Hospital district favors building nursing home

Hospital district favors building nursing home

April 22, 2000

By Jim Mimiaga

The Montezuma County Hospital District board announced at a special meeting Wednesday that they are in favor of allowing a new nursing home to be constructed on the Southwest Memorial campus.

Board responds to allegations

By Jim Mimiaga

At a special meeting Wednesday night, a member of the Montezuma County Hospital District Board and its attorney angrily responded to a letter published in the Cortez Journal April 18 in which board candidate Sheila Wilson accused the board of improper use of executive sessions.

During an April 12 joint meeting between the Southwest Health System board and the MCHD board, two executive sessions took place, one to discuss the nursing home lease negotiations, and the other to discuss a real-estate matter involving an easement request across hospital property. In her letter, Wilson derided members of the board for pandering to private, for profit interests during a conversation that she heard from "behind the wall" and "through the window with even more clarity." She described the actions overheard at the meeting as "atrocious," saying there was no reason for the first "secret meeting" involving the easement request.

But board member Susan Keck and attorney Kelly McCabe defended the meeting as appropriate and accused Wilson of promoting misinformation and illegal activity.

"I object strongly to an individual making unfounded accusations, misrepresenting the facts, and basically inventing information," said Keck reading from a prepared statement.

Keck said that board members mentioned in the letter did not "advocate to forever give the use of the north hospital road to a private entity." Keck also said that board members did not "advocate giving part of MCHD’s land free to a private party," during the second session dealing with the nursing home lease, as Wilson had alleged in her letter.

"Purposely eavesdropping on a governmental entity’s executive session constitutes a class 6 felony," reported MCHD attorney Kelly McCabe. "I feel that this board has an obligation to contact authorities on whether charges should be brought up."

"If that is what you want, then I will not back down," Wilson said. "But this town is tired of the executive sessions that this board has been having. The road request should have been made in open session and I cannot help if if the window is open and the walls are too thin."

District Attorney Mike Green said Friday that he had heard of some of Wilson’s allegations, but said he had not been contacted directly regarding any potential charges against her.

"I can’t say that they haven’t spoken to someone in my office, but I have not directly dealt with this case," he said.

Charges involving eavesdropping can range from a misdemeanor to a felony, depending on the specific allegations, Green said.

The move would allow the hospital’s management arm, Southwest Health System, to proceed with plans to expand non-medical departments into the adjacent Vista Grande nursing home building, freeing up badly needed space at the hospital for expanded medical services and equipment.

"We are here tonight to say that both boards want to move forward with negotiations to build a new nursing home and we agree with SHS’s recommendation to do so," said Randy Smith, MCHD board chairman.

SHS passed a resolution this month that urged the district board to allow Vista Grande’s management company, Continuum, LLC to build a new facility — one of two options stipulated in a lease agreement between Continuum and the district board.

The other option under that agreement is for the district to sign a long-term lease with Continuum in order to continue managing Vista Grande at its current location. A final decision on the future of the nursing home must be made by the end of the lease extension’s term, which expires next March.

This is the first time since a three-year lease extension agreement was signed in March 1998 that the board has definitively revealed its preference in the controversial matter. Discussions have mostly been held in executive sessions due to the sensitivity of negotiating contracts.

According to SHS’ resolution, the hospital could expand the operating room, radiology department and laboratories at the 61-bed acute-care facility if the administration department was relocated to the Vista Grande building. However, financial performance benchmarks required of SHS by the Montezuma County Commissioners would be compromised as SHS would have to use up a portion of its cash reserves in order to finance the expansion, the resolution states.

The boards plan to meet with the commissioners on Monday to discuss the possibility of putting a temporary moratorium on those benchmarks to allow SHS to pay for remodeling Vista Grande for administration use, and for expanding out-patient surgery departments within the hospital.

The project cost, to be financed by SHS, is expected to be $1.275 million, said hospital CEO Bob Peterson. The proposal to lift the financial benchmarks would be for a specific time period, according to the SHS’s resolution, to allow cash reserves to regenerate.

The district board voted 6-0 to begin negotiating the specific terms with Continuum regarding the construction of a new nursing home, which would be paid for by Continuum. The board’s decision to favor Continuum building a new facility is not binding, assured board attorney Kelly McCabe, responding to an audience-member’s suggestion that the board should wait until after the May 2 board elections. McCabe said that by not waiting until after the elections, the current board is showing that it is negotiating in good faith.

"It is not legally significant," McCabe said. "The board is saying that this is the direction they want to go. A new board has the prerogative of deciding otherwise and then we would go from there."

Specifics of the plan, such as the amount Continuum should pay for a ground-lease to build on the hospital campus, and where the building would be built still need to be worked out.

"There is a lot of work to be done now that we have decided which direction we are going," said John Greenemeier, SHS chairman.