Anything is better than the status quo for Hillcrest. My grandmother died last year as a direct result of the negligent care she received at one of Hillcrest's facilities. My anger has been somewhat tempered in the last 15 months, but I still harbor ill feelings over her lack of care there. Whatever happens with them, I sincerely hope the care they provide is an improvement.

What is the deal that Hillcrest is some kind of sweetheart when last year they had all kinds of fines? I noticed they had a "legistalative breakfast " there recently.

Dwight Van de Vate asked me to post a letter to County Commission from the Mayor's office re. this topic. An excerpt:

I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the reasoning behind the proposed sale of the Hillcrest Nursing Home and Assisted Living facilities to the Hillcrest Hea1thcare Communities. Regardless of how you may choose to vote on the resolution Monday, it is important to cut through all the noise and misinformation.

Our goal in bringing this issue before Commission is straightforward: to determine how to best maintain the continuity of services for Knox County citizens who need Medicare or Medicaid funded nursing home or assisted living care, while at the same time, maintaining the County's revenues and assets. If our goal were simply to derive the maximum possible value from the property, then clearly the County's best option would be to terminate the agreement with Hillcrest, evict the residents, level the buildings, and take the property to the open market for development. Any such proposal would be completely unconscionable.

Here's a PDF copy of the entire letter with more background and attachments.

County Commissioners express concerns:

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Commissioner Amy Broyles has previously expressed support:

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Today's commission meeting is going to be a fun one.

The Hillcrest issue will get hot between the commissioners and mayor Ragsdoll. I talked with one of the commissioners recently and they told me that residents of Hillcrest have been calling pleading to vote for the cheap sale, I heard one of the messages. I think that the Hillcrest staff has put fear in the residents’ minds. It isn't like they will be thrown out in the streets if it sales to another company. Nursing home are bought and sold all the time in the U.S.
Hillcrest plans on bringing a small busload of residents to the meeting. There will be wheelchairs, walkers, and all kinds at the meeting today, a real circus. And I am sure that the mayor has been meeting with commissioners about this issue, except for the ones that normally oppose him.

Where is common sense in our local government?
Do the majority of our elected officials not have any?
6 million is a very good sweetheart deal. I looked up the tax records; west and south alone have an appraised value of over 6 million. And if you add north into it, that should at least double the amount for a fair price. It is absolute stupidity to not put this out for bidding.

If you buy a property for 6 mil and it can be appraised for 20 mil, that's how you use it for a loan.

Does Commission have enough backbone to stop this? Or is this just another prepaid sweetheart deal.

And what is up with the CTV streaming today???

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Larry Van Guilder has all the details. Any Commissioner who votes for this should be recalled. I hope Troyer gets grilled. After this years budget the gloves need to come off with Troyer.

This is another no bid bad for the taxpayers deal from Ragsdale.

Have you heard about the next deal to sell the public golf courses?

What's the plan here? Sell county assets at below value prices to insure a golden parachute for "he who reads to children"?

Unbelievable.

Many have stated that hillcrest should not be given the oppertunity to purchase because of improvements and imperfections of their past! No nursing home is perfect by any means!Hillcrest would have much greater chances to improve with the purchasing of the three facilities! Not only would the purchase of the facilities give Hillcrest the chance to provide all residents with better care than what they are receiving but provide them with more than just the bare minimum. Hillcrest does an outstanding job when it comes to the care and needs of all residents! No matter what the circumstances are, Hillcrest should be given the chance to be able to provide even better care for each resident! People need to stop looking at the dollar signs and start looking at whats best for the current and future residents of Hillcrest.

How does a county wind up owning nursing homes to begin with?