Letters to the Editor

Coalition says yes on Measure B
Editor: Before unanimously urging a “yes” vote on the parcel tax, the Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition looked at the facts. Here’s what we found:
No parcel tax means no emergency room. Our ER handles 10,000 visits each year and saves many lives. Recent surveys show nearly 90 percent of voters value our ER.
A small, old hospital like our current one cannot attract enough doctors and revenue. It will always need taxpayer support. That hasn’t changed since 2002, when we passed the current parcel tax for the same reasons.
The coalition is studying three alternatives for a self-supporting hospital. None would require a parcel tax. But until that hospital is built, we may need up to $3 million a year to cover operations. The $195 annual parcel tax is only $65 a year more than we now pay.
Every option we are considering needs a seamless transition from a going concern, not one whose staff has moved away because there was no money to pay them. Even Cirrus, which is proposing to build a private hospital, agrees: We need a bridge from now till then.
A sales tax won’t work. It requires a 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent sales-tax increase (to 9 – 9.25 percent on sales). No increase of more than 0.5 percent has ever been passed in California. Only two hospital districts have a sales tax – one, near Yosemite, is mostly paid by tourists. The other, on the Mexican border, is mostly paid by people who don’t live there.
A sales tax is unfair to low-income people, who spend much more of their wages on taxable items, and to young people who use the hospital far less than seniors. Unlike a sales tax, a parcel tax is usually deductible on tax returns.
Sutter Hospital and its emergency room will soon close, adding to Memorial’s overcrowding. If our ER closes, calling 911 in an emergency could have serious adverse consequences for patients in need of immediate medical attention.
Closure of our ER and the resulting huge increase in turnaround times delivering patients to remote ERs will put our FireMed ambulance service at risk.
Finally, realize in California an ambulance can only deliver patients to an emergency room. By law an emergency room must be part of a hospital.
If these facts concern you, as they do those of us in the coalition, please vote yes on Measure B.
Joe Leveroni & Bill Boerum, Yes on B Committee
Steve Pease and Bob Edwards – Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition

No on B
Editor: We all know the rule: Don’t throw good money after bad. Some of us, however, have still to learn it.
If we vote to continue the parcel tax that has already proved a failure, we will have no one to blame but ourselves when it fails yet again in five years.
Don’t let the medical staff or others who have a financial interest play on your fears that you will not get medical attention.
As for closure of the obstetrics department, Santa Rosa and Petaluma have excellent and more modern facilities awaiting you. As for as closure of the emergency room, it isn’t going to close because there is money to be made there, too.
And instead of preying on the fears of the elderly, we can certainly offer our citizens a shuttle bus to other acute medical care facilities if need be, much cheaper than the millions budgeted for continuing a hospital that has proven again and again that it is not financially solvent.
Vote no on Measure B and stop throwing good money after bad!
Jane Moeddel

Kaiser member
says yes on B
Editor: I have been a member of Kaiser for more than 35 years. On several occasions I have had need to use the emergency services at Sonoma Valley Hospital. Three weeks ago, I fell and broke my wrist and friends rushed me to the Sonoma emergency room. I was treated promptly, efficiently, and politely by the doctors and staff. After X-rays and a splint, I was advised to see my regular physician at Kaiser for further treatment. On a Sunday night they called Kaiser to alert them that I had been treated and would need a follow-up appointment.
I am grateful for the Emergency Room staff making me as comfortable as possible until I could get to a Kaiser facility. On more than one occasion I have seen the need for competent emergency services in Sonoma, no matter what medical coverage you carry. I urge everyone to vote yes on Measure B to insure that this service remains available in the valley.
Nancy Jones

Sonoma will always have a hospital
Editor: The current hospital board members and just-resigned administrator simply “do not get it” or do not want to get it!
They have lost their credibility, which is why the board has been urged by the residents and experts to resign with the replacement of an enlarged board chosen from and by the community.
There will always be a hospital in Sonoma – public or private – without a parcel tax to subsidize a hospital operating on the verge of bankruptcy.
A pricey, Oakland-based healthcare consultant continually states that nurses salaries range between $75,000 and $95,000 annually. A survey of Sonoma County nurses reveals this is simply not true.
During the past five years, board members/administrator have continually stated they were losing money. Yet costly special elections were held, and one after another consultant group was hired at excessive fees merely to sway taxpayers. This board forgave a $250,000 debt owed by the Valley of the Moon Medical Group, funded the Health Care Coalition with $200,000 and even commissioned an Environmental Impact Report on property the hospital did not own – is there a money tree in the hospital’s back yard?
A recent visit to the ER found the physician requesting warm water with the nurse advising there just wasn’t any! And yet the administrator was being paid, and will continue to receive for another 11 months, $20,000 monthly, total health benefits and the balance of $42,000 towards his retirement. For three years as administrator, one year as consultant, the approximate total expense is $1,000,000.
Are we talking about Stanford Hospital or a primary care hospital in a small California valley?
A large segment of Sonoma Valley residents are Kaiser members, well served by their facilities in Napa, Vallejo, Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Marin. Another large portion rely on specialists with a track record, practicing in the surrounding areas and blessed with state-of-the-art hospital facilities within minutes of their homes. Those residents who rely on a local family physician expect their doctor to become familiar with them and the needs of their family.
Therefore, recruiting physicians to work in the hospital is another unnecessary expense.
The hospital board and the city planning commission (city council) are openly hostile to our doctors and to the residents as evidenced by the rejection of a valuable non-existing imaging center for the valley.
As Bill Boerum stated in 2006, “the vast majority of parcel holders are local residents, most of whom will become fixed-income people during the life of the bond.” Therefore, a parcel tax was then and now discriminatory.
We do not require a hospital of grandeur. If and when the current hospital closes, another one will open – Sonoma will always have a hospital.
No more begging for taxpayer dollars to fund frivolous expenditures – NO further burden on taxpayers – if the current hospital cannot succeed on its own, then it must close. Sonoma will always have a hospital. No parcel tax!
Linda McGarr

