At its second August meeting, the Hope Board of Directors heard about a new development in the saga of Wadley Regional Medical Center, Hope’s only hospital, and its parent company Steward Health Care as told by City Attorney Randal Wright.
A video of the meeting in its entirety can be seen below this story.
Steward Health has filed suit against MPT, the owner of the real estate that Steward hospitals in multiple states operated in. Steward contends that MPT is, in a term used by the lawsuit “interfering” in Steward’s attempts to sell its hospitals’ operating rights so as to deprive Steward of revenue it would ordinarily receive from those sales. MPT has responded that it has acted to make sure Steward hospitals do not close.
Wright told the board Steward is “asking, essentially for the bankruptcy court to order that MPT allocate whatever they sell these hospitals for, like here, for operations and personal property and real estate. So what that does is we [the city] don't have anything at this point, or a lease, because bankruptcy court's going to get involved and they're going to determine allocations of money. We were just dealing with MPT and now they’re {Steward] riding smack dab into bankruptcy court.”
Wright explained that this development will mean the proposed arrangement whereby Hope and Hempstead County were to purchase the Wadley Regional Medical Center’s real estate for $500,000 would at least be put on hold as Steward and MPT fight it out.
“I’d like to say my first impression is, this doesn't look good. My second impression, not very good at all. And third impression, dadgum bad, because we’re going to have to wait and see how we're going to maneuver around in this,” Wright said.
City Director Trevor Coffee asked Wright how the suit will affect day-to-day operations of the hospital. “Million-dollar question,” Wright said. “What is going to do?”
Mayor Don Still asked where funding was coming from to run the hospital. Wright said a committee of creditors was currently making the decisions of where funds were going.
“Basically, I think what the debtor here, Steward, wanted was, ‘Hey, MPT, we want some money you're getting, and so you're going to have to allocate it.’ So he's thrown it at the bankruptcy court to make that decision. That will slow down everything we're doing,” Wright said.
Mayor Still suggested that the reason the suit poses such an obstacle is that the sales of the hospital’s operator’s license to Pafford Health Systems and the sale of its real estate from MPT of Hope to Hope and Hempstead County were not approved by the Southern District of Texas U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Lopez before the suit could be filed. But Wright said Lopez, in deciding the suit, could easily have rendered moot any such sales.
Wright finished his update saying “There might be some silver lining out there that this might allow us to actually get a good contract.”
Mayor Still thanked Wright for the presentation.
The first item on the agenda was the matter of approving the addition of a Bodcaw city employee to Hope’s health insurance plan after Mayor Kimberly Hernandez requested the addition. Bodcaw has too few employees for the Arkansas Municipal League to provide the town with health care insurance on its own, and it is customary for employees in very small towns to be covered by a nearby larger city’s plan.
City Manager J.R. Wilson told the board he had completed the research board members asked for on whether the employee could be dropped from Hope’s plan “if there became concerns about the effect of that individual on our rates,” and was told by the Municipal League that Hope could drop the employee from its plan “at any time” in that case. Wilson said the city’s staff recommended adding the employee. The board voted unanimously in favor of doing so.
Next, Hope’s Finance Director and City Clerk Cindy Clark made herself available for questions about the current financial report of the city that consisted of 16 pages of numbers for the respective departments that show revenue and expenditures, and the percentage of projected budgeted amounts spent in hundreds of categories. The directors asked about particular lines for about 18 minutes as Clark called out page numbers.
It emerged during this time that the city expects a payment of about $300,000 from Arkansas for reimbursements associated with the Sixth Street project, an amount that will be placed in the city’s street fund. Sewer service revenues are up and expected to yield $150,000 a month since the results of a rate increase began coming in starting in June.
A tree falling at the softball stadium cost $22,000 to remove. Wilson said this caused city staff to look at other trees near structures that were reaching states of decay. “We cut a lot of trees,” Clark said. Mayor Still responded that in looking around at the Watermelon Festival, he saw “we’re about to run out of trees.”
Wilson said the planting of trees at the park could be done after being budgeted for next year as long as those trees were not near structures.
About the ongoing cutting of timber near the Hope Municipal Airport and the purchase of the wood, Still said he liked the line on page 9 of the financial report showing Miscellaneous Revenue in the Airport Fun of $163,661 for the year-to-date, which amounts to 81,830.8 percent of the projection for that budget category. Wilson said the operation to harvest the timber had slowed lately, but that city staff is considering clearing more lumber than was originally planned because of a desire by the Hope-Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation to make the land more attractive to industries considering the location.
A fire truck repair has cost $2,500 for a replaced compressor. A pumper truck repair will cost $5,000.
Mayor Still commented that he thought the fire trucks were being severely taxed. Vice Mayor Kiffinea Talley also raised that concern. The question was asked if fire trucks always go when any ambulance is called. Wilson said they only respond to life-threatening calls. He said though he realized it put wear and tear on fire vehicles, that the response of fire personnel in life-threatening situations often made the difference in saving lives and he was in favor of continuing the practice.
