Telluride Hospital District: Public Forum Thursday

15 Sep Telluride Hospital District: Public Forum Thursday

What: Telluride Hospital District Public Forum

When: September 18, 2014. 6:30 p.m.

Where: Sheridan Opera House and live-streamed by TellurideTV

The Telluride Hospital District will hold another Public Forum for public discussion and to review the Hospital District’s board announcement of the preferred site for a new regional center. The talk takes place Thursday, September 18, 6:30p.m. at the Sheridan Opera House. The event will be live streamed by TellurideTV. Visit tellmed.org for more information.

Background

THD board members will consider medical center staff evaluations and two independent recommendations by a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) and Frauenshuh Consulting, a medical site selection-consulting firm, in making their announcement for a preferred site during their September 17 special meeting.

The special meeting on September 17 is an Open Session and will be held at the Board of County Commissioners Building in the meeting room on the 2nd floor of the Miramonte Building. This will be the last chance for the public to make their voice heard about this process before the board selects the preferred site for the future regional med center.

Highlights of the next phase, to be discussed at the public forum, include THD negotiating with the corresponding governments and landowners to determine the true potential of each parcel, funding sources and the risks and approval complexities.

THD expects to announce a final site for a new facility in early December.

The course of identifying a new location for the Telluride Medical Center began in 2006 when THD board of directors began actively pursuing options for a new facility.

This past March, THD issued a formal Request for Information (RFI) to five regional landowners- the RV lot in the Town of Telluride, two separate lots in Lawson Hill and two separate lots in Mountain Village- and their corresponding private and governmental jurisdictions.

After the June 23 deadline, site proposals were summarized and presented to the CAC-a group chosen by THD to represent unbiased voices from the community, specifically from those with experience in architecture, engineering and construction- to evaluate the proposals and provide feedback on site suitability, cost, fundraising, future growth and risk.

The CAC includes Ron Allred, Bill Atwell, Erik Dalton, Bunny Freidus, Bill Hoins, Don Kramer, Dan Tishman, Johnnie Stevens and Jodie Wright.

THD has long maintained that the pressure to find a new site for a regional medical center is two-fold: the medical center has outgrown the current facility and the potential locations for a new center are ever dwindling.