The July Kern Valley Healthcare District Board meeting, tonight!

Tonight, Wed. July 7, the Kern Valley Healthcare District Board of Directors and their administrators will be meeting under some serious circumstances which directly affect the economy of this valley.

With the hospital currently in default with Cal Mtg. the insurer of what has been called by many a "high risk" investment in revenue bonds, the hospital, and Cal Mtg. have been talking about raising property taxes via a GOB to pay off the debt that's been plaguing them for a quarter of a century.

However, the General obligation bond is not on the agenda this month as the board will have to vote on whether or not to ask the community to pay extra property taxes to pay off this debt, approximately 15 million dollars and for another five million to build a new emergency room and remodel the existing ER into an imaging center (x-ray and CT scanner), with our property taxes.

What we must consider is this: Can we trust the hospital with our money? Can the majority of the residents in these tough financial times afford this increase? Seniors on fixed incomes who came here to retire have not had increases, but everything else around them has.

So, we would need to trust the current hospital with our own property taxes, as well as the businesses in the community who will not incur the increases alone, they will pass that on to the residents in higher prices. Rental housing prices would increase, consumer services, as well as other hidden increases, as the new property taxes would be offset onto the residents.

To pass the bond in the November election requires a two thirds majority vote from the community. The company which SELLS these bond issues and receives percentage of the 20 million in our case, reported at a special board meeting that their phone survey indicated that 67% of this community are on board and ready to vote in this bond which would last for 30 years.

This company also advised the hospital district to word the ballot not as a "debt" being paid off, but call it a lease, as he justified his comments saying the community could understand that leases are not a good investment. (the interesting part is that they sometimes call the revenue bonds, "lease bonds" so therefore it could be considered a "sort of" truth, but an obvious manipulation)

Though this sort of word play is not unusual in politics, it is still deceptive.

Cal Mtg. reported to me that they were not the ones who introduced the idea of municipal, tax free revenue bonds, which you CANNOT bankrupt on, that it was Goldman Sachs. I'll be getting that document as soon as possible. That won't be on the ballot that the Kern Valley Healthcare District would rather have the community bailout a large corporate mistake rather than try or even simply "discuss" other options, bring in their own consultants, garner new information.

HFS the financial company now reviewing the hospital's viability was not the hospital's idea, it has been forced upon them as part of the contract to insure the high risk revenue bonds. So, don't let anyone tell you it's just a "helpful" service to see what they can do to pull themselves up and service the multi million dollar debt.

But, the hospital paid 75,000 for the initial contract without the expenses which come later, out of a line of credit obtained through Cal Mtg. so the hospital could pay the old revenue bond debt.

I found interesting how many companies have been in here over the last two and a half decades costing the hospital much money, and nothing changed. In fact it keeps getting worse.

They call that what? Throwing good money after bad.

It's your decision to come to meetings, gather information, and educate yourselves as to the potential consequences of ignoring the current problems. It's a public healthcare district-people vote in the board members-they represent your interests, ideally-but have you checked your representatives lately?

The hospital surgeon, Kent Skoegerson told me in an interview that in his experience he's seen small cities turn into ghost towns after their hospital closes down. Especially when the hospital is the biggest employer in the community.

And medical mistakes are more damaging than some of the diseases they are fighting, so cutting back finances at a hospital has to be done with the utmost care and education.

Just today I was telling someone that my father cannot come to visit me as he has heart problems and has a built in pacemaker and defibrillator, and with only a "standby ER" basically a bandaid station it's called, it's too risky for him to come here.

I don't know why the general obligation bond is not even open for discussion this month at the regular board meeting, but I'll ask I guess.

There is an upcoming deadline to get this GOB on the November ballot and all I can see is that they will have to call a special meeting. It's either a mistake or it could be other things too. There is a required 24 hour advance notice for these meetings in most instances, which leaves little time for the public to be notified and be able to attend.

Again, it's up to this community to ask questions, and there are no stupid questions, but there are suspicious answers.

The money has been flying out the door for a long time at this hospital. If we as Americans, voters, cannot even provide our own oversight on this small government institution, what can we ever expect to come out of Sacramento and Washington DC?

Does the government simply not work? Is there a systems problem? Is it the expectation that somebody else will take care of the problems?

As I've said the story going on here is one of a series of books I've been writing for the last three years and you will be shocked to know the things I haven't shared with you yet (It's called "The Valley of Fear").

We have one of the most unique situations I've ever seen or been involved in.

The decisions the hospital and community face have to be made carefully and without any political rifts, or compounding mistakes like refusing to investigate themselves. Truthful communication maybe the only road to success. If not, we could lose this hospital, the clinics, Mt. Mesa pharmacy and literally kill off the local economy at the same time.

So, you decide whether this is important to you. It's tough out there for people with families to get the time to rearch The meeting is at the hospital at 5:30 pm in the cafeteria.