Kontos Column: Pull off the band-aid already
By Dan Kontos
If you’re an avid consumer of news, you are probably aware of the torrent of events happening on the international stage. There’s also a flood of stories occurring nationally, especially now that the elections are over. Across Wisconsin, headline-worthy news stories are coming out every day.
And here at home, the world isn’t standing still either.
One story you may have caught is the forwarding of a resolution to the Portage County Board of Supervisors to sell the Health Care Center. On Tuesday, a joint committee meeting of Space and Properties and Health Care Center met and discussed the matter.
The resolution itself does a decent job of summarizing the issues. Increased costs, declining use, labor market concerns, changing healthcare models, and insufficient reimbursements cause an ongoing operational deficit. The sale will be of benefit to all the people of Portage County by eliminating the ongoing financial obligation, and allowing for the paying down of existing debt or going to other projects. All the while, the County would not have to relocate residents, and the staff could be retained by the new provider.
For years, the Portage County Health Care Center has been a fiscal wound that just won’t go away. I don’t need to repeat all the facts in detail, you can look back at previous columns for that yourself. I’m sorry, but an objective look leaves me with no other opinion but to divest ourselves of the Health Care Center, and get it back into the general economy.
Why don’t we? A combination of well-meaning intentions, choosing emotion over actualities, nostalgia, and a desire to avoid criticism. It’s frankly the latter that keeps us mired in this endless loop of discussion, deciding, and then ceding the resolution to the forces of inaction. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The time has come to pull the band-aid off. Get it done already.
The administrator of the Health Care Center, Marcia McDonald, a woman for whom I have always had immense respect, put it best when she said at the meeting, “This is where we were nine years ago. The facility has depreciated, and we risk falling out of regulatory compliance if action isn’t taken soon.” But then again, we’ve known this all along.
On the 17th of December, the County Board will have the final say. Do we pull the band-aid off, or just let it continue to get worse while we contort our faces in the faux agony of the anticipated pain?
Some decisions are hard. Hard because they are complex and have many facets that need to be explored. This is not one of those cases. The facts have been explored and speak for themselves. This decision isn’t hard, but we make it hard because we have well-meaning intentions, choose emotion over the truth, fall back on nostalgia, and want to avoid loud public criticism.
Look, I hope you didn’t believe your friends when they told you that being a supervisor was going to be easy. You may get yelled at, called a fascist and a Pharisee (still my favorite), and maybe even disinvited from the Pierogi of the Month Club. Well, so be it. That’s all part of the job you signed up for. Your responsibility is to the County as a whole, and in this case, to its taxpayers in particular.
Give us an early Christmas present and pull off the band-aid; please.
So, with that, let’s meet in the opinion section to talk about all of it, boldly, honestly, and with a healthy respect for each other. Until then, remember that God loves you, and so do I.