I had this odd feeling, de ja' vu, earlier and realized I've been saying much of the same things for more than 2 years. And now we have reached a juncture in time where the community knows a little more of what I was talking about back then. But I'm seeing much of the same behavior now, as the hospital is on the brink of true change or utter disaster.
In April of 2007, the fight began.
And we took it to the backyard of the KRVR hospital forum. It was the heaviest hit site on the website, and that wasn't just the folks visiting and reading.
A battle was ensuing and the killer bees took up their computers at the hospital and we had words...lots of words. (Read the Urban legend/revelation/responsibility post)
Many people showed support, while the heated confrontation took place. Shortly after the fight began, former CEO, Pam Ott resigned. Board member Bob Jamison blamed me and took Ott to his radio tower where she was allowed an hour of dementia. (see Ott interview QAB)
I'm not really a pack rat at all, as soon as I throw something away, I suddenly need it. But we tried to track the archives from the forum and were not successful. Then I happened to look in my documents and there it was.
So, this is where it started:
April 2007: Then board member Barbara Casas
I feel very sorry for you at this stage, I know that public opinion is very important to you, and I truly want what is best for you, please give up this vendetta and try to report only what is true.
You say you had "carte blanche" when dominating the question period; how was anyone to know you were going to use the whole time allowed, questioning just the Knights, the time allowed you at the last Board Meeting your whole question period was directed at all board members (primarily "the Big three" and the CEO----now....I think we were all a little stunned at the request to repeat what was said at the previous Special Meeting. (She called them the "big three" and I have since called them the "sticky three.")
Acting Brown
This shows three work together; 2 work together; If the three always vote the same; you Jamison and Armstrong; is there a vote you can cite where this hasn't happened for us please? Have we ever seen meaningful discussion go on between all the board members; or have we seen a cliquish stalemate something out of lack of creativity 101.
Boards rarely agree; but they are willing to research and discuss and not rely on a CEO for all the information.(That goes for reporters too. I relied on the CEO and you three board members BC, BJ, and BA, for my part of the information; and what did I come up with but nothing more than a slanted picture which I'm embarrassed and apologetic about.)
Now you mentioned in an earlier post that they (The Knights) don't play the game; play along. With who? You, your two board mates, and the CEO?If a board has consensus sometimes that's another word for complicity; people have boards to get different opinions; offer different talents and styles. This board has three people that consistently blame two others for their downfall. (To err is human; to blame others is management potential)
You are the people in charge of setting policy; I am sure you would have to spend time really reading this material which could be confusing and ponderous. (Such as the SNF reports you get year after year) Then you are supposed to enforce these policies through your CEO.
I don't mean to be so frank here, but your CEO is not the leader that will pull this district from dire straights. She has four years now of trying; how long before you decide it's not working out? But the three of you board members will be defending her regardless of the ill effects it could have on the longevity of this hospital.
Will you let this hospital perish so that you can carry on as you did; as a club; with no real scrutiny; no openess and visibility required by a public healthcare district?And if you claim visibility; I will show all the tapes of the board meetings I've collected in the last 16 months. (It's funny how you forget what you said last year)
Say it out loud; write it down: If Laura Hart would just go away we would be fine. We could get back to the business of making things look like something is happening. And if it doesn't look good; continue our traditional scapegoating process. That's really what all these negative posts are all about. Is this hospital owned by the four or more of you?
Now, I say I can think of several people who would make great board members in this community. We are not short on talent in this valley; and Mrs. Casas that means you too. But you are locked in with the "in group;" there is horrid divisiveness and slander on your team; keep things hidden; breaking the rules of the board; blaming others. Regardless, this means little progress on the real stuff.
And I'm positive a good CEO could be found; one with experience in talking to a small community; not trying to scare it death with the tales of the small town reporter trying to "take down" the hospital (and some other ripe stuff I might add).
Somebody needs to both bolster the slumping morale amongst the employees; and manage to stay on top of the demands of the state and the demands of a construction project. We need a state of the art CEO. (I hope we have one now)
Basically, we need leaders; with heart; and ones who will commit to see this thru for the community. "From bond to Building" But have the talent and mostly integrity to do so. I say we need to start on this now. And we the community need to start with people we can trust with our money; We are now scrutinizing our investment. (Unlike Cal mortgage did 20 years ago ; the insurer of our multi million dollar debt)
If KVHD CEO and board of directors can't staff, medicate, manage, plan for growth, recruit and retain good staff, correctly bill people; then maybe it's time to let go and allow someone else to help.
Does that sound unreasonable? Thanks for your thoughts. Laura Hart
From the inside
You are right Laura, staffing in the SNF has been a problem for quite some time now. How many days have they worked short? When staffing is at the state required minimum and one or even two CNA's call off that leaves a lot of work for those working that shift. But hey, by staffing like that it looks good on the books, it helps the SNF to be within or below "budget" & then the good report that the SNF made a profit. The CNA's work very hard & care very much for their residents, so it makes it very hard on them when all they can do is the bare minimum both physically & mentally. And when their cries for help fall on deaf ears, no wonder the morale is low. If any one of us walked in their shoes, I wonder how long we could keep our morale high? They definitely need leadership that will support them & in the absence of a DON, that responsiblity falls back to Admin. But where are they?
The restraint story
Dear Laura, I just wanted to respond about the "supposedly" new laws concerning restraints that KVHD Admin keeps alluding to. In the DHS exit interview last year, the restraint law was brought up. At that time (and I believe it was the previous CNO) the question was asked when the law was enacted. The DHS surveyor could not remember the exact year but did state it had been on the books for quite some time. The CEO was also in attendance at that meeting. So, why do they keep referring to the "new restraint law"? My guess? Just another issue that they can blame on something or someone else
The current CEO is looking for any excuse to blame the situation on. This is her M.O. and has been for years and years. I have worked with this CEO in the past and know she will always blame something or someone else. She is not capable of admitting to a mistake or not knowing an answer.
And Annie and her emoticoms
I thought you had all the facts, and that you were so trusted with all the information regarding all these "crooked people" who only want to "bury the Healthcare District."
The fact is, Laura Hart, you have done more damage in the short time you have decided to "turn 360 degrees" from the truth, then the Knights have historically, that is more damage verbally, not financially, no one could ever surpass that monetary loss to the healthcare district.....no way.
From my view you have been "playing both sides of the court" and a good reporter should have more discernment, especially after listening to a person whose goal has been since 1998, to prove to this valley that he can run the Healthcare District better then he did then; God help up all if that ever happens, you can kiss that "Blarney Stone" for me too, because if you believe that will ever happen, think again!
Snakes and venom: my response
Hey, I love emoticons....does that make you mad?
I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh at this post Annie. This is humorous stuff; but your timing is off; we have a critical situation at our hospital; code blue! And the time for screwing around is over.
I will however address what you have said about the venom I'm using; well as we know, when dealing with snakes, venom often times is the anti-venom. This community has been bit repeatedly by snakes living in that hospital; and nobody has come to our aid. Well, there were a couple who tried to bring in the grand jury; but the corruption at Tehachapi was taking up too much of their time apparently to deal with our little hospital.
These were our early heroes who took the shots I now expect I will be taking for a long time to come.
So, if someone doesn't agree with current management or the triad board; then they are...what...it has to be...supporters of the Knights.
The knights have no power; they get voted down every time. What is with this specious argument? If anyone wants to verify that they call me and get a copy of the tapes of the board meetings; or call the hospital and get the board minutes.
All they do is irritate the decision makers with their requests for material and their questions. They have no real power for crying out loud.Gee whiz, I was hoping at least for something different from you Annie the emoticom lover. Hey, it's cool, I don't want your name; you have no real important information for me. You are just a parrot; I've heard this squawk before. Take care. Laura Hart
We brawled and crazy, outlandish (even by my standards) posts were put up by Jamison, who talked about aliens on the very day Ott turned in her resignation. But she stayed on for 30 days and did some damage in retaliation. It was ugly.
It takes time to deal with embedded wrongdoing. Even more than 2 years.
We have had patience, now we need action....
Persistance and Tenacity, requires a new chapter, a new beginning....
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
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...
(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...
Special Meeting: video's from Caldwell Flores and Winters: advice on presenting GOB
It seems google is having a problem uploading videos right onto the site, so I used YouTube last night and managed to get two important videos up.
The quotes are part of the "special meeting" series, and hopefully many of you can watch the video's themselves which give you insight into what is happening at the hospital.
http://www.youtube.com/user/OrderBipolarDisorder
Press control button and click on link to open or copy and paste to the address bar.
The quotes are part of the "special meeting" series, and hopefully many of you can watch the video's themselves which give you insight into what is happening at the hospital.
http://www.youtube.com/user/OrderBipolarDisorder
Press control button and click on link to open or copy and paste to the address bar.
I'll sell you that $15,000 study for half price: undercutting Caldwell, Flores and Winters
At our mid May special meeting at the Kern Valley Healthcare District, we got to meet up again with, Abel, the bond consultant from Caldwell Flores and Winters.
Though I had spoken to our CEO, Tim McGlew, about the use of CFW for Tim and Chet's "big plan" to get the community to bail out the hospital and pay off an old debt to their revenue bondholders, then at a meeting he had told me they were going to consider using another company.
But that didn't happen and then McGlew makes an about face at the special meeting and told me and my camera about a contract, a contract with CFW. Last I knew we had no "obligations."
