Sonoma Valley voters extend hospital's parcel tax

Voters in the Sonoma Valley Health Care District overwhelmingly approved a five-year extension of the $195 parcel tax that helps support hospital operations.

Measure A, which required a two-thirds majority of those who voted, was approved Tuesday with 7,326 votes, or 73.2 percent of the vote. Of the district's 20,514 registered voters, 10,040 participated in the mail-in ballot.

The parcel tax, first approved in 2002, was given a five-year extension in 2007, one year after a bruising political battle that left the community divided. Hospital leadership sought to use eminent domain to build a new hospital on the edge of town.

In 2008, voters approved Measure P, which authorized $35 million in bonds to renovate and retrofit the existing facility. That project is expected to begin soon, and hospital officials have said that the hospital's finances are now stable.

- Martin Espinoza