New video: to Open Our Hospital, We Need to Elect Powers and Colthurst to District Board

The critical campaign to elect the doc and the cop; Richard Powers and Dennis Colthust, to the Palm Drive District Board, recently released a new video, in which both candidates appear. Please check it our, and share it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFpFfK4CUnU


Progressive Sebastopol enthusiastically endorses Powers and Colthurst in this little known, but highly important contest. Here is what we wrote about it for a flyer we are distributing:

To Open Our Hospital Elect Dennis Colthurst and Richard Powers for Palm Drive District Board

Progressive Sebastopol supports longtime community doctor Richard Powers and retired police officer Dennis Colthurst, for the very important Palm Drive District Board contest on Election Day, November 4.

Powers and Colthurst are running to create a new Palm Drive District Board majority that is committed to reopening Palm Drive with a financially sustainable model that includes its life saving emergency room. If you want this to happen, please vote for them!

They are running against incumbent Jim Horn, who has emerged as the leading opponent of re-opening an emergency room. Horn speaks of supporting an “urgent care” alternative to an ER, but urgent care cannot, by law, accept ambulances, or provide the ER services that have saved lives in our community for generations.

An impressive team of business and medical experts in West Sonoma County has been working for months to create an exciting new financially sustainable hospital (see OpenOurHopsital.com) that will contain an emergency room, and an expanded governance model that will allow the hospital to reopen.

Palm Drive Hospital was rated by Consumer Reports as the safest hospital in the entire state of California. Our community deserves a District Board that is fully committed to reopening it.

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Why I’m running for the Palm Drive Board

By Jim Horn

On April 7, the Palm Drive District Board voted to close Palm Drive Hospital. I sat in the audience with my wife, Susan, who had cared for patients as a Palm Drive nurse for six years. When the Hospital faltered and then closed, she lost her job and we scrambled to replace our health insurance. One night soon after, she spent hours writing good-bye notes to her coworkers.

Just three months later, I was appointed to fill a vacancy in the District Board. I’ve been working hard ever since on four basic priorities:

• Re-open 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 percent of what they’re owed.

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

Now I’m running for re-election to the Board on Nov. 4. I believe I’m the right person for this crucial job because of my business and public service experience.

As a young Caltech graduate, I started my own engineering company 28 years ago. During my career, I’ve been president of a 14-person firm and managing partner of a 20-person company. I’m intimately familiar with owning and managing a successful business.

Over the years, I’ve helped design projects at many local hospitals. I understand the complex and demanding regulations that even small hospitals like Palm Drive must follow.

I’ve also served on the Gravenstein school board for the past 12 years, including seven years as board president. During that time, our enrollment increased more than 40 percent and our finances and reserves improved dramatically. I’m skilled at overseeing a successful public district, asking tough questions, and working as a team to turn a struggling district into a thriving one.

Finally, I’ve been blessed with my wonderful wife of 38 years, Susan, a registered nurse in California for more than three decades. Through her, I’ve developed a good layman’s knowledge of how Palm Drive actually worked and how our dedicated employees helped earn national recognition for patient safety.

Can the hospital be reopened responsibly and sustainably? I don’t know yet. I believe the proposal being developed by the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation is our best shot at that goal, but the jury is still out. I hope it does, but many crucial questions remain about finances, facilities, licensing, Medicare reimbursement and electronic medical records, among others. Some of these questions are posted on the District website at www.palmdrivehospital.org.

But it’s a daunting task. According to state records, the Hospital suffered over $60 million in operating losses in the last 13 years, and the District is in bankruptcy for the second time. The building is 40 years old and needs millions of dollars in repairs and upgrades.

Some say that if I don’t commit immediately and without reservation to the Foundation’s plan, even if incomplete, then I must be against reopening the Hospital. That makes no sense. My job as a District Director is to use my best judgment and experience to help provide the best health care services we can sustainably afford. A key part of my job is to question — to poke and prod at financial reports, business plans and bankruptcy strategies, whether from the Foundation or the District administration.

More than ever, we need independent Directors with a healthy skepticism and the experience and ability to ask questions and make tough decisions. I believe I’m the best candidate for this crucial job and I would appreciate your vote on Nov. 4.

Jim Horn’s campaign website can be found at jimhornforpalmdrive2014.com.

(reprinted with permission)

Hi,

I want to urge you to vote for Jim Horn for the Palm Drive District Board this November. I have known Jim for over 30 years and I think he is best equipped to handle the problems facing Palm Drive District. The re-opening of the hospital is a complex process that cannot be solved by signs in the front yards, it is not a popularity contest. The decision has to be made on sound financial analysis which Jim is well equipped to handle. I would hate to see the hospital re-opened based on the emotions of the campaign only to have to close again in another year or two if it cannot be sustained. Jim has served our community as a school board director for years and his wife was a nurse at Palm Drive for years.

Please cast your vote in November for Jim Horn!!!

Thanks for considering this message.

Frank Mayhew, former Director Palm Drive Healthcare District.
Kathie Mayhew

(reprinted with permission)

‘Numbers guy’ Horn

Editor: I support Jim Horn in the election for the Palm Drive Health Care District Board of Directors. All three candidates have reputations as good people with exceptional service to the community. All three want to see a successful, revitalized hospital. What distinguishes them from one another is the skill set that each would bring to the Board if elected. This is where Jim is the top choice.