Then Abel after cluing the board in on how to write the bond on the voting ballot, the password there is it's a lease, and people know leases are bad, and buying things are good, has asked the board for $15,000 to do another survey like they did when they were here in 2006 (and on I guess)
I have the survey which has already been paid for and the things the community told the hospital it wanted: guess what? They never got. I'll sell it back to the hospital for oh, maybe, $7,500. That's half of what CFW wants to do it over again.
So, this is how we spend money and this is partially why we are in default.
Though I had spoken to our CEO, Tim McGlew, about the use of CFW for Tim and Chet's "big plan" to get the community to bail out the hospital and pay off an old debt to their revenue bondholders, then at a meeting he had told me they were going to consider using another company.
But that didn't happen and then McGlew makes an about face at the special meeting and told me and my camera about a contract, a contract with CFW. Last I knew we had no "obligations."
Then Abel after cluing the board in on how to write the bond on the voting ballot, the password there is it's a lease, and people know leases are bad, and buying things are good, has asked the board for $15,000 to do another survey like they did when they were here in 2006 (and on I guess)
I have the survey which has already been paid for and the things the community told the hospital it wanted: guess what? They never got. I'll sell it back to the hospital for oh, maybe, $7,500. That's half of what CFW wants to do it over again.
So, this is how we spend money and this is partially why we are in default.
Now, I wondered, how did Abel get back to KVHD after the bond, Measure M, (malfeasance) didn't quite pass in 2006. And as some of you who volunteered in the community and who have now abandoned the hospital might remember that there was much confusion regarding the help the bond company gave us.
So, to see them stroll right back in had me curious.
Abel, CFW
Well, it seems this can be traced back to Bob Jamison and his construction committee. Well, it wasn't a "real" committee I'm told, they didn't take minutes, maybe ad hoc like, or a lot of contract recruiting. Jamison wants the bond, he's quiet now, but he wants the bond and the taxes and to keep CFW. His committee kept those good contractual relations with CFW as Jamison believed he was going to have to charge in and rebuild the hospital with his bond he could likely sell on the radio. Another board member surprisingly suggested such a thing.
Jamison's concerns were about the seismic laws requiring hospitals to upgrade. He couldn't think ahead far enough to realize that the government was never going to be able to enforce this onto all the hospital's in earthquake zones as there wouldn't even be enough contractors to do them all in the same year.
And OSHPD made that happen when they figured it out too.
So, Jamison might want to take some time before the 2012 election to study up on how specialized and technical hospital construction really can be. It's not something to take lightly.
And next time we use contractors, we might want to make sure they get insured, and the jobs are completed.
As Abel spelled out the plan for keeping the community from knowing "exactly" what the bond monies would go for none of the board members objected. Not Tim or Chet or anybody, except one audience member. And she said straight and sharp: "we don't like to be lied to."
When Abel and Chet assuaged a room full of KVHD skeptics saying that the GOB money could strictly only be used for things within the parameters of which is written and voted in by the community.
I alerted the unknowing, how did Pam Ott get her hands in the basket of bond money at Sierra Kings in Reedley. The chairwoman, Victoria Alwin, asked for more information on how often that happens (does she mean how often do they catch it?) and was told by Abel he's never seen it happen.
I reiterated that Ott found a way. One board member wasn't so convinced, as he asked if she was convicted. I said it just happened last week. But I suggested that he talk to his new management company coming in this week to take a good look at what Chet Beedle has been doing, HFS, as they were the ones who had to go to bankrupt Ott's hospital and now they're here.
I excitedly told everyone I can't wait to see what they find here.
Ott kept all of that information from her board of directors at Sierra Kings District Hospital, as the ship was sinking. She took bond money it seems to pay some payroll and got in some other hot water not paying a pension plan overseen by the IRS.
I'll make sure to find out if criminal charges are forthcoming. But it doesn't matter she sunk a hospital, kept a board in the dark, and that's all after she did what she did here. And she had no credentials. Wow. (I think she has credentials now though, you have to if you can totally bust two hospitals in less than a decade)
Abel gave me the biggest laugh of the meeting when he assured me that the board of directors would be overseeing the monies on the bond. And the community too. I'm still laughing.
But the lying is deeper and deeper, and deception runs from the KRV to Sacramento...Hang in there, I'll tell the story, but I can't quite do it yet...
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sierra Kings District board: Did former CEO, Pam Ott, stop payments to employee pensions...
It's the valley kid again, in trouble, or actually it's an interesting story up at Sierra Kings District Hospital in Reedley, CA, where Pam Ott is now being blamed for stopping payments on the employee pension account. But the story isn't so clear....
(UPDATE) It's been reported and a complaint filed with the Fresno County DA, that Ott also was able to use the communities general obligation bond monies they voted in specifically for an addition onto their hospital. Somehow, she found a way to move monies that are protected for a specific purpose into the hospital operations account. Hopefully, we will hear news soon on that.)
Sometimes people find other people to blame things on when they don't want to take responsibility and possibly lose their job, friends, spouse, over something which could simply be shifted on to someone else, a doctor, a pharmacist, a nurse, a whole hospital of employees, or however you need to do it to save yourself.
the healthcare shuffle: the blame game
Pam Ott, left our valley here in 2007, as the CEO on the run, she headed up away from criminal investigations, into the Reedley area where she landed a job as a CEO, again.
She put the past behind her, leaving the blame for the nursing center disaster, in the hands of those who unwittingly trusted Miss Ott as she said she had plenty of credentials to handle the SNF.
Ott left with the idea that this was the last we would see of her, bye bye. (idiots)
The blame seemed to fall right in place, onto the people Ott managed convince to help put out the small conflagration taking place at the hospital.
Now it's Ott's turn
Ott didn't get far, as Sierra Kings hospital was on the brink of bankruptcy when the word came down that the California Department of Justice had filed elder abuse charges against her in Sept. 2009.
the Sierra Kings District Board
The board of Directors, claimed they had never heard about Ott's little problems here in the valley at KVHD. (I was so quiet nobody could've heard me) They were shocked and outraged, and put Ott on leave, until the court date, when she was then dismissed from power.
But these things never end there do they?
Ott gets canned, and now Sierra Kings is filing for bankruptcy a month later. According to an article in the Reedley Exponent, the Sierra Kings board of directors is now saying that Ott and her CFO, Barbara Jennings, stopped making payments into the Social Security pension account late last year.
The IRS supposedly came out to tell the board of directors that this was done and that it was quite illegal and could get them booted out of the special pension program.
It's funny when people lie
It seems the hospital board members were appalled by this turn of events and said they didn't know it had happened, and their new CEO, cleared himself too, Sandy Haskins, saying, according to the article that he made sure the payments were made.
Why this leaves poor Ott and her sidekick with all the blame. I wonder how it feels to be blamed for something you may or may not have actually done?
The board members are supposedly looking for a record that they knew about the payment problem when they fired Ott and that was part of the reason she was tossed to the streets.
However, in the article, a link will be at the end so you can read the actual story, the board said it couldn't find the minutes to prove that they had a meeting and knew Ott had not paid the fund.
That sounds fishy?
They know they talked about it, just not when or where the dialogue would be to prove it.
But guess what? They don't have to prove it, they can just say it. Since Ott is already blessed with the title of elder abuser, she's probably capable of these other oversights.
The board in Sierra Kings sounds an awful lot like a certain board of directors I know oh too well here in the valley. (quick to protect themselves of course)
I don't know if Ott did it or if the board just wants to avoid getting stuck with the blame, but I wonder if Ott didn't do it: How does it feel to be scapegoated? How does it feel to be the one everyone blames?
I'll stop now, because I a moments away from saying "na, na,na, nanna."
Read it in the Exponent:
http://www.reedleyexponent.com/articles/2010/03/24/news/doc4baa394719421767508279.txt
(UPDATE) It's been reported and a complaint filed with the Fresno County DA, that Ott also was able to use the communities general obligation bond monies they voted in specifically for an addition onto their hospital. Somehow, she found a way to move monies that are protected for a specific purpose into the hospital operations account. Hopefully, we will hear news soon on that.)
Sometimes people find other people to blame things on when they don't want to take responsibility and possibly lose their job, friends, spouse, over something which could simply be shifted on to someone else, a doctor, a pharmacist, a nurse, a whole hospital of employees, or however you need to do it to save yourself.
the healthcare shuffle: the blame game
Pam Ott, left our valley here in 2007, as the CEO on the run, she headed up away from criminal investigations, into the Reedley area where she landed a job as a CEO, again.
She put the past behind her, leaving the blame for the nursing center disaster, in the hands of those who unwittingly trusted Miss Ott as she said she had plenty of credentials to handle the SNF.
Ott left with the idea that this was the last we would see of her, bye bye. (idiots)
The blame seemed to fall right in place, onto the people Ott managed convince to help put out the small conflagration taking place at the hospital.
Now it's Ott's turn
Ott didn't get far, as Sierra Kings hospital was on the brink of bankruptcy when the word came down that the California Department of Justice had filed elder abuse charges against her in Sept. 2009.
the Sierra Kings District Board
The board of Directors, claimed they had never heard about Ott's little problems here in the valley at KVHD. (I was so quiet nobody could've heard me) They were shocked and outraged, and put Ott on leave, until the court date, when she was then dismissed from power.
But these things never end there do they?
Ott gets canned, and now Sierra Kings is filing for bankruptcy a month later. According to an article in the Reedley Exponent, the Sierra Kings board of directors is now saying that Ott and her CFO, Barbara Jennings, stopped making payments into the Social Security pension account late last year.
The IRS supposedly came out to tell the board of directors that this was done and that it was quite illegal and could get them booted out of the special pension program.
