The Allen County Commission’s decision two weeks earlier to move forward with demolition of the old hospital in preparation for a new grocery store and residential development was not enough to dissuade Tom Wheat from making, at this late date, an alternative pitch. IN OTHER NEWS:
Wheat approached commissioners Tuesday with the idea of a “comprehensive public service center” — on the order of a Salvation Army or YMCA — which would integrate services intended to “combat poverty, provide health and wellness education, prepare people for employability, and other needed human services.”
Wheat said he was not at liberty to disclose the names of the organizations that might decide to make their home in the repurposed building, nor could he identify the sources of the financing required for the necessary renovation.
“Do you have anything concrete?” asked Commission Chairman Tom Williams.
“No,” said Wheat, before asking the commission for “a couple more weeks to pull together some details.”
Commissioners were sympathetic to the civic needs Wheat’s plan attempts to redress, but reminded him that similar plans were reviewed from every angle during the nearly two-year process by which the grocery store go-ahead had secured the commission’s final approval.
“A lot of people have had good ideas,” Williams said. “It would have been great if you’d come in a year and a half ago.”
“I appreciate your efforts,” stressed Commissioner Jerry Daniels. “But, as a commission, we had to decide, we had to focus on one priority. And that ship sailed June 2.”
An open forum for contractors to pose questions regarding the demolition of the building is scheduled for June 25. Sealed bids for the job are due July 3.
In the meantime, the commission treated as good news the winning bid for the building’s generator, which went to Evergreen Design-Build, out of Emporia, for $22,750, roughly $10,000 more than the next highest bid.
THE SOUTHEAST Kansas Mental Health Center’s associate director Nathan Fawson described for the commission the center’s year-old “health home” program, SEK Wellness. The Medicaid program, which serves nearly 700 clients across a six-county area, seeks to work “proactively rather than reactively” by reaching out to individuals with the goal of addressing “not only their mental health needs but their physical and dental needs as well.”
A positive byproduct of attending to the totality of a person’s health, said Fawson, is the significant reduction in health care costs. Fawson cited an example of a nurse, who, while assessing the vitals of a client, recognizes that the client’s blood pressure is high. “I know,” replies the client, before assuring the RN that she has plans to pursue her usual course of medical care by visiting the emergency room.
In this scenario, the “coordinated care” nurse is in a position to correct the client’s cycle of inefficient and unnecessarily expensive trips to the ER by putting that patient in contact with a family physician.
Fawson was less optimistic in contemplating the current fitness of Osawatomie State Hospital — the largest of Kansas’s two inpatient facilities for adults with severe mental illnesses — where, due to facility inadequacies, federal surveyors have recently forced the state to remodel.
According to Fawson, “There is great concern that the outcome of this situation” — which resulted in a reduction in the maximum number of beds, from 206 to 146 — “would become the new norm.
“As the state hospital closes its doors to those in need, by default then, the responsibility shifts to the communities,” which will significantly strain the resources, not only at SEKMHC, but at a number of local agencies, law enforcement especially.
The center is requesting $120,500 in mill levy support for 2016, which represents a 3 percent increase from the amount levied in 2015.
— Following the announced retirement of Pam Sanders as the county’s emergency management director, the commission approved the interim appointment of Sheriff Bryan Murphy.
— TJ’s Towing provided the winning — and only — bid to secure a contract to handle all of the county’s impounding needs. The shop’s owner, Terry McDonald, received unanimous approval from the commission last week to rezone roughly 15 acres east of Gas, shifting its status from commercial zoning to heavy industrial.
County hears another overture for old ACH site
