Got to wondering about some background to this and thought it would be interesting to look at open records around this. First, I heard that the Glen Rose Medical Foundation leases the land and building for a minimal amount.

Here's part of the lease agreement between Somervell County and the Glen Rose Medical Foundation. The lease is for $1.00 per year (Same thing for the nursing home but I did not copy that). The last page of this partial lease is a related page about how for $10 Somervell County gave intangible rights to the GRMF. (PDF file) This leads to some questions. If the lease is for $1.00 per year from Somervell County, how much does the Medical Center lease out space for? Is that information available? Perhaps not because they are a foundation and not run by tax dollars. But certainly if the hospital district passes, all that information should be open record to the taxpayers.

I vaguely remember something about Certificates of Obligation, from March of last year. I think I might have read about it in the Glen Rose Reporter in the legal notices section. But I missed hearing it discussed at the Somervell County Commissioner's Court; that was the same month as the Democratic primary so I'm sure my interests were elsewhere. I've gotten audio from the March meeting and will post it on a separate post-basically, that's the meeting that issuing 14,500,000 Certificate of Obligation as a loan to the Glen Rose Medical Foundation was discussed, with 2 public notices after that. Here's PDF about that. I wonder, how typical is it for a county to loan out money to a private entity? I'm genuinely asking here, not being snarky, because I don't know if that's a common procedure.

Next up, here's part of the addendum to the lease that talks about the expansion of the hospital, using the money loaned from Somervell County to the Glen Rose Medical Foundation, including a few parts about the construction and exempting bids. PDF Some questions come up about this, too. I have heard some people question the need for a hospital district IF it would be to cover the cost of a hospital expansion. I may be completely wrong on this, but I believe that the expansion was going to be funded at least partly from earmark money Chet Edwards was going to get, but that it may not have been the amount they wanted or at least the expansion went ahead without being funded completely first. Feel free to comment with references if I am way off the mark here and when I get time I'll go back and listen to some of the audio recordings I did to see if I can clarify that impression.

And finally, a 2 pager about the hospital district and plans to put that, first, on the commissioner's court agenda and then, second, the vote on that.  PDF  Back in November of 2008, an attorney told Gary Marks what he needed to do to get the hospital district rolling, etc. The second page is the agreement about the hospital district and sets the terms. The petition that I scanned has 75 on $100 valuation of taxable property-I understand it has since been changed to cap at 10cents but I don't have that paper.

More later, on a separate post inlcuding audio snippets, from March 2008 and others relating to this.

P.S. Would like to have clarified any and all associated foundations that would have an interest in this district. For example, what happens to the Glen Rose Medical Foundation? Surely, using taxmoney, it might run the hospital but all records for doing so would be open to the public and not, as now, private to its own operations. There is also a Roger Marks Foundation-does that have anything to do with the GRMF? And what about those 2 clinics that operate in Meridian and Pecan Plantation? Marks said the Glen Rose Medical Foundation didn't have anything to do with them-is there some other foundation that does or how are they connected?

I invite your comments.

There were 165 signatures on the petition of which 151 were verified and qualified to be on it.