A recently appointed incumbent, he brings the experience of a career as a professional engineer, having previously worked on many complex hospital construction projects. He possesses an understanding of the regulatory and financial environments that confront the reopening of Palm Drive Hospital. He is well educated in the structural and mechanical workings of a hospital — important for Palm Drive now and in the future.

Jim is a “numbers guy.” He has created and analyzed budgets and financial data his entire career. He displays a no-nonsense, realistic approach to Palm Drive’s finances, and is unafraid to ask the difficult questions needed to develop accurate answers. Jim has refused to “rubber stamp” plans that make questionable sense or are incomplete. His financial expertise has been consistently demonstrated during his 12-year tenure as a member and past president of the Board of the Gravenstein Union School District.

If you want the best chance at turning an insolvent, aging hospital into a thriving health care reality for Sebastopol and the West County, we need a business savvy person with hospital knowledge and financial and technical expertise. Join me in voting for Jim Horn.

See Jim’s website at jimhornforpalmdrive2014.com.

Lynn Deedler
Sebastopol
(Member, Sebastopol Design Review Board)

(reprinted with permission)

Horn best choice

Editor: I would like to strongly recommend a vote for Jim Horn for the Palm Drive Health Care District Board in the upcoming election. Jim has been serving on the board in an interim capacity since July. He has been a true asset in the deliberations about the bankruptcy and the options that face the district.

Jim is an engineer with his own business in Sebastopol. He is most astute about fiscal matters. Jim has brought his considerable skills to the district, first in doing a comprehensive assessment of the Palm Drive physical plant and then in consistently being an active involved member of the finance committee of the board

Jim is a man of integrity and independent good judgment. I think he is someone we want to be part of the decision making process about the options available to the health care district in providing health care services to west county. Jim’s wife was a nurse at Palm Drive hospital before it closed, so he is familiar with strengths and weaknesses of the hospital, and he is well versed in the history of the district.

Jim Horn is the candidate most qualified to serve as a board member for the Palm Drive Health Care District.

Sandra DeBella Bodley
Vice President
Palm Drive Health Care District Board

(reprinted with permission)

It is a complete fabrication to say that Jim Horn is a "leading opponent of reopening an emergency room", and I for one do not appreciate the overblown claims made by Mr. Greenberg. Horn is fully in support of opening the hospital if it is at all possible. Money, not willingness, is the main obstacle. Jim Horn does not make claims he can't back up, but instead takes a pract practical view of the difficulties. Vote for Jim Horn for the Hospital District Board.

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

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They are running against incumbent Jim Horn, who has emerged as the leading opponent of re-opening an emergency room. Horn speaks of supporting an “urgent care” alternative to an ER, but urgent care cannot, by law, accept ambulances, or provide the ER services that have saved lives in our community for generations.
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You're completely wrong about my position on reopening the Palm Drive Hospital with an ER. Here's what I say on my website (jimhornforpalmdrive2014.com) and what I said in an article in Sonoma West this week about my priorities (see separate posting):

• 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.

Please don't distort my position or try to mislead voters in this election. Thank you.

Jim Horn

there is no champion of Palm Drive Hospital more committed than Dr. Richard Powers. He is the humane face of medicine, especially community medicine. He has been involved in planning for the future of Palm Drive Hospital since way before it closed. His insider knowledge of what worked and did not work at PDH is invaluable to our process going forward. Whatever you do, vote for Dr. Powers.

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Posted in reply to the post by Richard Nichols:

It is a complete fabrication to say that Jim Horn is a "leading opponent of reopening an emergency room", and I for one do not appreciate the overblown claims made by Mr. Greenberg. Horn is fully in support of opening the hospital if it is at all possible. Money, not willingness, is the main obstacle. Jim Horn does not make claims he can't back up, but instead takes a pract practical view of the difficulties. Vote for Jim Horn for the Hospital District Board.

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Dr. Powers is not the problem. I would asked him to distance himself from the false claim that Jim Horn is an opponent of opening the ER. He should be worried that he is tainted by false claims by his supporters.

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Posted in reply to the post by applefan:

there is no champion of Palm Drive Hospital more committed than Dr. Richard Powers. He is the humane face of medicine, especially community medicine. He has been involved in planning for the future of Palm Drive Hospital since way before it closed. His insider knowledge of what worked and did not work at PDH is invaluable to our process going forward. Whatever you do, vote for Dr. Powers.

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Interesting video...well done...six speakers....all white males. We are seeing a pattern here of not including women in all phases of reopening the hospital. What's wrong with this picture? Aside from Powers and Colthurst, any or all of the others could have been women. The entire list of doctors slated for the hospital has not one woman. And now the video with not one woman. We all need to speak up, folks. We're no longer in a Victorian era. This is the 21st century. This is UNACCEPTABLE!!

Sandy2y

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

The critical campaign to elect the doc and the cop; Richard Powers and Dennis Colthust, to the Palm Drive District Board, recently released a new video, in which both candidates appear. Please check it our, and share it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFpFfK4CUnU

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Your awesome.Thanks for looking out for the elders and those individuals with medical conditions in Sebastopol who need to be close to a hospital. I think of my grandma who is 93 years old, and how important it is for her to be near a hospital. Or my eight yr old daughter, who has a non-functioning pituitary and needs proximity to a hospital in the case of severe sickness or injury.

-Christine Dufond

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

The critical campaign to elect the doc and the cop; Richard Powers and Dennis Colthust, to the Palm Drive District Board, recently released a new video, in which both candidates appear. Please check it our, and share it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFpFfK4CUnU

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