Sebastopol’s Palm Drive Hospital will likely close its doors by April 28 after the hospital’s board of directors voted Monday night, 4–1, to shut down core services at the cash-strapped facility. The board told a crowd of about 250 gathered at the meeting at the Community Church of Sebastopol that it had filed for bankruptcy protection earlier that day.

Hospital spokesman Marcus Young says the closure could last from three to six months, and the hospital might reopen as a different type of facility.

There are two proposals on the table: “One is a private surgery center that would look to offering some degree of emergency service,” Young says. The other, which Young has less detail about, is “more of a clinic-type operation.”

Palm Drive is a district hospital funded by taxpayers, which creates a different set of issues than if it was a private hospital. “If you look at the district hospital model across the country, this is the trend that’s happening,” says Young. Competition from Sutter, Memorial and Kaiser hospitals in Santa Rosa have drawn patients from the smaller Palm Drive, which offers fewer services. Palm Drive also has trouble keeping up with new, modern facilities and the equipment in larger, better funded private hospitals.

“District hospitals, slowly, over time, cannot compete,” says Young.

Palm Drive has seen a 30 percent drop in patients this year versus last. Forty employees were laid off in January, including eight nurses, and the hospital reduced its inpatient beds from 27 to 14. Last month, all employees at the hospital got notices of possible layoffs when the average number of patients per day was seven. So far this month, it’s 4.4.

The hospital is taking a $2 million loan from the county to transition the hospital into economic viability. The loan was necessary, he says, “in order to bridge to the closure.”

Officials said last week the hospital was losing almost $2 million a year. Palm Drive filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in 2007, when it was losing $500,000 a month and held $3 million in debt. It emerged from bankruptcy in May 2010 after selling bonds to pay off its debt, which by then had grown to $11 million. Less than two years later, in March 2012, the hospital announced it was running a deficit of about $850,000—instead of a projected surplus of $915,000.

Doctors and other employees offered suggestions on how to keep the hospital open during Monday’s meeting. “The board left that to be examined as they go through the process over the next few weeks or next few months,” says Young.

But he warned it might be too late for some of the suggestions. “It’s a district hospital supported by taxpayers, so there are probably issues of voting that need to be taken into account,” says Young. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen; it just means it can’t happen within the three-week window.”

Asked if the public forum should have been held sooner, Young says the board didn’t foresee the steep drop in patients. “Even if they went into that process a year ago, it would have been a more difficult time to do that. Sometimes you have to get to a more critical point.”

Inpatient services at Palm Drive may close on April 21, and the emergency room is slated for shutdown by April 28. An ambulance will be stationed at the hospital for three months to assist emergency patients unaware of the closure. They’ll be transferred to other facilities.

If you’ve got a better idea, hospital officials are fielding suggestions from the public at Th*******@***************al.com. If you’ve got ideas, let us know at le*****@******an.com

The mission to repopulate the world of Tibetan Buddhist texts begins, in a way, in Cazadero.

The Yeshe De Tibetan Text Preservation Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing back sacred texts destroyed by the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1951. In this modern world, that requires a printing press and major distribution—and there’s the problem, at least for one resident.

“We do not oppose Dharma [Publishing’s] mission; we think it’s a fine thing that they’re doing,” says Cazadero resident Mike Singer. “What we do oppose is where they’re doing the mission.” The 120-acre spiritual retreat, located 10 miles north of Fort Ross, is not the right place for a printing press, he says, because the rural roads aren’t meant to handle shipping trucks making two trips per day.

When Dharma Publishing was awarded a use permit in 2012 to operate at a spiritual retreat center in the hills of Cazadero, Singer filed an appeal. He says the county’s general plan does not allow for such large printing presses in this instance, and lists several violations of the municipal code. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday to discuss the appeal. (The outcome is available at Bohemian.com.)

Under a conditional use permit issued in 2004, Dharma Publishing was allowed to operate an 18,000-square-foot printing press as an ancillary operation to Ratna Ling, a Buddhist retreat center (both fall under the umbrella of Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley). Singer claims Ratna Ling has been in violation of its use permit since 2007, when the printing operation tripled its output with new equipment and more workers.

“Our main concern is they relocated a major industrial press into an RRD [resource and rural development] zone,” says Singer.

One reason for the move is the proximity to Ratna Ling. Volunteers living at the retreat can work at the press through a work-study program. It’s essentially free labor in a trade-style agreement.

“We negotiated with them four or five times,” Singer says. “They said, ‘We have to make it clear here: the printing operations will never be on the table for discussion.’ They don’t give reasons.”

The Sonoma County Board of Zoning Adjustment recommended approval in 2012. Singer’s complaints were not discussed at that meeting because the board lost the notes of its field inspection. He has since resubmitted them.

A March 19 memo from Sonoma County Building and Safety Division manager Ben Neuman, explains that most of Singer’s complaints have been addressed by the applicant. But one condition of the use permit states that a commercial printing press is not allowed. Books, prayer wheels and sacred art are produced at the press and sold at the Nyingma Institute’s large bookstore in Berkeley, as well as online at retailers like Amazon. Depending on the final decision on Tuesday, “If sales and advertisement are prohibited, then this issue would become a violation,” Neuman writes.

The operation is not visible or audible from the road, says Singer. But it’s not just about the local residents. “It affects all the residents in Sonoma County because it sets a precedent,” he says.

Calls to Dharma Publishing were referred to their legal counsel, who did not return phone calls. County supervisors Efren Carrillo and Shirlee Zane declined to comment on the case before Tuesday afternoon’s hearing.

UPDATE:
After a 6 1/2-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors rejected an appeal to limit Dharma Publishing’s expansion. Most people in the packed room spoke in favor of the press. The 3-2 vote (Shirlee Zane and Susan Gorin voted in favor of the appeal) also allowed the construction of a five-bedroom guest house on the site, made temporary book storage permanent and changed the limit from number of books produced to limit on truck traffic.