Sonoma County Voters Approve Initiative to Fund Palm Drive ED
Voters in rural west Sonoma County yesterday approved a ballot initiative that will keep the Sebastopol-based Palm Drive Hospital's emergency department open, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Herel, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/6). The initiative, titled Measure D, will finance the ED's operations through a tax requiring area homeowners to pay $60 each year over the next five years. The tax, which will generate $1.6 million annually for the hospital, would help ease some of the 49-bed hospital's financial problems, which included a $1.5 million deficit at the start of the current fiscal year. If Palm Drive's ED had closed, residents would have had to travel 12 miles for emergency care (California Healthline, 6/4).
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