Honest politicians
We commend the Sonoma City Council members for honoring last week their commitments to voters. Ken Brown brought to the council a proposed resolution calling for an early withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and Steve Barbose supported the discussion of this important national issue. This is consistent with the promises they made to voters in November, when Brown was reelected to a third term and Barbose was elected to his first.
Speaking in turn, newly elected Aug Sebastiani reiterated his campaign promise that he would not discuss national issues beyond the jurisdiction of the council. And Joanne Sanders recalled her commitment when she was elected two years ago, promising to focus exclusively on local issues within the council’s purview.
Mayor Stanley Cohen recalled no pledge either way from his election campaign two years ago. When he cast the deciding vote on Tuesday, against consideration of the resolution, he noted that the members of Congress, after full staff briefings and with direct leverage over military expenditures, presently cannot bring themselves to pull the plug on the war effort, and he wondered how city council members in a small town could be expected to make a better decision.
While the decision disappointed many people, including members of this editorial board, at least the council made the positive statement that politicians can and do keep their pledges to voters.
Off Broadway?
We’re a little concerned about the haste with which the Sonoma Valley Health Care District board moved last week to hire a new CEO. Without question, the man they chose, Carl Gerlach, is one of the most knowledgeable they could have found, since he has been for many months the outside consultant to the Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition, aware of every detail in every proposal.
There are three competing proposals that Gerlach has found workable, each with its own proponent. For the “Eighth Street” site, it is The Cirrus Group, represented locally by Michael Ross, the Boyes Hot Springs architect. For the “in-town” site, the long-time champions have been Marilyn Goode and Lu Benson. And for the “South Broadway” site, it has been the Sonoma Valley Hospital, lead by its CEO, Bob Kowal.
So … is Gerlach now the proponent for the hospital’s proposal, since he is the hospital’s CEO? The appearance of impropriety has to be acknowledged, since he was actively seeking employment with the hospital at the same time that he was evaluating the hospital’s proposal on behalf of the coalition. Not that we have seen any sign that this compromised his evaluations, but one can imagine a different reaction in the community if Gerlach had started work this week for, say, Cirrus.
Or if Gerlach is not the proponent of the hospital’s proposal, as he suggested shortly after his hiring was announced, then who is? One presumes it would be no one, if not the hospital’s own CEO. Did the hospital abandon its proposal when Kowal left?
It has been suggested that the different proposals might be merged in some way, although certain elements, such as location, seem incompatible. Maybe that’s already being discussed privately among some of the proponents. It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds in the next few months. More than interesting, actually – as we’ve noted, this is a critical matter to the community.
Equally critical, in our view, is the five-year extension of the parcel tax, to keep our present hospital afloat until a new alternative can be adopted. As we recommended last week, vote Yes on Measure B.
