Commissioners need to show efficiency

The East Adams Hospital District No. 2 commissioners have yet to show they can properly operate the facility they oversee. The voters wanted the current facility brought up to the standards required by federal and state authorities. They wanted a hospital district run properly.

If the current commissioners spent their time doing the job they were elected to do, could they show a positive cash flow for a year or two or three? We will not know because they seem unable to focus on the sensible and instead move onto greater and grander adventures at taxpayer expense.

The current commissioners have been trying to force a facility somewhere in between the existing properly brought up to federal and state requirements and the new hospital earlier commissioners so badly up to federal and state requirements and the new hospital earlier commissioners so badly wished to build but were denied by voters. The current commissioners appear determined to force the district taxpayer into greater poverty by providing more than the community reasonably requires and more than the community can afford to pay. The millions of dollars required come from where? Funds the taxpayers do not have a use for? Truly petty cash?

As noted, the commissioners have yet to demonstrate competence in running the district facility. Some voters believe them also to be tone deaf as illustrated by their remodeling plans for the facility. Now we are learning once again the commissioners are not content with their responsibility to bring the hospital district into compliance and to run the district efficiently. The commissioners are now ready to take on the responsibility of Life Care of Ritzville. After careful reading of Katelin Davidson’s front-page story in the August 21 issue of The Journal, one could conclude the current owner of Life Care knew exactly whom he was dealing with. Unfortunately for district taxpayers, he apparently could not foist the enterprise off on anyone who would have to use their own money to keep the Life Care Center open.

“There’s a sucker born every minute” and “We have met the enemy and he is us,” these quotes were probably not originally directed at the hospital commissioners but at the voters of East Adams Rural Hospital District No. 2 who elected them.

Barry Boyer, Ritzville