It's funny when people lie
It seems the hospital board members were appalled by this turn of events and said they didn't know it had happened, and their new CEO, cleared himself too, Sandy Haskins, saying, according to the article that he made sure the payments were made.
Why this leaves poor Ott and her sidekick with all the blame. I wonder how it feels to be blamed for something you may or may not have actually done?
The board members are supposedly looking for a record that they knew about the payment problem when they fired Ott and that was part of the reason she was tossed to the streets.
However, in the article, a link will be at the end so you can read the actual story, the board said it couldn't find the minutes to prove that they had a meeting and knew Ott had not paid the fund.
That sounds fishy?
They know they talked about it, just not when or where the dialogue would be to prove it.
But guess what? They don't have to prove it, they can just say it. Since Ott is already blessed with the title of elder abuser, she's probably capable of these other oversights.
The board in Sierra Kings sounds an awful lot like a certain board of directors I know oh too well here in the valley. (quick to protect themselves of course)
I don't know if Ott did it or if the board just wants to avoid getting stuck with the blame, but I wonder if Ott didn't do it: How does it feel to be scapegoated? How does it feel to be the one everyone blames?
I'll stop now, because I a moments away from saying "na, na,na, nanna."
Read it in the Exponent:
http://www.reedleyexponent.com/articles/2010/03/24/news/doc4baa394719421767508279.txt
Saturday, June 12, 2010
McGlew and Beedle's general obligation bond and tax service...
My new doctor asked me what my symptoms were recently, and I told him, I'm watching television...he looked concerned.
After two hours of watching television I gained some energy and decided to rummage. What that means in my world is that I pick up a stack of papers and look thru them and always find something.
I found a lot today. I didn't know we had already purchased a PHACO machine before 2005, that was "never used." The machine is to remove cataracts which was one of the things the community wanted to have available here and not have to travel.
We had one, bought another, and now I think that one doesn't work. And we have no current eye surgery here anyway.
We had a mammography van, and even may still have the equipment unless it was sold to a third world country, and now we talk again about buying another one. I guess if this miracle bond comes through it would be part of the "imaging center" right? Yeah.
Back to the Bond...
Caldwell Winters and Flores as I explained a few posts ago, is the company who promotes and sells general obligation bonds for schools, hospitals, cities, and takes a cut from the deal. The bigger the bond, the more they make. They sold Tehachapi a bond or two or three or maybe even four before it's all over as that community is locked in combat over the location, costs of building a new hospital, and the board is a lot louder than the one we have here at KVHD.
In a story I wrote for the Kern Valley Sun newspaper in 2006, the results of the survey to the community for a 12.5 million dollar bond, was less than two thirds, and CFW, recommended the hospital find out how many volunteers will help with the bond, before they jump in and put it on the ballot.
Now this year in 2010, when CFW maybe lacking in clients putting out bonds that raise taxes, they have a survey which says now this community after becoming famous for the worst elder abuse in California, running out of money, trying to close it's pharmacy, literally blaming the "poor" for their problems, is willing to support 20 million dollars on their property taxes.
That's darned interesting to me. So much so that I continue my own survey which has yet to get one person to say they want to pay more in taxes.
And when they see the headlines on the county budget there's going to be even more hostility as the money grab is on in the KRV.
Apparently, Kern County is going to be laying off and cutting back, which means, there will be more of these pesky poor and uninsured people coming to this hospital.
But isn't that what a public hospital is for?
Somebody asked me why the hospital thinks it should make more money from the community.
I said other than being poisoned by the water and not thinking straight, I can't imagine why they would put this on us.
Oh yeah, they don't care. They have big salaries to pay the administrators. The board members on the other hand, make very little for their time. And I'm okay with that because they've done little except to follow misguidance of the managers they selected to run the hospital. The board agreed to these out of sight salaries which could pay for PHACO cataract machines and even a surgeon, but in this economy do you think anyone on the top of this heap is going to leave?
Heck no, they have a great deal here. Cut out the little guys, like pharmacy workers; take away their benefits, and use that money. But no, don't cut the CEO or the CFO. What a blood letting of employees under the kingdoms since the reign of Ott. I've never seen such waste of labor, talent and money in my life.
What this hospital district needs is a hero willing to go up against the likes of Cal Mtg. the double dealer who doesn't always have a feasibility study to go along with their insurance: hello state of California you have a problem, high risk, bad insuring practices. Sound familiar? Shall I write to the federal government on this, or will California take a look at it's own problem?
So, Finance committee this Wednesday at 9 am. I'm sure it will be dull and include Tim and Chet threatening that either the district will go broke because of it's own mistakes; or we get a bond.
I can't wait to hear this again. I love this story, I'm bonded with it.
After two hours of watching television I gained some energy and decided to rummage. What that means in my world is that I pick up a stack of papers and look thru them and always find something.
I found a lot today. I didn't know we had already purchased a PHACO machine before 2005, that was "never used." The machine is to remove cataracts which was one of the things the community wanted to have available here and not have to travel.
We had one, bought another, and now I think that one doesn't work. And we have no current eye surgery here anyway.
We had a mammography van, and even may still have the equipment unless it was sold to a third world country, and now we talk again about buying another one. I guess if this miracle bond comes through it would be part of the "imaging center" right? Yeah.
Back to the Bond...
Caldwell Winters and Flores as I explained a few posts ago, is the company who promotes and sells general obligation bonds for schools, hospitals, cities, and takes a cut from the deal. The bigger the bond, the more they make. They sold Tehachapi a bond or two or three or maybe even four before it's all over as that community is locked in combat over the location, costs of building a new hospital, and the board is a lot louder than the one we have here at KVHD.
In a story I wrote for the Kern Valley Sun newspaper in 2006, the results of the survey to the community for a 12.5 million dollar bond, was less than two thirds, and CFW, recommended the hospital find out how many volunteers will help with the bond, before they jump in and put it on the ballot.
Now this year in 2010, when CFW maybe lacking in clients putting out bonds that raise taxes, they have a survey which says now this community after becoming famous for the worst elder abuse in California, running out of money, trying to close it's pharmacy, literally blaming the "poor" for their problems, is willing to support 20 million dollars on their property taxes.
That's darned interesting to me. So much so that I continue my own survey which has yet to get one person to say they want to pay more in taxes.
And when they see the headlines on the county budget there's going to be even more hostility as the money grab is on in the KRV.
Apparently, Kern County is going to be laying off and cutting back, which means, there will be more of these pesky poor and uninsured people coming to this hospital.
But isn't that what a public hospital is for?
Somebody asked me why the hospital thinks it should make more money from the community.
I said other than being poisoned by the water and not thinking straight, I can't imagine why they would put this on us.
Oh yeah, they don't care. They have big salaries to pay the administrators. The board members on the other hand, make very little for their time. And I'm okay with that because they've done little except to follow misguidance of the managers they selected to run the hospital. The board agreed to these out of sight salaries which could pay for PHACO cataract machines and even a surgeon, but in this economy do you think anyone on the top of this heap is going to leave?
Heck no, they have a great deal here. Cut out the little guys, like pharmacy workers; take away their benefits, and use that money. But no, don't cut the CEO or the CFO. What a blood letting of employees under the kingdoms since the reign of Ott. I've never seen such waste of labor, talent and money in my life.
What this hospital district needs is a hero willing to go up against the likes of Cal Mtg. the double dealer who doesn't always have a feasibility study to go along with their insurance: hello state of California you have a problem, high risk, bad insuring practices. Sound familiar? Shall I write to the federal government on this, or will California take a look at it's own problem?
So, Finance committee this Wednesday at 9 am. I'm sure it will be dull and include Tim and Chet threatening that either the district will go broke because of it's own mistakes; or we get a bond.
I can't wait to hear this again. I love this story, I'm bonded with it.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Did you vote? Republicans dominate the activities in the Kern River Valley
Vote or don't complain
No time to prattle, but I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who voted in the primaries and thank the Republicans who dominated the event. Imagine if we had no Republicans there wouldn't have been much of a turnout for discussion.
I enjoyed speaking with people Tuesday and I told them all about the GOB the hospital wants them to vote on in November. Then I spattered the main story with the side story of former Kern Valley Healthcare District CEO, Pam Ott, actually misused the monies voted in by the citizens of Reedley CA on their own GOB.
"That doesn't surprise me" one woman said. She also didn't give me her name but she seemed to know a lot about the district's deeds. That made me happy.
One sly Republican said, "they're not going to get that past us."
Media mongrels
I wrote an article for the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper in 2006 about the importance of voting and the importance of getting correct information before doing this. One college professor told me that the best place to get information is...the newspaper.
Now, I agreed with that at one time, but unfortunately since 2007, the Kern Valley Sun has not given you correct or even "all" of the information you as an intelligent voter deserve. It's almost an "in your face" corrupted activity. They think they have some sort of power and they do: over your information.
Hail to the small town of Greensburg Indiana
We all know I'm not exactly average, as I began my political campaign contributions when I had a paper route in Greensburg Indiana when I was 12. My crumbled dollar bills I collected on my route were ironed and put in envelopes for people like Ronald Reagan.
As a California kid removed to Indiana for a few years because of parental employment, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Let's see people talked about the fact I drove my parents car when I was 12 and that I stayed out much later than other kids my age. Oh, and the pranks.
Greensburg still remembers me and I took a visit there just before my illness grabbed hold. What I found in Greensburg were my peers in "political office." It was so cool. My generation has taken hold there and you know what? They are good people whom I respect.
They still remember me and we stay in touch these thirty years later.
