After all is said (and written) and done, the vote on the Palm Drive Health Care District board members comes down to:
Do you want to give Dan Smith and company one last try at re-opening Palm Drive Hospital?
If so, vote for Richard E. Powers and Dennis E. Colhurst. If you are skeptical if it can be reopened then vote for Jim Horn, and if you like, one of the other guys.
Dr. Powers and Dennis Colhurst are going to support the Palm Drive Foundation plan no matter what, whereas Jim Horn is going to wait to see the full plan along with financial projections (which have yet to be submitted) and vote as he sees fit.
There's no real data available to say if the plan is viable or not, and even if there was we are not sophisticated enough in the twisted world of medical economics to evaluate it, nor would reality end up matching the plan.
So it comes down to if you want to give Dan Smith's team a go at it, or do you want to give up and get some form of urgent care that provides significantly less service than an emergency room but is hopefully financially viable.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dan & co. haven't had a full chance to put their plan into place yet over the years. There's been high drama at board level for many years (which I haven't followed). So I'm inclined to give them one more chance and I hope the other board members also let them have a good faith try.
I also think it won't work. Between the financial realities and the politics and personalities involved my guess it will fail again. But the win for the community of having viable emergency room is big enough to give it a try.
I'd really like to see the emergency room re-open, especially since my house is virtually around the corner from it! And given how small Sebastopol is, the same applies to pretty much anybody who lives in the city limits. And I can understand that the people on the coast and river feel like that don't see much value from their $155 tax bill.
So if we really want to have a hospital in town, I think the City of Sebastopol should add a new real estate tax, in addition to the $155, and donate that money to the district. I don't know the math (or legality) involved, but I could easily support anything up to $200 per year.