Hospital bond passes

Sonoma Valley Hospital got a fiscal shot in the arm yesterday as voters overwhelmingly approved a $35 million bond measure for badly needed facility upgrades.
The Valley’s other Election Day races were much closer, with incumbent Sonoma County First District Supervisor Valerie Brown apparently eking out a narrow victory against challenger Will Pier.
With all precincts reporting in, Measure P showed a 13,021 to 3,093 (80.8 percent to 19.2 percent) lead. The bond will rebuild the hospital’s central utility plant, pay for seismic upgrades and improvements to buildings and equipment.
“I’m tired but happy,” SVH board chair Dick Kirk said at 10:15 p.m., when the partial results for Measure P showed 80.3 percent voting “yes.” “It’s looking real good to us, so I’m going to be meeting with Carl [Gerlach] our CEO, in the morning to discuss the results and begin pressing ahead.”
Kirk said the difference between last night’s vote and the failure of a related measure in June was due to real estate – specifically, that Measure P didn’t seek a new hospital site. “I think that was the major issue. We listened to the people, we scaled back what we thought was necessary, now we absolutely have to develop the network with the other hospitals and doctor groups so we can survive.”
The Brown v. Pier battle, which began as a runoff after the June election failed to garner more than 50 percent approval for either candidate, was running 20,891 to 19,786 (51.2 percent to 48.5 percent) in Brown’s favor.
At 10 p.m., with nearly half of the 119 precincts in and a 51.9 percent to 47.8 percent lead Brown was cautiously optimistic. “It has been a long, long campaign. I’d feel more comfortable if it was 100 precincts in. We’ve had 55 precincts in and it hasn’t changed much, so that’s the good news.”
However, with all precincts in at 12:40 a.m., Pier said he wasn’t giving up until the final absentee ballots were counted – a process that could take up to 30 days.
“It’s still close enough that we’d like to wait,” he said. “And then, we’ll see.”
Three other Valley races were also running fairly close at the night’s end. Of the four candidates vying for three seats on the Sonoma Valley Health Care District board, challengers Peter Hohorst and Madolyn Agrimonti respectively captured 8,275 votes (30.4 percent) and 6,428 votes (23.6 percent), and incumbent Bill Boerum had 6,341 votes (23.3 percent). Challenger Bill Gurry placed a close fourth at 6,124 votes, or 22.5 percent.
On the education front, challenger Alexander Bantis apparently unseated long-time incumbent John Musilli for the Area 1 seat on the Sonoma County Board of Education at a tally of 12,149 to 12,080 (50.0 percent to 49.7 percent).
In the race to fill three board vacancies for the Valley of the Moon Fire Protection District, incumbents Dawn Mittleman, Bill Norton and Ray Brunton defeated contender Elissa Wadleigh with respective totals of 4,459 (29.6 percent), 4,340 (28.8 percent), 3,974 (26.4 percent) and 2,251 (14.9 percent).