Aurora claim doesn't scare mayor
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Apr. 4, 2006
By AMY RINARD
arinard@journalsentinel.com
Oconomowoc - Mayor Maury Sullivan on Monday downplayed Aurora Health
Care's claim that a 2001 Common Council vote blocking construction of a
new hospital at Pabst Farms has cost the company $59 million.
Sullivan called the claim, filed Friday in Waukesha County Circuit
 Court
as part of Aurora's continuing lawsuit against the city, "a good April
Fools' joke" and said city officials placed no credence in that
allegation of monetary damages.
"They've been asking for continuous extensions in the case and the
suit was filed in 2001," he said.
"And now they want to be made whole for this full length of time."
Sullivan is one of the few city officials who can speak publicly
about the case because he was not part of city government in 2001 and is
not a named defendant in the Aurora lawsuit.
 He
said the city would answer Aurora's claim in court but noted that the
company could have put any number on its claim of theoretical monetary
damages.
"We're not getting all concerned about some calculation they've put
together," Sullivan said.
Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said Monday that the calculation of
financial losses suffered by the health care company as a result of the
city's action to block hospital construction covers the time between the
Common Council's vote in 2001 and Jan. 1 of this year.
The figure assumes that a new hospital would be built in western
Waukesha County and open in 2009.
"So if it's delayed beyond that, this projection of damages would get
higher," he said.
Aurora sued the city in August 2001 after the Common Council rezoned
a 43-acre parcel of land in the Pabst Farms development so that a
hospital could not be built there. Aurora had announced plans to build
an $85 million, 88-bed hospital at the site.
Aurora claims the city bowed to pressure from officials of ProHealth
Care Inc., owner of Waukesha Memorial Hospital and Oconomowoc Memorial
Hospital.
The
suit alleges the city used its zoning powers to protect Oconomowoc
Memorial, which is located three miles from the Pabst Farms site, from
competition.
The lawsuit was put on hold in 2004 after Aurora focused its
attention on another hospital site in Pabst Farms, this one in Summit
south of I-94, and Oconomowoc city officials pledged to not speak out
against Aurora's new plans. In return, Aurora promised to drop the suit
against the city if the Summit hospital site was approved.
But Aurora said at the time that if its plans in Summit did not
succeed, the lawsuit against Oconomowoc could resume. Last April, the
Waukesha County Board refused to endorse the town's approval of a land
use change to permit construction and the suit against Oconomowoc was
revived.
In the latest action in the lawsuit against Oconomowoc, Circuit Judge
James R. Kieffer said he would review and possibly overturn past
decisions by previous judges in the case that had favored the city.
He is the third judge to preside in the long-running case, which also
alleges that the city violated state laws governing open meetings and
public records and violated its own ordinances by rezoning the proposed
hospital site without a written petition asking it to do so.
Aurora also has an active lawsuit against the county. The lawsuit was
filed jointly with Summit after the County Board blocked Aurora's
construction plans in the town. Circuit Judge Mark Gempeler dismissed
the lawsuit last month.
Squire said Monday that Aurora would appeal Gempeler's ruling and
expect a decision by an appeals court on the matter by next year.
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