“Like opium.”
That was audience member Steve Kyle’s analogy for Monday night’s meeting of the Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition – and Kyle didn’t have a warm, dreamy feeling.
The meeting was a milestone, because it was the first in a series of public gatherings at which an outside consultant will evaluate all four proposals to replace the existing Andrieux Street hospital with an earthquake-safe facility. The process will culminate in mid-January, when the coalition will make its recommendation to the hospital board of the best option to pursue.
Carl Gerlach of Oakland-based HFS Consultants evaluated the Sonoma Valley Hospital administration’s plan to build a new, 56-bed hospital on 15 acres, most likely at the southwest corner of Broadway and Napa Road.
Gerlach pointed out a variety of strengths and weaknesses of the proposal, but kept coming back to areas in which the administration hadn’t provided information.
For example, Gerlach wasn’t given actual floor plans, which would have been helpful because he said a properly laid out hospital could save “about $1 million a year in labor costs.” Other missing pieces: details supporting the hospital’s expectation of netting $5 million by selling the current Andrieux Street site and contingency budgeting in case construction costs more than the estimated $98 million.
Kyle, who was one of about 40 people at the meeting, spoke up during the question-and-answer period.
“I’m disappointed in the lack of information that I can really bite into,” he said, explaining that the word opium, in Chinese, means “biting clouds.”
“That’s what this is: Biting clouds. I just can’t get into it,” Kyle said. “I’d really like you to hold everybody’s feet to the fire about things.”
Gerlach said that he’s dependent on the people making each proposal for information, noting that a proposal’s “just not going to score well if the information’s not there.”
Gerlach added, “You all now know what you need from the hospital in order to make the plan credible.”
Hospital spokesman Scott Gregerson told the audience that more information will be provided by next week to Gerlach. Gregerson also said that the hospital already had provided such information as a 24-page financial spreadsheet, and Gregerson invited audience members to stop by the hospital and talk to administrators if they have questions.
Gerlach ultimately will put together a side-by-side comparison of all the proposals.
Next up, at the Dec. 11 coalition meeting, Gerlach will review Cirrus Health’s plan for a privately funded facility on Eighth Street East and Napa Road. Then on Dec. 18, Gerlach will assess the idea of building within city limits near the current hospital.
