One assumes HealthAlliance executives will justify their salaries by the old rule-of-freight, which is to say, that’s the going rate for these jobs, folks.
Notes
Hindsight isn’t always 20-20, but with $47 million to spend the Kingston region could have built a brand-new, modern, efficient, medical complex. Of course, that would have begged the question of what to do with the two hospital facilities.
The core “hospital community” in this case would be about a third ofUlster’s 183,000 residents. People in Saugerties could scoot across the bridge to Northern Dutchess. Highland and New Paltz have always had a close affinity with Poughkeepsie. Southern Ulster has strong ties to Orange County.
The county legislature got out ahead of the curve in at least expressing concern about a major controversy before the executive. As these things are measured, this is progress. Legislature Chair Terry Bernardo wants idea-man Bob (he gets no respect) Aiello, chairman of the Health and Services Committee, to look into things. I would not be the least surprised if Aiello advised the county to turn the still half-vacant TechCity complex in the Town of Ulster into a gigantic medical center. Now that would be bold.
The county is proceeding at warp speed with the sale of the infirmary at Golden Hill, in large part because the executive needs some $8 million to plug a deficit in the 2012 budget. Might they pause in this headlong dash to consider the opportunity to dovetail nursing-home plans with emerging hospital strategies? A new infirmary on a new hospital campus might produce some attractive efficiencies and/or funding sources. A model at Ellenville Regional Hospitalis already in place.
Here and there
Saugerties county legislator Mary Wawro advises me she did not resign her chairmanship of the Social Services Committee because of family conflicts. Nobody in Wawro’s family is receiving benefits, she said, though she does run a day-care center in Saugerties where some of her clients receive public assistance. As a footnote, Wawro’s father, former legislator Bill Geick, was chairman of the Social Services Committee some 20 years ago. “And we were the same age, too (52),” (as chairmen) he told me.
County exec Hein settled the summer-camp conflict in southern Ulster by retaining the status quo, i.e. granting operating permits to long-time operators, the Kiryas Joel sector. Hein’s late brother Werner, a state police zone sergeant who died in 2007, was highly regarded as a peacekeeper between fiercely competing factions at the Orange County Hasidic village.
It may be awhile before homeless vets can settle in at a former group home at Wurts and Spring streets in downtown Kingston. County exec Hein, with some advance intel from the state, raised the idea at his state-of-the-county message in February. Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo is also on board — even, apparently, if it means keeping a valuable property off the tax rolls.
Demand is a guesstimate. Veterans’ Affairs officials figure there are between a dozen and 30 homeless veterans in the county at any given time. The two-story house, an attractive late Victorian bluestone with about 3,000 square feet of space, sits at the crest of a steep Kingston hill where former alderman and mayoral candidate Hayes Clement installed stop signs during his brief tenure in city government. Say this about Clement’s choice of stop-sign locations: he is not forgotten.
There are no estimates on operating or renovation costs, or when the doors will open, but the price is right. The state is willing to sell the property to the county for a buck.
