First of all, what a great dream to have a long-term care facility on the island. We miss the Carters’ place, Island Convalescent Center and having a place for people with short or long-term care needs.

Reading the proposal on the Hospital District website, I have lots of questions and also don’t know if voters have enough information to make such a big decision, for this bill comes before the bond to purchase the Village. I am not aware that there was any public input on this. Without public input this might fail.

The proposal proposes to immediately provide 4 to 6 Medicaid beds. Where do these beds come from? Present tenants? If we are to lose present tenants to Medicaid patients, the Village would be losing a lot of revenue.

1. Where is the additional nursing staff coming from for these Medicaid patients?

2. Are there State or Federal regulations that would need to be dealt with to change the facility from a Retirement center to a long-term care facility? I know more equipment would be needed

3. Will Islanders be first in line for these beds as taxpayers in this county?

How do you propose solving the problems that the Islands Convalescent Center had? Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement

Nursing staff, very hard to get staff that want to do long-term care work

Where would staff live, rents are very high and unavailable for the most part

Has anyone examined the financials of the Island Convalescent Center to see the problem they faced and the Village to see why they can’t make a profit?

How does changing the Village into a long-term care facility change life for those existing tenants?

Lastly, it looks like the Village is also being proposed as a place for Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ support, how does this fit in?

Have you carefully researched future needs for expansion? It is not structurally possible to simply add a second floor to the existing building. Is there enough room for future needs of expansion over the next 20 years? I don’t know that enough time has been put in to figure out how we can do this.

Ruth Fleming

San Juan Island