Message from Bill

Bill Boerum
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:38 PM
Subject: Election On - Vote No - Keep Signs Up

Election is still on – Vote No on C
This election is still on despite the “yes” campaign folding and confusion caused by initial newspaper reports. It is important that ballots be voted “No” and returned so they can be counted and the tally certified. Please pass the word to friends, family and fellow supporters. If you are working on our telephone campaign keep working your call list and return it as indicated.

Keep the Signs Up
Since the election continues until May 2, please keep your lawn and road signs up. Voters will be casting ballots until that date. Though the other side is taking down their signs, our campaign continues while votes are being received at the Registrars Office during the next three weeks.

SVHC District Meeting – Thurs., April 13 – Make Your Views Known
The Health Care District Board of Directors meets in a special session this Thursday, April 13 at 5PM at the Vintage House - 264 1st Street East, Sonoma. At the beginning of the meeting, there will be a comment period for the public on the Board’s consideration of properties under negotiation for a new hospital on Broadway south of Napa Road. Following this comment period, the Board will go into closed session on the matter, and then reconvene with its recommendation. The comment period is a good time to voice your confidence in – or lack thereof – in the Board’s and the Administration’s ability to carry on with what may be its plan for the new site, and what is needed to reconcile with the community. Though eminent domain was a defining issue in this campaign, it was not and is not, the only issue. Other issues include the size and scope of hospital services as well as the absolute cost (including tax burden) of a new or retro-fitted facility.

Contributions Needed
Since the campaign is continuing, we need contributions. Please forward your donations to: No on C Committee, P.O. Box 791, Sonoma 95476.

Feel free to forward this message to others who have an interest in supporting the No on C campaign.

Measure C Truth Website

www.measureCtruth.com

The hospital board's scheme to railroad the voters: Last year the board paid consultants $83,000 to secretly plan an expensive campaign to pass Measure C. Their scheme included springing a special election on the community in hopes of catching any opposition unprepared. The board could have waited two more months for the general election in June. The consultants have pieced together a worse-case scenario to make it appear closing the hospital is a certainty if Measure C fails. The board has ignored all other options--they only want a big, new hospital complex!

The board's deceptive fear tactic that the hospital will close: The board's consultants are propaganda experts that specialize in scare tactics such as "the hospital will close if Measure C loses." Measure C doesn't finance the day-to-day operation of the hospital. In 2002 Sonoma Valley voters passed a parcel tax to subsidize their community hospital. If Measure C fails operating income continues and the hospital remains open.

The board's attempt to conceal the real costs of Measure C:

$148,000,000 principal (widely publicized)
$140,000,000 30 yrs potential interest (not discussed)
$288,000,000 of big debt, more taxes (that's more than 1/4 billion)

If the current small hospital is under utilized then how can we afford to operate a new hospital complex more than twice its size?

The current hospital is on 3.5 acres and the proposed complex would be on 16 acres with a larger hospital, an office complex, and parking facilities.



Please email this website www.measureCtruth.com to as many people as you can.Or print this page and distribute to your neighbors.

Help us build our email database of Sonoma Valley residents. Email or forward addresses to: provide@measureCtruth.com

This Election is NOT over

The Yes campaign has suspended operations for now.

This Election is NOT over

Be sure to cast your mail-in ballot ASAP.

Urge fellow supporters to mail their ballots

Vote NO on Measure C.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
SONOMA - An alternate site has been identified for a new Sonoma Valley Hospital in a deal that would spare the Leveroni property and make moot the bond election now under way.As a result, the campaign supporting Measure C has been suspended, though the election hasn't been canceled.

The new site comprises five parcels on the east side of Broadway, just south of Napa Road.Three of the parcels, totaling 8 acres, have been bought by Bruce Stephens, a Sonoma importer and amateur winemaker who said he has spent two weeks putting the deal together.

"I went out and bought these pieces of property," Stephens said.

"What that allows me to do is offer them to the hospital as an assembled package."On Thursday, hospital officials entered into negotiations with the owners of the two remaining properties, one of which houses the Moose Lodge.

Page said all Measure C campaign activities would be suspended pending the outcome of these negotiations.The surprising development places the bond election in new light but doesn't stop the vote.

County Clerk Eeve Lewis said all 20,730 ballots have been mailed out and the election cannot be stopped. As of Thursday, 779 ballots had been returned.

"There is nothing in the law that would allow an election to be canceled once it has passed the withdraw date for a measure, and that date is 83 days before the election," she said.

