Mike Ford said, in the Glen Rose Reporter on Sep 29, 2010

We cannot allow this hospital to fail. It is too important to the future of Somervell County growth, the medical well being of our citizens, and the economic future of the county as a whole.

I'm sure that's why he decided to push for the county taxpayers to obligate themselves to a $14.5 million dollar certificate of obligation to expand the hospital, even when there was supposed to be a MANDATED IRS hearing for the public to attend about whether they agreed to loan TAXPAYER MONEY to what was then a private non-profit. Let me repeat that another way. Do you think that the county should be in the business of loaning taxpayer money to a PRIVATE business? Guess what. the IRS says there MUST be a hearing first. But Ole Mike Ford decided to go ahead and okay giving the money BEFORE the hearing took place. Here's the link to the commissioner meeting where that took place. (with audio so you can HEAR it). Here's what Maynard said about it then.

(Maynard) What happens after the April 14 hearing if the court decides not to issue the CO (SS)-Well, I would hope that wouldn't ... today is really the time the court needs to, in your minds, we're proceeding or not. (Maynard). Then why are we having a public hearing then. The idea of a public hearing is to hear from the citizens of their opinion of this and we should wait to make a final decision after we hear from them, should we not? (SS) The public hearing really is something totally separate. In most cases of issued certificates, there's not a public hearing. The reason you're having to have a public hearing, it's called a Tafer (sp?) hearing. (I think probably TEFRA-ed) strictly under the IRS guidelines since a 5013c entity is involved so that the public can comment if they choose  about the appropriateness of issuing taxative bonds for a non-governmental entity, the 5013c on their behalf.

Right. But Southwest Security put on some pressure and Mike Ford made the motion to do the certs. BEFORE the public could weigh in. Does that sound like a person you want to be judge??????

And maybe Mr Ford forgets that the hospital district was VOTED DOWN. You remember that election, right? The one that was to be held on VALENTINE'S DAY but still enough people turned out that it as SOUNDLY voted down. I'm willing to bet if people had realized they were ponying up 14.5 million bucks to build the hospital that loses money every month, they might have turned out for that, too. 2/3 of the people in my precinct turned out to vote it down. Little did they know that it was going to come back as a hospital board-Even Judge Maynard didn't see the advantages of a hospital authority after the vote failed.

I don't think the issue is or has ever been that the county doesn't want a hospital or at least some kind of clinic. But even Gary Marks, when he first went to go get a grant for expansion, was told that there are too many hospitals in the area, and he was turned down-he had to go get an earmark from Chet Edwards, and when he didn't get all the money he expected, THAT's when he showed back up to the commissioner to ask THEM to come up with the money via the 14.5 million CO.

Do you remember that when Mr Marks took GRMC from being a PRIVATE non-profit to being a public entity, that POOF, the obligation for them to PAY BACK that CO money disappeared? Meaning that at least when they were still a NP, there was some chance of them paying back the money and not sticking the taxpayers of Somervell County. Not any more.

Maybe you also remember that Mr Ford was on the Roger Marks Foundation before he become commissioner and continued to be aftewards, even though he told at least one commissioner that he had resigned. Apparently he didn't do the followthrough to actually file paperwork to do it.

I've said before that I don't think Mike Ford is the best candidate to be judge and Mr Ford tried to pass this off as *politics*. Way too easy of a blow-off. I would not vote for him regardless of party.

I happen to believe that there should be no institution that is Too Big To Fail. It isn't that I want GRMC to fail, but I think we should look at other options and not blindly stick to supporting entities just because somebody doesn't want them to fail and is willing to dump yet MORE taxpayer money into funding them.

P.S. I also am not a fan of the term "stakeholder". Guess, what, I'm not a *stakeholder* when it comes to government, I'm a citizen.