To the Editor: Having received the letter from Ron Mitchell regarding the upcoming millage vote for the hospital, I felt a need to respond. First, it seems that there has been little publicity for this millage. I am sure there is a reason for this, but my personal opinion is that the hospital desires little publicity for a variety of reasons. Unless my memory fails me, this millage was originally to help with the expansion of the long-term care facility. Now we are being told that long-term care may or may not be a part of the new facility. After all, as Rod Nelson pointed out, this is no longer the hospital’s “cash cow” so it remains to be seen if this facility is ever built. Seems to me it was a part of the original selling point for a new facility.

However, the biggest problem I see with this millage renewal is as follows: The new hospital becomes a private enterprise. We were told this was a requirement for the financing to be put in place. The public (read “taxpayers”) will have no say in the operation of this new private facility, and we were told we (taxpayers) would not even be allowed to attend board meetings. Since Mr. Mitchell’s letter states that this millage is crucial to the operation of the new facility, then what this private enterprise is actually requesting is a taxpayer buyout.

I’m not sure if the taxpayers of Mackinac County really want to get into the bailout business. However, if they (taxpayers) do, then I think it only fair that we allow any struggling private business in Mackinac County to also request a millage so the taxpayers can bail them out also. I would ask the taxpayers of Mackinac County to think long and hard whether we want to provide this bailout millage to a private enterprise. We might be opening a legal can of worms if some other private business owner decides they also need taxpayer support to keep their doors open. I will be voting “no” on renewing this millage. If the hospital wants to be a private enterprise, let them sink or swim on their own, like all the other private businesses in the county.
Bill Hoyt
St. Ignace