And they would not let their hospital which removed my tonsils and appendix (safely I might add) do what KVHD is doing here to it's community.
They also have a small town paper and a radio station, oddly, but not anything like what we have seen.
I'll close by thanking the "REPUBLICANS" for the turn out on Tuesday and let a community member tell you himself about the problem with the local information.
Product Review from a local:
The Sun has never, I repeat, never as far back as I can remember, taken a stand in support of anything or anyone, as they are scared to death of being criticized, even if it means not doing something positive for the community.
Actually most small community newspapers would rather do whatever they have to to avoid a lawsuit, whether real or even just a remote possibility. In other words, community bully's will always get their views in print regardless of the harm it does to the community, and small newspapers will never stand up to them, or for their community. Some in the newspaper business call it reporting fairly. I prefer to think of it as a cowardly self indulgent waste of trees.
By Bob Jamison (KVHD board member, Pam Ott defender, and local radio jock)
No time to prattle, but I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who voted in the primaries and thank the Republicans who dominated the event. Imagine if we had no Republicans there wouldn't have been much of a turnout for discussion.
I enjoyed speaking with people Tuesday and I told them all about the GOB the hospital wants them to vote on in November. Then I spattered the main story with the side story of former Kern Valley Healthcare District CEO, Pam Ott, actually misused the monies voted in by the citizens of Reedley CA on their own GOB.
"That doesn't surprise me" one woman said. She also didn't give me her name but she seemed to know a lot about the district's deeds. That made me happy.
One sly Republican said, "they're not going to get that past us."
Media mongrels
I wrote an article for the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper in 2006 about the importance of voting and the importance of getting correct information before doing this. One college professor told me that the best place to get information is...the newspaper.
Now, I agreed with that at one time, but unfortunately since 2007, the Kern Valley Sun has not given you correct or even "all" of the information you as an intelligent voter deserve. It's almost an "in your face" corrupted activity. They think they have some sort of power and they do: over your information.
Hail to the small town of Greensburg Indiana
We all know I'm not exactly average, as I began my political campaign contributions when I had a paper route in Greensburg Indiana when I was 12. My crumbled dollar bills I collected on my route were ironed and put in envelopes for people like Ronald Reagan.
As a California kid removed to Indiana for a few years because of parental employment, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Let's see people talked about the fact I drove my parents car when I was 12 and that I stayed out much later than other kids my age. Oh, and the pranks.
Greensburg still remembers me and I took a visit there just before my illness grabbed hold. What I found in Greensburg were my peers in "political office." It was so cool. My generation has taken hold there and you know what? They are good people whom I respect.
They still remember me and we stay in touch these thirty years later.
And they would not let their hospital which removed my tonsils and appendix (safely I might add) do what KVHD is doing here to it's community.
They also have a small town paper and a radio station, oddly, but not anything like what we have seen.
I'll close by thanking the "REPUBLICANS" for the turn out on Tuesday and let a community member tell you himself about the problem with the local information.
Product Review from a local:
The Sun has never, I repeat, never as far back as I can remember, taken a stand in support of anything or anyone, as they are scared to death of being criticized, even if it means not doing something positive for the community.
Actually most small community newspapers would rather do whatever they have to to avoid a lawsuit, whether real or even just a remote possibility. In other words, community bully's will always get their views in print regardless of the harm it does to the community, and small newspapers will never stand up to them, or for their community. Some in the newspaper business call it reporting fairly. I prefer to think of it as a cowardly self indulgent waste of trees.
By Bob Jamison (KVHD board member, Pam Ott defender, and local radio jock)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Two pharmaceutical companies facing charges of supporting off label prescribing: for the elderly
(review the case is a week away now)
Less than two months away from the elder abuse criminal case against three Kern Valley Healthcare District employees, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., "Jerry Brown" announced just today that California is part of a 520 million dollar settlement against a London based company for promoting off label use of "Seroquel" an anti-psychotic drug, in the elderly with dementia and Alzheimers.
AstraZeneca is accused of encouraging the use of these antipsychotics in the aged and elderly, not approved by the FDA. The years that these practices were supposedly in effect were from 2001 to 2006.
(Gee, that 2006 number certainly stands out, as the KVHD elder abuse case revolves around the use of antipsychotics on it's elderly patients which may have lead to an increase morbidity rate.)
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Abbott Laboratories was doing the same thing with it's liver munching, all around player, Depakote. The use of this drug in the elderly is not approved by the FDA and off label prescribing was encouraged, say federal officials who are on this case.
The timing couldn't be better for a defense
With two large companies under the microscope right now for promoting the utilization of antipsychotics like risperdal, Seroquel, Depakote, for use on combative elderly patients, as these are used more for mood adjustments.
But the side effects are great and the older the person the more likely damage could occur and many safeguards would have to be put in place to ensure the drugs were monitored.
As we know the nursing home business isn't making people rich, and some are barely staffed, so many short cuts are taken to provide care even though the laws state that such treatment is both lacking in dignity and sometimes harmful.
Putting patients who are active, yet not quite coherent, on antipsychotics is called chemical restraining. This is used in the cases of certain classifications of mental illness, they are the very same drugs said to treat everybody. (party drugs?)
This is why the Kern River Valley Hospital has a few dates in the Kern County court, and the preliminary hearing will be coming up on June 23, and the judge will decide if the Department of justice has done it's job and proven such abuse.
But it's not only prosecutors looking at this case, it's the defense, and the families, and certainly the liability company for the hospital.
Whose fault is it anyway? Could a couple good attorneys prove that considering the drug companies were out there promoting the use of these drugs in the elderly, maybe Dr. Pormir was listening, and considering it might be a good idea.
These drugs could possibly make some of these residents tortured in mind and body, feel better. What is wrong with that?
Only one thing: The FDA didn't approve it. So the doctor is risking his own judgment on these drugs. But again these companies may provide a discount as the use of these drugs could in some ways be considered a "test subject group" maybe?
Who is the cause of what happened or do we really even know what happened here at our skilled nursing facility. We do know as a fact, they were short staffed. We do know a year before the chemical restraining occurred, a Director of Nursing, Todd Elkins, left employment over short staffing and pay cuts.
It is not confirmed, but Elkins supposedly works for the agency, Public Health, which surveys these nursing homes to make sure they are following the laws.
And we know there was a lack of ability on the part of the hospital CEO, Pam Ott, to be able to knowledgeably watch over and make sure things were done correctly as she had no credentials that weren't purchased on the back of a pack of matches.
Nurses complained, people were afraid to lose their jobs, but a new way of dealing with patients came about in August of 2006. The use of Depakote, Seroquel, Risperdal, as well as other antidepressants and antipsychotics. The new KVHD nursing center practice.
Who is really responsible?
There are so many people you could point fingers at in this case, but I think we will see them pointed toward pharmaceutical companies as well as possibly the only one that could be prosecuted, the leader who knew there were issues with the drugs, but did nothing to stop it: Pam Ott.
The rest are all contributors, well, except for the board of directors who had the information. Only two took action, the rest hid the truth from the community until today. They would be good for obstruction charges.
Nurses who had careers and plans for retirement found their lives spinning and they found they were doing things they didn't want to do.
But attorney's make all the difference
Defendants Ott and Gwen Hughes have a couple local lawyers from Bakersfield, defending them in the criminal matter, and then there is the long story about how the civil cases are being paid for. Don't ask just vote yes on a multi million dollar bond for the hospital as they are not very good at budgeting, just short staffing.
Enter Donald Etra successful lawyer with Ralph Nader for many years. He stepped into the drama in March when the case was postponed until June so the new attorney for Dr. Pormir could gather up the evidence and decide on a defense.
I had wondered where Etra came from so suddenly and then I heard that Pormir also got another attorney, a pal from college, William Howard Ginsburg, to take on his case with the state medical board.
Dr. Pormir would protect her
In the two years I knew Dr. Pormir he believed strongly in Pam Ott's constant carrot dangling of a new hospital and ER. He backed what she said and did in regards to the 2006 bond measure "m" for... you fill in the blanks.
I do not believe he will tell the authorities all he knows about her and what she did in response to the disaster which took place under her leadership. With questionable deaths, the mistreatment of families with relatives living in the nursing center, Ott needed to be brought out into the sunshine, but was stopped by friends, like Dr. Pormir, radio jock Bob Jamison, and Brad Armstrong.
How strong is the DOJ?
How strong is Jerry Brown and his organization up the state? I get these press releases and white collar crime pays, as he has made some money for the office.
What has he done to foster a sense of justice to the people of this state? Did the Anna Nicole Smith prosecution make any of you feel proud to be an American?
I can tell you the state has missed many good witnesses and found some pleasure in making up their own story in this case.
How will they do against Donald Etra and William Ginsburg though?
Ginsburg hit the limelight when he became Monica Lewinsky's attorney, as the whole country was wrapped around this warped political attack led by a better known attorney, Kenneth Starr.
I was told Pormir went to school with Ginsburg, but that would be odd as one is an attorney and another did much of his medical schooling in his home country of Iran.
Pormir will never testify and he will not rat out Ott either. He will likely with two attorneys on his arms, walk away unscathed.
Many families who lost a member to the KVHD nursing center, will not be happy to hear of recent developments.
And the civil cases are on hold until the court decides if the state has enough evidence to prosecute.
Ott never even was put in jail, as the others were, and she didn't get any bail either. The judge didn't see her as threatening. Ott had that charm at one time and lauded it over this community only to poison us all.