After this came the City Manager’s Report. J.R. Wilson introduced Assistant City Manager Daniel Shelman to provide a report on the 48th Hope Watermelon Festival. He said he had received good reports from city department heads and the Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce. Two of three civic clubs who parked cars at the festival said the numbers of cars parked was slightly up from last year. A thousand tickets were sold to the Saturday evening concert, up from last year. T-shirts sold well. The Kiwanis Club ran out of meals, serving over 400 barbecue pork meals Friday.
There were 107 teams in the softball tournament, 500 participants in the 5k race Saturday, 93 participating in the Civitan car show, 42 anglers in the fishing derby. State Senator Steve Crowell was the victor at the Politically Correct Watermelon Eating Contest and Tyler Atkinson was the winner of the overall Watermelon Eating Contest. Although there was one fender-bender reported in a parking lot and a report of a deer invading the softball field, there were no major incidents. The volume of trash, Shelman said, was also a sign of a good festival year.
Wilson said Parks and Recreation Superintendent Summer Chambers had mentioned to him that more personnel may be needed to empty trash cans next year.
Going on with the report, Wilson said the city’s landfill remediation plan was in a stage of the city’s engineers answering questions from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality about it. He said the city had not been successful in acquiring grant funds for the project and would likely have to meet the half million-dollar expense on its own. Raising rates might have to be done to make this possible.
The Arkansas Department of Transportation has approved memorial signs for two soldiers from the Hope area who lost their lives in the war on terror. Wilson said the signs would be covered after being placed and a date would be set for unveiling ceremonies.
On the marketing effort for the one-cent sales tax to be placed on the November 5th ballot for city voters to approve or not approve the financing of a new fire department headquarters, a new aquatic and recreation center and improvements to the parks, Wilson said a video has been commissioned from SWARK.Today for $2,000 and $10,000 has been set aside by the Advertising and Tourism Promotion Commission to devote to marketing the tax and the projects. A marketing committee to be led by Shelman is to meet next week.
Shelman briefly spoke about what the marketing effort would involve. The goal is to reach Hope’s 3,000 registered voters with information that will make clear what the projects include and dispel myths about the means of financing them.
Wilson announced that the Pocket Park project, upon being submitted to the Arkansas Parks and Recreation Convention, won an award which Summer Chambers will accept when she attends the convention next month. Also won was an Arkansas Assistance to Firefighters grant for $29,000 for new thermal imaging units. A vote to accept the award of the grant was unanimously approved by the board.
Hope has signed an agreement, Wilson said, to settle an opioid-related class action lawsuit many cities have joined against the Kroger corporation. The signature was requested by the Arkansas Municipal League.
Wilson also announced that current City Code Enforcement Officer and Inspector Carl Conley will be retiring by October, and this will call for efforts toward finding his replacement.
At the landfill, a dozer that is 20 years of age is requiring frequent repairs. “In the last five years, we spent $150,000 on it,” Wilson said, adding that the city would try to use the street department’s dozer there. If that doesn’t work out, a dozer may be rented until the end of the year when a new dozer can be budgeted for and purchased.
Two trash trucks are in for repairs now. One sustained damage from an accident. Another has issues with its running board.
Wilson said the park master plan is being finalized and will be presented to the board in printouts for final approval.
A plan for the striping of 16th street to happen by August 17th has obviously not come to fruition. Wilson said the group doing the striping has not answered its phones but it is a group that the state of Arkansas uses. Wilson apologized for the delay.
Director Reginald Easter asked how to provide suggestions for concert events at watermelon festivals that may draw more young people. Wilson said board members could always speak to Christy Burns, Director of the Hope-Hempstead Chamber of Commerce. Mayor Still said she might consider adding a second show to Saturday nights.
In Citizens Comments, Mark Silvey explained that a person behaving erratically while they were selling at the Farmers Market two weeks ago. After he was arrested and then released two days ago, he walked down the street the Silveys live on. He asked that police be more communicative with the community about what citizens should do if a similar situation comes up. Silvey said social media posts accusing him of racism because of the person reported being of South Asian origin were not founded.
Mayor Still said that at his auto repair shop he has occasionally seen persons released from the nearby county jail who were homeless and seemed lost. He said he was also aware of occasions when passengers coming from the train depot came into the city with no place to go. Silvey responded, “A lot of people have problems, and there's an increase of that and they need help. We need to try to help. But there's also the first concern, public safety that we have to deal with too.”
After the meeting adjourned Police Chief Kim Tomlin explained to SWARK.Today the person was indeed arrested for disorderly conduct when complaints arose about him being in a roadway at a different location. His backpack was searched at the police station, and it had no weapons.