Citizens presented strategic plan alternative for hospital district

For brevity, we will assume that you know the circumstances leading up to the creation of a seven-member ad hoc committee to examine and revise the original draft of the East Adams Rural Hospital Five-Year Strategic Plan.

We, the two public members of that committee, after reviewing at length and with care both that plan draft and the many often lengthy and articulate public comments received on it, reached the conclusion that trying to simply amend the plan as it stood would be an unwise and tedious way to approach the task, because we felt the wanted changes in content and, perhaps above all, tone were extensive.

Accordingly, we drafted a major re-write that was, in effect, a wholly new version. It is very important for us to say here that the biggest changes were not so much substantive as in wording and tone. That is, we did not disdain or discard the hard core of the issues that needed to be addressed, nor, we believe, in any major way alter the general approaches to dealing with those issues.

We add, with whatever modesty we can, that between us we have substantial experience in both management and planning technique and in what is called “technical writing” – that is, the writing of documents of just this sort. This was not an amateur effort.

We submitted our new draft of the plan to all members of the committee prior to the first meeting of that committee. At that first meeting, we explained the reasoning behind our approach.

Though there was no actual vote taken, it was our distinct impression after that discussion that the version we would all then be working forward from was the one we had submitted, though all discussion was sourced from both versions simultaneously for cross-checking purposes.

In the course of three meetings, the committee members went through, in turn, all the components of the Plan. After each meeting, we, the public members, circulated an appropriately revised version of our initial submission, taking into account the fruits of the discussions to date.

At the last meeting, however, it was indicated – to our surprise – that Leslie Lzicar, the Human Resources Director, would write up an amendment of the very original plan, presumably also incorporating the discussions held. In time, that version was created and distributed for comment.

Thus, there soon existed two parallel but notably different versions of a rewritten plan: the version originally submitted by the public members and, as we believed, the basis for the discussions; and a re-write of the original, done completely separately from ours.

It was our belief that there would then be some sort of final follow-up meeting of the committee to resolve the matter of which version was to be submitted as the committee’s final work product, or if perhaps both ought to be submitted to at least the board, and possibly the public, for comparison and selection.

In the end, with no further meeting of the committee, both versions were submitted to the remaining three board members.

It thus seems that at the upcoming special board meeting, both versions of the Strategic Plan will be on the table for consideration. It is our belief that the community, to understand and perhaps comment on the Board’s deliberations, ought to be able to see both alternatives before that meeting.

Because we are trying to carefully observe the niceties, we do not ourselves present the version that is a narrow modification of the original, though we hope that Leslie and the EARH management will post that version on the EARH website as early as possible.

As to the public-members’ version (which, we repeat, we long thought was the sole developing work product), we, as its original authors, feel it appropriate to present it now, as it contains nothing received in confidence. At the least, you, the public, can compare it with the very original plan, which is still up at the EARH website.

The special board meeting is set for 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Although that is a very inconvenient time for those who have to work for a living, we strenuously urge you all to make every possible effort to attend that meeting, and to lend your support to whichever draft of the Strategic Plan you think best.

The public-members’ version, and a good deal more background information and commentary by us, can be found on the web: owlcroft.com/EARH.

—Eric Walker and Harriett Lynch