My predictions: the psychic reporter
Both Dr. Pormir and Gwen Hughes are slapped on the wrist, with Hughes getting a few lesser charges and Pormir just promising to be good.
Ott is the wild card. She is the main reason this case should have taken place. Along with several people who aided and abetted her, including the local radio station.
But I see a defense from the two cases cited above. And so do Donald and Bill.
Justice will likely turn into "just us" again
The people that tried to stop this were hurt over and over again, the family members, I apologize that there couldn't have been a better system in place who cared about the elderly and infirm: but there isn't.
The attorney general slash governor to be, will walk away from us as if we never existed, and then sleep at night with the help of some off label barbiturate prescription.
And fired employees, reputations lost, will try to scratch this off their resume and get employed somewhere where nobody knows about what happened here in the Kern River Valley. Our dirty little secrets...
Press control and click on link to open:
http://www.kern.courts.ca.gov/home.aspx
Less than two months away from the elder abuse criminal case against three Kern Valley Healthcare District employees, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., "Jerry Brown" announced just today that California is part of a 520 million dollar settlement against a London based company for promoting off label use of "Seroquel" an anti-psychotic drug, in the elderly with dementia and Alzheimers.
AstraZeneca is accused of encouraging the use of these antipsychotics in the aged and elderly, not approved by the FDA. The years that these practices were supposedly in effect were from 2001 to 2006.
(Gee, that 2006 number certainly stands out, as the KVHD elder abuse case revolves around the use of antipsychotics on it's elderly patients which may have lead to an increase morbidity rate.)
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Abbott Laboratories was doing the same thing with it's liver munching, all around player, Depakote. The use of this drug in the elderly is not approved by the FDA and off label prescribing was encouraged, say federal officials who are on this case.
The timing couldn't be better for a defense
With two large companies under the microscope right now for promoting the utilization of antipsychotics like risperdal, Seroquel, Depakote, for use on combative elderly patients, as these are used more for mood adjustments.
But the side effects are great and the older the person the more likely damage could occur and many safeguards would have to be put in place to ensure the drugs were monitored.
As we know the nursing home business isn't making people rich, and some are barely staffed, so many short cuts are taken to provide care even though the laws state that such treatment is both lacking in dignity and sometimes harmful.
Putting patients who are active, yet not quite coherent, on antipsychotics is called chemical restraining. This is used in the cases of certain classifications of mental illness, they are the very same drugs said to treat everybody. (party drugs?)
This is why the Kern River Valley Hospital has a few dates in the Kern County court, and the preliminary hearing will be coming up on June 23, and the judge will decide if the Department of justice has done it's job and proven such abuse.
But it's not only prosecutors looking at this case, it's the defense, and the families, and certainly the liability company for the hospital.
Whose fault is it anyway? Could a couple good attorneys prove that considering the drug companies were out there promoting the use of these drugs in the elderly, maybe Dr. Pormir was listening, and considering it might be a good idea.
These drugs could possibly make some of these residents tortured in mind and body, feel better. What is wrong with that?
Only one thing: The FDA didn't approve it. So the doctor is risking his own judgment on these drugs. But again these companies may provide a discount as the use of these drugs could in some ways be considered a "test subject group" maybe?
Who is the cause of what happened or do we really even know what happened here at our skilled nursing facility. We do know as a fact, they were short staffed. We do know a year before the chemical restraining occurred, a Director of Nursing, Todd Elkins, left employment over short staffing and pay cuts.
It is not confirmed, but Elkins supposedly works for the agency, Public Health, which surveys these nursing homes to make sure they are following the laws.
And we know there was a lack of ability on the part of the hospital CEO, Pam Ott, to be able to knowledgeably watch over and make sure things were done correctly as she had no credentials that weren't purchased on the back of a pack of matches.
Nurses complained, people were afraid to lose their jobs, but a new way of dealing with patients came about in August of 2006. The use of Depakote, Seroquel, Risperdal, as well as other antidepressants and antipsychotics. The new KVHD nursing center practice.
Who is really responsible?
There are so many people you could point fingers at in this case, but I think we will see them pointed toward pharmaceutical companies as well as possibly the only one that could be prosecuted, the leader who knew there were issues with the drugs, but did nothing to stop it: Pam Ott.
The rest are all contributors, well, except for the board of directors who had the information. Only two took action, the rest hid the truth from the community until today. They would be good for obstruction charges.
Nurses who had careers and plans for retirement found their lives spinning and they found they were doing things they didn't want to do.
But attorney's make all the difference
Defendants Ott and Gwen Hughes have a couple local lawyers from Bakersfield, defending them in the criminal matter, and then there is the long story about how the civil cases are being paid for. Don't ask just vote yes on a multi million dollar bond for the hospital as they are not very good at budgeting, just short staffing.
Enter Donald Etra successful lawyer with Ralph Nader for many years. He stepped into the drama in March when the case was postponed until June so the new attorney for Dr. Pormir could gather up the evidence and decide on a defense.
I had wondered where Etra came from so suddenly and then I heard that Pormir also got another attorney, a pal from college, William Howard Ginsburg, to take on his case with the state medical board.
Dr. Pormir would protect her
In the two years I knew Dr. Pormir he believed strongly in Pam Ott's constant carrot dangling of a new hospital and ER. He backed what she said and did in regards to the 2006 bond measure "m" for... you fill in the blanks.
I do not believe he will tell the authorities all he knows about her and what she did in response to the disaster which took place under her leadership. With questionable deaths, the mistreatment of families with relatives living in the nursing center, Ott needed to be brought out into the sunshine, but was stopped by friends, like Dr. Pormir, radio jock Bob Jamison, and Brad Armstrong.
How strong is the DOJ?
How strong is Jerry Brown and his organization up the state? I get these press releases and white collar crime pays, as he has made some money for the office.
What has he done to foster a sense of justice to the people of this state? Did the Anna Nicole Smith prosecution make any of you feel proud to be an American?
I can tell you the state has missed many good witnesses and found some pleasure in making up their own story in this case.
How will they do against Donald Etra and William Ginsburg though?
Ginsburg hit the limelight when he became Monica Lewinsky's attorney, as the whole country was wrapped around this warped political attack led by a better known attorney, Kenneth Starr.
I was told Pormir went to school with Ginsburg, but that would be odd as one is an attorney and another did much of his medical schooling in his home country of Iran.
Pormir will never testify and he will not rat out Ott either. He will likely with two attorneys on his arms, walk away unscathed.
Many families who lost a member to the KVHD nursing center, will not be happy to hear of recent developments.
And the civil cases are on hold until the court decides if the state has enough evidence to prosecute.
Ott never even was put in jail, as the others were, and she didn't get any bail either. The judge didn't see her as threatening. Ott had that charm at one time and lauded it over this community only to poison us all.
My predictions: the psychic reporter
Both Dr. Pormir and Gwen Hughes are slapped on the wrist, with Hughes getting a few lesser charges and Pormir just promising to be good.
Ott is the wild card. She is the main reason this case should have taken place. Along with several people who aided and abetted her, including the local radio station.
But I see a defense from the two cases cited above. And so do Donald and Bill.
Justice will likely turn into "just us" again
The people that tried to stop this were hurt over and over again, the family members, I apologize that there couldn't have been a better system in place who cared about the elderly and infirm: but there isn't.
The attorney general slash governor to be, will walk away from us as if we never existed, and then sleep at night with the help of some off label barbiturate prescription.
And fired employees, reputations lost, will try to scratch this off their resume and get employed somewhere where nobody knows about what happened here in the Kern River Valley. Our dirty little secrets...
Press control and click on link to open:
http://www.kern.courts.ca.gov/home.aspx
Sunday, June 6, 2010
KVHD wants taxpayers to foot bill for former financial errors: Caldwell Winters Flores Study shows two thirds of residents agree, how convenient
KVHD CEO and CFO hand in hand, word for word, on bond...
We're just like Tehachapi, they say...
UPDATED
With the financial number's crunching so loudly it sounds like someone eating potato chips in church, the Kern Valley healthcare District, administrators, Tim McGlew, and CFO Chet Beedle, have made the statements that the hospital cannot go on without a big multi million dollar bond to pay off old debts which have been hampering progress at the hospital for twenty years.
The two administrators who have narrowed the field of potential remedies for the financial woes to either a general obligation bond which would increase property taxes or taxes which would just increase.
The word bankruptcy is like saying hit me with a hammer, as it has been a rumor that because the hospital's debt is covered by Cal Mtg. insurance, that solution is too risky. But with bailouts across the nation one must wonder why a small hospital cannot find a creative solution to their problems without raising taxes.
Even though the tax potential would fall away from the senior population and fully on what is left of a middle class here in the valley. I don't have numbers yet, but I'm hunting, and have help, but the situation here in the KRV grows worse each time another government agency or even a water company who maybe didn't get the best deals on their wells which contain uranium, arsenic, too much flouride and chlorine, which are eating up their filters so the community must pay them to fix that too.
This community has been hit with a smart bomb, and we have knuckleheads leading or misleading the public.
The issue of the hospital, it's perpetuity, it's potential tax grab, is all so important to get into the minds of voters. However, the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper has kept that information to themselves as they have made themselves the judge, jury and monopolists of our local media.
I'll not go into the chamber issues yet, but to say that a sign at the bottom of the canyon, is a sign of potential action on our parts, is sad. People might say, well it's something, just like the sidewawalks we put in on Lake Isabella Blvd. But until we fully see the picture up here, most especially homeowners, businessowners, and employees, we won't be able to rebound, we will most likely be assimilated by the pseudo problem solvers of the government.
