New adult care
facility in limbo
Murphy – With a 4-1 vote, Cherokee County commissioners passed a resolution asking state officials to withdraw the certificate of need held by Cherokee Valley LLC that allows the company to develop an 80-bed adult care living facility.
The five-page resolution, which town officials read in full during the board of commissioners meeting on May 4, includes a timeline of events dating back to 2012. It accuses Cherokee Valley LLC of preventing “other interested parties” from building the facility, which they say is much needed.
However, in a letter sent to county lawmakers dated May 12, John Glenn, owner of the company, disputes some of the information in the resolution. Glenn also said he is more than willing to work with any group interested in moving the project forward.
Glenn’s letter accuses lawmakers of trying to “disenfranchise” the project and claims the resolution is “misguided and full of errors.”
“The instrument [contains numerous CON withdrawals by the state] but there was only one, and that was the result of inaction of my original partner in the project,” the letter states. “Since that time, I have expended hundreds of thousands of dollars and made numerous efforts to advance the [adult living facility project].
“If your information is correct and there is a serious group of people in the county that desire to move an ALF project forward, as
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I do, I would be most happy to meet with them to see if we can create a plan.”
The project, which would be built across the street from Tri-County Community College on U.S. 64 East Alternate, is “shovel ready,” according to Glenn, who told the Cherokee Scout all he needs is a financial partner to make it happen.
Emails to Glenn from Julie Faenza, of the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services suggest he is fulfilling the necessary requirements to maintain the certificate of need. A series of emails communicated in the last four months that were obtained by the Scout say that it is “not unusual for a project to take significantly longer to develop than projected.”
“In fact, it is pretty rare for the [state] to encounter CON holders that are not making good faith efforts to develop the project,” one of Faenza’s email states. “The application process is complicated, and the application fee and costs are not cheap, which is somewhat of a barrier to entities that would apply for a CON without any intention of developing the project.”
Her emails acknowledge that “in most cases the CON holders have run into delays outside of their control.” Furthermore, state officials are “never required to withdraw a CON,” although the law provides them discretion to do so, Faenza wrote.
One email also says that if the certificate of need is withdrawn today, Cherokee County would have a surplus of five adult care home beds. As a result, there would be no need to reissue the CON to a different company.
Certificate of need laws regulate the establishment or expansion of health-care facilities and services in an area. State officials say CON programs aim to control costs by restricting duplicative services and determining whether new capital expenditures meet a community need, thereby preventing a proliferation of “low-volume” facilities, which some view as providing lower quality care. However, county lawmakers pushed back on that argument.
“This whole problem revolves around the necessity for having a certificate of need for anything,” Commissioner Dan Eichenbaum said at the May 4 meeting. “We are being held hostage by the state government, which determines what we need in this area. The certificate of need is an anti-free market device by which the state controls us as individuals.
“It is not up to the government to determine what any county, or for that matter what any individual, needs. If the free market was allowed to work naturally, we would already have a facility built.”
Glenn said Eichenbaum’s statement proves his point regarding lawmakers’ attempt to disenfranchise his project.
“He is using his position as a commissioner to interfere with my private business because he doesn’t believe what state laws say,” he said.
Commissioner Cal Stiles – who represents District 1, the Andrews/Topton area – was the lone lawmaker to oppose the resolution seeking to withdraw the CON from Glenn.