Joe Leveroni, one of the owners of the property that had been sought by the hospital district, said he would not let down his guard and is still asking people to vote no on Measure C.

"Measure C as written is specific to the Leveroni property," he said. "If the hospital board identifies another piece of property, Measure C has no relation to it."

He said it was "important that voters defeat Measure C and not be confused by any future choices that the hospital board is looking at now."

Page agreed that a separate election would be required to finance a hospital at the alternate site.

The plan to find a new site for the hospital was hatched by Stephens over a glass of wine with his friend Hank Marioni, owner of the historic Swiss Hotel in the Sonoma Plaza.

Just Hiding in the Grass....

TO ALL OF MY NO ON "C" FRIENDS:

I HAVE WALKED THROUGHOUT SONOMA VALLEY AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE YEAR AND NOTICED THAT RATTLESNAKES CHANGE COLORS RELATIVE TO THEIR ENVIORNMENT--MUCH LIKE CHAMELEONS. GREENER IN THE SPRING AND AS THE GRASS TURNS DRY THEY TAKE ON A MUCH LIGHTER COLOR--I THINK WE COULD REFER TO THIS AS COMOUFLAGE.

WITH THIS IN MIND, DO NOT BE LULLED INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY BECAUSE THE RATTLESNAKES ARE STILL WAITING FOR YOU TO BE OFF GUARD! THEY JUST WAIT TO DEVOUR YOU WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT.

IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING MY THOUGHT PATTERN YOU'LL REALIZE THAT THESE "SNAKES" ARE ONLY CALLING OFF THEIR CAMPAIGN BECAUSE THEY MAY HAVE IDENTIFIED A PIECE OF PROPERTY THAT HAS A WILLING SELLER. WHAT THEY HAVE NOT CALLED OFF IS THE ELECTION!

BE SURE TO TELL EVERYONE THAT WAS VASCILLATING ABOUT EMINENT DOMAIN THAT THEY ARE STILL VOTING ABOUT AN ENORMOUS TAX ISSUE--$148,000,000!

I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS ONE MORE SLIMEY MOVE ON THEIR PART TO LIE TO THOSE THAT HAVE NOT MADE UP THEIR MINDS. VERY DEVIOUS!

There is another old Spanish saying: They don't even know how to season the lie well enough to have me swallow it!

AGAIN, REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH AND TELL ALL TO VOTE NO ON "C"!!

RICH CASELLI, D.D.S.

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!

It Ain't Over till the Fat Lady Sings...

KEEP ON KEEPING ON - The End Is Near

The full ramification of today's amazing Measure C developments are still to be determined. but there can be no question that the sweet scent of victory in the air, and it will come if we stay committed to defeating Measure C.

If C passes, I don't think there are any among us who believe for a second that the special interests behind the Yes campaign still won't snatch the Leveroni site if their desparate, cobbled-together-last-minute Hail Mary site plan falls through. And of course, there is still NO indication it will be successful, or that 66.7% of the voters will approve the deal.

The YesMen are simply hoping that this 'gesture' -- which is all it is at the moment -- is something no one will oppose. While they may be right, I see in their proposal all the Good Ol' Boy arrogance of "father knows best" that got them in this mess in the first place. They just don't get it, and maybe they never will.

As for tonight's little "announcement." --- Bill, Ned and I tempered our remarks tonight to allow the scenario to bleed out in all its awkwardness, and to stay focused on defeating C. There is an old Latin agricultural _expression that, loosely translated, says "You can't shine a turd," and I think we saw an example of it tonight in the Paige-Mazza duet trying to explain, "Gee, look what we found in the last 48 hours to fix all our problems for everybody!". The incredible thing is that I think they actually believed what they were saying, and believed that we believed it.

The board's face-saving proposal -- a yet-to-be-finalized-maybe-deal involving four property owners and a reluctant Moose Hall -- is a grasping at straws and not the sort of "hospital Fairy" (to quote Steve Paige) that would cause any sanely run campaign to suddenly be called off in mid-voting if it did not know it was already in a death-spiral.

I hope we can get a satisfactory site but with the Five Stooges & Friends running the show, every day is another surprise. The three of us let them spin it, out of politeness and in the interest of future community harmony (and on the belief that we should be "magnanimous in victory"). But we all know tonight was -- at best - nothing but a face-saving exercise by people who have ruthlessly savaged this community for months without shame and without remorse and who are now facing the specter of embarassing personal and political consequences, not to mention heavy credibility deficits.