Caldwell, Flores and Winters remember them from Measure M?
At the last KVHD special meeting which again took on the issue of keeping the hospital afloat while the healthcare reform is battled out on Capitol Hill and then to the Supreme court, the only two "creations" were higher taxes and a general obligation bond.
Board members were practically mute and seemed to totally rely on the two administrators, McGlew and McBeedle to handle the planning, which they were told had to be a bond or taxes.
Oh, I asked Chet and I'll put up the video of the response, why last year he claimed all was well in Hooville, and now the Grinch showed up and we must have a bond or Christmas will be ruined.
Well, McGlew, saying that KVHD directly compares to Tehachapi, and that is what they are basing their numbers and strategy on. Tehachapi had to give up a bond, because they need to actually build a hospital, and they need to agree where it will be built. You see they already bought property, but not everyone is going for it. They are a mess KVHD would hope never to be. Yes, we have maimed, killed, fired, lied, covered up, squandered all our cash, but somehow we still manage to see a patient or two in the ER.
Now, as I mentioned Caldwell, Winters and Flores, who had the hospitals' ill be gotten 2006 bond, Measure M, which lost by less than one hundred votes, won all their other bonds that year. You see they get paid a percentage. If the bond was say one hundred million and another was fifty million, they would get a chunk of the sale. Now they lost the smallest bond they had, our bond.
So, I questioned why they would bring back a company who let your last bond slide to go for the landslide of bonds passed in 2006? I said it was something to consider.
And when McGlew told us all about the survey which showed that this community supports another bond to the tune of the two thirds majority vote needed to pass a bond, the survey amazingly showed that 67% agreed. (Next I'll be showing you the survey from 2006) How interesting, that in a depressed year where the hospital is holding out it's hand looking for scraps, that the community would be willing to pay these taxes. Now this must be true, as there is a 4% error rate. Right? You can't fake these kinds of things, or can you?
Look at your bond options: it's like buying a new car, I'll take the CD player please...
We're just like Tehachapi, they say...
UPDATED
With the financial number's crunching so loudly it sounds like someone eating potato chips in church, the Kern Valley healthcare District, administrators, Tim McGlew, and CFO Chet Beedle, have made the statements that the hospital cannot go on without a big multi million dollar bond to pay off old debts which have been hampering progress at the hospital for twenty years.
The two administrators who have narrowed the field of potential remedies for the financial woes to either a general obligation bond which would increase property taxes or taxes which would just increase.
The word bankruptcy is like saying hit me with a hammer, as it has been a rumor that because the hospital's debt is covered by Cal Mtg. insurance, that solution is too risky. But with bailouts across the nation one must wonder why a small hospital cannot find a creative solution to their problems without raising taxes.
Even though the tax potential would fall away from the senior population and fully on what is left of a middle class here in the valley. I don't have numbers yet, but I'm hunting, and have help, but the situation here in the KRV grows worse each time another government agency or even a water company who maybe didn't get the best deals on their wells which contain uranium, arsenic, too much flouride and chlorine, which are eating up their filters so the community must pay them to fix that too.
This community has been hit with a smart bomb, and we have knuckleheads leading or misleading the public.
The issue of the hospital, it's perpetuity, it's potential tax grab, is all so important to get into the minds of voters. However, the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper has kept that information to themselves as they have made themselves the judge, jury and monopolists of our local media.
I'll not go into the chamber issues yet, but to say that a sign at the bottom of the canyon, is a sign of potential action on our parts, is sad. People might say, well it's something, just like the sidewawalks we put in on Lake Isabella Blvd. But until we fully see the picture up here, most especially homeowners, businessowners, and employees, we won't be able to rebound, we will most likely be assimilated by the pseudo problem solvers of the government.
Caldwell, Flores and Winters remember them from Measure M?
At the last KVHD special meeting which again took on the issue of keeping the hospital afloat while the healthcare reform is battled out on Capitol Hill and then to the Supreme court, the only two "creations" were higher taxes and a general obligation bond.
Board members were practically mute and seemed to totally rely on the two administrators, McGlew and McBeedle to handle the planning, which they were told had to be a bond or taxes.
Oh, I asked Chet and I'll put up the video of the response, why last year he claimed all was well in Hooville, and now the Grinch showed up and we must have a bond or Christmas will be ruined.
Well, McGlew, saying that KVHD directly compares to Tehachapi, and that is what they are basing their numbers and strategy on. Tehachapi had to give up a bond, because they need to actually build a hospital, and they need to agree where it will be built. You see they already bought property, but not everyone is going for it. They are a mess KVHD would hope never to be. Yes, we have maimed, killed, fired, lied, covered up, squandered all our cash, but somehow we still manage to see a patient or two in the ER.
Now, as I mentioned Caldwell, Winters and Flores, who had the hospitals' ill be gotten 2006 bond, Measure M, which lost by less than one hundred votes, won all their other bonds that year. You see they get paid a percentage. If the bond was say one hundred million and another was fifty million, they would get a chunk of the sale. Now they lost the smallest bond they had, our bond.
So, I questioned why they would bring back a company who let your last bond slide to go for the landslide of bonds passed in 2006? I said it was something to consider.
And when McGlew told us all about the survey which showed that this community supports another bond to the tune of the two thirds majority vote needed to pass a bond, the survey amazingly showed that 67% agreed. (Next I'll be showing you the survey from 2006) How interesting, that in a depressed year where the hospital is holding out it's hand looking for scraps, that the community would be willing to pay these taxes. Now this must be true, as there is a 4% error rate. Right? You can't fake these kinds of things, or can you?
Look at your bond options: it's like buying a new car, I'll take the CD player please...
Click on images to enlarge:
The administrators don't have their minds dead set on this bond, no not at all. They actually show a budget without the bond. It's all so preliminary.
The administrators don't have their minds dead set on this bond, no not at all. They actually show a budget without the bond. It's all so preliminary.
That's what he told me after the meeting
I suggested to Mr. McGlew that he consider looking at other bond companies and quit copy catting what they are doing at Tehachapi, if we wanted that, we would have paid Robert Duncan, another Post Pam Ott era, CEO, the $250,000, we are paying McGlew. Duncan was a Tehachapi find we lured over to our rotten mess in 2007 to see if he could make things good. I think he was here at least three months.
After the April monthly KVHD board meeting, where the talk was "preliminary" about the bond or tax increase, it got more concrete at the end of the night when McGlew announced he wanted the bond on the November ballot.
Since the board members are not sure of their positions on this obviously, they have added no new ideas to the stew, therefore, it's been pretty bland with bonds and tax increases only.
After the meeting McGlew told me that KVHD was not going to use Caldwell Flores Winters, that he was dealing with a different group now. I complimented him on his decision.
Then I'm at the pharmacy the other night chatting with Chet about the situation, and he said, no, they were in fact still using CFW. I said no you're not, Tim told me that you are branching out and have found a different company to use.
So, what other bad information is there?
Okay, so obtaining public information at the hospital has become more like dentistry or a root canal, as I'm not kidding I can't get a straight answer from the CEO or the CFO and the board has basically dropped out of sight afraid to be the "taxman."
I have sent questions, asked for documents, and now, I can tell you that information I will cover will be from the inside. If it's good information great, if not, it can't be any worse than the wild goose chases I have been lead on by the administration.
Sometimes I wonder why this feels so much like the Ott era. (Our former CEO, Pam Ott, will be heading to court leading the way on elder abuse charges stemming from her time at the hospital early this summer. I'll take a look at the criminal case, as we have to wonder if Dr. Pormir another defendant, will have told the Department of Justice the truth about Ott. Now Pormir, wearing two new attorneys, Donald Etra and William Ginsburg, may not have to spill the beans, I'll get into that soon.)
And just a head's up to family members of residents of the nursing facility, the annual survey will be coming up, and you might want to keep your ears to the ground and make sure we have finally implemented a compassionate, fully staffed 24 hours a day, skilled nursing unit.
We know that the nurse's aides will once again be accessible come summer as they are out of school. But just how many will come to KVHD knowing about the hiring firing practices of late? (coming soon, where did all the people go, except Chet McBeedle who is waiting for retirement; were the employees that bad? Can we afford to constantly fire and have employees quit? How much is that costing every year? Good managers, have little turnover, don't forget.)
One more thing, the survey...
'
Of course, I found it highly suspicious that the survey from a company hired by CFW, found on their survey that more than two thirds of the residents want to help pay the debt the hospital accrued through mismanagement and the help of a government agency lacking a feasibility study, Cal Mtg., and the bleed out from the skilled nursing disaster.
I decided to call someone who donated thirty thousand to the hospital four years ago, and I asked him if he would be willing to put up some more money for the hospital, as they need the community to take over the financial care of the hospital, as it cannot find the correct people with good ideas who can save the hospital without pickpocketing the community?
Before I could get the question out, he said if this has anything to do with raising taxes then I totally disagree.
His name is Richard Blomgren, and you can find his name around the tree of life in the hospital lobby, where his thank you for that donation is in the form of a rock under the tree. Wonder what happened with that money? Did we pay it to Cal Mtg.?
I told him I hate to tell you but it does have to do with taxes. He told me "no way." I said what if, as Chet McBeedle is saying that it is the only way to keep the hospital open?
Blomgren, long time small businessman in the KRV, paused and said, what I think we are going to hear more and more as the economy disintegrates under federal and state mismanagement, "That's not my problem."
I have made more than fifty calls and have yet to get one single person to agree to this.
I also asked if they heard about this tax increase. They said no. I asked where they get their information as I said before, and they said the local newspaper and some TV.
