Group going to voters to advance pullout from Palm Drive Health Care District

A group of residents in west Sonoma County has moved forward with a voter petition drive aimed at detaching a large geographic area from the financially troubled taxing district tied to the former Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol.

The move comes just as the former hospital, shuttered in April 2014 due to a chronic fiscal shortfall, is set to reopen soon as the Sonoma West Medical Center.

The group that wants out of the taxing district has formally notified the agency overseeing such matters of its intent to gather signatures from residents who want their properties to be removed from the taxing district’s jurisdiction.

The group, which calls itself Taxpayers Against Unfair Taxes, claims that over the years, residents along the Russian River corridor have received little benefit from the Palm Drive Health Care District. Its proposal calls for the removal of residential parcels within the Monte Rio, Guerneville and Forestville school districts, a step that could present a significant challenge to the medical center going forward.

The health care district collects about $4 million in annual taxes on nearly 25,000 taxed parcels in 200 square miles. The district includes most major west county communities, including Sebastopol, Forestville, Graton, Bodega Bay, Occidental and Guerneville.

By going directly to voters, the taxpayers group seeks to establish a public mandate on the agency that regulates the boundaries of cities and special districts and would ultimately rule on the detachment issue. The entity is known as Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO.

“We want to demonstrate to the LAFCO commissioners that the majority of people in these school districts … will receive little or no benefit from the health care district,” said Margaret Benelli, a member of the taxpayer group.

Benelli, a Guerneville native and lifelong county resident, said that in the 15 years the health care district has been in existence, residents in the three school districts have contributed about $23 million in parcel taxes, while receiving “no outreach” from the health care entity. The district collects about $4 million in annual parcel taxes.

Benelli and other west county residents who favor detachment from the district say they are disproportionately affected by the parcel tax. She said they fear the district will attempt to pass another bond measure that would further increase taxpayers’ indebtedness.

The district has penned a management services agreement with Sonoma West Medical Center to operate the hospital.

“Our concern is that they are going to go back to the taxpayers and ask for an additional revenue bond,” she said.

Benelli said that taxable parcels in the three school districts comprise 46 percent of district’s 24,808 taxed parcels, citing figures from the Sonoma County Assessor’s Office. However, she said that based on data from the county registrar, voters in the three school districts make up only 32 percent of hospital district’s total registered voters.

“Whatever Sebastopol wants they can get and we’re going to have to pay for it forever, for generations,” she said.

Jim Maresca, president of the Palm Drive Health Care District, said the proportion of Russian River corridor voters in the district was smaller than the area’s proportion of parcels due to the large number of vacations homes along the area.

Maresca said that it was politically unlikely that the district would attempt to pass another bond measure. But he said the board could attempt to refinance the existing bond for a better interest rate and repayment terms.

But Maresca said he supported the group’s democratic right to petition for detachment.

“They have the legal right to do this,” he said.

Mark Bramfitt, executive officer of LAFCO, said the first signature gathered will trigger a 6-month period during with the group will have to gather signatures from at least a quarter of the 8,000 voters who live in the three school districts. That is only the beginning of a complicated process overseen by the commission that could result in the agency’s acceptance or rejection of the detachment proposal. Protest of the former outcome by enough voters could lead to a balloted election overseen by the county.

Bramfitt said the last time a special district detachment occurred was several years ago, when the Sonoma Valley Health Care District adopted a resolution to remove the Kenwood area from the district’s boundaries. He said Kenwood residents showed little support for the health care district, which threatened voter support for an upcoming property tax measure.

Maresca, the Palm Drive Health Care District president, said that even if the taxpayer group is successful in its detachment efforts, the detachment taxpayers are still on the hook for paying down the district’s current debt of $23 million. The total obligation is set to be retired by 2030.

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