Back to the Board

Some readers expressed concern about our characterization last week of the choices by the Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition as they appeared in the Executive Summary of its report: “1) Broadway… 2) In-town.” We attached significance to the listing order, especially due to the fact that they were numbered, implying a ranking. It turns out that there was no significance intended by the numbering, and we ask forgiveness of the in-town advocates, having appeared to slight their preference, and of the executive summary authors, who intended no such slight.
But this simply emphasizes the fact that the coalition did not make a recommendation for any one site. Instead, after virtually a year of work, literally thousands of hours in meetings, over $200,000 of taxpayer money, and probably more than a few tears of frustration, the whole matter seems to be back exactly where it started, with the in-town folks dug in and the hospital administration trying to put a site together on Broadway.
Now that’s not to say that the public hasn’t benefited from the numerous presentations held during that time, or that the options aren’t both better planned now, or that having the coalition’s expert Carl Gerlach apply to be the hospital’s CEO wasn’t fortuitous. It should be noted out loud, however, as it has been murmured since the coalition’s report was released, that the coalition simply passed on what for many of us is the key question: WHERE?
Even more troubling is the thought that if the coalition steering committee, whose members presumably know the issues in more detail than the rest of us, and who already all agree that a new hospital should be built – if they themselves cannot reach a 67 percent consensus of support for one site or the other, then how likely is it that the voters will? At the last look by the coalition’s pollster Charles Rund, 62 percent of voters would approve a bond to build on Broadway, while 58 percent would support a bond to build at the in-town site. Certainly, there have been developments since that poll, assembling different parcels at both sites, so there is hope that the approval level might reach the required 67 percent.
Readers know we’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the closed-door meeting policy of the coalition’s steering and option committees, since they were doing the work of a public body. The coalition’s impasse may be a blessing, since it forces the issue back to the hospital board, where it really belongs. The coalition’s formal presentation was to be made to the hospital’s Strategic Planning Committee on Wednesday evening, and to the whole board at its regular meeting two weeks hence.
The coalition’s steering and options committee members were rightly selected as the 2006 Individuals of the Year at the Sunnys Community Awards Celebration in March. We appreciate their hard work to take on the project following the defeat of Measure C, and we congratulate them on the conclusion of their work. Now that the hospital board can resume its leadership, we encourage the board to move swiftly to bring the matter back before the voters.
In the year since Measure C, some doctors have moved their practices out of Sonoma, and the hospital administration has said that recruitment of doctors into the uncertain future here has been difficult. Adding now the prospect of private surgery centers in the area, the future here is indeed uncertain. Frankly, there may be yet more work ahead, before a proposal of appropriate size, scope, and site is brought forward.