Click Banner For More Info See All Sponsors

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

This site is now closed permanently to new posts.
We recommend you use the new Townsy Cafe!

Click anywhere but the link to dismiss overlay!

Results 1 to 3 of 3

  • Share this thread on:
  • Follow: No Email   
  • Thread Tools
  1. TopTop #1
    Peacetown Jonathan's Avatar
    Investigative Reporter

    What Sebastopol’s City Council Can and Should Do to Help Reopen Hospital

    During the past few months, as I have run for City Council and for a more responsive, transparent government, a number of members of Sebastopol’s political establishment have challenged my contention that our Council owes it to the citizens of our community to take an ACTIVE role in reopening an emergency room at Palm Drive Hospital. Recent posts here at Wacco ask me the same thing. So I am updating and representing below my five-point plan for how our City Council can and should help reopen an emergency room at Palm Drive Hospital.

    “Not Our Job” Is No Answer to the Worst Health Care Crisis in Local History

    When it comes to doing anything to support the effort to reopen our community’s life-saving emergency room, the three incumbents that I am running against have all said, “Not our job.” Or, “we are doing something—we signed a resolution on May 6 pledging to help our District board and Community reopen the hospital.”

    Meanwhile, they have done nothing. Nothing at all to support the one and ONLY effort that dozens of hard working health experts, business leaders, and volunteers have been working on for the past six months, to reopen an emergency room and financially sustainable hospital at Palm Drive.

    Patrick Slayter, the incumbent that I would most like to replace on Sebastopol’s City Council this November, had this to say during our debate:

    "The idea that the City Council, holds any sway at all is like asking the state of California to make a law that the state of South Dakota would need to enforce.”

    For the record, I never used the term "holds sway." What I have been advocating for these past five months is that our Council needs to take an ACTIVE role in the solution. This difference, between what I and Patrick see as the intrinsic role of local government to be part of helping to restore this vital emergency room service, is at the core of why I am running for City Council—and asking citizens to support me.

    People in our community, especially our elderly, and parents like me, are rightfully frightened by the closing of our hospital, which has created the largest public health and job loss crisis in history. Yet here is what candidate Patrick Slayter recently wrote about our city in the Sonoma West:

    "Sebastopol is greener, financially stronger, more attractive and healthier than any time in the past."


    Healthier? Six months ago, Palm Drive was rated by Consumer Reports as the safest hospital in the entire state of California. An important new study in Health Affairs described in the LA Times here shows that after a local emergency room closes, people are 15% more likely to die of a heart attack and 10% more likely to die of a stroke. In addition to the significant suffering and fear we all now fear at the prospect of needing to wait for hours at a big city emergency room, most of us are now far more concerned about what will happen to us, our loved ones, and our neighbors should we need an emergency room.

    Financially stronger? Our tiny City just lost Sebastopol’s largest employer and more than 200 of its highest paying jobs. Some seniors are needing to sell their homes to move to a place where they can be nearer to a stroke center. Yes, we built up our budget reserves, thanks to a large 1/2 of 1% sales tax that we taxpayers voted for two years ago.

    But to do nothing in response to our largest employer shutting down and then crow about being financially stronger and healthier, demonstrates both the denial and transparency problems that I am hoping my election to City Council will transform here in Sebastopol.

    We, the people of this wonderful community, refuse to go quietly into the night of the new normal of no local life saving emergency room for our loved one and neighbors That's why socres of us are working to reopen our hospital. It will take a collaborative all-community effort, as well as a new Hospital District Board majority (elect Colthurst and Roberts if you want to see an emergency room returned!) and a City Council committed to working together to accomplish this goal--not deny it is necessary.


    Five Things I Would Do At the City Council To Help Reopen Our Hospital

    From the very first public meeting I attended of the Palm Drive Foundation Board, back in May, I heard a consensus that this reopening will only occur once there is unanimity among every key political and economic player in our community that we are moving forward together to reopen a viable hospital WITH an emergency room.

    1) The first thing I would do is ensure that the Council expresses clear, unambiguous support for the one and only group, with more than 50 skilled and dedicated participants, that has been working to reopen the hospital. This is the Palm Drive Foundation effort. It has been counterproductive in the extreme to the reopening effort to have a majority of members of both the Palm Drive District Board--and the City Council-- treat the only group that has run this hospital in the past "as one of many options" for the District's future. Likewise having John Eder, the only Council member to speak publicly about the hospital, use public comments at packed meetings to repeatedly assert that he doubts any emergency room plan can ever be viable has also undermined public confidence in the massive reopening effort underway.

    2) I would move to take the place of Council Member Eder as the Council liaison to the Palm Drive District Board, and ask to chair a new Council sub-committee on reopening the Hospital. Since April I have spent hundreds of hours researching and reporting the finances and laws and issues and history surrounding Palm Drive's closing. There are two openings for the Palm Drive District Board seats this November, and the likelihood is that voters will elect Dr. Richard Powers and retired police officer Dennis Colthurst to join Jim Maresca as a new board majority willing to work with the Foundation’s revised and convincing plan to reopen the hospital.

