We were just discussing the GOB tonight at the meeting...

Desperation showed up on CFO, Chet Beedle's face tonight when an audience member, David Derr, who seems to routinely ask one polite question per meeting, as he has just retired and has an interest in helping out the hospital, possibly or even for sure running for a seat on the board of directors (BOD).

(What a way to spend your retirement, he must be a saint, I think I'll vote for him)

His question of the month was basically has the board discussed bankruptcy as we have said, the hospital is in default for the fourth year, but now a move is being made by creditor, Cal Mtg., and a management company has been engaged to rigorously tear apart this hospital finance fiasco and audit it.

(Some people like to describe the situation a little differently, as the CEO, likes to say, that they are here to help us out. Oh yes, that's right, very much so.)

Chet explained it pretty well but not the real story, we will go into detail in the next article, as we are in an unholy alliance with Cal Mtg. they are our "credit." We cannot do anything without Cal Mtg. They are like a virus that was never eradicated twenty years of debt and damage.
(Can someone actually say it was a good idea to engage in this revenue bond program? The hospital will either fall or continue to be run within a tiny budget which doesn't give life to any dreams of progress and upgrades.)

After Chet left out the part where we could actually bargain with our creditor, but we are so reliant and the hospital management has been so "untruthful" with them as well, that we would be hard put to actually accomplish this.

Nobody in the community has come to me and said they want to pay more taxes, they keep asking about bankruptcy. The answer is simple, a mistake was made twenty years ago that has cost this hospital everything.

And now after years of being kept in the dark, having employees coming in and out of the doors, the community turning its back as there is no trust and no interest in the hospital involving them, except for one thing: Now they need our tax money.

Not only do they want it, they have to have it. Yes, it's true.

For years now, the hospital has not rang with the voices of change that were here only a few short years ago. They left because the hospital lied to them. We have been lied to openly about so many things that there is simply no trust. Even the crumbs we get thrown are not enough to quench the drought of explanation we deserve.

I almost find the bond idea offensive and relying on it, not including the board in the activity of surveying the possibilities, is rot with desperation and indignity.

People have moved away since the "Ott era" (2003 until her get away in May of 2007) and some have moved because of this hospital.

Maybe nobody has noticed, but lives have changed because of what has happened at that hospital. It's haunted with deciet which is thick and won't go away.

It may have helped if there were some honest clean up and honest counsel after the mess. Instead there was just more mess, the board voted in a "time and materials" contractor who took them for a couple million at least.

And this is why it's no surprise that the hospital is getting the cold shoulder back.

And unfortunately, tonight, the CEO Timothy McGlew did not fire the bond sales company which made a suggestion on tape that this hospital misrepresent the verbiage on the voting ballot so not to have to explain why the community should pay extra taxes for the next thirty years. McGlew did say he talked to his manager though. That's something to hang your hat on.

We were just talking about her...

I took a peek at my favorite newspaper, the Reedley Exponent, part pit bull and community advocate, with good solid information.

Last month at the special meeting when I suggested that this KVHD bond money could be misspent, as the rest of the money has been, apparently, this lit a whole round of arguments that it could not. Nothing is absolute and criminals always find a way.

I alerted the board to the fact that our own former CEO and sidekick of Chet Beedle, Pamela Ott, was recently said to have taken bond money out of Sierra Kings District in Reedley where they had voted in a GOB to build a new wing.

Wouldn't that be odd if that only happened there. According to our friend and guidance counselor on how to write bonds on the ballot and win, win, win, he had "never" seen that happen.

There's no way statistically that Ott simply is involved in a criminal case which took place around a bond issue, Measure M, and the short staffing of the nursing center, and the blindness of us all that she wasn't doing this because she didn't absolutely love our "wonderful" community.

The audit is in, read about at the link below, but Ott is now credited with being the only person a representative of Caldwell, Winters and Flores, has ever in his whole career seen be able to use the bond money in a way that the voters and taxpayers didn't want nor vote in.

We will follow closely now to see what the DA is going to do. Can the government protect the will of the people to have their money spent a certain way? Unlikely...

I'm laughing while reading it...

I'm going to use a paragraph out of Reedley because it is so ironic, as McGlew waved around a small piece of paper supposedly containing some work done by the architects we've hired as apparently the hospital is broke but willing to pay to get this bond. Eeking desperation over there.

(If he calls this a footprint, I'll faint on the spot.)

The reason we are in this situation with Cal Mtg. was because of construction costs and losses which occurred twenty years ago.

Now, we the community, as Chet used his best baby face to ask the community to help and vote for his bond, must pay off the old debt and still be beholding to Cal Mtg. for our credit, which really doesn't actually improve our situation that much, then they are going to undertake the most stressful and risky venture: do remodeling.

People divorce over these types of things.

Since at this point there is actually no way to get this bond, what will we do? Nobody has discussed the obvious things, like eliminating certain services which until such a time as the hospital can support itself, could be restored and are not shorted so much that they can't make money and become an excessive liability.

This is like throwing good money after bad, much like the government always does. But since Chet Beedle has blamed everyone from Cal Mtg. to the whole state of California for the problems, I say why not have the state take out a huge GOB for 40 billion, the whole state will pay higher property taxes, and then of course the money will trickle right down on top of our hospital and restore us. This way rather than the little Kern River Valley bailing out a hospital with their property taxes, the whole state will share in bailing out the whole state. And CFW will help write the verbiage on the ballot and then collect 40 million for their services. (it's just a thought)

That's what tax man says...

Not only did the audit find that Ott used the untouchable bond money, but she was also cited with mishandling employee pension monies as well. Maybe she was simply handling the monies rather than mishandling...

Here's the end quote from the Reedley Exponent about what happened with the construction project at Sierra Kings...It gets spooky when I make comparisons of these two public healthcare districts.

In October 2009, Zumwalt Construction, Inc. and a subcontractor filed claims against the hospital totaling $987,136, alleging deficiencies in the design documents, changes in the work, and other factors. The hospital disputed the claims and sought $623,000 in damages resulting from delayed completion of the project. Both parties have agreed to participate in mediation, but it is not yet resolved.

Go read the whole article, it will help you decide on this GOB being pitched at KVHD.

http://www.reedleyexponent.com/articles/2010/06/02/news/doc4c06cdf1c0177127438958.txt


Good pictures from the meeting, you'll never guess who showed up, it was a motley group...