Measure A Landslide is a Major Grassroots Victory for West Sonoma County

Posted on March 22, 2019 by Jonathan Greenberg

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This month’s three to one (!) vote for Measure A to “Open Our Hospital” forever is the best news of a people-powered victory that we have had in our community since banning GMO farming two and a half years ago.

Despite a continuation of a shameful five year vendetta by Sonoma West Times & News publisher Rollie Atkinson, whose newspaper ran relentless headlines disparaging the hospital’s prospects and attacking those who sacrificed enormous time and money to preserve the 80 year old West County institution, and despite the absence of public support from a single local elected official, 5,520 out of 7,267 citizens who cast ballots voted for a sustainable long term solution for our hospital.

Although voters would have preferred to have an emergency room in West County, an urgent care facility that is open 7 days a week 9 to 9, at no costs to taxpayers, using the same emergency room-equipped hospital structure, in the same location that has housed a hospital for 80 years, is nothing less than a massive win both for We, the People, and for the Go Local movement!

An urgent care facility that requires no public subsidy is only one part of what our community gets.

West Sonoma County also gets a local center for out-patient surgeries, that can be done by local doctors.

We get a hospital that will allow us to retain local doctors and medical professionals who otherwise might be forced to relocate.

We get a state of the art imaging and lab testing facility so that we can Go Local for those services, and not have to drive to another city for them, which means a lot to seniors, and care givers, and even cyclists and walkers.

We get a modern, capable center that could both provide emergency health services and safe shelter in any state of emergency situation, such as an fire, flood, or earthquake (unlike Santa Rosa’s larger multi-floor hospitals, Sonoma Specialty is away from the fault line and all on a single level).

We get a long term 37-bed acute care modern well-managed hospital, likely to expand in size in the near future, in the most beautiful setting any patient could ask for.

We get for our community’s sustainable future more than 100 well-paying, health insurance providing jobs, a number that can potentially grow to double that amount.

Elections do indeed have consequences. And the consequences of this landslide victory for Measure A are worth celebrating!

Jonathan Greenberg

Jonathan Greenberg is the editor and publisher of the award winning Sonoma Independent, which he founded in 2015 to serve the public interest with insight, solutions and advocacy.

Jonathan has been an investigative legal and financial journalist with 40 years of experience contributing to national publications. His professional career began as a fact checker at Forbes Magazine, where he advanced to the role of the lead reporter in creating the first Forbes 400 listing of wealthy Americans. Jonathan has been an investigative financial and political journalist for such national publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Forbes, Town & Country, Money, GQ, Manhattan, Inc., The New Republic, and Alternet. From 2011 through 2017, Jonathan was a blogger for the Huffington Post, where his narrative-transforming reporting and analysis about subjects like Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and Native Hawaiian water protectors achieved some of the widest readership of any HuffPost writer on these subjects.

Jonathan was a Web 1.0 pioneer. In 1996 he started Gist Communications, a disruptive new media company that competed successfully with News Corp’s TV Guide Online. In 1997, Gist was one of just 14 websites in the world to be named a winner of the First Annual Webby Awards in San Francisco. Following Gist and the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Jonathan served, in 2002 and 2003, as Policy Director for the New York City Council’s Select Committee on Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, where he directed media and public policy campaigns and was the city council’s lead analyst for federal relief programs.

In 2007, Jonathan founded Progressive Source Communications, a public interest digital advocacy company that has created scores of impactful videos and campaigns to build awareness of solutions that serve the common good. Progressive Source owns the Sonoma Independent.

Jonathan is a graduate of Yale Law School's Masters Degree in Law fellowship program. A fuller bio and links to Jonathan's work can be found at JonathanGreenberg.com.