Russian River group pushes Palm Drive health district to sever ties

A group of Russian River corridor residents wants the Palm Drive Health Care District to initiate a process that would remove them from the district’s boundaries, saving them the time and money it would take to execute a voter petition campaign.

The move is supported by a grass-roots group of west county residents who say they no longer want to be part of a district that supports a hospital they do not use.

If done by petition, the process - known as detachment - would require a deposit of $10,000 with the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, which regulates the boundaries of cities and special districts and would ultimately rule on detachment issue.

“We could spend a lot of money and LAFCO could deny us,” said Barbara DeCarly of Guerneville, who is among a key group of west county residents advocating for detachment.

DeCarly, who has been a Kaiser Permanente member for the past four years, said the district could “make it easy on us” by initiating the detachment process.

DeCarly was among a group of between 100 and 130 residents along the Russian River corridor who attended a special district meeting last Thursday night at the Monte Rio Community Center. DeCarly and others at the meeting said those in attendance were unanimous in their desire to detach from the district.

Detachment advocates propose removing the Guerneville, Forestville and Monte Rio school districts from the health care district’s boundaries.

“We’re not being served by the Palm Drive Health Care District,” DeCarly said. “That’s the primary reason for wanting out.”

The detachment argument comes at a crucial time when the district is about to embark on an effort to relaunch and rebrand the shuttered Palm Drive Hospital as the Sonoma West Medical Center.

That effort is being spearheaded by the Sonoma West Medical Foundation, formerly the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation, which proposes a 25-bed acute care facility with a bevy of specialty medical institutes that would help cover the cost of inpatient services and a new emergency room.

But some Russian River residents say they are weary of supporting a troubled hospital that has been unable to compete with Sonoma County’s three largest hospitals in Santa Rosa, including the new Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital.

Daymon Doss, Palm Drive Hospital’s current executive director, said last week’s meeting answered key questions about the detachment process. He said Mark Bramfitt, executive officer of Sonoma LAFCO laid out the two “onramps” for pursuing detachment - voter petition and district board resolution.

He said residents who attended were unequivocal about their preference.

“They made that very clear that they want the district to pay for this,” Doss said.

Another question that was answered, DeCarly said, was the fact that even if Russian River corridor residents were able to detach from the district, they would still be legally bound to pay the district tax.

She said state government code “essentially says that the detached territories are still responsible for the debt of the district as of the date of detachment.”

The board has agreed to schedule a meeting in April where it will consider the financial impact of what would happen if the three school districts detach from the boundaries of the health care district.

The detachment process could be voted on by the district board in early May, Doss said.