A two-year campaign by Russian River area residents seeking to abandon the taxing district that supports the struggling Sonoma West Medical Center in Sebastopol has prevailed, and the fallout is expected to immediately add to the financial challenges facing the small hospital serving western Sonoma County.
The “detachment” effort, waged by a group calling itself Taxpayers Against Unfair Taxes, or TAUT, will reduce the annual contribution made by the Palm Drive Health Care District to the hospital by 40 percent, to $600,000.
Currently, the district collects $4.2 million in parcel taxes from residents stretching from Sebastopol and along the Russian River to the coast. Almost half of the tax revenue goes to debt payments on past borrowing to support the former Palm Drive Hospital, which was mired in financial problems that led to its closure in 2014. It reopened under new management as Sonoma West Medical Center in late 2015 but has continued to face strong financial headwinds.
The hospital reported an operating loss of $479,000 in December on monthly expenses of $2.4 million. Dan Smith, chairman of the Sonoma West Medical Center’s board of directors, said the hospital remains on track to break even by June and will overcome the revenue loss from the detachment campaign.
“Obviously, it reduces the amount of money that the district has available to support the hospital,” he said.
Smith, a software entrepreneur, spearheaded the hospital’s reopening, donating at least $9 million of his own money to the medical facility over the years.
The tax revolt, which results in a pullout by residents in the Monte Rio, Guerneville and Forestville school districts, “does not dissuade anybody from having a hospital,” Smith said.
The detachment was formally approved and recorded this week by the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission, or Sonoma LAFCO, after only one resident in the affected area objected.
Supporters of the detachment campaign contended that residents in the Russian River corridor receive little benefit from the Palm Drive Health Care District, and many of them are Kaiser Permanente members or use the new Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, which they claim is easier to get to than the Sebastopol hospital.
“It’s been a long haul and I think it was justified,” said Jeanette Dillman, a key detachment supporter who lives in Pocket Canyon outside Forestville. “I’m very happy that LAFCO listened to us.”
The campaign began around the time hospital supporters were angling to relaunch and rebrand Palm Drive Hospital after its 2014 closure. When it reopened in October 2015 under a new name and new management, TAUT members had already begun gathering signatures in support of detachment.
By May 2016, the group had gathered more than the required 2,046 signatures needed to trigger a municipal services review of the district by LAFCO, which regulates the boundaries of local governments and special public districts.
In September 2016, LAFCO voted to approve the detachment. The process included an opportunity for residents in the affected area to voice their opposition, starting in mid-December. Mark Bramfitt, LAFCO’s executive officer, said only one person had submitted a petition opposing the move by Wednesday.
“We’re done with the detachment,” he said. “The folks who are living in those three school districts are no longer in the district.”
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