Dissolve the district
EDITOR: There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. So said the late economist and Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman. While Friedman may not have been speaking about the Palm Drive Health Care District specifically, he very well could have been.
Formed in 2000 to keep Sebastopol’s Palm Drive Hospital open, the trouble-plagued district owns a checkered history of bankruptcies and shady financial dealings, the fraudulent Durall drug-testing deal being perhaps the most notorious. Having recently emerged from bankruptcy, the district remains on the hook for creditor claims totaling $28 million.
The hospital facility itself was sold last year thereby eliminating the district’s raison d’etre. But therein lies the rub. The district is primarily funded with parcel tax proceeds approved by voters in 2004. The parcel tax has no expiration date and will continue to appear indefinitely on property tax bills unless the district is dissolved.
Despite having nothing to do, the district continues to incur $500,000 annually in operating costs, primarily for executive officer salaries and benefits, legal fees and accounting services. Recipients of those salaries and professional fees understandably want to keep the gravy train rolling and have opposed efforts to dissolve the district.
The Palm Drive Health Care District board of trustees meets on February 3 to take up the issue of dissolution. We encourage the trustees to dissolve the district and free its taxpayers from the burden of a tax having outlived its usefulness. Mr. Friedman himself would have been among the first to applaud the action.
 Dan Drummond, Executive Director
Sonoma County Taxpayers Association
