McFreedom

Couple of clarifications on the Sequoia Hospital issue. First, I was incorrect when I stated that CHW "owns" the hospital - apparently a separate entity, Sequoia Healthcare Services actually owns Sequoia. CHW operates it under a 30 year lease (and, although it's not completely clear from the SHD's website, presumably keeps the profit from these operations).

Second, one interested element of this case is the fact that a San Mateo Grand Jury, in May of 2004, said the district should stop collecting taxes. The article quotes Bruce Hasenkamp, the Jury's foreman:

"These folks are playing games with the taxpayers, not coming clean," Hasenkamp said. "They've been operating as far as we can tell similar to a philanthropic foundation using tax money to make contributions to various other governmental and nonprofit agencies. The taxpayers didn't vote to tax themselves to support those agencies."

Of course, the district's administrators didn't see it the same way, calling the report "arbitrarily and unilaterally rude." Yeah, well, you take $40 million from people under duress and they're a lot less likely to be polite to you. The fact that the district can't figure out how to spend the money as fast as it's coming in clearly shows it is over funded, and someone need to stop this.

Unfortunately, the Grand Jury's report was nonbinding, and, as the article notes, "It's up to the district's board members to decide whether to follow the grand jury's recommendation to stop collecting taxes."