Group wants out of Palm Drive Hospital district

The way Jeanette Dillman sees it, she and other west county residents who live along the Russian River have no use for a resurrected Palm Drive Hospital.

Dillman, one of thousands of west county residents who for years have paid a hospital district parcel tax that has supported the troubled Sebastopol hospital, said she has nothing against the hospital.

But she doesn’t think she and others in the Russian River area should have to pay for a hospital she doesn’t use.

“Why would we want to go to Palm Drive?” said Dillman, a retired family nurse practitioner who for many years worked for the West County Health Centers.

“The new Sutter is straight down River Road, and it’s a full-service hospital,” she said.

That sentiment is shared by a group of west county residents who want out of the Palm Drive Health Care District. They say they’re tired of paying for a hospital that has never been able to sustain itself and has little chance of succeeding if it comes back.

“It’s not going to work,” said Margaret Benelli, who lives in Guerneville. “If the people in Sebastopol want their emergency room, I think that’s wonderful. But they should pay for it.”

Benelli, Dillman and a core group of River Road corridor residents have begun waging a campaign to change the boundaries of the hospital district.

They say that people who live in the Guerneville, Forestville and Monte Rio school districts - which fall within the hospital district - are not part of Sebastopol and its surrounding communities, and therefore reap no benefits from the taxes they contribute to the hospital district.

The group is calling on the district board to hold public hearings in the Russian River area to discuss “detachment,” the formal term used to describe the process by which registered voters in a special district remove themselves from a district.

Benelli, who sees a Sutter-affiliated doctor, said she also believes Palm Drive Hospital is not viable and any attempt to reopen it will ultimately fail.

“They’re financing it on the backs of taxpayers in the Russian River corridor who don’t use the hospital,” she said.

The detachment process is complicated and could ultimately require a vote by those in the segment of the district that is proposed for detachment. The hospital district board is scheduled to discuss the matter at a director’s meeting at 5:30 p.m. today in the Palm Drive Hospital conference room, 501 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol.

The effort to officially detach the Russian River corridor from the hospital district comes at a time when the district board is moving quickly on a proposal to reopen the hospital. That proposal is being spearheaded by the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation, a longtime supporter of the hospital.

The new hospital, which may eventually be called Sonoma West Medical Center, would feature a 24-hour emergency department with four beds and additional beds for observations; 25 medical/surgical beds, of which 5 would be for intensive care; and a bevy of medical “institutes” focused on such specialties as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, neurology, urology and integrative medicine.

Foundation and hospital officials say the success of the future hospital will in large part depend on the ability to attract patients from the west county and beyond. Many west county residents, even in Sebastopol, are Kaiser health care members.

The detachment of a large segment of the current hospital district would run counter to the goal of getting more Sonoma County patients to use the hospital.

“Anytime you lose a segment of the population that says this is not our hospital of choice, it could make it more difficult,” said Daymon Doss, the hospital’s current executive director. “It doesn’t mean the hospital would not be successful.”

Palm Drive Hospital was originally established in 1941 as a for-profit medical facility. In late 1998, a west county group called 35 for Palm Drive purchased the hospital after its then-owner Columbia HCA announced plans to close it.

The group sold it two years later to the Palm Drive Health Care District, whose formation was approved by the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission, or Sonoma LAFCO, which regulates the boundaries of cities and special districts.

In a 2000 special election, ?91.1 percent of west county voters approved the formation of the district, with 90.7 percent of voters also approving $5.9 million in general obligation bonds to buy the hospital.

Since then, voters have approved more bond measures and increases to the parcel tax, though the last tax measure in 2005, which increased the levy to $155 on each parcel, was approved with a lower margin of 69.4 percent of voters.

Those who now support detachment say the decline in support for the 2005 parcel tax, especially in the Russian River area, reflects a growing disillusionment with Palm Drive Hospital and the district in charge of it.

The boundaries of the hospital district cover most of the west county and include all of it’s major communities, including Sebastopol, Occidental, Graton, Bodega Bay, Forestville, Guerneville and Jenner.

The district, which is made up of nine west county school districts and encompasses roughly 200 square miles, is currently in its second Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. The first bankruptcy was in 2007. Doss said the district has about $22 million in outstanding bond debt.

Those who support detachment fear future bond measures to support the hospital.

“The beauty of detaching is that they won’t be able to get us on the hook for an additional bond,” Benelli said.

She said the three school districts proposed for detachment make up 41 percent of the hospital district’s taxable parcels. But these school districts represent only 32 percent of the voters in the hospital district.

She said the Russian River corridor doesn’t carry enough votes to counter Sebastopol, Occidental and Graton residents if they try for another bond measure.

Detachment is formally considered by Sonoma LAFCO, and it begins with a petition circulated among voters in the area proposed for detachment.

Mark Bramfitt, executive officer of Sonoma LAFCO, said proponents need to get at least 25 percent of the residents of the area to agree to detachment. Once that happens, LAFCO holds a public “protest hearing” to give those who oppose the move a chance to respond.

A hearing date is set and everyone in the proposed detached area is sent a protest notice, which they can return via mail or deliver at the public hearing. Members of the public can also register their protest at the public hearing.

Bramfitt said that if 50 percent of the voters plus one say they oppose detachment, the issue dies. However, if opposition is in the range of 25 to 50 percent, the matter goes to an election. If the protest hearing registers less than 25 percent in opposition, there is no vote and LAFCO’s decision on the matter, which is made based on the merits of the case, stands.

“The (hospital district) has no say in this process,” Bramfitt said, adding that the board can state its opinion on the matter but they can’t vote on whether or not to allow detachment.

“Clearly what’s driving some residents in the Palm Drive Health Care District is that many feel like they never should have been included,” Bramfitt said.

But Bramfitt said one key issue is as yet unresolved. That is, whether voters who detach are still responsible for paying down the district’s previous bond debt.

“I think the definitive answer would be adjudicated in the courts,” he said.

Barbara DeCarly of Guerneville said that’s a reality she’s ready to accept, as long as the responsibility of paying down the debt will end at some point. DeCarly said she has been a Kaiser member for four years and before that saw mainly Sutter doctors.

“If we have to pay we have to pay, but there needs to be a sunset to it,” she said. “At what point are those bonds paid off?”

That’s not clear right now, given the current bankruptcy process, Doss said. He said the parcel tax collects about ?$4 million a year and that if every penny went to pay off the bond holders, it would take more than five years.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at (707) 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.