Editor: I greatly enjoyed Marty Olmstead’s editorial excursion in the Feb. 1 edition of FineLife into the world of “taboo.” However, I was mystified to learn that Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” when she refused to identify her out-of-wedlock daughter’s father, “was dispatched to the gallows and hanged.” Perhaps this fatal description of Hester’s ordeal is a timely example of what my old high school English teacher once called “breaking a literary taboo.” In this case, by changing the author’s plot. Although hanging Hester could have sated a zealous puritan’s lust to thwart witchcraft (Hawthorne’s paternal ancestor, John Hathorne, was the notorious Puritan “witch judge” in the infamous Salem witchcraft trials), Hawthorne instead had Hester brought from the town jailhouse, baby daughter Pearl in arms, with a scarlet letter “A” on the bodice of Hester’s dress, to the town scaffold. Wherein she endured a harangue, not a hanging, by the town elders as part of her public shaming for not revealing the identity of Pearl’s father.
Mike Heiman

Defending Goode, Benson
Editor: I missed last Wednesday’s meeting of the Sonoma Valley Hospital’s board of directors, so I do not know the nature of the responses given to the rhetorical question posed, “Why do we in this community listen to the Marilyn Goodes and Lu Bensons of the world?” I would nevertheless like to suggest one good reason that we listen: Because we live in a republic, of, by, and for the people, not of, by, and for a self-selected elite group of so-called experts. Have we forgotten how a campaign of fear and deceit was waged to advance the “vision” of a grandiose hospital “campus,” far in excess of our means and our need?
As members of a democratic society, already reluctantly involved in our president’s “vision,” (reportedly inspired by God, Himself, ) we are understandably wary of following, blindly, those in power. Capable, intelligent members of our community, including Marilyn and Lu, have stepped forward, endeavoring to bring all of us together to find a solution to our common problem. It seems only proper that if certain individuals have become symbolic obstacles to this process, they should remove themselves from positions of influence, and we should be grateful for their sacrifice. The common good should be valued above personal ambition.
Please . . . let us work together to provide our valley with a facility that will satisfy our substantiated needs for quality health care. We can only accomplish this if we set aside our wounded egos and put our hearts into the effort.
Paul de Benedictis

Dems support
Measure B
Editor: We’re writing to encourage fellow Sonoma Valley Democrats to follow the recommendation of the Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee and vote yes on Measure B, the five-year extension of the Sonoma Valley Hospital parcel tax.
The Democratic Central Committee overwhelming endorsed Measure B, because a parcel tax is the only way the Sonoma Valley can continue to have an emergency room until a new hospital built.
Sonoma Valley Hospital has a long history of providing quality healthcare to all residents of the Valley, no matter what their income. If the hospital were to close before a new one is built, many would lose access to health care. Lives could be lost.
The recent announcement of the closing of Santa Rosa’s Sutter Hospital makes the need to keep Sonoma Valley Hospital open even more critical. Please join us in voting yes on Measure B.
Ray Gallian

Tax luxury,
not parcels
Editor: Don’t tax survival. Food and shelter are basic to survival. A tax on your home is a tax on survival.
A parcel tax is also regressive, meaning that it takes the most from those who have the least. We should tax luxury instead of basic survival. A sales tax would be a little more fair, though still not perfect. Bring back the tax on cars that is based on the value of the car. Or drop the tax cuts for the rich. If we can build hospitals in Iraq, we can build them in Sonoma.
The last parcel tax was supposed to expire, but now they want to raise it. If we raise it now, they will only want more when this one is supposed to expire. In fact, the plan is to add another property tax in the near future. That one is a little more fair, as it is based on the value of the property, while this one charges the same amount for the cheapest cottage that it does for the multimillion dollar mansion. Just say “no” to more taxes on your home.
Dan Jones

Glad about abortion discussion
Editor: I’m glad to see discussion about abortion. A new embryo/fetus/baby is not a growth on the mother. It is a separate being, genetically different from its mother. If the issue is “women’s reproductive freedom,” what happens to that distinct, living creature, with its own beating heart pulsing its own blood through its own body? It seems as if killing that creature is a matter of something more than a woman’s “personal privacy.”
If we condone killing that human life, how do we not also condone taking other human life? Is this one okay because it’s totally dependent on the mother to survive? What about euthanasia for someone in a coma or the infirm Alzheimer’s sufferer? Is one okay because caring for it could be a burden to the mother? What about our aged parents? Would not the humane thing be to choose life for the baby, and bring joy to a childless couple waiting to adopt?
Thanks, Sonoma Valley Sun for carrying this important topic. Morals and ethics cannot be legislated, that’s true. But perhaps laws are to encourage those principles for a culture and society to survive and flourish.
Don Martin