[Vision2020] "The Final Solution" by Voting Yes on Feb. 6

[Donovan Arnold]

Dan,
   
  Thanks for your response. Perhaps I was unclear, I wasn't talking about the pool. LHS is also the place where we place those with no money and are unable to take care of themselves in the community. 
   
  We had to force people living in Skilled Nursing to leave the facility in September. After we shut down entirely, then we had to force the people living in Assisted Living to the leave the facility and the community because they have no money to get into a place in the area, nobody will take them. 
   
  Every week we got new people, those people that would have come to LHS since September have been required to go some place else (out of town). The people that were forced to leave, and the people that should have come to the facility are the people that have been displaced from Moscow. 
   
  I call the selling of LHS building the Final Solution because it makes the closing of LHS final by eliminating the possibility of this service being provided again. No building, no services, it is final. If you own the building, then you keep the possibility open that we can reopen again when we find the resources.
   
  Let me put it to you this way. If you are poor, on Medicaid in Moscow, and you cannot take care of yourself, you are pretty much forced to leave the area, there is not a place for you to go anymore. Understand?
   
  Gritman doesn't charge taxes, it cannot, without tax revenue LHS cannot exist, Medicare and Medicaid don't provide enough funding anymore, it has to be publicly subsidized somehow and it hasn't been, that is why it shut down. Congress changed the rules in the 1990s so this type of place cannot run. 
   
  I don't dislike Gritman, my beef was with a former chair of board, but I still don't want them running every care facility either. 
   
  I don't think Gritman's plan is a good one because the cost of renovating the building for what they claim it will be used for is a greater cost then just building a new building. 
   
  A final point here is that LHS also provides a much cheaper bed to those that don't need direct physician supervision but are not independent enough yet to go home.
   
  LHS is still needed. We need to find some way of keeping it open. If there was no way of keeping it open, I might support this Gritman plan, but I know we have not exhausted our efforts to keep it open. 
   
  Best,
   
  Donovan J Arnold 
   
  

Dan Carscallen <areaman at moscow.com> wrote:
  Donovan says:

"You want to take away the home of the elderly, without providing them
another home in the community"

uh, I'm pretty sure the building (except for the Gritman-run pool) has
been a home to no one since the end of the year. Not a solid argument,
pard. And using the "Final Solution" tag is a little tasteless. Just
because you have heartburn against Gritman doesn't make it a bad plan.

Mind you, I'm not sure this is the best plan, but I haven't seen a
better one that keeps this property somewhat in the public interest.
I'm not saying I'm against the sale and the removal of the reversionary
clause, but I honestly wish there was more time for Gritman to give the
community a solid idea as to what they'd like to do. 

If Gritman wasn't involved, I think this would be dead in the water.
It's going to be close.

Hoping for the best possible outcome,

DC


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