UPDATE: Telluride Regional Medical Center

Last Thursday (8/11), TMVOA hosted a public meeting with John Gardner, the new CEO of the Telluride Medical Center. The meeting had over 100 attendees and roughly 50 on-line viewers who participated in a Q&A session to learn more about the proposed medical facility in Mountain Village (MV).

Link to Telluride Daily Planet article on meeting

TMVOA members have sent us over 100 questions about this project. In doing our research, TMVOA discovered there is no single source to easily find information, documents and reports. Therefore, TMVOA has created our own website featuring key milestones, links to documents, coming events and an interactive timeline so our members and the public can easily find the information they need about the new medical facility (link at bottom of page).

In reviewing all the questions we’ve received, as well as the concerns about the proposed facility, the majority can be grouped into the following four categories:

SITE SELECTION
1. How many total sites were evaluated and where is each located?
2. Once the elected leadership of Town of Mountain Village said they would provide land to the Telluride Hospital District (THD) at no cost, pay for wetland mitigation and waive or reimburse $1.3 million in other fees, did the THD stop evaluating other sites?
3. What were the specific reasons the sites in Telluride and Lawson Hill were rejected?
4. Why didn’t the Town of Mountain Village conduct a vote of MV property owners and residents to get their input on a medical center in MV before giving away public land?

WETLANDS
1. If the new medical center is built on the site in MV, will the wetlands be destroyed?
2. What is the incremental cost that will be required to build on the MV wetland site?
3. How much is the wetland mitigation plan expected to cost MV?
4. Why did the Town of Mountain Village submit a wetlands application with the Army Corps in February 2015 for the MV site without multiple public forums to gather public input?

COST TO TAXPAYERS
1. What is the total cost that the Town of Mountain Village has incurred since responding to the medical center’s request for information in early 2014?
2. With the Town waiving all development, permitting and parking fees, what would the anticipated fees have been if MV had not waived these fees?
3. Will the Town have to bear the cost of building additional parking for the new medical center?
4. What other costs might be required if the medical center is built in MV and who will bear these costs?

PLAN FOR PROPOSED FACILITY
1. How large of a facility is planned for this site and what is the estimated cost of construction?
2. How will the new facility be financed?
3. If a general obligation bond is required, will MV second-homeowners (non-residents) be allowed to vote on this ballot question?
4. What were the results of the needs analysis for a new medical center?
5. What geographic area and how many people will this facility service?
6. What is a Critical Access Hospital (CAH) and why is it important for this new facility to be designated as a CAH?

LINK: Go to tmvoamedicalcenterinfo.org for milestones and documents related to the medical center