Well, Television hasn't picked it up yet, and the "Mad Canadian" Susan Epstein Barr, reporter for the Sun, omitted all detail of this story. What sort of product are they producing? One that gives them power over your information.
I'll give you no more names but there are people in this community who aren't as stupid as some think. And talking with one of them recently, he was quite upset to learn the hospital was coming after money, and especially to use to pay old debts. He was also concerned as to why it was not broadcast on television or mentioned in the paper as people "need to know about this" he said. He went on to say that as I mentioned this valley is in deep financial trouble and the hospital issue would be a good place to start...
Next up: Finance Commit me meeting Wed. 9 am in the "grieving room."
GOB's of money in GOB business. I think we will be seeing our friends at Caldwell Flores soon: Special meeting Tuesday 4 pm
I'm so excited to announce that there will be a special meeting of the Kern Valley Healthcare District Board of Directors Tues. March 30, at 4 pm.
The reason I'm so excited about this particular meeting is that they are admitting to having a meeting, that always helps my mood.
Second, they are going to follow up on the secret meeting from earlier in the month where only two board members were allowed. Yes, it was okay to leave the other three out, along with the then CCO, Cynthia Burciaga, who even asked to be part of the meeting but was turned down according to an email I received.
So, I'm glad they are being clandestine because truth is; I don't like the truth around here anymore.
Just because it was like a serial meeting against the "Brown Act" is meaningless, that is done here openly and with no regard for anyone, and nobody really cares or even understands the meaning of following the law.
But having a secret meeting earlier in the month simply tells me and now you, is we are about to have a political split on the board about the general obligation bond. These small plotters are coming out of the closet to tell us all about their meeting, which I'm sure will include how darn legal it was.
I'm sure you are all expecting that I will object to the bond. In fact I won't, that would give it merit as a possibly good idea, which it isn't.
Political split
Oh, what to do? The money just went away, it flew?
Great idea let's make the community pay for the bond and fix the hospital. I think they are going to love the idea, I'll call them and ask them.
In fact, I could help, I have the whole Caldwell Flores kit from 2006, and I'll make the same phone calls, drive people to the polls, make impassioned fictional speeches to get people to agree with me; why I can't wait.
Meetings: Finance commit me, Wed. March 31, 9 am, in your bank account.
Change of schedule for regular board meeting: Tuesday, April 6, at 6 pm. in your wallet.
I'll go to the special meeting with those very special people and see if we have a special plan in mind to suck the money out of the community to pay for something that would have paid for itself had we had any fiscal responsibility or a CFO with a calculator.
The general obligation bond, GOB, is number one on the menu for this special meeting, but then there's a closed session with a lawsuit and personnel issue.
(I'll try to follow up, but if they tell any truth, I'm leaving. I can't handle the truth...)
The reason I'm so excited about this particular meeting is that they are admitting to having a meeting, that always helps my mood.
Second, they are going to follow up on the secret meeting from earlier in the month where only two board members were allowed. Yes, it was okay to leave the other three out, along with the then CCO, Cynthia Burciaga, who even asked to be part of the meeting but was turned down according to an email I received.
So, I'm glad they are being clandestine because truth is; I don't like the truth around here anymore.
Just because it was like a serial meeting against the "Brown Act" is meaningless, that is done here openly and with no regard for anyone, and nobody really cares or even understands the meaning of following the law.
But having a secret meeting earlier in the month simply tells me and now you, is we are about to have a political split on the board about the general obligation bond. These small plotters are coming out of the closet to tell us all about their meeting, which I'm sure will include how darn legal it was.
I'm sure you are all expecting that I will object to the bond. In fact I won't, that would give it merit as a possibly good idea, which it isn't.
Political split
Oh, what to do? The money just went away, it flew?
Great idea let's make the community pay for the bond and fix the hospital. I think they are going to love the idea, I'll call them and ask them.
In fact, I could help, I have the whole Caldwell Flores kit from 2006, and I'll make the same phone calls, drive people to the polls, make impassioned fictional speeches to get people to agree with me; why I can't wait.
Meetings: Finance commit me, Wed. March 31, 9 am, in your bank account.
Change of schedule for regular board meeting: Tuesday, April 6, at 6 pm. in your wallet.
I'll go to the special meeting with those very special people and see if we have a special plan in mind to suck the money out of the community to pay for something that would have paid for itself had we had any fiscal responsibility or a CFO with a calculator.
The general obligation bond, GOB, is number one on the menu for this special meeting, but then there's a closed session with a lawsuit and personnel issue.
(I'll try to follow up, but if they tell any truth, I'm leaving. I can't handle the truth...)
Saturday, June 5, 2010
He thinks it's funny: Do you DHS, Jerry Brown, CMS, DA?
Jerry Brown: it's never too late...
The healthcare district spent $60,000 on a public relations firm to try and change its damaged image.
KVHD board meeting, June 2009:
Feeling safe and secure he will never have to face his responsibility for the disasters/failures/crimes of the Kern Valley Healthcare District, the district's employees and patients have been enduring for the last two plus years, board member, Brad Armstrong, reacted when I told him it was sick he was still a free man while a doctor and pharmacist pay his toll.
He laughed and smirked.
I asked him, "Do you think that's funny?"
I'm sure Dr. Pormir isn't laughing and neither are the families of the patients in the skilled nursing facility, or the former employees scapegoated and known always as "disgruntled."
While the perpetrators of the disasters sit at our KVHD board table each month, Armstrong, Bob Jamison and Chet Beedle, CFO, without conscience or an understanding of how many lives have been altered because of them. I'm going to make sure they know what their crimes have reaped.
Again, I repeat as I have written in personal correspondence with many of our elected officials, you let the leaders go, to continue the same indifference to laws and ethics while you took the "worker bees."
You want to kill the swarm you go after the queen and her mates. (Don't forget, former CEO of KVHD, Pam Ott, now infesting Sierra King District in Reedly, CA: Oh yeah, she's a witness for the state.)
Apparently the Department of Justice doesn't scare our Mr. Armstrong, I believe he thinks he is untouchable. He should probably take heed there are those out there that "know" what he did.
Bob Jamison has laughed off investigations crowing from his sqawk box at QAB media about the impotence of government. So, now he faces a new hurdle at the next board meeting and every meeting thereafter: having to listen to his own emails being read onto the hospital record.
And Chet Beedle with his funny abacus will never admit to the short staffing, the personal attacks on employees, the grandiose contracts, the short sighted bond refinance, so we are just going to have to help him out with the truth.
But once the state investigators looked away from KVHD, the element just reassembled, added new members, burrowed back in, becoming even more fearless.
At a special board meeting in March, I was asked to get a report for a TV station. When I entered the board room, the board counsel was giving me the synopsis over the phone, when Brad Armstrong stepped in front of me, clicked off the phone as the attorney was in mid sentence, and told me, "meeting adjourned." (Worthy to note, the chairman is the only one to say, meeting adjourned. He's not the chairman. I guess he's still living in the middle chair of his mind.)
I protested that I had not gotten the report. While I was protesting the cameraman from the TV station was getting hit with sprinklers as he tried to film in front of the hospital.
We went up to the bench at the entrance of the facility to do the interview, and suddenly, the sprinklers from the tree, sprayed us. We laughed and I explained to the startled cameraman that it was just the nonsense of stupid people. (He fixed the sprinkler by the way. Chet you owe him five bucks. Or maybe you would prefer he be your sprinkler consultant and you could contract for say, half a million?)
The healthcare district spent $60,000 on a public relations firm to try and change its damaged image.
They then really helped their marred image by turning the sprinklers on a cameraman from KGET, Channel 17 news, out of Bakersfield last March.
Opinion #7-13 Laura Hart:
Mr. Attorney General, if the government cannot serve the type of justice which produces healing by removing the malignant force, then it would be best to do nothing at all. You removed some healthy tissue but left most of the tumors behind. Not a good prognosis.
By ignoring the leaders in your indictments, much like leaving ruthless leaders from authoritarian regimes in power, you let them continue the same actions but with impunity.
Unfortunately, the message the state sent to the Kern Valley was that we are only a provocative headline for you sir and your public relations staff who are working on your next political campaign.
Dr. Pormir chided me two years ago that, "you, Laura, know nothing about politics."
Given our respective situations, related to the political machine, I'd say we're becoming frickin' experts.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Pictures from the very interesting KVHD board meeting June 2
It's been said that criminals often return to the scene of the crime...
As cases are parsed out against the Kern Valley Healthcare District, it's own health teetering on the brink of uncertainty, the cafeteria of the hospital filled with faces only a defense attorney could love.
With the hospital welcoming it's auditors this next week, paying the interlopers sent in because of a continuing default cycle which has occurred on an old debt insured by the office of Cal Mtg.
HFS, the financial company who has recently been bankrupting Sierra Kings in Reedley after former KVHD CEO, Pam Ott, moved on from here during a serious crisis financially and criminally, to relocate in Reedley.
HFS just last week concluded it's audit at Sierra Kings and found that Ott was able to get into the GOB monies there and use them against the purposes they were voted in and paid for by the public.
The elder abuse criminal case will reopen it's court doors in two weeks to resume the preliminary hearing to decide whether or not there is enough evidence to go to trial.
And then there was the meeting in light of all that is going on.
Sharon Brucker, the Chief Nursing officer during the nursing center meltdown of 2006 and 2007, stands in the doorway, looking down at the audience member who is questioning the financial report given by Chief financial officer Chet Beedle.
