OCR Text |
Show County Commissioners Deny County Hospital Project Following Public Hearing Following a public hearing held Wednesday afternoon in the Beaver Bea-ver county courthouse, the board of county commissioners, by a vote of two to one, tabled the proposal to build a county hospital hospi-tal at Beaver as a county-W P A project, Chairman H. A. Christiansen Chris-tiansen of Beaver voting in support sup-port of the proposal and Commissioners Commis-sioners O. F. Hubbell of Milford and Frank Pryor of Minersville voting in opposition. The hearing had been called by the board of county commissioners and was attended at-tended by a large number of people, peo-ple, including former Senator George Jefferson, J. R. Murdock jr., O. C. Koch, L. A. Wynaught Dr. R. R. Shannon, Fred and Karl Levi and David S. Williams of Milford. The meeting was called to ordei shortly after 2 o'clock by Chairman Chair-man Christiansen, who called on the Beaver Chamber of Commerce petition committee for a report. A. J. Meredith, a Beaver city councilman, presented the petitions peti-tions which he said had been circulated cir-culated in all sections of the county. About 280 names were included, in-cluded, "near, if not all, presumed to be taxpayers," he said! Commissioner Hubbell stated that James Yardley of Beaver, one of the largest taxpayers in the county, wanted to have his name stricken from the Beaver petition and Mr. Yardley spoke briefly in support of his request. Chairman Christiansen explained that the commissioners had taken the stand that the people should have the facts in the matter and Mr. Meredith undertook to present the proposition. Two years ago. he said, when Beaver tried to start a hospital some immense figures were shown of money going out of the county for hospitalization. The present- proposal, he explained, called for a $16,480.00 expenditure, with approximately $11,000.00 to be put up by the government and the remainder by the county. The people, he said, had come to the chamber of commerce and asked that body's help in putting the project over. Next there was- introduced some statistics concerning the Iron county hospital, showing that disbursements over the 1930-35 six-year period had amounted to $134,817.00 while fees received r had amounted to $120,419.00, leaving leav-ing a deficit of over $14,000.00; this in addition to oi-iginal cost of $14,000.00, and elevator, heating plant and other expenditures amounting to $32,200.00. Chairman Chair-man Christiansen interjected to remark that a hospital was not presumed to be a profit-making proposition, being something on the order of the schools. Mr. Yardley wanted to know if Milford and Minersville were interested in-terested and whether or not the Milford hospital was a paying proposition; and Dr. R. R. Shannon, Shan-non, proprietor of the Milford hospital, undertook to reply. He said that in the 18 months he has had the hospital it has not paid its way and, even at full capacity, would not come within $80.00 a month of doing so. Mayor George C. Murdock of Beaver said that Beaver should not be penalized because it had the county seat and the court house, (Continued on last page) o Hospital Project (Continued from first paye) and suggested that all past differences dif-ferences should be forgotten. Beaver, he said, has strained every ev-ery resource to take advantage of government help only to see the money wasted with the hospital project coming along now as something worth-while. Commissioner Hubbell stated that the board had tried hard to serve the people and make taxes as low as possible only to be condemned for not cutting deeper by some, of the very people who are asking that this additional expense ex-pense should be shouldered on the county. Former Senator Jefferson, as spokesman for the Milford group, told of decided opposition to the hospital as a county project, as expressed at a meeting held just previous to coming over. He made it plain that Milford people didn't blame Beaver for wanting a hospital hos-pital but thought that Beaver should build it or persude private capital to do so since Milford is well taken care of. He expressed a firm belief in carrying local government as close to home as possible and if Beaver wants a hospital and can build and operate it at so little cost, then Beaver should build it by all means and thus keep hospital cases' from going out of the county a very fine thing, and more power to them , but something in which Milford taxpayers are not interested. inter-ested. In later remarks he stated that it was Dr. MacFarlane s fame as one of the' outstanding surgeons sur-geons of the west which has made the Iron county hospital such a success. S. Taylor Farnsworth, county treasurer, explained that the circulation cir-culation of the petitions had been undertaken by members of the chamber of commerce at the request re-quest of the county commissioners commission-ers and without having anything in mind that would prejudice Milford Mil-ford people. Dr. E. A. Petty, Beaver Bea-ver dentist, expressed the thought that a difference of $14,397.00 be. tween receipts and disbursements, as reported by the Iron county hospital, was not a bad showing, spread, as it was, over six years of the depression; and Mr. Meredith, Mere-dith, speaking again, stated that he believed that, with sufficient time, "80 to 90 per cent of the Milford taxpayers could be secured se-cured for the petitions." One of the Beaver speakers mentioned the growing number oi hospital cases going out of the county from Beaver and of the inclination of the people to trade in Cedar City after getting acquainted ac-quainted there from repeated trips back and forth a condition that would be prevented with a hospital in town. C. H. Carpenter, ' representing the tax department of the Union Pacific system, stated that his company was not interested in community jealousies and that the railroad had always gone along for community betterment projects. pro-jects. He declared he could not see a real genuine need for a hospital to justify the expense; t7iat the Cedar City hospital was sufficient to take care of this large sparsely settled area, ana that a Beaver hospital trying to compete with that at Cedar City would "have a hard row to hoe.' He further cautioned those present pres-ent to beware of federal grants; that they have resulted in many communities assuming burdens they cannot afford just to et this government! money. There conies a day of payment, however, he added, when every cent now spent so liberally must be paic back. In conclusion he said that his company was more or lust helpless in the matter and would not stand in the way if the project pro-ject were adopted. It was only a comparative!) short time after the hearing adjourned ad-journed that the two-to-one decision deci-sion of the board was announced. |