Aurora still prefers Summit

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 27, 2006

By AMY RINARD
arinard@journalsentinel.com

When a judge's ruling this week opened an opportunity for Aurora Health Care to revive its plan to build a hospital in Oconomowoc, officials of the health care giant seized the moment and immediately filed the necessary paperwork to seek construction there.

But Aurora officials continue to say that they would rather see the proposed hospital built on a nearby site in Summit.

"The site in Summit has been our preferred site, but at this point the path forward is in the city of Oconomowoc and we're moving in that direction," Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said. "We want to be where we're wanted, and the Town of Summit wants us and the city of Oconomowoc apparently does not."

The Summit site was one step from approval last year when the Waukesha County Board used its authority to overrule Summit's vote in favor of Aurora's plan, and, reportedly, officials of the Pabst Farms development where both sites are located prefer the Summit location.

All of which fueled speculation Friday that events could still steer the controversial hospital proposal back to Summit.

One theory making the rounds was that Oconomowoc could assert its powers as a city to change the zoning in land surrounding its borders - so-called extraterritorial zoning power - to divert the hospital construction to Summit.

"I've heard that theory, but the city's not currently entertaining it," Mayor Maury Sullivan said Friday. "I suspect that theory, should it occur, would make Summit happy and would make the Pabst Farms people happy."

Sullivan said the city could exercise its extraterritorial zoning authority and circumvent the County Board. City officials have not yet met with legal counsel to discuss the impact of this week's court ruling and what, if any action, the city should take as a result, he said.

Summit Town Chairman Len Susa said Friday that he hopes officials from the city, town, Aurora and Pabst Farms could sit down and agree on a plan to have the new hospital built at the Summit location.

"The site in the Town of Summit is a much better location than the city site," Susa said.

The Summit site, on the south side of I-94, has better road access, and Pabst Farms developers said the hospital would be the centerpiece of a 120-acre health campus that would include a variety of medical-related office buildings and clinics.

The Oconomowoc site is now in the middle of an area of Pabst Farms designed for commercial development.

Peter Paul Bell, president of Pabst Farms Development, did not return a reporter's phone call Friday on Sullivan's suggestion that his group prefers the Summit location.

The return of Oconomowoc to the forefront of the long-running fight over hospital construction in western Waukesha County was the result of a judge's ruling Thursday in an Aurora lawsuit against the city.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge James R. Kieffer ruled that the city acted illegally in 2001 when it rezoned land in Pabst Farms to block Aurora's announced plans to build an 88-bed hospital.

Kieffer, the third judge to preside in the civil case, reversed a decision by a previous judge when he ruled that the city did not follow its own rules and procedures when it rezoned the land.

That meant the zoning of the 43-acre parcel, which Aurora already controls, along the north side of I-94 east of the interchange at Highway 67 reverted back to its original zoning, which would permit a hospital there.

ProHealth Care Inc., which owns Oconomowoc Memorial and Waukesha Memorial hospitals, strongly opposes construction of another hospital in western Waukesha County, contending that a duplicate hospital would only raise health care costs for everyone in the region.

Advocates of the new hospital contend that the Oconomowoc Common Council bowed to pressure from the hometown ProHealth when it voted to rezone the site and block construction.

Aurora then sued Oconomowoc but, with the case pending, turned its attention to the Summit parcel.