Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York, NY)
December 11, 2000, Monday NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Page A08
LENGTH: 1163 words
HEADLINE:
STUCK ON GROUND FLOOR / CLINIC STALLED SINCE '95 DEAL
BYLINE: By Carol Eisenberg. STAFF WRITER
BODY:
The 1995 signed photo shows Nassau
Executive Thomas Gulotta smiling into a camera surrounded by about two dozen
Freeport and Roosevelt residents.
The group photo marked a celebration
of a public-private deal to build what was supposed to become Nassau's largest
public health center, providing care to as many as 25,000 poor
and uninsured people a year.
Five years later, no
ground has been broken on a new Freeport-Roosevelt community
health center, and there is still no signed lease agreement
between Nassau County and the community group that lined up loans from area
banks.
While officials of the Gulotta administration say the deal is
being "fast-tracked," community advocates are dubious. Meanwhile, thousands of
poor, often uninsured patrons face crowded hallways and
curtailed services at the existing facility. The squat, one-story brick building
with black grating on the windows has been even more strapped since the summer
shutdown of neighboring Hempstead Health Center as a result of
falling ceiling tiles. "We're outraged at the delays" in a new facility, said
Pauline Washington, chairwoman of the community advisory board of the
Freeport-Roosevelt Community Health Center, who was a longtime patron, along
with her 10 children and many of her grandchildren. "We keep hearing it's a
matter of time. Well, we've had two of our founding members die since that photo
was taken."
Hugh Mahoney, deputy Nassau health commissioner, said the
Gulotta administration was close to recommending a lease with a nonprofit
community group, the Memorial Economic Development Corporation -with expected
approvals by the Nassau Legislature and a groundbreaking soon to follow. "We're
on a fast track," Mahoney said. "We're shooting for 2002."
The Rev.
Reginald Tuggle, head of the community group, declined to offer an update last
week except to say that progress was being made. But Washington and other
community activists are frankly skeptical, saying they've heard these assurances
before.
"Sure it's coming, but so is the Messiah," said health activist
Donna Kass.
Kass and others say they fear the continued patching of the
cramped, old facility at 460 N. Main St. could someday result in an emergency
shutdown like what happened in Hempstead. Pointing to episodic roof leaks,
antiquated equipment that led to the closing of a dental clinic several months
ago, a depression beneath the waiting-room floor and complaints of bad air, they
warn that a sudden closing could leave thousands of poor people without basic
health care.
The Freeport and Hempstead facilities are the busiest of
Nassau's seven public clinics, historically accounting for about 40,000 visits a
year.
"This is another disaster waiting to happen," Kass said.
Officials of the public benefit corporation, which assumed ownership of
the money-losing clinics from Nassau County last year, acknowledged the facility
is old, but insist it is functional and that they are delivering good-quality
health care.
Nonetheless, they are eager to relocate as part of their
plans to expand services, in particular to adults with diabetes and lung
disease, and to attract insured patients.
"I can't say whether we can
afford it without seeing this proposal , but certainly we could use the space,"
said Dr. Brian Harper, vice president for community affairs for the corporation.
"This is a very important component of providing quality health care to the
communities of Freeport and Roosevelt."
The original plans for a new
Freeport-Roosevelt health center date to a 1994 proposal by a community group
headed by Tuggle, also pastor of Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt, in
response to a county solicitation of groups interested in buying, leasing or
managing county-run medical facilities.
With the encouragement of county
officials, Tuggle's group expanded its initially modest proposal into plans for
a 51,000-square-foot building that would include not only a health center, but
space for a pharmacy, a branch of the social services department, a job training
program and a nutrition program for infants and children. Under the plans, the
group would buy a county-owned parking lot across the street from the existing
clinic, build the new facility and lease it to the county for use.
Though Tuggle's group got agreement from area banks for more than $ 10
million in loans to cover construction and land purchase, that deal hinges on
Nassau County signing a long-term lease. The county would then sublease the
second floor to the public benefit corporation for the clinic.
Sources
say the terms of a lease have recently been the sticking point, against the
backdrop of mounting financial problems for both the county and the public
benefit corporation. The county would be on the hook for an annual rental of
almost $ 2 million a year, according to one analysis given to Newsday-with about
half of that charged to the public benefit corporation for the clinic.
"In very simple terms, without a county guarantee of the lease, the deal
is not bankable," said Martin Cantor, project director of the Long Island
Neighborhood Development Initiative, who consulted with Tuggle's group. "So this
lease is do-or-die stuff."
Earlier this year, officials of the public
benefit corporation say they flatly rejected a projected rent of almost $ 1
million a year, or $ 37 a square foot, after a presentation by Tuggle and
Mahoney.
"We considered it an exorbitant rental request," said Chief
Executive Jerald Newman. "Certainly, we'd like a new building. But we have to
make sure that the rental is competitive and this is not competitive."
Since then, Tuggle said he had gotten commitments for federal funding
which would reduce borrowing costs and, therefore, rent charges. Neither he nor
Mahoney would release updated figures. Corporation officials said they have not
seen new numbers.
"We thought we would break ground back then," Tuggle
said last month. " But there have been a lot of changes in the county, which
meant starting from scratch. And they kept changing what they wanted in the
building. It's been a long process, but it is moving forward.
"If I were
to use a baseball analogy, we're on second base. Third base is getting the lease
signed and home is getting the banks to finance it."
Tuggle said he
remained optimistic that the plans would come to fruition.
Meanwhile,
more than a thousand people a month, many of them uninsured, make do.
"I
don't like it here," said Carlos Aquino of Freeport, as he waited on a hard
wooden bench with his girlfriend, Rosa Laos, and his infant son. "This place is
depressing with the bars on the windows and everything. You feel like you're in
prison. I'd like to be able to go to a place where things are newer and cleaner.
You want the best for your son."
LOAD-DATE: December 11, 2000