    If you look at page 18 of the City Council May 6 minutes here, Mr. Eder makes a point, understandably, of expressing that because he is the partner of Board Member Marsha Sue Lustig, he needs to recuse himself from serving on the Council Subcommittee that was then being considered at the meeting. I was present and heard him speak, from his heart, about how emotional the situation made him, because the decision to close the hospital was both the most difficult and controversial thing that his partner had ever done. The fact that he asked to be recused from being on the sub-committee (which was never formed), but remains the Council's liaison is emblematic of the how our Council is hurting, and not helping, reopen an emergency room. Appointing me in his place and forming this sub-committee, would be a positive step toward our community's shared vision of a City Government that is working together with the District Board and community to reopen a hospital with an emergency room as soon as possible.

    3) I would help make this subcommittee a political liaison entity to help build alliance bridges that will be necessary for reopening. For example, Palm Drive’s important Medicare reimbursement number has been relinquished by the closed hospital. It can take months from a new hospital's opening before getting this Medicare number back, and during this time, cash flow without Medicare reimbursements will be reduced. Getting the Medicare bureaucracy to reinstate reimbursement status more quickly will take political assistance from the offices of both California Senators, and Congressman Jared Huffman (he and I talked about this on Labor Day and he is eager to help when the time comes). There will be the need for political and legal efforts on the hospital’s behalf from both the State Legislature, and the Board of Supervisors. A Sebastopol City Council subcommittee is the natural entity to provide such assistance.

    4) I would make room in the city’s water and sewage department’s budget to provide special abatements to the new hospital for at least a few years while it gets up and running. Palm Drive Hospital employed more than 200 employees. Providing $300,000 in water and sewage subsidies would be a small price for our City to bring back these employees—and the hospital’s life-saving emergency room, back. The City council directly oversees the water and sewage operations of Sebastopol, and these separate accounts together run at a significant surplus well in excess of the $300,000 per year I am proposing. And given that it costs nothing to pump more water from the city's wells, and that a now closed hospital means the city's largest water customer disappeared, this would soon add--not subtract--from Sebastopol's water revenue.

    During the past few decades, as a New York City Policy Director and a journalist, I have analyzed or worked on job incentivization plans before: To spend $1,500 per high paying job per year to bring back 200 high paying jobs is a bargain that any other city in our nation would jump at.

    I understand that the current water and sewer surpluses will eventually be needed for rainy day repairs. But if a closed emergency room for the first time in 70 years is not an emergency for our community, I do not know what is! Palm Drive pumped an estimated $80 million each year into our area’s economy. Any contribution will be returned to our economy many times over through increased taxes and real estate values in years to come.

    5) I will work to use our City’s communications outlets to market a newly opened Palm Drive Hospital and the new insurance plans that allow citizens to patronize it. The budget for the new hospital contains the first significant marketing budget that a Sebastopol hospital has ever had. The new hospital will need all the help it can get marketing both elective surgeries and new departments. Most Sebastopol’s citizens want to support our local hospital. It will be helpful to learn which insurance plans and Medicare options help us do this, perhaps as an insert in our monthly water bill. And the City could make, and widely publicize, an informative City Council proclamation about what we, the people, can do to support our local hospital.

    These five concrete actions will allow our City Council to do its part to help reopen a thriving hospital with an emergency room at Palm Drive—and help solve what is the toughest challenge our community has ever faced.

    Epilogue: Four Short Campaign Videos About Reopening Palm Drive Hospital

    Here is a video from our City Council debate describing how our city can act to help reopen our emergency room and hospital
    http://<a href="https://www.youtube....nNgMKkBz74</a>


    Here is me speaking to the Palm drive District Board during their “listening tour” appearance in Sebastopol



    Here is a short endorsement video from Open Our Hospital leader Dr. James K. Gude and his dog Charles XIII.



    Here is an short endorsement video by my dear neighbor Rosie, who needs Palm Drive Hospital opened yesterday!

    Last edited by Peacetown Jonathan; 10-27-2014 at 12:44 AM.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  2. Gratitude expressed by:

  3. TopTop #2

    Re: What Sebastopol’s City Council Can and Should Do to Help Reopen Hospital

    So, if elected, you're going to waste time trying to force this issue down the City Council's throats regardless of the fact that it is OUTSIDE THE COUNCIL'S AUTHORITY?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan: View Post

    Five Things I Would Do At the City Council To Help Reopen Our Hospital....
    Last edited by Barry; 10-25-2014 at 02:09 PM.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  4. TopTop #3
    Peacetown Jonathan's Avatar
    Investigative Reporter

    Re: What Sebastopol’s City Council Can and Should Do to Help Reopen Hospital

    Did you bother to read the post? There is nothing in it that is beyond the power of our City Council to start doing ASAP.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  5. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 10-15-2014, 04:16 PM
  2. Sebastopol City Council Debate: Q8 - Palm Drive Hospital
    By Barry in forum General Community
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-09-2014, 11:54 AM
  3. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 06-20-2014, 03:37 PM
  4. Replies: 2
    Last Post: 03-01-2009, 12:28 PM

Tags (user supplied keywords) for this Thread

Bookmarks