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GLENVILLE
County rejects Glendale Home site New nursing home to be built elsewhere
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter

    County officials announced Wednesday that the new Glendale Home nursing facility will not be built at the current site.
    For weeks, neighbors of the current facility on Hetcheltown Road have been lobbying the Schenectady County Legislature and speaking out at meetings, expressing concern about the potential loss of the adjacent open space consisting of fields and a popular sledding hill.
    In a letter dated Wednesday to Glendale neighbors, Legislature Chairwoman Susan Savage said the project will not be built there because of “inadequate space, difficult and costly engineering challenges as well as other concerns.”
    The county is focusing on alternate locations including county-owned property near the Schenectady County Airport and a location on Curry Road in Rotterdam.
    Savage, D-Niskayuna, said in an interview that a road would have been needed at the property and that could have created drainage problems.
    “We looked at the available space at Hetcheltown Road. It couldn’t accommodate a new state-of-the-art nursing home without substantially adding to the cost,” she said.
    The county Legislature in 2008 authorized bonding up to $50.5 million to build a new 200-bed facility to replace the aging Glendale. None of the money has been tapped yet.
    Savage said county officials have never said defi nitely they were going to build the home at the Hetcheltown site. However, neighbors became concerned when they saw surveyors on the property last month.
    “We were simply surveying all of our county-owned land to help us determine what site might be fruitful,” she said.
    They had been considering other county-owned property all along, according to Savage.
    The “leading site,” Savage said, is a piece of county-owned land near the airport in front of the ice rink and across from the entrance to The Return housing development.
    There is also a site on Curry Road, which Savage would not identify. She would not say if it is the site of the vacant Curry Road shopping plaza.
    She said there are a couple other backup sites, which she did not name.
    Lobbying by neighbors also may have played a factor in the decision.
    Savage is running for state Senate.
    County officials said earlier this month they were going to schedule a meeting in a couple weeks. Now, a meeting with the public is at least three or four months off, according to Savage.
    “We haven’t selected a site, so we don’t have anything to show people at this point,” she said.
    She hoped to bring the top two options before the public and then start construction next spring.
    Savage said the county intends to keep the Hetcheltown property.
    The lack of a specific reuse plan concerns Glenville Supervisor Chris Koetzle.
    “Is Susan Savage pulling out of Glendale and leaving an empty building, leaving that blight there?” he asked.
    He said county leaders have not discussed their thoughts with the town.
    “I don’t know why they’ve made such a drastic change in their plans so suddenly. It doesn’t seem like there’s really any thought process here.”
    The county needs to be open and transparent in this issue, Koetzle said.
    Neighbors are also being cautious. Kathleen Collar, who has been among the most vocal in opposing the Hetcheltown site, is also concerned about the site near the Schenectady County Airport.
    “That may be a wildlife habitat as well,” she said.
    She also was concerned about any potential redevelopment on the Hetcheltown Road property and would like the county to designate the fields and sledding hill as forever wild.
    She said the neighbors are grateful for the support of county legislators Bob Farley and Jim Buhrmaster, both Republicans representing Glenville, as well as Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, who toured the property and wrote a letter to the Legislature. .................................>>>>......................>>>>...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01300&AppName=1

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No new County Home on this site! Another complete victory. SS folded like a cheap suit under public criticism. Now trash this idea. Open up at St Claires as proposed by Dr. Gordon.

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By SUZANNE SATALINE

Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health-care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort.

A patient and care giver at Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, Alaska, where the government is considering a partnership with the for-profit LHP Hospital Group of Texas.

Officials in Lauderdale County, Ala., this spring opted to transfer their 91-year-old Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital and other properties to a for-profit company after struggling to satisfy an angry bond insurer.

"We were next to knocking on bankruptcy's door,'' said Rhea Fulmer, a Lauderdale County commissioner who approved the deal with RegionalCare Hospital Partners, of Brentwood, Tenn, but with trepidation. She said the county had no guarantee the company would improve care in the decades to come. "Time will tell.''

Clinton County, Ohio, in May sold its hospital to the same company. Officials in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, are weighing a joint venture with a for-profit company, similar to one the same company made with Bannock County, Idaho. And Prince George's County, Md., is seeking a buyer for its medical complex.

More than a fifth of the nation's 5,000 hospitals are owned by governments and many are drowning in debt caused by rising health-care costs, a spike in uninsured patients, cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and payments on construction bonds sold in fatter times. Because most public hospitals tend to be solo operations, they don't enjoy the economies of scale, or more generous insurance contracts, which bolster revenue at many larger nonprofit and for-profit systems.

