Hospital trustees are learning the Texas Two Step. Two steps quick, two steps slow.
It helps to say “quick, quick, slow, slow” to keep your partner from mashing your toes.
Anyway, that’s the perspective of negotiations on land purchases along East Street for the new Allen County Hospital.
“Last week we felt confident we could secure almost all the parcels,” said Alan Weber, Allen County counselor.
As of Wednesday afternoon, “There’s now three parcels we don’t feel 100 percent sure about,” Weber said.
Trustees had said they would pursue conversations with the eight landowners as long as they felt they were “fruitful.”
There’s certainly no low-hanging fruit left to pick and Weber said they’d give negotiations another “week to 10 days” before they would pursue eminent domain and have county commissioners condemn the land.
“We hate to do that,” Weber said, but said they were left little choice.
AND YET, just as hope seemed to fade, another possibility has opened for trustees.
Though he couldn’t reveal the party, Weber said a new landowner in the county has approached trustees with an offer, at a much better price.
“All I can say is that trustees are treating it seriously and are assessing its availability and the cost of extending utilities to the site,” Weber said.
Trustees are now pursuing land in the 1400 block of East Street near the intersection of U.S. Hwys. 54 and 169.
Appraisers set a price tag of an average $35,600 per acre for the approximate 17-acre site. In their efforts to secure land for the new hospital, trustees are ever mindful that money spent on land means that much less for the facility itself.
Trustees met Tuesday night almost entirely in executive session. During that time Joyce Heismeyer, chief executive officer of ACH, briefed trustees on the history and operating style of Hospital Corporation of America, the company which leases the hospital from the county and manages its operations. In that role HCA also assumes the hospital’s profits.
Trustees are in negotiations with HCA to remain with the hospital in an advisory capacity only.
“HCA would be used as a resource to assist the hospital,” if it were selected, Weber said.
The actual management will be in the hands of Heismeyer and her staff. Hospital trustees will steer the direction of the hospital and its outreach.
The target date to cut the strings with HCA is Dec. 31, giving it a six-month notice in June.
That means a new company would come on board at the beginning of the hospital’s fiscal year, “making things cleaner,” Weber said.
Plans from last summer had the transition happening in August.
Weber said that trustees will decide in short order whether to sign a deal with HCA, or pursue other firms for that advisory role.
