Letters to the Editor

Questions hospital coalition’s arguments against retrofitting

Editor: While the public rests its hopes on the formation of the recent Joint Powers Authority to save the hospital, the hospital was losing over $500,000 in May, almost $250,000 in June and around $30,000 in July. The recent hospital financial reports indicate they do not maintain the 1.10x cash to debt ratio that the district pledged to maintain. This violates the existing bond indenture and, as such, would constitute a technical default as outlined in the 2004 Bond official statement. This has raised the concern of the bond’s insurers who are now attending hospital finance meetings. It has also caused donors to reevaluate the allocation of their pledged health care endowment.
The hospital’s losses this year and the district paying retail for a brand new hospital seems to fly in the face of CEO (Carl) Gerlach’s own template for gauging a small community hospital’s survivability under the above scenario. Since experts may differ, no one can dispute the Coalition leaders’ claim that a 56-bed hospital has the best chance to pay for itself and avoid taxpayers being stuck with 30 years of taxes for an empty “white elephant.” But won’t 56 beds fit in the current facility that now houses 83 beds?
In the past, the Coalition and others have implied that retrofitting the existing hospital is as costly as building a new one. Yet the hospital has never endeavored to replace lost building drawings necessary (at nominal cost) to obtain the needed seismic upgrade, let alone get an updated assessment of the cost of retrofitting. This Board would be well advised to get an honest appraisal and report the cost of a retrofit to voters BEFORE selecting any option. The Board should not waste any more time or money promulgating un-passable hospital plans especially at the rate they are now losing money.
Dennis Hipps

Editor: Though I’ve lived more than six decades in Sonoma County, I’ve only recently come to make my home in the town of Sonoma. Your weekly newspaper has helped me become better acquainted. Kate Williams’ column has until now afforded pleasure. In the September 6th issue however, she struck a nerve.
To prop up her stance against a proposal by Councilman Ken Brown that the town of Sonoma should not collude with federal authorities in immigration matters, she cited one example. A friend, perhaps the wife of a U.S, citizen, though spared the threat of deportation had to wait patiently for seven years to receive her legal work permit.
We all may feel sympathy for her friend’s long wait but I ask Kate to consider the case of Marine Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. He was the first soldier to die for the US in the Iraq war.
And when U.S. Army Private Armando Soriano, just 20 years old, died three years ago fighting in Haditha, Iraq, he was seeking to help his parents, undocumented workers from Mexico, to obtain green cards. He was successful on behalf of his mother but his father is about to be deported and would be parted from his wife and three of their four children who were born in the States.
Figures from the National Center for Immigration Law show that one in ten U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq have been immigrants. It has been estimated that five percent of those serving in the US military are illegal immigrants who may feel that joining the military will help them and their families obtain legal papers.
I ask all of us to reflect on the poverty that would drive people to make the hazardous border crossing to enter this country for work, often the toughest jobs and lowest paying and to risk their lives in Iraq.
Mattie Rudinow