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Arguments against nursing home on Hetcheltown insulting

    I’m writing in regard to the criticism of building the new Glendale Home on the Hetcheltown Road site. It is insulting to the residents, their family members and the staff the amount of “not in my backyard” attitude the community has been demonstrating toward a new building. You would think we were trying to put in a landfill instead of a state-of-the art facility.
    The area residents around the Hetcheltown site should be looking forward to a beautiful new building to look at instead of the institutional-looking current facility. which is older than many of its residents.
    The current state of our nursing home is not adequate for the population that we have inherited over the years. A new home would not only improve the aesthetics of the residents’ home, but would also allow for an increase in efficiency for staff to perform care. Don’t your parents and grandparents deserve a quality home that not just meets their needs but improves their quality of life?
    Some of the objections to the Hetcheltown Road site have included that it is too noisy on top of the hill from passing planes. So, right on the airport site is better? Also, when did geese or a couple of deer become more important than people? Yes, they would displace for awhile during construction, but there are plenty of woods around this site they can move off to, and they would come back once the noise was done.
    Also, let’s not forget the sledding hill! For those who can’t seem to fi nd other places to go sledding, which are plentiful by the way, maybe you haven’t been there any of the several times a year someone gets hurt on that hill. The times Glendale staff has to come out there to assist people and an ambulance needs to come. Someday it is going to be closed to the public anyway, because someone is going to get seriously hurt and sue the county.
    I love animals, I enjoy bringing my child to that sledding hill, and I, too, get nervous that one of these days a plane will hit our C-building. But we are a family here, the staff and residents at Glendale Home. We are together for more waking hours every week than we are with our own families. We grieve those who pass on, we bring residents to our homes for holidays when they don’t have someone to celebrate with, we buy them things out of our own pockets. It is hurtful how they are being treated, and the staff is taking that treatment personally, because you stick up for family.
    So instead of criticizing, maybe on your walks enjoying the wildlife on county property, you could include some time to stop and get to know some of these people you don’t want in your backyard. Maybe then you’d welcome it, because it should be an honor to respect the elderly.

    KARIE NASSER
    Scotia
The writer works at the nursing home.

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Nursing home opposition motivated by selfishness

    Re Karie Nasser’s Sept. 3 letter on the new Glendale nursing facility: First, I want to say, thank you for bringing this to the public’s attention.
    I, too, feel ashamed that society values their meticulously landscaped lawn [more] than the elderly community that held important positions to make that community a safe place to raise a family in. They paid their school taxes while you were attending those schools. They taught you, tended to your health needs, served you in restaurants and local shops. You picked apples on their farms during the fall season. They plowed your roads and planted fl owers around the town in the spring. They fought for the freedom of your country. And how do you show your appreciation? By using ridiculous “Nimby” excuses on why they should not be cared for and allowed to age peacefully in the community they helped raise you in.
    This is the same mentality we’ve seen for years by communities any time a group home that serves our developmentally disabled population wants to move in to a neighborhood. It never changes: If you’re old, different, overweight, handicapped, or low-income, stay out, please.
    All I can say to these people is, make sure you give birth to “perfect people.” And I hope you don’t plan on growing old or needing care in your wonderful community!

    LORI LASALVIA
    Ballston Spa

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EDITORIALS No time to be building new nursing home

    After years of planning, Schenectady County still hasn’t figured out where to build a new Glendale Nursing Home. Some may see that as a problem. We see it as an opportunity for county leaders to, for the first time, seriously explore the bigger, basic question of whether to build a new, $50 million home. The answer, in our view, is no, even though the state would pick up most of the construction cost.
    That’s not due to a lack of sympathy for the ailing elderly, but the cost to county taxpayers. The home requires an annual subsidy of $8 million — a number that, with state and federal aid and reimbursement cuts, rising health and pension costs, etc., can be expected to keep growing.
    Faced with the same kind of fi nancial pressures, other counties around the state have either gotten out of the nursing home business, are trying to, or at least considering it. Some have privatized their homes (Fulton County is now exploring that option, and has two interested buyers), while others have left it to private nursing homes and beefed-up assisted living and home health programs to provide the care (as Albany County Executive Michael Breslin has proposed doing).
    County nursing homes at one time were needed because private ones wouldn’t take poor people. But today nearly all private homes accept, even rely on, Medicaid patients, who represent most of their case load. So if there is a need, they will likely fill it, either by building new facilities or expanding existing ones. The quality of care provided at private and public homes is comparable, at least in Schenectady County. ................>>>>....................>>>>...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00901&AppName=1

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Group not against new nursing home, just site

    We are senior citizens in favor of preserving the Indian Kill field as an open space. Re Karie Nasser’s Sept. 3 letter on Glendale area residents’ efforts to preserve this space, she has misconstrued what [our] group is trying to accomplish.
    First, nobody is against building a new nursing home, where our tax dollars will continue to support seniors and those who care for them. We are simply against building it in open space that has been utilized by Schenectady County residents for generations, and we would like to preserve it for generations to come.
    Second, we agree that improving the quality of life for seniors is important. On Aug. 1, one of our group members stated on record that “we believe in providing the best possible living conditions for the elderly and frail residents so they can live in dignity and happiness.”
    Third, it is not just “a couple of geese and deer” in this field. Actually, there are no geese. There are deer, fi shers, fox, birds, hawks, owls, and many smaller mammals.
    Fourth, regarding Ms. Nasser’s suggestion to stop by the nursing home and visit, perhaps she hasn’t been there when Cedar Lane neighbors have dropped off Christmas ornaments, craft supplies, and on at least one occasion, flowers for a resident we didn’t know.
    Finally, at least we can all agree that due to the noise factor for nursing home residents, and the fact that it is also an open space, the airport site is not the right place for a nursing home, either. Our group did not suggest building there. That site was proposed by Susan Savage. By the way, that’s where the geese live.

    HAROLD AND FRAN VAN EARDEN
    Glenville