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.