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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > HEALTH CENTER FLAP CALLED "MISUNDERSTANDING"
Article published - April 7, 2008
Credit: SONOMA NEWS
Health Center Flap called “Misunderstanding”
By Bill Hoban
First District Supervisor Valerie Brown reassured Patricia Talbot on Friday that Brown supports a site for the Sonoma Community Health Center in the Springs.
At Thursday's Springs Redevelopment Advisory Committee meeting, Talbot, who is the executive director of the health center, found out that in a new county policy-guidance use for redevelopment funds, health clinics are among the lowest priority items the county will fund with redevelopment money.
Talbot, who told the committee that the health center is close to securing a site, said that without redevelopment money, the health center wouldn't be able to move to the Springs.
But Kathleen Kane, executive director of the Community Development Commission, told the board that redevelopment money can't be used for building construction anyway.
And she said there are ways the county would be able to help the health center.
Kane said the highest priorities for redevelopment money include economic development, blight removal and public health and safety.
She said that while redevelopment money can't be used to build health clinics or hospitals, that didn't mean the health center would lose the possibility of funding.
"It might not qualify on the merits of a health center, but it could qualify under other merits," Kane said, citing factors such as blight removal and economic development.
"We need project specifics," she told Talbot. "Until we have a site and a proposal, we can't move forward."
Friday, after talking with Talbot, Brown said she's a "huge supporter of the health center."
"We wouldn't fund a health center," Brown said. "But we're about blight removal ..."
Brown said the county can look at the sites the health center is eyeing so that the county and the health center could work together.
Brown also said that Talbot hasn't shared with her which site or sites the health center is eyeing.
"I've been one of the clinic's strongest supporters," Brown said. "I'm going to do everything I can to help."
"It'll happen" she added.
Brown pointed out that a health center is in the Springs Redevelopment Area Strategic Plan.
Calling the issue a misunderstanding, Brown said, "Want is one thing, but criteria trumps it."
"I'm on board," Brown continued. "We're working together."
In other RAC developments, Boris Sztorch, the county's redevelopment manager, told the redevelopment board that there are only three more rights of way to be acquired for the next stage of the Highway 12 improvements.
And he said that while work is being done on the first stage of the Highway 12 improvements, from Encinas Lane to Boyes Boulevard, the county would be working on easements for the second stage from Boyes north to Agua Caliente Road.
"It should take about a year to get the rights of way in stage two," Sztorch said.
He said the county is looking at starting the second stage probably in 2010.
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