Brucker has been seen in court showing support for Dr. Pormir as they both know that certain details in the cases need some readjusting. And certainly Brucker, who ran the nursing facility for several months in 2006, would be interested in this meeting.
But in the front of the picture we see a former board member during the "Ott era" one of what I called the "sticky three" quorum of board members who continually voted together as the record will show. Casas, Bob Jamison, Brad Armstrong, voted with their CEO, Pam Ott, and were instrumental in helping her leave before the Attorney Generals investigators were inundating the hospital.
As cases are parsed out against the Kern Valley Healthcare District, it's own health teetering on the brink of uncertainty, the cafeteria of the hospital filled with faces only a defense attorney could love.
With the hospital welcoming it's auditors this next week, paying the interlopers sent in because of a continuing default cycle which has occurred on an old debt insured by the office of Cal Mtg.
HFS, the financial company who has recently been bankrupting Sierra Kings in Reedley after former KVHD CEO, Pam Ott, moved on from here during a serious crisis financially and criminally, to relocate in Reedley.
HFS just last week concluded it's audit at Sierra Kings and found that Ott was able to get into the GOB monies there and use them against the purposes they were voted in and paid for by the public.
The elder abuse criminal case will reopen it's court doors in two weeks to resume the preliminary hearing to decide whether or not there is enough evidence to go to trial.
And then there was the meeting in light of all that is going on.
Sharon Brucker, the Chief Nursing officer during the nursing center meltdown of 2006 and 2007, stands in the doorway, looking down at the audience member who is questioning the financial report given by Chief financial officer Chet Beedle.
Brucker has been seen in court showing support for Dr. Pormir as they both know that certain details in the cases need some readjusting. And certainly Brucker, who ran the nursing facility for several months in 2006, would be interested in this meeting.
But in the front of the picture we see a former board member during the "Ott era" one of what I called the "sticky three" quorum of board members who continually voted together as the record will show. Casas, Bob Jamison, Brad Armstrong, voted with their CEO, Pam Ott, and were instrumental in helping her leave before the Attorney Generals investigators were inundating the hospital.
Bob Jamison quietly sits at most meetings giving very little information and answering no questions of the audience, such as myself. He was once chairman caught on tape yelling at community members who questioned the audience, now sometimes caught sleeping during meetings and not paying attention as others give their reports.
Jamison is a strange bird, in that he is both KVHD board member and radio station DJ. In 2007 he hit the airwaves to attack anyone not supporting Pam Ott. The word had been out that people died in the nursing center, but Jamison backed his CEO with the power of radio. Or at least local radio. (The whole transcript is on this blog: It's called here's your witness Jerry Brown
Strange conflicts like this abound at KVHD and this one is no exception.
Long time counsel for the board, Scott Nave, (left) hired to give the board members sage advice on how to proceed with their business and keeping them out of trouble, or out of the sight of trouble, or something like that, takes a moment with his new CEO, Tim McGlew. The two spoke frequently during the meeting as there is some fear that too much "new information" has hit the streets and people are wondering what is really going on.
Getting public information has been difficult at best, as six month old requests still have not been met. The public's role is one of having to only observe the hospital board and administration, participation has been limited even as requests have been made for community ad hoc boards have been ignored.
But the picture of the night is long time board member who can be traced back to some of the original dealings and decisions which caused the hospital to sink into a cycle of debt which has left them able to spend money unwisely, just not able to pay their real bills.
Armstrong received a message from me that the hospital again has the opportunity to investigate itself, and as the 20 year bench warmer is seen here choking on words like "criminal activity," and even maybe his own name.
The board was given a similar letter last year asking then for an internal investigation answering how the hospital has survived financially as the lawsuits are coming from everywhere and everyone. The board has not made the decision to really scrutinize itself and find out what is wrong. The liability may reach the board level soon if they do nothing and possibly allow at best unethical activities to occur.
The board is unable to understand much of what it votes on and is never really given direct information and is expected to "vote for" all the consent agendas passed under their very noses. It's a clever game, but not one that will win the day for new and better healthcare for the valley. And I'm sure the people of Reedley, that group of board members, learned that they must watch closely monies and management: that's something not learned here at KVHD.
Armstrong is leaving the district this year, his seat up for grabs. Currently, known to be running for his board seat is John Blythe, who is a long time resident of the valley, his family owns "Paradise Cove" and a young movie producer. He has studied the financial history of this board and is aware of it's many failings which concern him just on a personal level. He also is driven to get this district cleaned up and deal with the money lenders.
But the man of the night was fiance manager Chet Beedle who fielded questions regarding the new management company who the hospital "must" use and also pay for, to help them get out of the hole and pay off Cal Mtg.'s insured bonds.
However, Chet went around the world with his stories as to the debt, the relationship with Cal Mtg. and audience members as well as some board members, asked questions trying to get clarification. But clarity wasn't the approach as the board missed much of the crucial information in the report without question.
When Beedle opened up his report, the figures were bleak, and he asked the community to pay so they could get out from under the revenue bond payment that they have to make with Cal Mtg. credit.
He is talking about a general obligation bond to pay Cal mtg. and raise property taxes in the district. He is asking for a bailout, but nobody has taken a dime in paycuts at the top, but the community must do it on it's own.
How can the CEO and CFO act alone on this as the board only voted to have them look into the feasibility of this bond, not to actually ask for it. Is that legal?
The board has not unified or voted on this bond, but Chet jumped ahead and asked for the money anyway. Board members said nothing. No discussion or refutation. Following the standards for board procedures are not necessarily practiced in their entirety at the meetings.
My guess is that there is a lot some board members don't know and would have voted differently had they known.
Beedle's explanations ranged from issues in 1999, when Chet hadn't arrived, to long winded stories about the new line of credit which is really quite simple.
As things heat up these meetings will too. Hope they can pay for their air conditioning or more people will be sweating.
Coming next: "Cracking the Da Vinci Code."
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Letter to the editor, Bakersfield Californian
Dear Editor:
My name is Laura Hart and you may remember me as I dropped off boxes of information for your reporters two years ago about the problems with the KVHD hospital.
Editor, Christine Peterson told me it was too complex a story to undertake; that you were losing reporters in budget cuts; no time or personnel.
Now you think you can drag us through the mud in the Kern River Valley when you had ample opportunity and information about the situation here?
You knew. DHS knew. Certain public officials knew. Our local media outlets knew.
Now you use us for shock value, utilizing three reporters, to make yourselves look good.
I say keep your paper in Bakersfield and give me my box of information, tapes and video back. I want it all back; every bit of it. I'll be calling.
My message to you is that the indictments are bogus; Scapegoating. If you talked to me, who has worked this for four years, you would know.
And Jerry Brown, I say to you, where was the oversight? Where were the government agencies and politicians I contacted repeatedly for 2 plus years?
The Kern River Valley has been duped, and if you take a look at Cal Mortgage a mongrel, pseudo government agency under the auspices of OSHPD, you will find our problem; 15 million in debt because of bad lending practices.
I'm ill, and there are seniors up here who need the hospital. Back off or back it up.
Laura Hart 760-378-3637
My name is Laura Hart and you may remember me as I dropped off boxes of information for your reporters two years ago about the problems with the KVHD hospital.
Editor, Christine Peterson told me it was too complex a story to undertake; that you were losing reporters in budget cuts; no time or personnel.
Now you think you can drag us through the mud in the Kern River Valley when you had ample opportunity and information about the situation here?
You knew. DHS knew. Certain public officials knew. Our local media outlets knew.
Now you use us for shock value, utilizing three reporters, to make yourselves look good.
I say keep your paper in Bakersfield and give me my box of information, tapes and video back. I want it all back; every bit of it. I'll be calling.
My message to you is that the indictments are bogus; Scapegoating. If you talked to me, who has worked this for four years, you would know.
And Jerry Brown, I say to you, where was the oversight? Where were the government agencies and politicians I contacted repeatedly for 2 plus years?
The Kern River Valley has been duped, and if you take a look at Cal Mortgage a mongrel, pseudo government agency under the auspices of OSHPD, you will find our problem; 15 million in debt because of bad lending practices.
I'm ill, and there are seniors up here who need the hospital. Back off or back it up.
Laura Hart 760-378-3637
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
You're right, Kern Valley Sun, it is okay to make threats
At first I thought wow, the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper, has something personal against me when they allowed a threat on their website with my name on it.
Then I realized these fine upstanding people are really just trying to teach me something about Freedom of Speech...
Boy, they sure put me in my place, showing me how a real newspaper should behave. I realize this is all about fairness and nothing personal to me.
I know they are really trying to protect free speech on their website. What an important issue, and it should rightly be undertaken by the intelligent individuals that they are.
Now, I realize that if someone were to make remarks on their website or maybe even in the paper itself, like "shut them up for good," to, say, Marsha Smith, the publisher, that they would welcome it on the site. Marsha and her husband, I'm sure enjoy even veiled threats.
Good for ratings. Good for freedom.
And even if the threat was against, editor, Cathy Perfect, and included a reference to say the issue of homosexuality, I know they would abide the constitutional rights of the author even if they were to make a suggestion that some sort of harm come to somebody.
Now there's some strength we can count on in this valley.
So, if these kids want to paint hate signs all over the valley: rather than buying spray paint and swastikas, just go on the Kern Valley Sun website and learn how far you can really go with freedom of speech.
Thanks, Marsha Smith, Cathy Perfect, and Susan Barr, you're teaching us a lot about what is important in this valley. I'm sure the three of you must be proud.
(You know I think I'm going to try out this freedom of speech thing. I wonder how it works?)
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