At worst, it is a cheap campaign trick (they still haven't fired Tramutola) . The same people who tonight would have you believe that stones would melt in their mouth STILL refused to disavow OR EVEN APOLOGIZE for their shameful "Close and Die" campaign, or their still-active designs on the Leveroni property. Or for causing the unnecesary expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars in public and personal money (and campaign donations) spent on both sides in this senseless and ill-conceived farce.

Imagine how you would feel tonight if you were a "Yes" loyalist or hospital employee who had donated time and money and reputation -- maybe even sacrificed friendships -- to a campaign so delusional that it folded in mid-vote??? When was the last time any political campaign folded during the balloting???] Of course. they say their gesture is in good faith and not a campaign trick. But these are the same people who have spent the last three months lying, intimidating the sick and elderly and hospital employees and publicly calling us and our friends ignorant, amateurs and political opportunists. And in the press, too. Let us not ever forget Charmin' Billy.

Now they want Kumbaya, because Kumbaya is all they have left. They now realize -- thanks to the dedicated, passionate and relentless effort of everyone who is No On C -- that this disparaged, disrespected, much-abused, rag-tag hodge-podge bunch of politically diverse ignorant amateurs are kicking their asses good, and it will take a lot of lipstick to pretty up that pig.

I will be the first to say that the community needs to come together, but part of that "healing process" is for those who have ripped the community to shreds to acknowledge what they have done and to publicly apologize for it. Until they do, and until Joe, Pat and Bee's property is fully out from under the hammer of eminent domain, I for one am not singing kumbaya.

If they apologize, I can forgive them all. But I will not forget what they did, and I will never forget what WE have done -- together. Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Blues, Reds, men, women, children, Dogs, saints and sinners -- ignorant amateurs all -- against Big Money Deep Pocket Fat Cats and their vaunted "political consultant" with the 95% success political track record. If we can see Measure C's defeat through to the end of the balloting, that record will have just taken a BIG hit. So say it over and over till you fall asleep: We are kicking their asses good...we are kickng their asses good... we are kicking ....ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

They're Playin' Possum

At a public meeting Thursday night – which was to be a forum on Measure C – “Save our Hospital Committee” Co-Chairs Steve Page and Al Mazza announced that the Yes campaign had been shut down: the office closed, all ads pulled and mailers stopped.

The reason for the shut-down is that a new site for a proposed hospital has been identified among five properties on the west side of Broadway south of Napa/Leveronu Road and negotiations are in progress. There will be a special meeting of the Health Care District Board of Directors next Thursday, April 13 to consider whatever next action is appropriate. Page and Mazza asked their supporters to hold their ballots aside and not to vote in the election. More detailed accounts of the situation will be reported in the press.

At the meeting in the Burlingame Room at the Congregational Church on Spain Street, representatives of the No on C campaign, Bill Boerum, Ned Hill and Bob Edwards urged No supporters to vote and send in their ballots as soon as possible. This election is not over, Measure C is not defeated and the Leveronis’ land is not yet safe from seizure by eminent domain. There are more than three weeks to go and other events may intrude on this apparent victory.

We need to send a clear message with a big vote that eminent domain will not be tolerated and that Sonoma Valley farmland needs to be preserved. Please be sure to vote No. In the coming days we will continue our campaign.

Following next Thursday’s Board meeting, hopefully it will become clear how people can participate in the dialogue to determine what kind of hospital services should be proposed to meet the needs in Sonoma Valley. At least on the surface, it appears that the District may propose a facility which is similar to, if not an exact model of, what it planned for the Leveroni land, but simply on another site.

Stay tuned. And, be sure to vote No.

Alternative Hospital Site Identified

PressDemocrat

An “alternate” site has been identified for building the proposed new hospital in Sonoma, hospital president Robert Kowal said today.

It could mean that the current ballot election over Measure C, a controversial proposal to build a new hospital on farmland just outside the edge of town, could be dropped, Kowal said.

Hospital officials said they are negotiating the purchase of 13 to 15 acres of property on Broadway near the city’s southern boundary.

“If we do agree on something, my understanding is that they are going to suspend the campaign until we have the opportunity to investigate the option,” said Kowal.

The Sonoma Valley Health District has scheduled a special board meeting for next Thursday to discuss the alternate site.

April 5th Event- Cancelled

This Event Has Been Cancelled Will post an update if a new date is selected.

April 5 – No on C Vintners, Growers & Wineries of Sonoma Valley TastingHosted by Coturri Winery, Enterprise Vineyards & the Epicurian ConnectionAndrews Hall, Sonoma Community CenterCelebrity Bartenders - $10 Donation - 6-9PM - Cancelled