Marcy's bombshell proposal: '0' lease payments
HUNTSVILLE — County Commission faces a critical up or down vote at Monday’s regular monthly meeting following a bombshell proposal made public in Monday’s special called work session.
In a letter dated March 5 to Scott County Mayor Rick Keeton, Mercy Health’s President and CEO Debra London provided County Commission with “one final offer” before pulling up stakes and immediately launching a search for a new operator for the county-owned hospital.
After a series of proposals made by Mercy Health toward obtaining a long-term lease have been met with inaction by the commission, London now proposes a minimum of a 15-year lease during which “Mercy Health Partners would make no annual lease payments” to Scott County.
London wrote that the company would, however, “appropriate capital investments in the facility and relieve the County of any obligation to make on-going repairs to any of the buildings associated with Hospital operations.”
Then came the ultimatum:
“If the County Commission finds our offer unacceptable, we will immediately seek to identify another Hospital Operator to assume the remaining portion of our lease which expires January 31, 2010,” London wrote.
Individual commissioners’ reactions ranged from surprise and disappointment to indignation, and Mayor Keeton’s stated purpose of the meeting — to poll the commissioners for a “yes or no” response to the offer — was not taken.
Instead, the hour and a half discussion ended with Keeton suggesting asking Mercy Health Partners for “one more meeting” to look at the six or seven points of the company’s last offer “and any other points” the commissioners might offer, and then coming back Monday evening to find out whether or not they are agreeable.
“If they say ‘no’ then this is it,” Mayor Keeton said, “We’ll vote on it at that point and time.”
For a copy of the letter from London to Scott County, and reaction from county commissioners, see this week's print edition.