Magical: Debt disappears, annual state subsidies shrink, and hundreds of Medicare patients appear

+ The UMC business plan presented yesterday by Verite

+ Times-Picayune piece that notes, rather tellingly:

"When the University Medical Center governing board committed earlier this summer to hiring two consulting firms to craft a new business plan for a Charity Hospital successor, Gov. Bobby Jindal hailed the move and encouraged the board not to chain itself to the model long sought by the Louisiana State University System. UMC Board Chairman Bobby Yarborough, a Jindal appointee, said "all options" would be on the table.

When Verite Healthcare Consulting, aided by Kaufman, Hall & Associates,presents its recommendations today at a 1 p.m. meeting of the UMC board, analysts will advocate a facility of essentially the same size and scope as has been on the table for several years."

+ Not everyone bought it:

Janet Hayes of New Orleans accused the board of adopting a "damn-the-consequences attitude."
"This meeting is rigged and predetermined," said Brad Ott, of the Save Charity Hospital organization.

+ No really, not everyone bought what the UMC Board was selling:

"A business plan that has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese and if you're willing to face the public and face the pages of history go on and approve this plan,” said Resident Jacques Morial who has questioned the project for years.

In the end the board approved the new business plan, even as opponents maintain Charity Hospital can be renovated of its Katrina damage.


...


"It's absolutely criminal. It could have been faster, cheaper,” stated Stokes.

From the plan presented today at the UMC Board meeting

There's some blah blah blah in the report from Verite...

"Reuse of the Charity Hospital facility. The UMCMC Board is not responsible for and has no authority over the disposition of Charity Hospital. The state Office of Facility Planning and Control has responsibility for administration of design and construction for capital projects for the State of Louisiana. That office has considered alternatives and options for the project. With expected federal funding, options were required to be considered as part of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), 16 U.S. C. Section 4701, and 36 CFR Part 800 (section 106). Options were considered under the “Programmatic Agreement among the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the City of New Orleans, the Louisiana State Historic Preservation Officer, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Regarding the Funding to Repair or Replace Healthcare Facilities Comprising the VA Medical Center and the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans.” That Agreement specified project alternatives for the repair or replacement of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans."

The UMC Board, if it was doing its job and being responsible to the people of Louisiana, most certainly would have looked at the Charity option because of the significant time and cost savings involved in that option.

And then there's some interesting items to note in the excerpt:

"The options were carefully weighed by the federal government and the state. Multiple public meetings were held. The result of the process yielded a determination that the most appropriate option was the relocation to a new site with the construction of new facilities. Revisiting other options may render the entire process null, requiring further analysis to comply with Section 106.


Whether or not reusing Charity Hospital is in the UMCMC Board’s purview, the Board has concluded that building a new University Medical Center is by far the preferred alternative."

The options were weighed carefully?  No - the state/LSU simply decided it wanted a new hospital and shuttered a barely damaged hospital building.  The VA has been using several portions of the VA building that was supposedly beyond hope.

Multiple public meetings were, functionally, not held.  Only one public meeting actually occurred - the state's own records show that no members of the public showed up at the ostensible second and third public meetings because the state and Jacobs changed the means of notifying consulting parties and did not do anything resembling adequate outreach and notification.

Also, the process "yielded a determination" that a new hospital was necessary?  In every aspect of the process where the public did manage to wiggle in, it expressed in no uncertain terms that it wanted Charity Hospital reused.  The overwhelming majority of public comment and consulting party comment pushed for that option.  So it's entirely absurd to say that the process "yielded a determination" to the contrary.  The passive and evasive language employed in the excerpt is a good sign that the state is obfuscating.

Finally, what "other options" would render the entire process null?

UMC Board Meeting - September 8, 2011

How did they get away with this?

So how was the proposed University Medical Center (UMC) project here in New Orleans allowed to devastate a neighborhood so irresponsibly?

Remember this?  It's a provision in the Programmatic Agreement (PA) that was meant to govern site preparation for the LSU/VA hospital project.  And it was meant to ensure proper treatment of the many historic resources in the site of the proposed UMC.

It was designed to ensure that the historic neighborhood inside the LSU Footprint was not destroyed unnecessarily, to make certain that a business plan and full funding was in place for the proposed UMC.

The provision clearly didn't serve its function.  The UMC still has no business plan.  And it still doesn't have adequate financing lined up to complete the full first phase of the hospital as envisioned.  Meanwhile, the LSU Footprint has been largely razed.

On June 24, 2010, the State of Louisiana's Facility Planning and Control department sent a letter to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal entity, claiming that the state had met the requirement.  But you'll see, as you read through the following summary excerpt, that even on that date, the state had in fact not secured a full funding stream.  It only had $800 million on hand out of the $1.2 billion necessary:

Nonetheless, Jerry Jones signed off on the letter - one that claims there is a business plan.

This summer, one year later, even Governor Jindal has admitted publicly that there is still no business plan for the UMC.  His words and actions in response to the Tucker-Kennedy-Vitter alternative plan made that quite clear.

As early as July 26, 2010, Sandra Stokes with the Foundation for Historical Louisiana countered the letter, laying out a list of specific concerns with the state's representations.  The letter closed with this prophetic language:

I've found that historic preservationists often pull double duty as good government watchdogs here in New Orleans - sometimes they're the only ones watching massive, contract-laden projects with a skeptical eye.

On July 19, 2010, however, the Advisory Council had already seemingly signed off on the weak sauce justification by the state:

That second sentence could be relevant - I wonder if the Advisory Council is fully aware of the effects on historic properties like McDonogh No. 11 School and the houses theoretically about to move off the LSU Footprint.

In August of 2010, Mr. Reid Nelson at the Advisory Council subsequently responded to the Stokes letter with language that the Advisory Council should, given the events of the past year, regret deeply:

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation was given a chance to demand a responsible outcome, and it has very clearly failed.  Dozens of historic buildings and a large part of a National Register Historic District were destroyed because of the lack of adequate oversight.

The Advisory Council's position is made even more embarrassing by the fact that a July 25, 2010 Times-Picayune article made it quite clear that the UMC project, per multiple sources, had neither adequate financing nor a completed business plan:

How do things stand today, more than a year later?

There is no business plan - no really, there is no business plan.

177 demolitions have been completed.

The project does not have adequate financing in place - and the UMC Board has decided not to try for HUD mortgage insurance to guarantee bonds....something Fred Cerise effectively said was necessary just about one year ago.

Not only did the federal government proactively participate in the funding and planning that permitted this destructive project, it also failed to protect the city and neighborhood when it had an express opportunity to do so, even as all the warning bells were ringing.

"Hospital Board Cancels Meeting"

That's the headline from a piece in today's Times-Picayune.

I have yet to see the story appear anywhere online.

Here's the gist of it:

"The University Medical Center governing board has canceled its Thursday meeting as a pair of consulting firms collaborate on modifying a business plan for the new teaching hospital slated for Mid-City.  The board's next scheduled meeting is Sept. 1, though it's no guarantee that the Verite Healthcare Consulting and Kaufman Hall & Associates will have finished their work by then."

The rest of the article gives an undeniable impression that it looks like the stage is being set for even more delays on having a business plan in place for the proposed UMC hospital.

Meanwhile, inexplicably, the state's contractors continue with site preparation in the LSU Footprint.

"How do you get the funding if you don't have a business plan?"

Girod Stephens just asked this question on WBOK, reviewing the June 13, 2011 letter from Governor Jindal to the UMC Board members....which makes it clear that there is still no business plan in place for the proposed hospital.