Kowal’s ‘resignation’ not in our dictionary
Editor: The prospect of building a new hospital is not looking very good.
We don’t think “Measure C” is the main problem any more. It’s about honesty and being truthful to the public. Former hospital CEO Bob Kowal and others are not giving us any reason to trust them. Believing that the administration has not been honest with us, it was great news to hear that Kowal had resigned. Then we became confused. According to the dictionary, “Resign” means “To give up; to submit to something as being avoidable; to quit.”
The Sonoma Valley Sun headlined Kowal resigning, but on the continued page there was a small paragraph about the boardmembers discussing Kowal’s “separation and transition.” He will be paid for a year and remain as a consultant.
Beside Kowal’s $240,000-a-year salary, what do the rest of the administrators receive? And how many are there? Is this where our parcel tax money is going?
Loren Sims, Gerry Felder

Ode to the issues…
I say skip the parcel tax
Have you seen your
tax bill lately . . .
If we let this new tax fly
You know we will pay greatly.

Now not to be too negative –
I love the new duck pond,
It was worth the money spent,
Despite the carrying on!

Not thrilled about
the new school pool,
It looks a little like the Hyatt,
If I thought the kids would
take care of it,
I’d be more willing
then to try it.

My one last wish is
for a full breakfast,
On my beloved plaza, or
“the square”,
If you build it, they will come,
You’ll make a load
of money there!

Last not least, I’d have to say,
That despite these
common issues,
If I ever had to leave this place,
I’d need a lifetime full
of tissues!
I love you Sonoma!
Joe Hebel

Likes Barnett,
Huguenard
Editor: I want to thank Larry Barnett (again) for his amazing column, especially his comments on healthcare. Don’t stop! I was also very interested in the profile of Ken Ramirez by Joan Huguenard, as I used to be a volunteer with Vineyard Workers Services and very much appreciate what they do. Good luck to Ken!
Pat Spicer

Outraged by council
Editor: I am outraged and embarrassed and sick to my stomach to have two city councilmembers and our mayor vote the way they did on the resolution to pull the troops out of Iraq. Thank you, Sonoma Sun, for reporting on this on your Web site www.sonomasun.com and hope you will go into more detail in the very near future.
Yannick A. Phillips

Council’s refusal disturbing
Editor: Sonoma City Council’s refusal to discuss the Iraq War Resolution was very disturbing for a number of reasons. The most disturbing moments came when we heard several of our council members say they “just didn’t know enough” to even make a recommendation about this calamitous war and the arrogant, greed-inspired foreign policy that has fueled it. How much do they need to know? Apparently we’re just supposed to have blind faith in our President who surely knows what’s best for us (presumably because of all the information he has that we don’t have) and would certainly never lead us astray. Besides who are we in little old rural, liberal Sonoma to presume to tell our president what we think he should do?
Granted our city council members were not elected to make foreign policy, but neither were they elected to stand in the way when the majority of our concerned citizenry wants our city (and its council) to stand up beside the 400 other city councils in this nation that have had the courage to “let the people’s voice be heard” and try to put an end to this scandalous and totally misdirected use of taxpayers’ money.
Jim McFadden

Support Iraq
withdrawal
Editor: The horror, the horror, the war. Regardless of what took place last Wednesday in council chambers, I believe to support our troops we must support an orderly withdrawal from Iraq. We each should send a message to remove this moronic administration of misguided combat.
Samuel A. DiGiacomo

Council AWOL on Iraq
Editor: Two arguments were brought up by two council members opposed to considering the Iraq resolution: the first being that what we do in our small town has no impact on the decision makers in DC, and the second an oft-used dodge that those in the upper echelons of government are privy to much greater information so how could we possibly dare to speak to this issue in our ignorance. I think the answers to these lame arguments are simple:
What happens at the local level influences politicians. That’s why polling is so commonplace. Sure, what Sonoma does is not going to influence Bush, but it does have an impact on our representatives in the Congress. Numbers matter to politicians, and when you gain in numbers your voice becomes even louder at the top. Situations change when a tripping point is reached, just as it did during the Vietnam War. That’s why what we do in Sonoma in the face of this war, matters.
Those at the top of our government, with all their information, expertise and knowledge managed to get everything wrong. No weapons of mass destruction, no Iraq/Al Quaeda connection, no yellow-cake uranium for nuclear weapons, no welcome as liberators, no functioning democracy, no Iraq oil money to pay for the war – just a deadly, horrible mess with no way out except to get out. But to get out in as timely, orderly and humane way as possible.
The late, great Molly Ivins said in her last published column, “We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war.”
Will Shonbrun