On Friday, February 20th was a “public hearing” on a vote needed to move forward with selling the Westmount Nursing Home to Specialty Care the firm out of the Bronx, NY. Here is why I voted NO [Supervisors Beaty (R), Brock (R), McDevitt (D) and Vanselow (D) also voted NO].
Concerns about the Buyer?
A number of concerns have been raised about Specialty Care the company selected to be the new private owner of Westmount Nursing Home.
There has been new data, information and negative media accounts uncovered raising new questions since the board voted in December to move forward with Specialty Care. This information was collected by a Queensbury citizen by the name of Travis Whitehead. It was not collected by the county, and quite frankly it wasn’t welcomed yesterday by many at the county.
Mr. Whitehead asked if he could present his powerpoint presentation and was told no. Specialty Care attended the meeting and Mr. Whitehead wanted to put his information up on a screen and review it with them. He was denied.
See for yourself Whitehead’s presentation – http://www.westcottupny.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/WestmountBOSupervisors.pdf
What we did get was a slick sales presentation from three polished, professional representatives from Specialty Care. In one section they stated they had turned around many facilities. I asked if they would provide that list of facilities and the backup data to support that claim. They said the’d get back to me.
They did stay to answer questions. Most of this time was spent as each supervisor was given an opportunity to ask questions. This took some time as there are 20 supervisors. Afterwards a few citizens asked some questions, but time ran out. Specialty Care had to leave halfway through the meeting.
Mr. Whitehead is a Professional Engineer. A number of us had reviewed Mr. Whitehead’s material. It was professional and responsibly put together. It raised serious questions. It was of reasonable length.
Why would he be denied?
Fuzzy Numbers?
Updated Westmount nursing home numbers were provided yesterday to the supervisors and the public at the last minute. They were handed out at the end of a long four hour meeting with assurances they were accurate.
Since November 2014 the county had been saying the nursing home was running projected deficits of $699,000 in 2014 and $1.8 million in 2015.
On Friday, February 20, 2015 this changed to a surplus of $695,000 in 2014 and deficit of $1.4 million in 2015.
It turns out over the last five years Westmount on average lost $655,000 per year. Important to note this includes $500,000 a year that goes to Siemens for the highly controversial cogeneration plant.
Take out the Siemens payments and Westmount lost on average $155,000 a year over the past five years.
[Note – The airport “investment” by the county annually is $800,000 +. The Countryside Adult home in Warrensburg lost more than $500,000 per year. Yet we aren’t looking at either of those two facilities to find savings.]
Some of us left the meeting with more questions about the new numbers. We wanted more time to study them and challenge them if we had issues. That is hard to do on the spot and at the end of a four hour meeting.
Indifference to Public Input?
Over the past three years I’ve heard comments like “the county meetings are open to the public.” True. “People can choose to come or not come.” True. “The county meetings are covered by the press.” True. But let’s put this into perspective.
County meetings are held during the day. When most people work. There are more than 100 county meetings a year. The meeting notices are posted on the county website, but most meetings receive little coverage otherwise so it is easy to miss when a meeting takes place. For these reasons and others there is low public attendance at county meetings.
As a result a few of the supervisors have started to call for night meetings and night public hearings for important topics so those who work during the day can attend. Supervisor McDevitt had asked for the county to hold the public hearing on the nursing home at night, but it was turned down.
Keep in mind this was going to be the ONLY PUBLIC HEARING* on the sale and it was a KEY VOTE needed for proceeding with Specialty Care. I’d put that in the important category.
One claim used by those who oppose night meetings is people don’t attend them. This same argument was used when the county denied the Airport night meeting. The county finally relented and 200 people showed up for the Airport night meeting.
Last week, Supervisor McDevitt, Beaty and I chose to hold our own night meeting on the Westmount sale. We had 50 or so people there. We invited all the supervisors. 5 came and 15 did not. The County Administrator and County Attorney did not come. We invited Specialty Care to come. They did not come. We allowed Travis Whitehead to make his presentation. We would have allowed anyone to make a presentation. People stayed for a long as they wanted.
For the 15 supervisors who did not show up for the night meeting, they recieved the information yesterday from Specialty Care but did not see Travis Whitehead’s presentation … 15 Supervisors never saw the “other side of the coin.” Just the side of the coin presented by Specialty Care.
One woman who came yesterday said she took a day off from work and used a vacation day to do so. She asked the board to consider tabling the vote for one month to better understand the information distributed yesterday and answer the questions about Specialty Care.
It made sense to me and I proposed tabling the vote. It did not pass.
Censorship?
Supervisor McDevitt wanted to show a news video at the meeting and was told no. The news video was a story about a nursing home in Suffolk County that had serious alleged abuses. The nursing home in the story has the Specialty Care logo on their front awning.
The representatives of Specialty Care said they didn’t own the Suffolk facility. Resident Whitehead produced a Department of Health document that challenged this claim.
The representatives of Specialty Care said the logo was on the awning as part of a marketing program they offer facilities. I said that is bad marketing. You never relinquish control of your brand. That’s marketing 101. In this case Specialty Care put their logo on the front door of a highly questionable nursing home. Why in the world would they do that?
This really makes you wonder. The County Attorney ruled the material in the video was not relevant to the discussion. The Chairman put it up for a vote whether or not to show the video. The board voted to not show the video. Only a few of us spoke up in defense.
This board prevented a supervisor from presenting material he felt was pertinent to the discussion.
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A few of us did our best to open up this process, conduct research and inform our colleagues on the board and the public. We felt the negotiating team responsible for the sale did not go far enough with their due diligence and as a result we uncovered a lot of new information late in the process. In doing so we “ruffled some feathers” by bringing this to the attention of others. So be it.
I’m more troubled than ever by being a member of the Warren County Board of Supervisors. Not allowing a supervisor to show a news video. Not allowing a citizen to make a presentation while the prospective buyer was there to address questions. Not supporting a night meeting so more people can attend. Not handing out updated numbers until the end of a four hour meeting. Not willing to look at new information just because a vote had been made in December.
I will never understand why information is withheld, or why we would not hold an important public hearing at night so more people can attend.
This is the culture at the county and has been for decades. Some of us are standing up against this entrenched culture. We are making some progress on changing things. For example, agendas are now being released before meetings. But there is a long way to go.
Mark Westcott
* There are “meetings” and there are “Public Hearings.” Public hearings are required by law for
reasons like a change in a law or a sale of public property like the nursing
home.