Election 2014: People Vs. Our Politicians in Struggle to Reopen Hospital

[Peacetown Jonathan]

To me, the local 2014 election contest boils down to one thing: whether our community’s life-saving emergency room reopens or not?

It was the closing of Palm Drive Hospital and the refusal of Sebastopol’s City Council to take any active role whatsoever in helping it reopen that compelled me to run for public office. But my City Council race is not the most important local contest this year.

Dennis Colthrust and Dr. Richard Powers are two outstanding candidates that are running for the Palm Drive District Board. Both strongly support the Palm Drive Foundation and its promising plan to reopen Palm Drive as a thriving hospital with an emergency room.

Jim Horn, their opponent in this race, is running to retain a three person Board majority that has been responsible for financially mismanaging Palm Drive, secretly deciding to close it, and refusing to support community leaders and doctors in efforts to reopen it. Jim Horn, who was appointed by this Board majority to temporarily fill a vacant position this summer, is running on tomorrow’s ticket. Horn has clearly emerged as the leading opponent to reopening a hospital with an emergency room. I spell out my reasons for believing this in my recent post here, Why Electing Jim Horn Will Doom Hospital.

I have spoken with hundreds of area voters during the past few months. More than 95% of them believe want to see an emergency room restored for our health, and the lives of our loved ones and neighbors.

If I am elected, I intend to transform the City’s role to help actively support the Foundation effort to reopen the hospital. My five point plan for doing so can be read here.

But my election will not determine whether or not a hospital with an emergency room reopens at Palm Drive.

What will determine this is whether Colthurst and Powers are elected or not. Virtuallty every doctor in West County agrees with this.

Yet every single incumbent on Sebastopol’s City Council endorses Jim Horn. As does Helen Shane and Richard and Brenda Nichols, leaders of Sebastopol Tomorrow, and Craig Litwin. Knowing the personal and family relationships of our local politicians and leaders of what has become our local political establishment, I believe this choice, of effectively endorsing the continued closure of our hospital, is being made by politicians who sadly place their personal political loyalty over our collective public welfare.

Tomorrow’s election will be about the people versus our political establishment.

And I hope, for the sake of us all, that We, the People, win this time around.

[John Eder]

Jim Horn, their opponent in this race, is running to retain a three person Board majority that has been responsible for financially mismanaging Palm Drive, secretly deciding to close it, and refusing to support community leaders and doctors in efforts to reopen it. Jim Horn, who was appointed by this Board majority to temporarily fill a vacant position this summer, is running on tomorrow’s ticket. Horn has clearly emerged as the leading opponent to reopening a hospital with an emergency room. I spell out my reasons for believing this in my recent post here, Why Electing Jim Horn Will Doom Hospital. ...

What Jim Horn has actually said:

• Reopen Palm Drive Hospital if it can be done in a fiscally responsible and sustainable manner. If it can’t, then restore radiology, laboratory, outpatient surgery and urgent care services to benefit as many District residents as possible.

• Expand health care services in our underserved River and coastal communities. For too long, folks living farthest from Palm Drive Hospital have received the least in return for their taxes. That needs to change.

• Get the Palm Drive District out of bankruptcy and, if at all possible, pay our former employees 100% of what they’re owed.

• Provide strong and active board oversight of the District’s finances and operations.

What has actually kept Palm Drive Hospital closed to this point:

• The need to raise an estimated $6,000,000,000.00-$10,000,000,000.00 + for startup costs.
• The need to comply with Federal and State licensing requirements.
• The need to complete and present the Foundation’s financial documents to the District Board.
• The need to negotiate a lease agreement for the hospital from the District.
• The need to pay for and perform needed facility upgrades and repairs required for startup.

These are just the obvious issues that need to be addressed prior to reopening Palm Drive Hospital. I imagine that there are additional factors that I am overlooking.

[Richard Nichols]

Jonathan, as usual, your screeds are full of inaccuracies. Just one is that Sebastopol Tomorrw endorsed Jim Horn, but for some reason you have repeated that more than once. Is it becuase SebTom didn't endorse you and therefore you need to make up a story because so many people want the hospital open, that you can get votes? Cynical, my friend.

But anyway, your devoted followers will pay scant attention to how many absoluetly false statemnts you have made in the last few months. People can point them out, but so what. Have you ever corrected the record that the general plan update cost more than $800K when it is less thay $400K? What this is, is making up a figure to try to make the CC look like they are wasting money.

If you get elected, I hope you can moderate your zeal, and try to tell the truth.

Yet every single incumbent on Sebastopol’s City Council endorses Jim Horn. As does Sebastopol Tomorrow. Knowing the personal and family relationships of our local politicians and leaders of what has become our local political establishment, I believe this choice, of effectively endorsing the continued closure of our hospital, is being made by politicians who sadly place their personal political loyalty over our collective public welfare.
...

[Peacetown Jonathan]

Richard,

I had checked the Jim Horn endorsement page, and when I saw Helen Shane and Brenda and Richard Nichols, I thought that Sebastopol Tomorrow had made this endorsement. But you made it individually, along with Craig Litwin, so I corrected the wording on that in my post above. It had nothing to do with Sebastopol Tomorrow not endorsing me, but that all of the most active members of your group have all endorsed and actively written in support of Jim Horn.

As for the $800,000 to $1 million estimate for the eventual cost of the General Plan:

1) this number was published in Sonoma West in the issue AFTER the $400,000 contract was approved.

2) David Abbot quoted an unnamed City official, presumably Kenyon Webster, who had known what the estimate for the PORTION of the plan the city voted on that night was (the 400k).

3) The estimate was never contradicted by any city staffer or challenged by any City official

4) I was the only person to challenge the consultant cost of the plan and the rising expense of the City Planning Department.

5) In a conversation I had with Robert Jacob pointing out the larger eventual cost, he told me that whatever it costs would be worth it because we need a properly done General Plan.

6) in my five years of attending Council and budget meetings, I have not seen a staff request for a consultant, new hire, or raise, be turned down. Have you?

So based upon this information, I conclude, and have stated, that the City is spending excess money on consultants (I could name other instances but that's another conversation). You and others may differ on what the General Plan ought to cost, but you have yet to offer any evidence that the $400k already paid is all that the General Plan will cost the city.