A war of words in the Aurora hospital debate

Oconomowoc Focus, June 1, 2006

Jonna Clark
staff writer

City of Oconomowoc - Reaction came this week to Judge James Kieffer's ruling last week in favor of Aurora Health Care's Oconomowoc hospital bid.

First to weigh in: Concerned Businesses for Responsible Health Care (CBRHC), a group of 100 businesses opposed to Aurora building in the city or the Town of Summit.

"As a result of this decision, the real losers are the business owners and rate payers who will be forced to pay for this hospital," said Bill Nantell, co-chairman of the CBRHC and president of Wind Lake Solutions.

Nantell is a Waukesha Memorial Hospital (WMH) board member. WMH and Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital (OMH) are owned by ProHealth Care.

ProHealth officials have publicly opposed Aurora's plans to build three miles from OMH, calling the move a duplication of services.

"For its arguments to be credible, the business group would have to also oppose ProHealth's plans to rebuild Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital at a cost of more than $80 million," Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said.

CBRHC has not commented on ProHealth's new building projects yet, but Nantell said the membership of his group has expressed a desire to meet with ProHealth officials for an explanation of the rationale behind the expansions.

Nantell also said his group would contact the Oconomowoc Chamber of Commerce to invite its membership to listen in.

Sandra Peterson, spokeswoman for ProHealth, said ProHealth is not commenting on last week's ruling, but that it does understand the concern in the business community about healthcare costs.

"ProHealth's approach, spending less than $37 million to renovate the existing hospital, is the most fiscally responsible way to continue meeting the healthcare needs of our community," Peterson said.

"There is no need for businesses and the entire community to foot the bill for the capital costs of Aurora's $166 million hospital and all of the ongoing operational and staffing expenses it will have for many decades to come," she added.

ProHealth's new projects announced last month include a $2 million contribution to the new Oconomowoc Physicians Center, an 85,000-square-foot, office building that will be attached to the current medical clinic, and $37 million worth of renovations for OMH scheduled to begin in spring 2007.

Kieffer decided last Thursday that the city illegally rezoned land as a means of blocking Aurora's bid to build an 88-bed hospital in Pabst Farms.

Nantell said that while the court's decision is a setback for opponents of Aurora's push to build an 88-bed hospital in the area, the business community will once again rally in support of efforts to oppose the duplication of services and excess capacity that the new hospital would bring.

Kieffer made several key rulings last week on motions filed in 2001 against the city by Aurora.

The third Circuit Court judge to get the lawsuit, Kieffer ruled that the city violated its own municipal code by not filing a petition of the rezoning plan before the Plan Commission and Common Council acted.

In 2001, the city rezoned a 44-acre parcel in Pabst Farms from commercial to industrial. An industrial designation does not allow for construction of a hospital.

In court, the city said a formal zoning petition was not necessary, but Kieffer called that position unreasonable and pointed to the city's zoning policies and ordinance, which call for review of applications by city planners and administrators.

Kieffer also ruled that city officials violated state open-meetings law by not being able to prove that notice of their April 2001 meeting was properly posted.

"The court determined that there was an error of process, not of intent," Nantell said, but, in his opinion, Kieffer said the Common Council knew its decision to rezone the land in Pabst Farms would "harm" Aurora.

Following Kieffer's ruling, Aurora's builder dropped off an application for a special use permit to City Hall that same day, and officials said they would like to start construction on Parcel 5 in Pabst Farms as soon as this fall.

The Common Council will meet in closed session this week to review the case with the city's attorneys and mull their response, said Diane Gard, city administrator.

"Oconomowoc's City Council needs to resist the temptation to succumb to Aurora's bullying tactics and stay the course," Nantell said. "The environment hasn't changed, there's no more a need for an additional 88-bed hospital today than there was back in 2001."