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Trust, hospital pact close to being kaput

Housing advocate says hospital dragged its feet on ending partnership on project.
By Kevin Huelsmann, Jackson Hole, Wyo.
September 01, 2010

The partnership between the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust and St. John’s Medical Center is expected to come to an official, and unceremonious, end this week.

Attorneys and staff from both organizations were working on wrapping up the final issues that needed to be addressed to dissolve the limited liability company formed in 2008 as part of a joint housing project that has been on the rocks since last fall.

During a hospital board meeting last week, the trust’s executive director, Anne Hayden Cresswell, rebuked hospital trustees for dragging their feet and sternly requested that they sign off on the dissolution.

“You should have had everything you needed to make this decision since Feb. 5,” Cresswell told trustees during a meeting Aug. 26.

Cresswell said trustees were “the only thing standing in the way of our organization breaking ground on the project.”

Trustees countered by saying they have been more than responsive in trying to complete the process of breaking apart the limited liability company, called Daisy Bush LLC, as expeditiously as possible.

“We’re fully supportive of dissolving this relationship,” trustee Emmy Knobloch said. “And we’ve done everything in our power to get it dissolved. I don’t feel that in any way we have held up this process, but unfortunately, I’ve heard some of that going around.”

Board President Michael Tennican and trustee Joe Albright said the hospital was waiting for its attorneys to review several technical issues related to title insurance and liability issues this week, a process they said was a prudent move to protect the hospital.

“We wanted to make sure that we were totally out, clean, with no obligations beyond those associated with our continued ownership of our lots,” Tennican said on Tuesday.

Cresswell said the trust had “tried to give the hospital as much time as humanly possible without impacting the project” but had reached a breaking point.

“That’s why I did the full-court press,” she said, referring to her attendance at the hospital meeting and a letter she delivered to trustees from Jim Moses, chairman of the trust’s board of directors.

In that letter, Moses asked the board to take immediate action on the dissolution process.

“The delay of this process is putting our project at risk,” Moses said in the Aug. 26 letter to Tennican. “This has been an unacceptable six-month delay, and we respectfully request that your board vote to approve the dissolution agreement at today’s board meeting.”

On Tuesday, Cresswell said she expected the limited liability company would be formally dissolved by today.

Cresswell said she expected to review bids for the 16-unit housing project on Friday, and trust board members would review them during a meeting Sept. 8.

Staff from both St. John’s and the Trust were unable to provide the specific costs incurred so far through the project.

Once the dissolution is complete, hospital staff will walk away with three lots approved for eight units. Trust staff also will leave the deal with eight units approved across three lots.

After some wavering, hospital officials decided to pull out of the project in February. At that time, they said that the units would have been too expensive for their employees and that they already had a surplus of employee housing.

The trust, however, plans to move forward as soon as it can. Cresswell said she plans to break ground on four units this month and hopes to be able to at least complete the foundation of the other four units in October.

She said the trust had nearly raised the entire subsidy needed for the projects. Cresswell said the organization still needed to raise about $50,000 for the subsidy required for the last four units.

She said she was unsure of the exact cost of the entire project and would not have those figures until after she reviewed bids on Friday.

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