County Resolution Would Call for Sale or Reduction of Summit Park

Just last week, the Rockland County Legislature _passed a resolution asking the state to approve home rule legislation_ that would allow the county to set up a public benefit corporation for the ownership and operation of Summit Park Hospital.

Now that the PBC has not been approved by the state for the second consecutive year, the county legislature is looking at fewer options for dealing with the nursing home at Summit Park.

Legislator John Murphy (R-Pearl River) said Monday that he is co-sponsoring a resolution with Legislator Ilan Schoenberger that would call for County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef to dispose of the county nursing home at Summit Park by other means.

According to the resolution, "to sell or transfer it to a Public Benefit Corporation as recommended in the Toski Report, is no longer a viable option." The county has asked the state to approve the creation of the PBC in 2011 and 2012, but it did not pass either time. 

Legislator Joseph Meyers, who was actually against the PBC, supported last week's resolution in the hope the state would allow the county all possible options.

Rockland County also requested that the state legislature approve an $80 million deficit bond. The New York State Assembly passed a bill approving the request, but _it never made it onto the agenda in the State Senate_.

The new resolution proposed by Schoenberger and Murphy reads: "WHEREAS, as a result of the failure of the State Legislature to act on behalf of Rockland County and give Rockland County the same kind of relief and support that it has given numerous other municipalities in New York State, Rockland County has no choice but to further cut services to Rockland County residents and to find additional increases in revenue."

That leads to authorizing Vanderhoef to find another way to dispense with the nursing home, including suggestions such as selling it to a private entity, selling it to a local development corporation, closing it or "reducing it to a size and scope to a level by which it could be profitable."

The resolution calls for Vanderhoef to formulate a plan by the end of 2012.